Page:Interesting history of Robert Burns (1).pdf/4

another train of misfortunes overtook him; but a dispute about the lease, which had been referred to arbitration, resulted in his ruin. He lived to know of the decision, but death saved him from witnessing its consequences. He died of consumption on the 13th of February, 1784. In the midst of these struggles, William Burns used the utmost exertions to educate his children,— a duty which is seldom neglected by Scottish parents, 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 behind 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, 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