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so remarkable for the correctness of his pronunciation. His rudiments of arithmetic he got from his father in the winter evenings. He says of himself, in his letter to Dr. Moore " At those years I was by no means a favourite with any body. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, study something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic, ideot piety; I say, ideot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the

school-master some threshings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs and participles. In my infant and boyish days too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity and superstition. She had I suppose, the largest collection in the country, of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, faries, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparations, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This culti vated the latent seeds of poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep

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a sharp look out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more scepticle than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake of these idle terrors."

Before he was nine years of age, he had acquir ed a strong propensity for reading, which, however, was greatly checked by his want of access books. He read the life of Hannibal through with great avidity and devouring every other book that came in his way, with an eagerness truly astonishing. Even at this early period, his sensibility was extraordinary: yet he had not discovered any signs of that striking ready wit, for which he was afterwards remarkable, nor betrayed the smallest symptom of his inclination to music and poetry. Mr Murdoch, to whom our Poet was indebted for the rudiments of his education, remarks, that "Gilbert (his brother) always appeared to me to possess more lively imagination, and to be more of the wit than Robert. I attempted to teach them a 'little church-music. Here they were left far behind by all the rest of the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untun able. It was long before I could get him to dis

a

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tinguish one tune from another.

Robert's face

was generally grave, and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind. Gilbert's face said, "Mirth, with thee I mean to live!" and certainly if any person who knew the two boys, had been asked which of them was the most likely to court the Muses, he would surely never have supposed that Robert had a propensity of that kind." From this gentleman he likewise got a little smattering of French, of which he was very fond. He was now so far grounded in his education, that after Mr. Murdoch left that part of the country, he, at his leisure hours, undertook instructing his younger brothers and sisters at home, in what he had himself acquired.

At Whitsunday 1766, our poet's father, who for eight years had acted as gardener and overseer to Mr. Ferguson of Denholm, obtained from that gentleman a lease of the small farm of Mount Oliphant in Ayrshire, as an acknowledgement for his faithful services. He also advanced 1001, to enable him to stock his farm. Here he continued to struggle for the support, of his family, which consisted of a wife and six children, for the space of

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eleven years. The soil of this farm was extremely barren. This, with the loss of cattle and other accidents, involved them in many difficulties. To com bat these, the whole family observed the most rigid economy, abstaining from butcher-meat for years together, and toiling early and late. However notwithstanding all their joint exertions, it proved ruinous concern. To add to their misfortunes, their patron and friend Mr. Ferguson died, and they fell into the hands of a merciless factor, whose picture is so ably drawn in the tale of the "Twa Dogs."

The first circumstance which induced our Poet to string his lyre, and taught him to warble "wood notes wild," at the age of fifteen, is extremely interesting "This kind of life (says he in his letter to Dr. Moore.) the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little before which period I first committed the sin of Rhyme. You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together, as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself.

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my scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language; but you know the Scottish idiom; 'she was a bonnie, sweet sonsic, lass.' In short, she, altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, ginhorse prudence, and luke-warm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours: why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill, like an Æolian harp; and particularly, why my pulse beat such a furious rattan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles.

"Thus, with me began love and poetry; which at times have been my only, and till within the last twelve months, have been my highest enjoyment."

It is during the time that we have lived on this farm that my little story is most eventful. I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps the most ungainly aukward boy in the parish.