[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected,all other inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling has beenmaintained.]
CHAPTER I.Page
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
INDEX209
Great men, great events, great epochs, it has been said, grow as werecede from them; and the rate at which they grow in the estimation ofmen is in some sort a measure of their greatness. Tried by thisstandard, Burns must be great indeed, for during the eighty years thathave passed since his death, men's interest in the man himself andtheir estimate of his genius have been steadily increasing. Eachdecade since he died has produced at least two biographies of him.When Mr. Carlyle wrote his well-known essay on Burns in 1828, he couldalready number six biographies of the Poet, which had been given tothe world during the previous thirty years; and the interval between1828 and the present day has added, in at least the same proportion,to their number. What it was in the man and in his circumstances thathas attracted so much of the world's interest to Burns, I must makeone more attempt to describe.
If success were that which most secures men's sympathy, Burns wouldhave won but little regard; for in all but his (p. 002) poetry hiswas a defeated life—sad and heart-depressing to contemplate beyondthe lives even of most poets.
Perhaps it may be the very fact that in him so much failure andshipwreck were combined with such splendid gifts, that has attractedto him so deep and compassionate interest. Let us review once more thefacts of that life, and tell again its oft-told story.
It was on the 25th of January, 1759, about two miles from the town ofAyr, in a clay-built cottage, reared by his father's own hands, thatRobert Burns was born. The "auld clay bi