BURNS THE POET.
About the age of thirteen, Burns was sent during a part of the summer to the parish school in Dalrymple, in order to improve his hand writing.—In the following year he had an opportunity of passing several weeks with his old friend Murdoch, with whose assistance he began to study French with intense ardour and assiduity. His proficiency in that language, though it was wonderful, considering his opportunities, was necessarily slight; yet it was in shewing this accomplishment alone that Burns' weakness ever took the shape of vanity. One of his friends, who carried him into the company of a French lady, remarked with surprise that he attempted to converse with her in her own tongue. Their French, however, was soon found to be almost mutually unintelligible. As far as Burns could make himself understood, he unfortunately offended the foreign lady.—He meant to tell her that she was a charming person and delightful in conversation; but expressed himself so as to appear to her to mean, that she was fond of speaking; to which the Gallic dame indignantly replied, that it was quite as common for poets to be impertinent, as for women to be loquacious.