for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thoughts, and amiable words
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.

Perhaps, if Burns in a later love affair had been successful in his
suit, his life and reputation would not have suffered as they have,
for the most culpable trait in the character of the famous Scotch poet
is the ease with which he abandoned one lover for another. He was
forever falling in love, and there is some evidence to the effect that
he loved two or three at the same time. There is only too much truth
in Burns' own lines,

Where'er I gaed, where'er I rade,
A mistress still I had aye.

But perhaps all this would have been different had Ellison Begbie, the
daughter of a small farmer, smiled favorably upon the advances of the
young farmer from Lochlea. She is said to have been a young woman of
great charm and liveliness of mind, though not a beauty. In after
years Burns always spoke of her with the greatest of respect and as
the one woman, of the many upon whom he had lavished his fickle
affection, who most likely would have made a pleasant partner for
life.

His love affair with this young lady took place near the close of his
twenty-second year. Her refusal seems to have had a malign influence
upon the career of our poet. Up to this time his love affairs,
although numerous, were innocent. As his brother Gilbert says, they
were "governed by the strictest rules of virtue and modesty." But
henceforth there is a change in the character of Burns. Shortly after
the fair Ellison had turned a deaf ear to the letters and love-songs
of the importunate wooer, Robert and his brother Gilbert went to
Irvine, hoping that in this flax-dressing center they could increase
their income by dressing the flax raised on their own farm. Here
Burns, always very susceptible to new influences,--he would not be the
poet he is had he not been keenly alive and susceptible,--fell under
the malignant charm of a wild sailor-lad whose habits were loose and
irregular. "He was," says Burns, "the only man I ever knew who was a
greater fool than myself, where woman was the presiding star; but he
spoke of lawless love with levity, which hitherto I had regarded with
horror. _Here his friendship did me a mischief._"

XII

BURNS' FIRST BOOK OF POEMS

Burns was in trouble; he had failed as a farmer, and as a young man he
had wounded