alf a dozen or more pieces on hand; I took up one or other, as
it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it
bordered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so
many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over my
verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet! None of the rhymes of
those days are in print, except "Winter, a Dirge," the eldest of my
printed pieces; "The Death of Poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn," and
Songs First, Second, and Third. Song Second was the ebullition of that
passion which ended the forementioned school business.

My twenty-third year was to me an important era. Partly through whim,
and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined
a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town (Irvine), to learn the trade.
This was an unlucky affair. As we were giving a welcome carousal to
the new year, the shop took fire and burned to ashes, and I was left,
like a true poet, not worth a sixpence.

I was obliged to give up this scheme, the clouds of misfortune were
gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
was visibly far gone in a consumption; and to crown my distresses, a
beautiful girl, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me
in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
mortification. The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this
infernal file was my constitutional melancholy being increased to such
a degree that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be
envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus--depart
from me, ye cursed!

From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed
with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
misfortune. He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron
dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill
fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set on
shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
stripped of everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without
adding that he is at this time master of a large West Indiaman
b