Exercise on the Poets Life
1. William Burnes …………. from Kincardineshire
to Ayrshire to ……… as a market
2. gardener. There he................ and ..................................Agnes
Broun from Kirkoswald
3. Robert Burns ……………on the 25th day
of the first month of 1759 and ………………
4. the eldest of William and Agnes's seven children. During the
first seven years of his life,
5. Robert …………….. in the cottage his
father…………… with his own hands in the
6. village of Alloway.
7. Although Robert ………………. up to
a life of toil, hardship and poverty, his father
8 . ...................... to it that he…………..
well………….. and ……………….the
opportunity to
9 . ..................... many books. His mother ………………….him
to folk?song and this also
10 . ………………… to………………….
him greatly in later life.
11. In the year 1766 the family ………………
from the 'Clay Biggin' to Mount Oliphant Farm. After
12. the move Robert still ................................. the
school at Alloway for a time. Later Robert
13 . ...................................... his'schooling' solely
from his father at home.
14. It ...................................that Robert................................
'an excellent English scholar'. His father
15. .................... great personal attention to his son's
education in Arithmetic, History of the Bible,
16. Geography, natural History and even Astronomy. At the age
of 12 years, 'to
17 . ..................... his penmanship', Robert ..................................
to the parish school at Dalrymple,
18. which .......................................23 miles distant.
At the age of 14 years Robert
19 . ..........................................for three weeks
with a tutor John Murdoch at Ayr to
20 ................................................. his Grammar.
Here he a smattering of French and Latin. By
21. the time he .....................16 years old Robert ..........................increasingly
the principal labourer
22. on the farm. His health .............................badly
.........................by the heavy work and poor food.
23. Despite the continuous hardships Robert Burns.....................................
to Hugh Rodger's school at
24. Kirkoswald to ............................. mensuration and
surveying etc. when he................................
25. 17 years old.
26. Unfortunately, Mount Oliphant ................................
a failure, and the family ........................ to another
27. farm, Lochlea near Tarbolton.
28. Here, with the exception of a spell at Irvine in order to
................................himself with the skills
29. of flax?dressing, Robert Burns ...............................
with his father and .
30. brothers on the farm; 'the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with
the unceasing
31 .......................................... of a galley?slave'.
32. Yet he never............................. his love of learning;
above all the poems of his fellow countrymen Allan
33. Ramsay and Robert Fergusson.
34. On his father's death in 1784, Robert and his brother Gilbert
.................................... the farm
35. of Mossgiel (Mauchline) a few miles away. Here again fate
..............................not on their side and so
36. Robert ......................................................to
despair of his future in farming, consequently
37 . ......................................some tentative plans
to.................................... to Jamaica.
38. To ...........................funds for the voyage, Robert
....................to ...............................his poems
in
39. Kilmarnock in 1786. This collection of poems ......................................
"Poems, Chiefly in the
40. Scottish Dialect, by Robert Burns, Kilmarnock" .....................................for
3 shillings (15p)
41. and ..................................as the Kilmarnock Edition".
The Collection .................................
42. so much praise, especially in Edinburgh, that Robert ...........................up
the idea of emigration and
43 . ............................... to Edinburgh instead to ..........................................a
second edition of his
44. works.
45. In 1788 Burns ........................Jean Armour and ..................
to.................. and.................. on Ellisland
46. Farm near Dumfries. By now, however, Burns wanted to ..........................
up farming and in 1791 he
47 . ...................... to Dumfries to .................................
up full?time employment as an Excise Officer
48. In 1793 he ..................................a revised third
edition of his ................................... in
49. Edinburgh.
50. Robert Burns ......................................on the
21 st July, 1796 at the age of 37 years.
51. In Scotland, Burns .........................more than a poet
? he ...........................as a kind of hero whose
52. birthday .............................by Scots not only at
home but all over the world. His fame
53. has even ....................................great interest
in countries as far away as Japan and Russia.
54. and in these and other countries, Burns Suppers .......................................fast
55. ............................... an annual event.
56. Burns ..............................perhaps best .............................to
many for his tale of witchcraft "Tam o'
57. Shanter", and his song "Auld Lang Syne".
