Robert Burns and Burns Night

Robert Burns is not only Scotland's best known poet and songwriter but one of the most widely acclaimed literary figures of all time. He is held in very special affection by millions around the world, with Burns suppers taking place on or near his birthday on the 25th January. How to hold a Burns' Supper.

The Burns' Supper has a specific form including the consumption of Haggis - a traditional Scottish meal (althought its origins may be from Greece, in the Mediterranean!) - and many toasts including one to the "Immortal Memory" - a speech in praise of the Bard.

Stature

Burns' stature owes much to the huge range of his songs and poems, some of which are still familiar, nearly two hundred and fifty years after his birth. In fact, there would be few English speaking people who do not recognise "For Auld Lang Syne".

His popularity is also linked to the tradition which has associated him with a brand of socialism radical for his time and timeless in its understanding of the plight of the common man. Such an association would have come naturally to Burns, who experienced hardships not untypical for the ordinary man of the eighteenth century.

Birth and Youth

He was born in 1759 in the village of Alloway, in Ayrshire and was the son of a small farmer, Jacobite in sympathies, who had moved from near Stonehaven in Kincardineshire. In Scots rural tradition - which Burns himself recognised "The Man's the Gowd for A' that" - and probably because of the particular importance which his father put on it, Burns had an education. He attended several schools and was given lessons from his tutor, John Murdoch, who introduced him to Scots and other literature in the English language.

The family was never wealthy, living on and scraping a bare living from poor farming land. When Burns' father died in 1784, he and his younger brother, Gilbert, tried and failed to make a success of farming at Mossgiel, near Mauchline. Also at this time, Burns began what was to be a stormy relationship with Jean Armour whom he left and betrayed many times.

The intensity bred of hardships, however, seems to have caused Burns to produce some of his finest literary achievements. Out of an educational background that was supplemented by his own desire to read great literature, an acquaintance with and admiration for the work of Allan Ramsay the elder and an upbringing which left him steeped in Scots traditional ballads and legends, emerged his earliest and some of his best loved poems.

Poetry and Fame

In 1785 and 1786 alone, Burns wrote, amongst other works, 'The Address to a Mouse', 'Holy Willie's Prayer', 'The Cotter's Saturday Night' and 'The Twa Dogs' and published his later famous Kilmarnock Edition with the intention of emigrating to Jamaica to seek a better existence.

However, the popular response to his book of poems attracted him to Edinburgh to receive the adulation of the polite society of the capital, who became fascinated by the 'ploughman poet' and dubbed him "Caledonia's Bard". 3,000 copies of his Edinburgh Edition of poems were selling well at this time.

In 1787, he first visited Dumfries and was immediately made an honorary burgess. In 1788, unsure of making a living from the pen, he signed a lease on Ellisland Farm on the banks of the Nith and sought employment as an Exciseman. This was a latter day VAT man and Burns used his income to supplement his farm. His health was variable but during that time, he edited -  with James Johnson - the second edition of the ‘Scots Musical Museum’.  It was published in 1788 and contained 40 of his own songs.  The third volume which appeared in the following year had 50 more.

Burns asked Captain Francis Grose who was compiling a book on the antiquities of Scotland to include an illustration of Alloway Kirk.  Grose agreed provided the poet would contribute a ‘witch story’ to accompany the drawing.  The result was ‘Tam O’Shanter’.  The poem was written in a single day on the banks of the Nith and is arguably one of his best works.

After two years, Burns gave up the farm and moved to Dumfries as a full-time Exciseman. During this time, Burns had at least one major affair and sired a daughter whom his own wife agreed to raise.
   
During this time Burns led an erratic lifestyle, being alternately drawn to and repelled by the bourgeois lifestyle. He wrote poems in English instead of his vernacular Scots, and flirted with 'Clarinda', Agnes McLehose.

In May 1793 the family moved to a better quality house in Mill Street (now Burns Street). Their standard of living was good and they employed a maid servant.  He was now writing songs for a new book ‘A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs’ produced by George Thomson.  At the same time, some of his most lasting songs, love songs like 'My Luve is like a Red, Red Rose' and others set to traditional airs and often reviving the words and tales of ballads, were produced.

Ill Health and Death

The war with France was causing food shortages in Britain.  In March 1796 there were serious food riots in Dumfries. Gradually during the year Burns’ health became poorer and in April he was unable to continue with his Excise duties.  His friend Dr Maxwell mistakenly diagnosed his illness as “flying gout” and prescribed sea bathing as a cure.  On the morning of Thursday 21st July he became delirious.  His children were brought to see him for a last time and shortly afterwards he lapsed into unconsciousness and died.  He was 37 years old.

It was the intention of friends that a biography of Burns should be written as soon as possible and the profits used to aid Mrs Burns.  Dr James Currie, a Liverpool physician who came originally from Annan was chosen as biographer.  The biography, published in 1800, was an immediate success and raised £1400.  When Dorothy and William Wordsworth visited Dumfries in 1803 they had difficulty in even finding Burns's grave.  So, in 1813 subscriptions were sought. One of the subscribers was the Prince Regent, later George IV.  On the 19th September 1815 Burns’ body was exhumed and placed in the new mausoleum.

In 1823 the cenotaph on the banks of the Doon at Alloway, Burns’ birthplace, was completed at a cost of £3300.  In 1844 a huge festival in his honour was held at Alloway, presided over by the Earl of Eglinton.  The centenaries of his birth in 1859 and his death in 1896 saw nationwide celebrations.

Reputation

The cult of Burns rapidly rose.  As the ‘National Bard’ he assumed spiritual dimensions, becoming all things to all people - admired as poet, nationalist, democrat, republican, conversationalist, womaniser, drinker, naturalist, folklorist, lyricist, Freemason and atheist to name a few.  His humble origins, in particular as the ‘heaven taught ploughman’, have added to the idolatry.

Burns Timeline

1759 January 25 Robert Burns born at Alloway.
1781 Works as a flax-dresser in Irvine.
1782 Returns to Lochlea after the burning of the Irvine shop.
1784 Father dies. Robert moves to Mossgiel.
1785 Birth of Elizabeth, daughter by servant Betty Paton.
Meets Jean Armour.
1786 Kilmarnock Poems published. Affair with Jean Armour. Plans emigration to Jamaica.
1788 Commissioned as exciseman
1790 Tam o' Shanter completed
1791 Goes to Edinburgh
1792 Accused of political disaffection during revolutionary commotion in Dumfries.
1793 Second Edinburgh edition of Poems.
1795 Ill with rheumatic fever.
1796 July 21 Burns dies at Dumfries.
1796 July 25 Son Maxwell born on day of his funeral.