lar habits, had a wonderful fascination for Burns,
who admired him for what he thought his independence and magnanimity.
"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._"

Another companion, older than himself, thinking that the religious
views of Burns were too rigid and uncompromising, induced him to adopt
"more liberal opinions," which in this case, as in so many others,
meant more lax opinions. With his principles of belief, and his rules
of conduct at once assailed and undermined, what chart or compass
remained any more for a passionate being like Burns over the
passion-swept sea of life that lay before him? The migration to Irvine
was to him the descent to Avernus, from which he never afterwards, in
the actual conduct of life, however often in his hours of inspiration,
escaped to breathe again the pure upper air. This brief but disastrous
Irvine sojourn was brought to a sudden close. Burns was robbed by his
partner in trade, his flax-dressing shop was burnt to the ground by
fire during the carousal of a New Year's morning, and himself,
impaired in purse, in spirits, and in character, returned to Lochlea
to find misfortunes thickening round his family, and his father on his
death-bed. For the old man, his long struggle with scanty means,
barren soil, and bad seasons, was now near its close. Consumption had
set in. Early in 1784, when his last hour drew on, the father said
that there was one of his children of whose future he could not think
without fear. Robert, who was in the room, came up to his bedside (p. 015)
and asked, "O father, is it me you mean?" The old man said it was.
Robert turned to the window, with tears streaming down his cheeks, and
his bosom swelling, from the restraint he put on himself, almost to
bursting. The father had early perceived the genius that was in his
boy, and even in Mount Oliphant days had said to his wife, "Whoever
lives to see it, something extraordinary will come from that boy." He
had lived to see and admire his son's earliest poetic efforts. But he
had also noted the strong passions, with the weak will, which might
drive him on the shoals of life.

MOSSGIEL.--Towards the close of 1783, Robert and his brother, seeing
clearly the crash of family affairs which was impending, had taken