Robert Burns
1759 - 1796
Read more about The Life
and Works of Robert Burns.......
Robert Burness was born in a small cottage in the parish of Alloway,
Ayrshire, Scotland on the 25th of January in the year 1759. His father,
William Burness, was the son of a farmer in Kincardineshire. Due to the
poverty of his own family in Kincardineshire the father moved south to
Ayrshire where, in December, 1757, he married Agnes Brown.
Robert Burness was born into a large family, and was one of seven
children. Robert was the eldest son of the marriage. He later shortened
his surname to Burns.
Robert's father was a man of superior knowledge and was upright of a
strong character. He took the perpetual lease of 7 acres of land at
Alloway on which he built his own cottage and cultivated the remainder
as a nursery. He struggled hard to maintain a reasonable subsistence for
the family and to educate them. The father did give Burns some tutoring
at home.
While at school Burns read widely, including the works of Pope,
Ramsay, and "The Spectator". His early interest in the Bible and
the works of William Shakespeare were the inspiration for his early
writings of verse. He also picked-up a smattering of French and studied
"practical mathematics" (a.k.a. land-surveying).
The early life of Burns was one of "toil and moil". The wolf was
always at the door and although the family learned to be very thrifty,
poverty, hard labour and anxiety continually pervaded his family
life.
Before his father's death in 1784, Robert and his brother Gilbert
took on the rental of another farm which they managed for four
years.
At the age of 25, Burns became very popular in the local community
for his poetry. He became a very fluent and vigorous talker. For a while
he lead a fairly sober life and joined a society of freemasons. Burns
really loved the women and he was loved in return by them. His many
amorous exploits fired his poetry and song writing and his fame as a
versifier began to spread throughout the nation.
Jean Armour, Burns' childhood sweetheart and a master-mason's
daughter, found herself pregnant with twins. Robert and Jean agreed
that, to give her some respectability and to make the children
legitimate, they would get married. But they also agreed that to escape
the call of security for maintenance for the children under threat of
imprisonment, Burns would seek his fortune in Jamaica where he would
work as an assistant overseer to a planter. It was hoped that this would
allow Burns to raise the compensation payable to Jean.
Unfortunately, Jean's parents absolutely refused to hear of matrimony
and persuaded Jean to relinquish Burns' written declaration of intended
marriage. Burns regarded Jean as having renèged in love under this
parental pressure. At this point Burns turned his affections to Mary
Campbell, his "Highland Mary", but these affections came to nothing, for
she died of a fever in Greenock.
Since Burns expected to be away from Scotland for many years - if not
the remainder of his life - he resolved to leave behind him some record
of how Ayrshire had been his inspiration for his poetic genius. In 1786
he published, at Kilmarnock, 600 copies of a small volume of his verses.
The volume was very well received and earned Burns £20. As a result of
this success, his friends persuaded Burns to abandon the Jamaican trip
and to pursue better opportunities in Edinburgh.
He arrived in Edinburgh in 1786 and although he had no contacts at
first, he very quickly became known by the leading people in fashion,
literature and social rank. They were surprised at his brilliant
conversational powers, his wit and his literary knowledge. During his
two year stay in Edinburgh, Burns took the opportunity to visit many
other parts of Scotland, and crossed the English border into Carlisle
and Newcastle.
A 2800 copy edition of his poems was published in Edinburgh in 1787
for which he earned £600. Burns had now grown to become the convivial
Ayrshire peasant poet - the centre of attraction at all the best social
gatherings in Edinburgh.
In early 1788, Burns returned to Ayrshire and again met and married
Jean Armour. They had four sons and one daughter (his daughter died at
the age of three). He took a farm at Ellisland in Dumfries-shire where
he exercised his skill as a ploughman. But Burns found it difficult to
make a worthwhile income from the farm and decided to augment his income
by taking the post of the local excise officer, for which he was paid
£50 per annum.
After Burns had been on the farm for three and half years he found
that his duties as excise man interfered with agricultural pursuits, so
he gave up the farm and in 1791, moved to a small house in Dumfries
where he remained for the rest of his short life.
Ill health, mental dejection and a continual shortage of money
pervaded his life. His over-indulgence brought on many maladies and a
fever struck him down. On the 21st of July 1796, at the age of thirty
seven, Burns died, while his wife Jean was in confinement with their
fifth child.
All Scotland rejoiced and was proud that such a famous poet of
immense popularity had left a reflective legacy of his countrymen's ways
of life, the Scottish character and the mind of the Scottish Nation.
Burn's poetry bequeathed to the Scots three precious gifts viz:-
- a clarity of incisive expression
- a priceless collection of singable songs
- a sympathy with life so vivid and intimate as to fervently stir
the imagination
Burns was five feet ten inches tall, with black curly hair and dark
eyes. He had a quick temper, and although he wrote many songs, he had no
technical knowledge of music and did not have a great singing voice. He
regarded "Tam O' Shanter," which he wrote in a single day at Ellisland
in 1793, to be his best work.
With the famed To a Mouse, To a Louse and Holy
Willie's Prayer amongst his assets, not to mention the well-famed
Auld Lang Syne and Scots Wha Hae, Burns is unequivocally
one of the greatest poets of all time.
The Star o' Rabbie Burns
Words: James Thomson
Music: James
Booth
There is a star whose beaming ray
Is shed on every clime.
It
shines by night, it shines by day,
And ne'er grows dim wi' time.
It rose upon the banks o' Ayr,
It shone on Doon's clear stream.
A hundred years are gane and mair,
Yet brighter grows its beam.
Refrain:
Let kings and courtiers rise and fa'
This world has
mony turns,
But brightly beams abune them aw'
The Star o' Rabbie
Burns.
Though he was but a ploughman lad
And wore the hodden grey,
Auld Scotland's sweetest bard was bred
Aneath a roof o' strae.
To sweep the strings o' Scotia's lyre,
It needs nae classic
lore;
It's mither wit an' native fire
That warms the bosom's
core.
Refrain:
On fame's emblazon'd page enshrin'd
His name is foremost now,
And many a costly wreath's been twin'd
To grace his honest brow.
And Scotland's heart expands wi' joy
Whene'er the day returns
That gave the world its peasant boy
Immortal Rabbie Burns.
Refrain:
Visit the 'Gateway to
Scotland's National Collection of Burns Treasures'.......
