clearness of head than for warmth of heart: with the exception of the
good old Blacklock,[93] whose help was too ineffectual, scarcely one
among them seems to have looked at Burns with any true sympathy, or
indeed much otherwise than as at a highly curious _thing_. By the
great also he is treated in the customary fashion; entertained at
their {63} tables and dismissed: certain modica of pudding and praise
are, from time to time, gladly exchanged for the fascination of his
presence; which exchange once effected, the bargain is finished, and
each party goes his several way. At the end of this strange season,
Burns gloomily sums up his gains and losses, and meditates on the
chaotic future. In money he is somewhat richer; in fame and the show
of happiness, infinitely richer; but in the substance of it, as poor
as ever. Nay poorer; for his heart is now maddened still more with
the fever of worldly Ambition; and through long years the disease
will rack him with unprofitable sufferings, and weaken his strength
for all true and nobler aims.
What Burns was next to do or to avoid; how a man so circumstanced was
now to guide himself towards his true advantage, might at this point
of time have been a question for the wisest. It was a question too,
which apparently he was left altogether to answer for himself: of his
learned or rich patrons it had not struck any individual to turn a
thought on this so trivial matter. Without claiming for Burns the
praise of perfect sagacity, we must say, that his Excise and Farm
scheme does not seem to us a very unreasonable one; that we should be
at a loss, even now, to suggest one decidedly better. Certain of his
admirers have felt scandalized at his ever resolving to _gauge_; and
would have had him lie at the pool, till the spirit of Patronage
stirred the waters, that so, with one friendly plunge, all his
sorrows might be healed.[94] Unwise counsellors! They know not the
manner of this spirit; and how, in the lap of most golden dreams, a
man might have happiness, {64} were it not that in the interim he
must die of hunger! It reflects credit on the manliness and sound
sense of Burns, that he felt so early on what ground he was standing;
and preferred self-help, on the humblest scale, to dependence and
inaction, though with hope of far more splendid possibilities. But
even these possibilities were not rejected in his scheme: he might
expect, if it chanced that he _had_ any friend, to rise, in no long
period, into something even like opulence and leisure; while again,
if it chanced that he had no friend, he could still live in security;
and for the rest, he "did not intend to borrow honor from any
profession."[95] We reckon that his plan was honest and
well-calculated: all turned on the execution of it. Doubtless it
failed; yet not, we believe, from any vice inherent in itself.[96]
Nay, after all, it was no failure of external means, but of internal,
that overtook Burns. His was no bankruptcy of the purse, {65} but of
the soul; to his last day, he owed no man any thing.[97]
Meanwhile he begins well: with two good and wise actions. His
donation to his mother, munificent from a man whose income had lately
been seven pounds a-year, was worthy of him, and not more than
worthy. Generous also, and worthy of him, was the treatment of the
woman whose life's welfare now depended on his pleasure. A friendly
observer might have hoped serene days for him: his mind is on the
true road to peace with itself: what clearness he still wants will be
given as he proceeds; for the best teacher of duties, that still lie
dim to us, is the Practice of those we see and have at hand. Had the
"patrons of genius," who could give him nothing, but taken nothing
from him, at least nothing more! The wounds of his heart would have
healed, vulgar ambition would have died away. Toil and frugality
would have been welcome, since Virtue dwelt with them; and Poetry
would have shone through them as of old: and in her clear ethereal
light, which was his own by birthright, he might have looked down on
his earthly destiny, and all its obstructions, not with patience
only, but with love.
But the patrons of genius would not have it so. Picturesque
tourists,[98] all manner of fashionable {66} danglers after
literature, and, far worse, all manner of convivial Mæcenases,[99]
hovered round him in his retreat; and his good as well as his weak
qualities secured them influence over him. He was flattered by their
notice; and his warm social nature made it impossible for him to
shake them off, and hold on his way apart from them. These men, as
we believe, were proximately the means of his ruin. Not that they
meant him any ill; they only meant themselves a little good; if he
suffered harm, let _him_ look to it! But they wasted his precious
time and his precious talent; they disturbed his composure, broke
down his returning habits of temperance and assiduous contented
exertion. Their pampering was baneful to him; their cruelty, which
soon followed, was equally baneful. The old grudge against Fortune's
inequality awoke with new bitterness in their neighborhood; and Burns
had no retreat but to "the Rock of {67} Independence," which is but
an air-castle after all, that looks well at a distance, but will
screen no one from real wind and wet. Flushed with irregular
excitement, exasperated alternately by contempt of others, and
contempt of himself, Burns was no longer regaining his peace of mind,
but fast losing it forever. There was a hollowness at the heart of
his life, for his conscience did not now approve what he was doing.
Amid the vapors of unwise enjoyment, of bootless remorse, and angry
discontent with Fate, his true loadstar, a life of Poetry, with
Poverty, nay with Famine if it must be so, was too often altogether
hidden from his eyes. And yet he sailed a sea, where without some
such loadstar there was no right steering. Meteors of French
Politics rise before him, but these were not _his_ stars. An
accident this, which hastened, but did not originate, his worst
distresses. In the mad contentions of that time, he comes in
collision with certain official Superiors; is wounded by them;
cruelly lacerated, we should say, could a dead mechanical implement,
in any case, be called cruel: and shrinks, in indignant pain, into
deeper self-seclusion, into gloomier moodiness than ever. His life
has now lost its unity: it is a life of fragments; led with little
aim, beyond the melancholy one of securing its own continuance,--in
fits of wild false joy when such offered, and of black despondency
when they passed away. His character before the world begins to
suffer: calumny is busy with him; for a miserable man makes more
enemies than friends. Some faults he has fallen into, and a thousand
misfortunes; but deep criminality is what he stands accused of, and
they that are _not_ without sin cast the first stone at {68} him!
For is he not a well-wisher to the French Revolution, a Jacobin, and
therefore in that one act guilty of all? These accusations,
political and moral, it has since appeared, were false enough: but
the world hesitated little to credit them.[100] Nay his convivial
Mæcenases themselves were not the last to do it. There is reason to
believe that, in his later years, the Dumfries Aristocracy had partly
withdrawn themselves from Burns, as from a tainted person, no longer
worthy of their acquaintance. That painful class, stationed, in all
provincial cities, behind the outmost breastwork of Gentility, there
to stand siege and do battle against the intrusions of Grocerdom and
Grazierdom, had actually seen dishonor in the society of Burns, and
branded him with their veto; had, as we vulgarly say, _cut_ him! We
find one passage in this Work of Mr. Lockhart's, which will not out
of our thoughts:--
"A gentleman of that county, whose name I have already more than once
had occasion to refer to, has often told me that he was seldom more
grieved, than when riding into Dumfries one fine summer evening about
this time to attend a county ball, he saw Burns walking alone, on the
shady side of the principal street of the town, while the opposite
side was gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all
drawn together for the festivities of the night, not one of whom
appeared willing to recognize him. The horseman dismounted, and
joined Burns, who on his proposing to cross the street said: 'Nay,
nay, my young friend, that's all over now;' and quoted, after a
pause, some verses of Lady Grizzel Baillie's pathetic ballad:--
{69}
'His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow,
His auld ane look'd better than mony ane's new;
But now he lets 't wear ony way it will hing,
And casts himsell dowie upon the corn-bing.
'O, were we young as we ance hae been,
We sud hae been gallopping down on yon green,
And linking it ower the lily-white lea!
_And werena my heart light, I wad die_.'
It was little in Burns's character to let his feelings on certain
subjects escape in this fashion. He, immediately after reciting
these verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner;
and taking his young friend home with him, entertained him very
agreeably till the hour of the ball arrived."[101]
Alas! when we think that Burns now sleeps "where bitter indignation
can no longer lacerate his heart,"[102] and that most of those fair
dames and frizzled gentlemen already lie at his side, where the
breastwork of gentility is quite thrown down,--who would not sigh
over the thin delusions and foolish toys that divide heart from
heart, and make man unmerciful to his brother!
It was not now to be hoped that the genius of Burns would ever reach
maturity, or accomplish aught worthy of itself. His spirit was
jarred in its melody; not the soft breath of natural feeling, but the
rude hand of Fate, was now sweeping over the strings. And yet what
harmony was in him, what music even in his discords! How the wild
tones had a charm for the simplest and the wisest; and all men felt
and knew that here also was one of the Gifted! "If he {70} entered
an inn at midnight, after all the inmates were in bed, the news of
his arrival circulated from the cellar to the garret; and ere ten
minutes had elapsed, the landlord and all his guests were assembled!"
Some brief pure moments of poetic life were yet appointed him, in the
composition of his Songs. We can understand how he grasped at this
employment; and how, too, he spurned all other reward for it but what
the labor itself brought him. For the soul of Burns, though scathed
and marred, was yet living in its full moral strength, though sharply
conscious of its errors and abasement; and here, in his destitution
and degradation, was one act of seeming nobleness and
self-devotedness left even for him to perform. He felt, too, that
with all the "thoughtless follies" that had "laid him low,"[103] the
world was unjust and cruel to him; and he silently appealed to
another and calmer time. Not as a hired soldier, but as a patriot,
would he strive for the glory of his country: so he cast from him the
poor sixpence a-day, and served zealously as a volunteer. Let us not
grudge him this last luxury of his existence; let him not have
appealed to us in vain! The money was not necessary to him; he
struggled through without it: long since, these guineas would have
been gone, and now the high-mindedness of refusing them will plead
for him in all hearts forever.
We are here arrived at the crisis of Burns's life; for matters had
now taken such a shape with him as could not long continue. If
improvement was not to be looked for, Nature could only for a limited
time maintain this dark and maddening warfare against the world and
itself. We are not medically informed {71} whether any continuance
of years was, at this period, probable for Burns; whether his death
is to be looked on as in some sense an accidental event, or only as
the natural consequence of the long series of events that had
preceded. The latter seems to be the likelier opinion; and yet it is
by no means a certain one. At all events, as we have said, _some_
change could not be very distant. Three gates of deliverance, it
seems to us, were open for Burns: clear poetical activity; madness;
or death. The first, with longer life, was still possible, though
not probable; for physical causes were beginning to be concerned in
it: and yet Burns had an iron resolution; could he but have seen and
felt, that not only his highest glory, but his first duty, and the
true medicine for all his woes, lay here. The second was still less
probable; for his mind was ever among the clearest and firmest. So
the milder third gate was opened for him: and he passed, not softly
yet speedily, into that still country, where the hail-storms and
fire-showers do not reach, and the heaviest-laden wayfarer at length
lays down his load!
Contemplating this sad end of Burns, and how he sank unaided by any
real help, uncheered by any wise sympathy, generous minds have
sometimes figured to themselves, with a reproachful sorrow, that much
might have been done for him; that by counsel, true affection and
friendly ministrations, he might have been saved to himself and the
world. We question whether there is not more tenderness of heart
than soundness of judgment in these suggestions. It seems dubious to
us whether the richest, wisest, most benevolent individual could have
lent Burns any effectual help. Counsel, which seldom profits any
one, {72} he did not need; in his understanding, he knew the right
from the wrong, as well perhaps as any man ever did; but the
persuasion, which would have availed him, lies not so much in the
head as in the heart, where no argument or expostulation could have
assisted much to implant it. As to money again, we do not believe
that this was his essential want; or well see how any private man
could, even presupposing Burns's consent, have bestowed on him an
independent fortune, with much prospect of decisive advantage. It is
a mortifying truth, that two men, in any rank of society, could
hardly be found virtuous enough to give money, and to take it as a
necessary gift, without injury to the moral entireness of one or
both. But so stands the fact: Friendship, in the old heroic sense of
that term, no longer exists: except in the cases of kindred or other
legal affinity, it is in reality no longer expected, or recognized as
a virtue among men. A close observer of manners has pronounced
"Patronage," that is, pecuniary or other economic furtherance, to be
"twice cursed;" cursing him that gives, and him that takes![104] And
thus, in regard to outward matters also, it has become the rule, as
in regard to inward it always was and must be the rule, that no one
shall look for effectual help to another; but that each shall rest
contented with what help he can afford himself. Such, we say, is the
principle of modern Honor; naturally enough growing out of that
sentiment of Pride, which we inculcate and encourage as the basis of
our whole social morality. Many a poet has been poorer than Burns;
but no one was ever prouder: we may question whether, without great
precautions, even a pension {73} from Royalty would not have galled
and encumbered, more than actually assisted him.
Still less, therefore, are we disposed to join with another class of
Burns's admirers, who accuse the higher ranks among us of having
ruined Burns by their selfish neglect of him. We have already stated
our doubts whether direct pecuniary help, had it been offered, would
have been accepted, or could have proved very effectual. We shall
readily admit, however, that much was to be done for Burns; that many
a poisoned arrow might have been warded from his bosom; many an
entanglement in his path cut asunder by the hand of the powerful; and
light and heat, shed on him from high places, would have made his
humble atmosphere more genial; and the softest heart then breathing
might have lived and died with some fewer pangs. Nay, we shall grant
farther, and for Burns it is granting much, that, with all his pride,
he would have thanked, even with exaggerated gratitude, any one who
had cordially befriended him: patronage, unless once cursed, needed
not to have been twice so. At all events, the poor promotion he
desired in his calling might have been granted: it was his own
scheme, therefore likelier than any other to be of service. All this
it might have been a luxury, nay it was a duty, for our nobility to
have done. No part of all this, however, did any of them do; or
apparently attempt, or wish to do: so much is granted against them.
But what then is the amount of their blame? Simply that they were
men of the world, and walked by the principles of such men; that they
treated Burns, as other nobles and other commoners had done other
poets; as the English did Shakespeare; as King Charles and his
Cavaliers did {74} Butler,[105] as King Philip and his Grandees did
Cervantes. Do men gather grapes of thorns;[106] or shall we cut down
our thorns for yielding only a _fence_ and haws? How, indeed, could
the "nobility and gentry of his native land" hold out any help to
this "Scottish Bard, proud of his name and country"?[107] Were the
nobility and gentry so much as able rightly to help themselves? Had
they not their game to preserve; their borough interests to
strengthen; dinners, therefore, of various kinds to eat and give?
Were their means more than adequate to all this business, or less
than adequate? Less than adequate, in general; few of them in
reality were richer than Burns; many of them were poorer; for
sometimes they had to wring their supplies, as with thumbscrews, from
the hard hand; and, in their need of guineas, to forget their duty of
mercy; which Burns was never reduced to do. Let us pity and forgive
them. The game they preserved and shot, the dinners they ate and
gave, the borough interests they strengthened, the _little_ Babylons
they severally builded by the glory of their might,[108] are all
melted or melting back into the primeval Chaos, as man's merely
selfish endeavors are fated to do: and here was an action, extending,
in virtue of its worldly influence, we may say, through all time; in
virtue of its moral nature, beyond all time, being immortal as the
Spirit of Goodness itself; this action was offered them to do, and
light was not given {75} them to do it. Let us pity and forgive
them. But better than pity, let us go and _do otherwise_. Human
suffering did not end with the life of Burns; neither was the solemn
mandate, "Love one another, bear one another's burdens,"[109] given
to the rich only, but to all men. True, we shall find no Burns to
relieve, to assuage by our aid or our pity; but celestial natures,
groaning under the fardels of a weary life, we shall still find; and
that wretchedness which Fate has rendered _voiceless_ and _tuneless_
is not the least wretched, but the most.[110]
Still we do not think that the blame of Burns's failure lies chiefly
with the world. The world, it seems to us, treated him with more
rather than with less kindness than it usually shows to such men. It
has ever, we fear, shown but small favor to its Teachers: hunger and
nakedness, perils and revilings, the prison, the cross, the
poison-chalice have, in most times and countries, been the
market-price it has offered for Wisdom, the welcome with which it has
greeted those who have come to enlighten and purify it. Homer and
Socrates, and the Christian Apostles, belong to old days; but the
world's Martyrology was not completed with these. Roger Bacon and
Galileo languish in priestly dungeons; Tasso pines in the cell of a
madhouse; Camoens dies begging on the streets of Lisbon.[111] So
neglected, so "persecuted they the {76} Prophets,"[112] not in Judea
only, but in all places where men have been. We reckon that every
poet of Burns's order is, or should be, a prophet and teacher to his
age; that he has no right to expect great kindness from it, but
rather is bound to do it great kindness; that Burns, in particular,
experienced fully the usual proportion of the world's goodness; and
that the blame of his failure, as we have said, lies not chiefly with
the world.
Where, then, does it lie? We are forced to answer: With himself; it
is his inward, not his outward, misfortunes that bring him to the
dust. Seldom, indeed, is it otherwise; seldom is a life morally
wrecked but the grand cause lies in some internal mal-arrangement,
some want less of good fortune than of good guidance. Nature
fashions no creature without implanting in it the strength needful
for its action and duration; least of all does she so neglect her
masterpiece and darling, the poetic soul. Neither can we believe
that it is in the power of _any_ external circumstances utterly to
ruin the mind of a man; nay, if proper wisdom be given him, even so
much as to affect its essential health and beauty. The sternest
sum-total of all worldly misfortunes is Death; nothing more _can_ lie
in the cup of human woe: yet many men, in all ages, have triumphed
over Death, and led it captive;[113] converting its physical victory
into a moral victory for themselves, into a seal and immortal
consecration for all that their past life had achieved. What has
been done, may be done again: nay it is but the degree and not the
kind of such heroism that differs in different seasons; for without
{77} some portion of this spirit, not of boisterous daring, but of
silent fearlessness, of Self-denial in all its forms, no good man, in
any scene or time, has ever attained to be good.[114]
We have already stated the error of Burns; and mourned over it,
rather than blamed it. It was the want of unity in his purposes, of
consistency in his aims; the hapless attempt to mingle in friendly
union the common spirit of the world with the spirit of poetry, which
is of a far different and altogether irreconcilable nature. Burns
was nothing wholly, and Burns could be nothing, no man formed as he
was can be anything, by halves. The heart, not of a mere
hot-blooded, popular Verse-monger, or poetical _Restaurateur_,[115]
but of a true Poet and Singer, worthy of the old religious heroic
times, had been given him: and he fell in an age, not of heroism and
religion, but of scepticism, selfishness, and triviality, when true
Nobleness was little understood, and its place supplied by a hollow,
dissocial, altogether barren and unfruitful principle of Pride. The
influences of that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to say
nothing of his highly untoward situation, made it more than usually
difficult for him to cast aside, or rightly subordinate; the better
spirit that was within him ever sternly demanded its rights, its
supremacy: he spent his life in endeavoring to reconcile these two;
and lost it, as he must lose it, without reconciling them.
{78}