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.