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Updated: June 15, 2025
But, I daresay, I have by this time tired your patience; so I shall conclude with begging you to give Mrs. Murdoch not my compliments, for that is a mere commonplace story; but my warmest, kindest wishes for her welfare; and accept the same for yourself, from, Dear Sir, yours, etc. IX. To HIS COUSIN, MR. JAMES BURNESS, WRITER, MONTROSE. LOCHLIE, 21st June, 1783.
Anyone who takes the trouble to read 'The Manual of Religious Belief in a Dialogue between Father and Son, compiled by William Burness, Farmer, Mount Oliphant, and transcribed with Grammatical Corrections by John Murdoch, Teacher, will see that the man was of too loving and kindly a nature to be strictly orthodox.
Farewell, dear friend! may guid luck hit you, And 'mang her favourites admit you, If e'er Detraction shore to smit you, May nane believe him, And ony Deil that thinks to get you, Good LORD, deceive him, XXV. To HIS COUSIN, MR. JAMES BURNESS, WRITER, MONTROSE. MOSSGIEL, Tuesday Noon, 26th Sept. 1786.
I returned by the coast through Nairn, Forres, and so on, to Aberdeen, thence to Stonehive, where James Burness, from Montrose, met me by appointment. I spent two days among our relations, and found our aunts, Jean and Isabel, still alive, and hale old women. John Cairn, though born the same year with our father, walks as vigorously as I can: they have had several letters from his son in New York.
His father, William Burness, had all he could do to support a family of children, of whom Robert was the eldest. The boy soon became a stalwart toiler and could turn a furrow and reap a swath with the best of his comrades; but his mind meanwhile grasped strongly and passionately all the literature to which it could get access.
It is written, however, with much eloquence. Some of the views expressed in another work, Archæolgiæ Philosophicæ, were, however, so unacceptable to contemporary theologians that he had to resign his post at Court. Poet, was b. near Ayr, the s. of William Burness or Burns, a small farmer, and a man of considerable force of character and self-culture.
It was only by ranking as creditors to their father's estate for arrears of wages that the children of William Burness made a shift to scrape together a little money, with which Robert and Gilbert were able to stock the neighbouring farm of Mossgiel. Thither the family removed in March 1784; and it is on this farm that the life of the poet becomes most deeply interesting.
His father wrote the family name Burnes; Robert early adopted the orthography Burness from his cousin in the Mearns; and in his twenty-eighth year changed it once more to Burns. It is plain that the last transformation was not made without some qualm; for in addressing his cousin he adheres, in at least one more letter, to spelling number two.
I here inclose you my "Scotch Drink," and "may the deil follow with a blessing for your edification." I hope, sometime before we hear the gowk, to have the pleasure of seeing you at Kilmarnock, when I intend we shall have a gill between us, in a mutchkin-stoup; which will be a great comfort and consolation to, dear Sir, your humble servant, ROBERT BURNESS.
This estimate of William Burness is endorsed and amplified by Mr. Murdoch, who had been engaged by him to teach his children, and knew him intimately. 'I myself, he says, 'have always considered William Burness as by far the best of the human race that ever I had the pleasure of being acquainted with. He was an excellent husband; a tender and affectionate father.
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