teacher of his son, was intimately acquainted with Burns, and had frequent
opportunities of judging of his general character and deportment, gives a
more amiable portrait of the bard. Being an eye-witness, the testimony of
this gentleman must be allowed to have some weight. "The truth is," says
he, "Burns was seldom _intoxicated_. The drunkard soon becomes besotted,
and is shunned even by the convivial. Had he been so, he could not have
long continued the idol of every party." This is strong reasoning; and he
goes on to mention other circumstances which seem to confirm the truth of
his position. In balancing these two statements, a juster estimate of the
moral deportment of Burns may be formed.
In the year 1792 party politics ran to a great height in Scotland, and the
liberal and independent spirit of Burns did certainly betray him into some
indiscretions. A general opinion prevails, that he so far lost the good
graces of his superiors by his conduct, as to consider all prospects of
future promotion as hopeless. But this appears not to have been the case;
and the fact that he acted as supervisor before his death is a strong
proof to the contrary. Of his political verses, few have as yet been
published. But in these he warmly espoused the cause of the Whigs, which
kept up the spleen of the other party, already sufficiently provoked; and
this may in some measure account for the bitterness with which his own
character was attacked.
Whatever opinion may be formed of the extent of his dissipation in
Dumfries, one fact is unquestionable, that his powers remained unimpaired
to the last; it was there he produced his finest lyrics, and they are the
finest, as well as the purest, that ever delighted mankind. Besides
Johnson's _Museum_, in which he took an interest to the last, and to which
he contributed most extensively, he formed a connection with Mr. George
Thomson, of Edinburgh. This gentleman had conceived the laudable design of
collecting the national melodies of Scotland, with accompaniments by the
most eminent composers, and poetry by the best writers, in addition to
those words which were originally attached to them. From the multitude of
songs which Burns wrote, from the year 1792 till the commencement of his
illness, it is evident that few days could have passed without his
producing some stanzas for the work. The following passage from his
correspondence, which was also most extensive, proves that his songs were
not hurriedly got up, but composed with the utmost care and attention.
"Until I am complete master of a tune in my own singing, such as it is,"
says he, "I can never compose for it. My way is this: I consider the
poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression--then
choose my theme--compose one stanza. When that is composed, which is
generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out--sit down
now and then--look out for objects in nature round me that are in unison
or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my
bosom--humming every now and then the air, with the verses I have framed.
When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside
of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper; swinging at intervals
on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own
critical strictures, as my pen goes. Seriously, this, at home, is almost
invariably my way." This is not only interesting for the light which it
throws upon his method of composition, but it proves that conviviality had
not as yet greater charms for him than the muse.
From his youth Burns had exhibited ominous symptoms of a radical disorder
in his constitution. A palpitation of the heart, and a derangement of the
digestive organs, were conspicuous. These were, doubtless, increased by
his indulgences, which became more frequent as he drew towards the close
of his career. In the autumn of 1795 he lost an only daughter, which was
a severe blow to him. Soon afterwards he was seized with a rheumatic
fever; and "long the die spun doubtful," says he, in a letter to his
faithful friend Mrs. Dunlap, "until, after many weeks of a sick bed, it
seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room."
The cloud behind which his sun was destined to be eclipsed at noon had
begun to darken above him. Before he had completely recovered, he had the
imprudence to join a festive circle; and, on his return from it, he caught
a cold, which brought back his trouble upon him with redoubled severity.
Sea-bathing was had recourse to, but with no ultimate success. He lingered
until the 21st of July, 1796, when he expired. The interest which the
death of Burns excited was intense. All differences were forgotten; his
genius only was thought of. On the 26th of the same month he was conveyed
to the grave, followed by about ten thousand individuals of all ranks,
many of whom had come from distant parts of the country to witness the
solemnity. He was interred with military honors by the Dumfries
volunteers, to which body he had belonged.
Thus, at the age of thirty-seven, an age when the mental powers of man
have scarcely reached their climax, died Robert Burns, one of the greatest
poets whom his country has produced. It is unnecessary to enter into any
lengthened analysis of his poetry or character. His works are universally
known and admired, and criticism has been drawn to the dregs upon the
subject; and that, too, by the greatest masters who have appeared since
his death,--no mean test of the great merits of his writings. He excels
equally in touching the heart by the exquisiteness of his pathos, and
exciting the risible faculties by the breadth of his humor. His lyre had
many strings, and he had equal command over them all; striking each, and
frequently in chords, with the skill and power of a master. That his
satire sometimes degenerates into coarse invective, can not be denied; but
where personality is not permitted to interfere, his poems of this
description may take their place beside any thing of the kind which has
ever been produced, without being disgraced by the comparison. It is
unnecessary to re-echo the praises of his best pieces, as there is no
epithet of admiration which has not been bestowed upon them. Those who had
best opportunities of judging, are of opinion that his works, stamped as
they are with the impress of sovereign genius, fall short of the powers he
possessed. It is therefore to be lamented that he undertook no great work
of fiction or invention. Had circumstances permitted, he would probably
have done so; but his excise duties, and without doubt his own follies,
prevented him. His passions were strong, and his capacity of enjoyment
corresponded with them. These continually precipitated him into the
variety of pleasure, where alone they could be gratified; and the reaction
consequent upon such indulgences (for he possessed the finest
discrimination between right and wrong) threw him into low spirits, to
which he was also constitutionally liable. His mind, being thus never for
any length of time in an equable tone, could scarcely pursue with steady
regularity a work of any length. His moral aberrations, as detailed by
some of his biographers, have been exaggerated, as already noticed. This
has been proved by the testimony of many witnesses, from whose authority
there can be no appeal; for they had the best opportunities of judging.
In fine, it may be doubted whether he has not, by his writings, exercised
a greater power over the minds of men, and the general system of life,
than has been exercised by any other modern poet. A complete edition of
his works, in four vols. 8vo., with a life, was published by Dr. Currie of
Liverpool, for the benefit of his family, to whom it realized a handsome
sum. Editions have been since multiplied beyond number; and several
excellent biographies of the poet have been published, particularly that
by Mr. Lockhart.
LIFE OF BURNS.[1]
_PART SECOND._
In the modern arrangements of society, it is no uncommon thing that a man
of genius must, like Butler, "ask for bread and receive a stone;" for, in
spite of our grand maxim of supply and demand, it is by no means the
highest excellence that men are most forward to recognize. The inventor of
a spinning-jenny is pretty sure of his reward in his own day; but the
writer of a true poem, like the apostle of a true religion, is nearly as
sure of the contrary. We do not know whether it is not an aggravation of
the injustice, that there is generally a posthumous retribution. Robert
Burns, in the course of nature, might yet have been living; but his short
life was spent in toil and penury; and he died, in the prime of his
manhood, miserable and neglected; and yet already a brave mausoleum shines
over his dust, and more than one splendid monument has been reared in
other places to his fame: the street where he languished in poverty is
called by his name; the highest personages in our literature have been
proud to appear as his commentators and admirers, and here is the _sixth_
narrative of his _Life_, that has been given to the world!
Mr. Lockhart thinks it necessary to apologize for this new attempt on such
a subject: but his readers, we believe, will readily acquit him; or, at
worst, will censure only the performance of his task, not the choice of
it. The character of Burns, indeed, is a theme that cannot easily become
either trite or exhausted; and will probably gain rather than lose in its
dimensions by the distance to which it is removed by Time. No man, it has
been said, is a hero to his valet: and this is probably true; but the
fault is at least as likely to be the valet's as the hero's: For it is
certain, that to the vulgar eye few things are wonderful that are not
distant. It is difficult for men to believe that the man, the mere man
whom they see, nay, perhaps, painfully feel, toiling at their side through
the poor jostlings of existence, can be made of finer clay than
themselves. Suppose that some dining acquaintance of Sir Thomas Lucy's,
and neighbour of John a Combe's, had snatched an hour or two from the
preservation of his game, and written us a Life of Shakspeare! What
dissertations should we not have had,--not on _Hamlet_ and _The Tempest_,
but on the wool-trade and deer-stealing, and the libel and vagrant laws!
and how the Poacher became a Player; and how Sir Thomas and Mr. John had
Christian bowels, and did not push him to extremities! In like manner, we
believe, with respect to Burns, that till the companions of his
pilgrimage, the honourable Excise Commissioners, and the Gentlemen of the
Caledonian Hunt, and the Dumfries Aristocracy, and all the Squires and
Earls, equally with the Ayr Writers, and the New and Old Light Clergy,
whom he had to do with, shall have become invisible in the darkness of the
Past, or visible only by light borrowed from _his_ juxtaposition, it will
be difficult to measure him by any true standard, or to estimate what he
really was and did, in the eighteenth century, for his country and the
world. It will be difficult, we say; but still a fare problem for
literary historians; and repeated attempts will give us repeated
approximations.
His former biographers have done something, no doubt, but by no means a
great deal, to assist us. Dr. Currie and Mr. Walker, the principal of
these writers, have both, we think, mistaken one essentially important
thing:--Their own and the world's true relation to their author, and the
style in which it became such men to think and to speak of such a man. Dr.
Currie loved the poet truly; more perhaps than he avowed to his readers,
or even to himself; yet he everywhere introduces him with a certain
patronizing, apologetic air; as if the polite public might think it
strange and half unwarrantable that he, a man of science, a scholar, and
gentleman, should do such honour to a rustic. In all this, however, we
readily admit that his fault was not want of love, but weakness of faith;
and regret that the first and kindest of all our poet's biographers should
not have seen farther, or believed more boldly what he saw. Mr. Walker
offends more deeply in the same kind: and both err alike in presenting us
with a detached catalogue of his several supposed attributes, virtues, and
vices, instead of a delineation of the resulting character as a living
unity. This, however, is not painting a portrait; but gauging the length
and breadth of the several features, and jotting down their dimensions in
arithmetical ciphers. Nay, it is not so much as this: for we are yet to
learn by what arts or instruments the mind _could_ be so measured and
gauged.
Mr. Lockhart, we are happy to say, has avoided both these errors. He
uniformly treats Burns as the high and remarkable man the public voice has
now pronounced him to be: and in delineating him, he has avoided the
method of separate generalities, and rather sought for characteristic
incidents, habits, actions, sayings; in a word, for aspects which exhibit
the whole man, as he looked and lived among his fellows. The book
accordingly, with all its deficiencies, gives more insight, we think, into
the true character of Burns, than any prior biography; though, being
written on the very popular and condensed scheme of an article for
_Constable's Miscellany_, it has less depth than we could have wished and
expected from a writer of such power, and contains rather more, and more
multifarious, quotations, than belong of right to an original production.
Indeed, Mr. Lockhart's own writing is generally so good, so clear, direct,
and nervous, that we seldom wish to see it making place for another man's.
However, the spirit of the work is throughout candid, tolerant, and
anxiously conciliating; compliments and praises are liberally
distributed, on all hands, to great and small; and, as Mr. Morris Birkbeck
observes of the society in the backwoods of America, "the courtesies of
polite life are never lost sight of for a moment." But there are better
things than these in the volume; and we can safely testify, not only that
it is easily and pleasantly read a first time, but may even be without
difficulty read again.
Nevertheless, we are far from thinking that the problem of Burns's
Biography has yet been adequately solved. We do not allude so much to
deficiency of facts or documents,--though of these we are still every day
receiving some fresh accession,--as to the limited and imperfect
application of them to the great end of Biography. Our notions upon this
subject may perhaps appear extravagant; but if an individual is really of
consequence enough to have his life and character recorded for public
remembrance, we have always been of opinion, that the public ought to be
made acquainted with all the inward springs and relations of his
character. How did the world and man's life, from his particular position,
represent themselves to his mind? How did coexisting circumstances modify
him from without? how did he modify these from within? With what endeavors
and what efficacy rule over them? with what resistance and what suffering
sink under them? In one word, what and how produced was the effect of
society on him? what and how produced was his effect on society? He who
should answer these questions, in regard to any individual, would, as we
believe, furnish a model of perfection in biography. Few individuals,
indeed, can deserve such a study; and many _lives_ will be written, and,
for the gratification of innocent curiosity, ought to be written, and
read, and forgotten, which are not in this sense _biographies_. But Burns,
if we mistake not, is one of these few individuals; and such a study, at
least with such a result, he has not yet obtained. Our own contributions
to it, we are aware, can be but scanty and feeble; but we offer them with
goodwill, and trust they may meet with acceptance from those for whom they
are intended.
Burns first came upon the world as a prodigy; and was, in that character,
entertained by it, in the usual fashion, with loud, vague, tumultuous
wonder, speedily subsiding into censure and neglect; till his early and
most mournful death again awakened an enthusiasm for him, which,
especially as there was now nothing to be done, and much to be spoken, has
prolonged itself even to our own time. It is true, the "nine days" have
long since elapsed; and the very continuance of this clamor proves that
Burns was no vulgar wonder. Accordingly, even in sober judgments, where,
as years passed by, he has come to rest more and more exclusively on his
own intrinsic merits, and may now be well nigh shorn of that casual
radiance, he appears not only as a true British poet, but as one of the
most considerable British men of the eighteenth century. Let it not be
objected that he did little: he did much, if we consider where and how. If
the work performed was small, we must remember that he had his very
materials to discover; for the metal he worked in lay hid under the
desert, where no eye but his had guessed its existence; and we may almost
say, that with his own hand he had to construct the tools for fashioning
it. For he found himself in deepest obscurity, without help, without
instruction, without model; or with models only of the meanest sort. An
educated man stands, as it were, in the midst of a boundless arsenal and
magazine, filled with all the weapons and engines which man's skill has
been able to devise from the earliest time; and he works, accordingly,
with a strength borrowed from all past ages. How different is _his_ state
who stands on the outside of that storehouse, and feels that its gates
must be stormed, or remain for ever shut against him? His means are the
commonest and rudest; the mere work done is no measure of his strength. A
dwarf behind his steam engine may remove mountains; but no dwarf will hew
them down with the pick-axe; and he must be a Titan that hurls them abroad
with his arms.
It is in this last shape that Burns presents himself. Born in an age the
most prosaic Britain had yet seen, and in a condition the most
disadvantageous, where his mind, if it accomplished aught, must
accomplish it under the pressure of continual bodily toil, nay, of penury
and desponding apprehension of the worst evils, and with no furtherance
but such knowledge as dwells in a poor man's hut, and the rhymes of a
Ferguson or Ramsay for his standard of beauty, he sinks not under all
these impediments. Through the fogs and darkness of that obscure region,
his eagle eye discerns the true relations of the world and human life; he
grows into intellectual strength, and trains himself into intellectual
expertness. Impelled by the irrepressible movement of his inward spirit,
he struggles forward into the general view, and with haughty modesty lays
down before us, as the fruit of his labor, a gift, which Time has now
pronounced imperishable. Add to all this, that his darksome, drudging
childhood and youth was by far the kindliest era of his whole life; and
that he died in his thirty-seventh year; and then ask if it be strange
that his poems are imperfect, and of small extent, or that his genius
attained no mastery in its art? Alas, his Sun shone as through a tropical
tornado; and the pale Shadow of Death eclipsed it at noon! Shrouded in
such baleful vapors, the genius of Burns was never seen in clear azure
splendor, enlightening the world. But some beams from it did, by fits,
pierce through; and it tinted those clouds with rainbow and orient colors
into a glory and stern grandeur, which men silently gazed on with wonder
and tears!
We are anxious not to exaggerate; for it is exposition rather than
admiration that our readers require of us here; and yet to avoid some
tendency to that side is no easy matter. We love Burns, and we pity him;
and love and pity are prone to magnify. Criticism, it is sometimes
thought, should be a cold business; we are not so sure of this; but, at
all events, our concern with Burns is not exclusively that of critics.
True and genial as his poetry must appear, it is not chiefly as a poet,
but as a man, that he interests and affects us. He was often advised to
write a tragedy: time and means were not lent him for this; but through
life he enacted a tragedy, and one of the deepest. We question whether the
world has since witnessed so utterly sad a scene; whether Napoleon
himself, left to brawl with Sir Hudson Lowe, and perish on his rock, "amid
the melancholy main," presented to the reflecting mind such a "spectacle
of pity and fear," as did this intrinsically nobler, gentler, and perhaps
greater soul, wasting itself away in a hopeless struggle with base
entanglements, which coiled closer and closer round him, till only death
opened him an outlet. Conquerors are a race with whom the world could
well dispense; nor can the hard intellect, the unsympathizing loftiness,
and high but selfish enthusiasm of such persons, inspire us in general
with any affection; at best it may excite amazement; and their fall, like
that of a pyramid, will be beheld with a certain sadness and awe. But a
true Poet, a man in whose heart resides some effluence of Wisdom, some
tone of the "Eternal Melodies," is the most precious gift that can be
bestowed on a generation: we see in him a freer, purer, development of
whatever is noblest in ourselves; his life is a rich lesson to us, and we
mourn his death, as that of a benefactor who loved and taught us.