Genealogical memoirs of the family of Robert Burns and of the Scottish house of Burnes

THE FAMILY OF EGBERT BUKNS. 59
Eobert Burns, the poet's eldest son, a twin with his sister
Jean, was horn 3d September 1786. From the grammar
school of Dumfries, he proceeded to the University of Edin-
burgh, where he studied during two sessions. Another session
he spent at the University of Glasgow. Having procured an
appointment in the Stamp Office, he entered on his duties at
London in 1804. In 1833 he got his superannuation allow-
ance, when he visited his mother at Dumfries, whom he had
not seen for twenty-six years. At Dumfries he fixed his
residence. There hi the summer of 1856 the writer of these
Memoirs paid him a visit. Being ten years old when his
father died he remembered him, but not so as to describe
his personal aspects. Into the hands of his son the bard
placed the works of the English poets, and encouraged him
to read them, which he did. But he never spoke of his own
verses; nor did the son know that his father was a poet
until the neighbours, after his decease, spoke of him as such
to his mother. In form of cranium and facial lineaments
Eobert strongly resembled his father. With a vigorous
intellect, improved by extensive and varied reading, he
possessed a memory singularly retentive. In London he
added to his finances by giving instruction in mathematics
and in the classics. He excelled in conversation. He died
on the 14th May 1857, at the age of seventy-one ; his re-
mains were conveyed to the vault of his father's mausoleum.
He married at London, on the 24th March 1809, Anne
Sherwood, by whom he had a daughter Eliza, who married,
on the 27th September 1836, Bartholomew James Everitt,
assistant-surgeon in the East India Company's service, who
died at London on the 20th April 1840.
The only child of Mr and Mrs Everitt, Martha Burns