BURNS composed his first song on his first love, who was a daughter of the blacksmith who lent him his first book, the “Life of Wallace.” He was then only in his seventeenth year, and Nelly Kilpatrick, the partner of his labours in the harvest-field, and the theme of his love-lay, was a year younger than himself.
This girl sang a song which had been composed by a neighbouring country lad, and Burns thought he might be able to compose a song too. He therefore made one upon the charms of his handsome Nell, “Very puerile and silly,” he afterwards confessed, but added, “I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts, my blood sallies at the remembrance.”