ilbert were sent for a
time, week about, to a school at Dalrymple, and the year following
Robert was sent to Ayr to revise his English grammar under Mr. Murdoch.
While there he began the study of French, bringing with him, when he
returned home, a French Dictionary and Grammar and Fenelon's
_Telemaque_. In a little while he could read and understand any French
author in prose. He also gave some time to Latin; but finding it dry and
uninteresting work, he soon gave it up. Still he must have picked up a
little of that language, and we know that he returned to the rudiments
frequently, although 'the Latin seldom predominated, a day or two at a
time, or a week at most.' Under the heading of general reading might be
mentioned _The Life of Hannibal_, _The Life of Wallace_, _The
Spectator_, Pope's _Homer_, Locke's _Essay on the Human Understanding_,
_Allan Ramsay's Works_, and several _Plays of Shakspeare_. All this is
worth noting, even at some length, because it shows how Burns was being
educated, and what books went to form and improve his literary taste.

Yet when we consider the circumstances of the family we see that there
was not much time for study. The work on the farm allowed Burns little
leisure, but every spare moment would seem to have been given to
reading. Father and sons, we are told by one who afterwards knew the
family at Lochlea, used to sit at their meals with books in their hands;
and the poet says that one book in particular, _A Select Collection of
English Songs_, was his _vade mecum_. He pored over them, driving his
cart or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse, carefully
noting the true, tender, or sublime from affectation or fustian. 'I am
convinced,' he adds, 'I owe to this practice much of my critic craft,
such as it is.'

The years of their stay at Mount Oliphant were years of unending toil
and of poverty bravely borne. The whole period was a long fight against
adverse circumstances. Looking back on his life at this time, Burns
speaks of it as 'the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing moil
of a galley slave'; and we can well believe that this is no exaggerated
statement. His brother Gilbert is even more emphatic. 'Mount Oliphant,'
he says, 'is almost the poorest soil I know of in a state of
cultivation.... My father, in consequence of this, soon came into
difficulties, which were increased by the loss of several of his cattle
by accident and disease. To the buffetings of misfor