Page:Life of Robert Burns.pdf/3

 3 glad to give up the bargain at the end of six years He then removed to a better farm, that of Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where another train of misfortunes overtook him; and at last a dispute about the lease, which had been referred to arbi- tration, resulted in his ruin. He lived know of the decision, but death saved him from witness- ing its necessary consequences. He died of con- sumption on the 13th of February; 1784. In the midst of these struggles, William Burness used the utmost exertions to educate his children, a duty which is seldom neglected by Scottish pa- rents, however scanty their means. Robert, and Gilbert his next brother, attended school together. Their teacher, speaking of them, says, " Robert and Gilbert were generally at the upper end of the class, even when ranged with boys by far their seniors. Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a 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 be- hind by all the rest of the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untunable. It was long before I could get them to distinguish one tune from another. The two first books," says the poet himself, in 1787, "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 bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a tide of Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the flood- gates of life shut in eternal rest."