Stories of Achievement, Volume IV | Page 8

eldest
of my printed pieces; "The Death of Poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn,"
and Songs First, Second, and Third. Song Second was the ebullition of
that passion which ended the forementioned school business.
My twenty-third year was to me an important era. Partly through whim,
and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a
flax-dresser in a neighbouring town (Irvine), to learn the trade. This
was an unlucky affair. As we were giving a welcome carousal to the
new year, the shop took fire and burned to ashes, and I was left, like a
true poet, not worth a sixpence.
I was obliged to give up this scheme, the clouds of misfortune were
gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
was visibly far gone in a consumption; and to crown my distresses, a
beautiful girl, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet
me in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
mortification. The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this infernal
file was my constitutional melancholy being increased to such a degree
that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be envied by
the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus--depart from me, ye
cursed!
From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed
with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
misfortune. He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron
dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor fellow
in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill fortune, a
little before I was acquainted with him he had been set on shore by an
American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught, stripped of
everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without adding that he
is at this time master of a large West Indiaman belonging to the

Thames.
His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every
manly virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and
of course strove to imitate him. In some measure I succeeded; I had
pride before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge
of the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
learn. . . . My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
volumes of "Pamela," and one of "Ferdinand Count Fathom," which
gave me some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some religious pieces that
are in print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish
Poems, I strung anew my wildly sounding lyre with emulating vigour.
When my father died his all went among the hell-hounds that growl in
the kennel of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in the
family amongst us, with which to keep us together; my brother and I
took a neighbouring farm. My brother wanted my hare-brained
imagination, as well as my social and amorous madness; but in good
sense, and every sober qualification, he was far my superior.
I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, I will be
wise!" I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets; and,
in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I believe I
should have been a wise man; but the first year, from unfortunately
buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we lost half our crops.
This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, "like the dog to his vomit,
and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire."
I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes.
The first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a burlesque
lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them
figuring in my "Holy Fair." I had a notion myself that the piece had
some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend,
who was very fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess
who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever. With a
certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar of
applause. "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its appearance, and alarmed
the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to look over

their