The Life and Works of Robert Burns Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 Excerpt: ...a fourth (but this is apt to be less of a distinction) is over-inclined to strong waters. Every one is more or less a humorist, and, as such, affords a perpetual fund of amusement to his compeers. If Shakspeare could draw lively delineations of human character from such persons as the originals of Silence and Shallow, it may well be conceived that a genius like Burns must have seen as good subjects in many of the villagers of Mauchline. To give an idea of the taste for wit and humour which might exist in such a scene as this, we may quote what was said by a shopkeeper named D, when on his deathbed, in reference to a person who had been to him and all the other inhabitants as the very sun and soul of fun for many years, and was recently deceased. Even in this melancholy condition, D----said he accounted it no small consolation to reflect that he had lived in the same days with John Weir. The mind of the honest trader might no doubt have been filled with more fitting reflections at such a time; but it is impossible to doubt that it was from such escapes of natural character that the very happiest touches of both Shakspeare and Burns were derived.'1 Let us for a moment review the village as it was in external and moral respects in the days of Burns. First, in a central situation, stood its old barn-like church, surrounded by a burialground, full, as usual, of flat and upright monuments--the scene of those prelections which the poet has described in his Holy Fair. Close by are the remains of the ancient priory, consisting of little besides an old dismantled tower, beside which was planted the neat mansion of Gavin Hamilton the writer. He is a pleasant-natured man, with a young family rising around him. In his little business-room will be found one or two young ...