No More Learning

I returned home very considerably improved. My reading was enlarged
with the very important addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's works; I
had seen human nature in a new phasis; and I engaged several of my
school-fellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. This
improved me in composition. I had met with a collection of letters by
the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most devoutly. I
kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison
between them and the composition of most of my correspondents
flattered my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I hid not
three-farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post
brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of
the day-book and ledger.

My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
_Vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle_, were my sole principles of
action. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great
pleasure; Sterne and Mackenzie--Tristram Shandy and the Man of Feeling
were my bosom favourites. Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind,
but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. I had
usually half 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 aera.
Partly through whim,
and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I
joined a flax-dresser in a neighboring town (Irvine) to learn his
trade. This was an unlucky affair. My * * * and to finish the whole,
as we were giving a welcome carousal to the new year, the shop took
fire and burnt 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
_belle fille_, 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
belonging to the Thames.

His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of
course strove to imitate him. In some measure I succeeded; I had pride
before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of
the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
learn. He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than
myself where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of illicit
love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with
horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief, and the consequence
was, that soon after I resumed the plough, I wrote the "Poet's
Welcome. "[177] My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
volumes of Pamela, and one of Ferdinand Count Fathom, which gave me
some idea of novels.