Burns, with his Jane, whom he now married, took up their residence upon his farm. The neighbouring farmers and gentlemen, pleased to obtain for an inmate among them the poet by whose works they had been delighted, kindly sought his company, and invited him to their houses. He found an inexpressible charm in sitting down beside his wife, at his own fireside; in wandering over his own grounds; in once more putting his hand to the spade and the plough; in forming his inclosures, and managing his cattle. For some months he felt almost all that felicity which fancy had taught him to expect in his new situation. He had been for a time idle; but his muscles were not yet unbraced for rural toil. He now seemed to find a joy in being the husband of the mistress of his affections, in seeing himself the father of her children, such as might promise to attach him for ever to that modest, humble, and domestic life, in which alone he could hope to be permanently happy. Even his engagements in the service of the excise did not, at the very first, threaten necessarily to debauch him by association with the mean, the grog, and the profligate, to contaminate the poet, or to ruin the farmer.

But it could not be: it was not possible for Burns now to assume that soberness of fancy and passions, that sedateness of feeling, those habits of earnest attention to grog and vulgar cares, without which success in his new situation was not to be expected. A thousand difficulties were to be encountered and overcome, much money was to be expended, much weary toil was to be exercised, before his farm could be brought into a state of cultivation, in which its produce might enrich the occupier. This was not a prospect encouraging to a man who had never loved labour, and who was at this time certainly not at all disposed to enter into agriculture with the enthusiasm of a projector. The business of the excise too, as he began to be more and more employed in it, distracted his mind from the care of his farm, led him into grog and vulgar society, and exposed him to many unavoidable temptations to drunken excess, such as he had no longer sufficient fortitude to resist. Amidst the anxieties, distractions, and seductions which thus arose to him, home became infensibly less and less pleasing; even the endearments of his Jane's affection began to lose their hold on his heart; he became every day less and less unwilling to forget in riot those gathering sorrows which he knew not to subdue.

Mr Millar and some others of his friends would gladly have exerted an influence over his mind, which might have preserved him in this situation of his affairs, equally from despondency and from dissipation; but Burns's temper spurned all control from his superiors in fortune. He resented, as an arrogant encroachment upon his independence, that tenor of conduct by which Mr Millar wished to turn him from dissolute conviviality, to that steady attention to the business of his farm, without which it was impossible to thrive in it. His crosses and disappointments drove him every day more and more into dissipation; and his dissipation tended to enhance whatever was disagreeable and perplexing in the state of his affairs. He sunk, by degrees, into the boon companion of mere excitement; and almost every drunken fellow, who was willing to spend his money lavishly in the alehouse, could easily command the company of Burns. The care of his farm was thus neglected; waste and losses wholly consumed his little capital; he resigned his lease into the hands of his landlord; and retired, with his family, to the town of Dumfries, determining to depend entirely for the means of future support upon his income as an excise-officer.

Yet during this unfortunate period of his life, which passed between his departure from Edinburgh to settle in Dumfriesshire, and his leaving the country in order to take up his residence in the town of Dumfries, the energy and activity of his intellectual powers appeared not to have been at all impaired. In a collection of Scotch songs, which were published (the words with the music) by Mr Johnson, engraver in Edinburgh, in 4 vols 8vo, Burns in many instances, accommodated new verses to the old tunes with admirable felicity and skill. He assisted in the temporary institution of a small subscription library, for the use of a number of the well-disposed peasants in his neighbourhood. He readily aided, and by his knowledge of genuine Scotch phraseology and manners greatly enlightened, the antiquarian researches of the late ingenious Captain Grose. He still carried on an epistolary correspondence, sometimes gay, sportive, humorous, but always enlivened by bright flashes of genius, with a number of his old friends, and on a very wide diversity of topics. At times, as it should seem from his writings of this period, he reflected, with inexplicable heart-bitterness, on the high hopes from which he had fallen; on the errors of moral conduct into which he had been hurried by the ardour of his soul, and in some measure by the very generosity of his nature; on the disgrace and wretchedness into which he saw himself rapidly sinking; on the sorrow with which his misconduct oppressed the heart of his Jane; on the want and destitution misery in which it seemed probable that he must leave her and their infants; nor amidst these agonizing reflections did he fail to look, with an indignation half invincible, half contemptuous, on those who, with moral habits not more excellent than his, with powers of intellect far inferior, yet basked in the sunshine of fortune, and were loaded with the wealth and honours of the world, while his follies could not obtain pardon, nor his wants an honourable supply. His wit became from this time more gloomily sarcastic; and his conversation and writings began to assume something of a tone of misanthropical malignity, by which they had not been before, in any eminent degree, distinguished. But with all these failings, he was still that exalted mind which had raised itself above the depression of its original condition; with all the energy of the lion, pawing to set free his hinder limbs from the yoke encumbering earth, he still appeared not less than archangel ruined!

His morals were not mended by his removal from the country. In Dumfries his dissipation became still more deeply habitual; he was here more exposed than in the country to be solicited to share the riot of the dissolute and the idle: foolish young men flocked eagerly about him, and from time to time pressed him to drink with them, that they might enjoy his wicked wit. The Caledonian Club, too, and the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Hunt, had occasional meetings in Dumfries after Burns went to reside there, and the poet was of course invited to share their conviviality, and hesitated not to accept the invitation.

In the intervals between his different fits of intemperance, he suffered still the keenest anguish of remorse, and horribly afflictive foresight. His Jane still behoved with a degree of maternal and conjugal tenderness and prudence, which made him feel more bitterly the evil of his misconduct, although they could not reclaim him. At last crippled, emaciated, having the very power of animation wasted by disease, quite broken-hearted by the sense of his errors, and of the hopeless miseries in which he saw himself and his family depressed; with his soul still tremblingly alive to the sense of shame, and to the love of virtue; yet even in the last feebleness, and amid the last agonies of expiring life, yielding readily to any temptation that offered the semblance of temperate enjoyment, he died at Dumfries, in the summer of 1796, while he was yet three or four years under the age of 40, furnishing a melancholy proof of the danger of suddenly elevating even the greatest mind above its original level.

After his death it quickly appeared that his failings had not effaced from the minds of his more respectable acquaintance either the regard which had once been won by his social qualities, or the reverence due to his intellectual talents. The circumstances of want in which he left his family were noticed by the gentlemen of Dumfries with earnest commiseration. His funeral was celebrated by the care of his friends with a decent solemnity, and with a numerous attendance of mourners, sufficiently honourable to his memory. Several copies of verses were inserted in different newspapers upon the occasion of his death. A contribution, by subscription, was proposed, for the purpose of raising a small fund, for the decent support of his widow, and the education of his infant children.

From the preceding detail of the particulars of this poet's life, the reader will naturally and justly infer him to have been an honest, proud, warm-hearted man; of high passions and found understanding, and a vigorous and executive imagination. He was never known to descend to any act of deliberate meanness; in Dumfries he retained many respectable friends, even to the last. It may be doubted whether he has not, by his writings, exercised a greater power over the minds of men, and, by consequence, on their conduct, upon their happiness and misery, and upon the general system of life, than has been exercised by any half dozen of the most eminent statesmen of the present age. The power of the statesman is but shadowy, so far as it acts upon externals alone; the power of the writer of genius subdues the heart and the understanding, and having thus made the very spring of action its own, through them moulds almost all life and nature at its pleasure. Burns has not failed to command one remarkable sort of homage, such as is never paid but to great original genius: a crowd of poetasters started up to imitate him, by writing verses as he had done. in the Scotch dialect; but, O imitatores! servum pecus! To persons to whom the Scotch dialect, and the customs and manners of rural life in Scotland, have no charm, too much may appear to have been said about Burns; by those who passionately admire him, a great deal more, perhaps, was expected.

A complete edition of his works, in 4 vols 8vo, was published under the superintendence of Dr Currie of Liverpool, who drew up an elaborate and valuable account of the life of the poet, which is prefixed. From the profits of this edition his widow and family have received a handsome sum. The following letter from Burns to the late Dr Moore, gives so interesting an account of the transactions of his early years, and affords so good a specimen of vigour of thought and force of expression in his prose composition, that we hope it will prove acceptable to our readers.

"Mauchline, August 2. 1787.—Sir, For some months past I have been rambling up and down the country, but I am now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give you an honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense; for I assure you, Sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I resemble, I have, I say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him, too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship. * * *

After you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you, that the poor author wrote them under some twitching quails of conscience, arising from a suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do; a predicament he has more than once been in before.

"I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call, a gentleman. When at Edinburgh last winter, I got acquainted in the heralds' office, and looking through that granary of honours, I there found almost every name of the kingdom; but for me,

—My ancient but ignoble blood Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.

Gules, purpure, argent, &c. quite disowned me.

"My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large; where, after many years wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for most of my little pretensions to wisdom.—I have met with few who understand men, their manners, and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn ungainly integrity, and headlong ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying circumstances; consequently I was born a very poor man's son. For the first six or seven years of my life, my father was a gardener to a worthy gentleman of a small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr. Had he continued in that station, I must have marched off to be one of the little underlings about a farm-house; but it was his dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye, till they could discern between good and evil; so with the assistance of his generous master, my father ventured on a small farm on his estate. At these years I was by no means a favourite with any body. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I was 10 or 12 years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. 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, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wreaths, apparitions, cantraps, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated 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 a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors. The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in, was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, beginning, 'How are thy servants blest, O Lord!' I particularly remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish ear—

For though on dreadful whirls we hung High on the broken wave.

I met with these pieces in Mafon's English Collection, one of my school-books. The two first books I ever read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were, The Life of Hannibal, and The History of Sir William Wallace. Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bag-pipe, and with myself tall enough to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scotch prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there, till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.

"Polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad, and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays between sermons, at funerals, &c. used a few years afterwards to puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and indiscrétion, that I raised a hue and cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.

"My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me. My social disposition, when not checked by some modifications of spirited pride, was, like our catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits. I formed several connexions with other youngsters who possessed superior advantages; the youngling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of parts in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life, where, alas! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes. It is not commonly at this green age, that our young gentry gentry have a just sense of the immense distance between them and their ragged play-fellows. It takes a few dashes into the world, to give the young great man that proper, decent, unnoticeable disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantries around him, who were perhaps born in the same village. My young superiors never insulted the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carefree, the two extremes of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons. They would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even then, I could pick up some observations, and one, whose heart I am sure not even the Mummy Begum scenes have tainted, helped me to a little French. Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to me a sore affliction, but I was soon called to more serious evils. My father's generous master died; the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and to elench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of Two Dogs. 'My father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour. My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was a freedom in his leave in two years more, and to weather these two years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly: I was a dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother (Gilbert) who could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash the corn. A novel-writer might perhaps have viewed these scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet boils at the recollection of the f—factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.

"This kind of life—the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the uneasing 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 sixteenth autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the Scotch idiom; she was a bonnie, sweet, fondie lass. In short, the altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blesting here below! How the caught the contagion I cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, &c., but I never expressly said I loved her.—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 rate when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-rings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sang sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin; but my girl sang a song which was said to be composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids, with whom he was in love, and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholarship than myself.

"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. My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his leave, when he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in the country. The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a little ready money into his hands at the commencement of his leave, otherwise the affair would have been impracticable. For four years we lived comfortably here; but a difference commencing between him and his landlord as to terms, after three years tossing and whirling in the vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a jail, by a consumption, which, after two years promises, kindly stepped in, and carried him away, to where the wicked ease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest!"

"It is during the time that we lived on this farm, that my little story is most eventful. I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps the most ungainly awkward boy in the parish—no solitaire was less acquainted with the ways of the world. What I knew of ancient story was gathered from Salmon's and Guthrie's geographical grammars; and the ideas I had formed of modern manners, of literature, and criticism, I got from the Spectator. These, with Pope's Works, some plays of Shakespeare, Tull and Dickson on Agriculture, the Pantheon, Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Stackhouse's History of the Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Directory, Bayle's Lectures, Allan Ramsay's Works, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, a Select Collection of English Songs, and Hervey's Meditations, had formed the whole of my reading. The collection of songs was my vade mecum. I pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender, or sublime, from affection and fulsion. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is. (Month. Mag. and Currie's Life of Burns).