The Life Of Robert Burns
The Poet
Back To Locklea and the final disaster for his father
The Burness family needed all the entertainment Robert could give them to lighten their spirits, for in the autumn after his return home in 1782 his father was overcome by his final disaster. He had made no written tenancy agreement on Lochlea, and now there was a dispute over the share that each should pay towards home improvements. This was taken to Court, where his fathers health suffered at the prospect of destitution. From these miseries Robert escaped into his own private world. Here the prose of the young poet makes an appearance. In his Commonplace Book he entered his own poetry, with illuminating comments. He was apologetic about his earliest recorded song, in praise of Nelly Kirkpatrick.
At this time Robert wrote to John Murdoch:
'I seem to be one sent into the world to see and observe .... In short, the joy of my heart is to "study men, their manners and their ways".'
Robert continued adding to his Commonplace Book between 1783 and 1785, a traumatic period of his life.
The Death Of William Burness
The family were taking turns in watching at the bedside of William. While Robert and his sister Isabella were watching him, they heard his father mumbling about having misgivings for one of his children. Robert stepped up to his bedside and asked, 'Is it me you mean?' The old man told him it was. Robert turned to the window to hide his tears, an episode that remained vivid in his sister's memory. A few hours later Robert's father had passed away.
Bigamy and Becoming A Father
Burns was a young man of twenty-five who would almost certainly have boasted of the fact if he had ever been to bed with more than a single girl. The rest was bravado and wishful thinking, which received considerable encouragement when he met Jean Armour during the summer of 1784. She was nineteen years old when as legend has it that she overheard Burns talking at a dance. He had remarked that he wished he could find a girl who would show him so much affection. A few days later she called to him across the green, asking him laughingly whether he had found the girl he was looking for yet. By the following summer he was recalling in his Commonwealth Book:
When first I came to Stewart Kyle
My mind it was nae steady,
Where e'er I gaed, where e'er I rade,
A Mistress still I had ay:
But when I came roun'by Mauchlin town,
Not dreadin' anybody,
My heart was caught before I thought
And by a Mauchlin Lady
By the time he wrote this he was a father. His affection's were those of
a family man and can be seen in 'A
Poets Welcome To His Love-Begotten Daughter'. But the child was not born
to Jean Armour but to Elizabeth Paton. When Robert's mother learnt of Paton's
pregnancy she urged her son to marry the girl, but Gilbert and his sisters
were opposed to this. Roberts affections were centered on Jean. Elizabeth accepted
this and left her daughter to reared by Agnes Burness at Mossgeil. After a
somewhat rocky journey Jean's father agreed to let Robert marry his daughter,
Jean was by now pregnant. Burns's love life was split as he was having a relationship
with Mary Campbell, a nursemaid. Not much is known about this, and their love
affair is shrouded in secrecy, and romantic legends. It is thought that Mary
died perhaps in childbirth, presumably Robert's child. Robert had promised
to marry Mary and there were accusations of bigamy which added to Burns's need
to flee the country, and it's suggested he invited Mary to join him, their
plan was to head for the mountains of Jamaica. Burns's feelings for Mary can
be see in Highland Mary.
And the bard commemorated their parting in a beautiful song, which gives an
inkling of the real nature of their relationship:
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly!
Never met - or never parted,
We had ne'er been brokenhearted.
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, Alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
from Ae Fond Kiss (song)
It was many years later when Burns wrote this song which shows the strength of his feelings for Mary.
Burns Publishes His Poems
Burns approached a printer in Kilmarnock to publish his poems, it was agreed that he should find enough people to subscribe to buy his poems to pay for the printing. Enough people subscribed and a selection of his poems were sent to press - 'Poems Chiefley In The Scottish Dialect'. The profits and copyright of this publication were to go to Gilbert to pay for the upkeep of Robert's daughter.
Burns A National Poet
By the time Jean Armour gave birth to twins, Burns had transformed from a local
celebrity into a national poet. It is thought that Mary became pregnant a month
after Jean did, the death of Mary had a huge impact on Burns, he shows intense
remorse for his treatment of her. After the death of Mary there was a huge
cover up about what had actually happened between her and Burns, Burns himself
was a large part of this saying that she died of a fever. This gave rise to
the romantic legend that Mary was the true love of his life.
There were many admirers of Burns who stepped forward to help and encourage
him, one of these was Mrs Dunlop, daughter of Sir Thomas Wallace. Burns began
to mix in very gentile circles where he was received with an esteem never accorded
to a Scottish Poet. One of the highest honours accorded to Burns was bestowed
on him at a gathering of The Grand Lodge of Scotland, where the Grand Master
gave a toast to 'Caledonia and Caledonia's Bard, Brother Burns'. That occurred
in January, and on 1 February he was received into the Canongate Kilwinning
Lodge. Burns visited the capital with the view of publishing his second book
of poems. In this edition Burns released some of the gems he had withheld from
the Kilmarnock edition on various grounds. For instance there was his playful
satire called Death
and Dr Hornbrook. Another notable addition to the new volume was the Address
to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous. Of all the newly-printed poems
the most familiar throughout the world is the address
To a Haggis, a dish of the poor that consists in the offal of the sheep,
cooked in its stomach with oatmeal and onions. Today thanks to Burns, it has
become fashionable, and his poem is recited at every Burns
Night supper
The Kilmarnock edition had transformed Burns into Caledonia's Bard: the Edinburgh one advanced him rapidly to the rank of one of the world's poets. With money in his pocket Burns set off on a series of tours of Scotland.
Clarinder
Probably the most famous lady Burns courted was Mrs Agnes (Nancy) McLehose.
He met her when he visited Edinburgh and
found out that her husband had left her and gone to live in Jamaica. Burns
wrote many letters to her calling her by the secret name 'Clarinda'. In her
replies to these letters Mrs McLehse called Burns 'Sylvander'. The 'Clarinda'
episode from December 1787 until the following spring is a curious hiatus in
Burns's life. Their famously passionate correspondence appears to have suspended
him from reality for a time.
Marriage With Jean Armour
Burns's relationship with Jean Armour had been anything but smooth, in many different letter he talks of not being able to stand her, but on August 5th 1788 they were married. It has been implied that this was insisted on before he could be appointed to the Excise Division.
A New Home and back to Farming
From June 1788 until May 1789 Burns erected a new home at Ellisland. 1788 also
marked the year Burns delivered the most famous song in the world on the subject
of reunion and separation, with its opening challenge: "Should
auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?" During the three
and a half busy years the bard was to spend at Ellisland he did not produce
much poetry, but it includes some of his best.
His difficulties compounded, struggling to be the head of a household and
then loss of one of his twins. Much depended on the first harvest at Ellisland,
and it proved a poor one. Burn's health began to fail with an attack of his
chronic disease. In a letter to Mrs Dunlop he writes: 'My nerves are a damnable
State. I feel that horrid hypochondria pervading every action of both body
and soul. This farm has undone my enjoyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair
on all hands. But let it go to hell! I'll fight it out and be off with it.'
And fight he did, by his second winter at Ellisland he had embarked on a new
occupation which involved traveling some two hundred miles a week on horseback
in all weathers. It was his responsibility to ensure payment of duty on a host
of articles. He received £50 a year, exactly his farms rent. During the summer
he met Anne Park, a servant in the Globe Tavern at Dumfries. His simultaneous
attentions to his wife enabled them to give birth within a few days of each
other.
Tam o' Shanter - The final poem
Burns's friendship with Francis Grose, an antiquarian of Swiss origin stimulating the bard to compose his last and perhaps greatest large-scale poem, that masterpiece of comic narration Tam o'Shanter. Burns wrote the poem in a range of languages from English to Ayrshire vernacular, which must have presented problems to translators. Burns also began producing songs for publication.
End of the farm at Ellisland
Burns had been juggling work at the farm and his excise duties, but after a year he felt he had to give one up, and it was clear to him which, in a letter to Graham of Fintry on 4 September 1790:
'I am going to give up, or sublet my farm directly . . . Farming this place in which I live would just be a livelihood to a man who would be the greatest drudge in his own family, so is no object; and living here hinders me from that knowledge in the business of Excise which it is absolutely necessary for me to attain.' In this time at Ellisland his family had grown, and now included a son, Francis Wallis (named in honour of Mrs Dunlop) who was born in August 1789. In January 1791 his wife Jean bore him another son, named William Nicol after the Latin teacher in Edinburgh who had accompanied him on his highland tour, and at almost the same time Anne Park bore him a daughter.
After the sale of Ellisland in November 1791 Burns took his wife and family back to Mauchline.
A year before the sale Burns met another married woman, Maria Woodley, married
to Walter Riddell. It was Walter who introduced her to Burns, Burns thought
his wife was the most intelligent girl he had ever formed a friendship with.
Maria was unconventional and Burns was a magnetic force.
