FIRST WINTER IN EDINBURGH
The journey of Burns from Mossgiel to Edinburgh was a sort of
triumphal progress. He rode on a pony, lent him by a friend, and as
the journey took two days, his resting-place the first night was at
the farm-house of Covington Mains, in Lanarkshire, hard by the Clyde.
The tenant of this farm, Mr. Prentice, was an enthusiastic admirer of
Burns' poems, and had subscribed for twenty copies of the second
edition. His son, years afterwards, in a letter to Christopher North,
thus describes the evening on which Burns appeared at his father's
farm:--"All the farmers in the parish had read the poet's then
published works, and were anxious to see him. They were all asked to
meet him at a late dinner, and the signal of his arrival was to be a
white sheet attached to a pitchfork, and put on the top of a corn-stack
in the barn-yard. The parish is a beautiful amphitheatre, with the
Clyde winding through it--Wellbrae Hill to the west, Tinto Hill and
the Culter Fells to the south, and the pretty, green, conical hill,
Quothquan Law, to the east. My father's stack-yard, lying in the
centre, was seen from every house in the parish. At length Burns
arrived, mounted on a borrowed _pownie_. Instantly was the white flag
hoisted, and as instantly were seen the farmers issuing from their (p. 043)
houses, and converging to the point of meeting. A glorious evening, or
rather night, which borrowed something from the morning, followed, and
the conversation of the poet confirmed and increased the admiration
created by his writings. On the following morning he breakfasted with
a large party at the next farm-house, tenanted by James Stodart; ...
took lunch with a large party at the bank in Carnwath, and rode into
Edinburgh that evening on the _pownie_, which he returned to the owner
in a few days afterwards by John Samson, the brother of the immortal
_Tam_."
This is but a sample of the kind of receptions which were henceforth
to await Burns wherever his coming was known. If such welcomes were
pleasing to his ambition, they must have been trying both to his
bodily and his mental health.
Burns reached Edinburgh on the 28th of November, 1786. The one man of
note there with whom he had any acquaintance was Professor Dugald
Stewart, whom, as already mentioned, he had met in Ayrshire. But it
was not to him or to any one of his reputation that he first turned;
but he sought refuge with John Richmond, an old Mauchline acquaintance,
who was humbly lodged in Baxter's Close, Lawnmarket. During the whole
of his first winter in Edinburgh, Burns lived in the lodging of this
poor lad, and shared with him his single room and bed, for which they
paid three shillings a week. It was from this retreat that Burns was
afterwards to go forth into the best society of the Scottish capital,
and thither, after these brief hospitalities were over, he had to
return. For some days after his arrival in town, he called on no
one--letters of introduction he had none to deliver. But he is said to
have wandered about alone, "looking down from Arthur's Seat, (p. 044)
surveying the palace, gazing at the castle, or looking into the
windows of the booksellers' shops, where he saw all books of the day,
save the poems of the Ayrshire Ploughman." He found his way to the
lowly grave of Fergusson, and, kneeling down, kissed the sod; he
sought out the house of Allan Ramsay, and, on entering it, took off
his hat. While Burns is thus employed, we may cast a glance at the
capital to which he had come, and the society he was about to enter.
Edinburgh at that time was still adorned by a large number of the
stars of literature, which, although none of those then living may
have reached the first magnitude, had together made a galaxy in the
northern heavens, from the middle till the close of last century. At
that time literature was well represented in the University. The Head
of it was Dr. Robertson, well known as the historian of Charles V.,
and as the author of other historic works. The chair of Belles Lettres
was filled by the accomplished Dr. Hugh Blair, whose lectures remain
one of the best samples of the correct and elegant, but narrow and
frigid style, both of sentiment and criticism, which then flourished
throughout Europe, and nowhere more than in Edinburgh. Another still
greater ornament of the University was Dugald Stewart, the Professor
of Moral Philosophy, whose works, if they have often been surpassed in
depth and originality of speculation, have seldom been equalled for
solid sense and polished ease of diction. The professors at that time
were most of them either taken from the ranks of the clergy, or
closely connected with them.
Among the literary men unconnected with the University by far the
greatest name, that of David Hume, had disappeared about ten years (p. 045)
before Burns arrived in the capital. But his friend, Dr. Adam Smith,
author of _The Wealth of Nations_, still lingered. Mr. Henry Mackenzie,
'The Man of Feeling,' as he was called from his best known work, was
at that time one of the most polished as well as popular writers in
Scotland. He was then conducting a periodical called the _Lounger_,
which was acknowledged as the highest tribunal of criticism in
Scotland, and was not unknown beyond it.
But even more influential than the literary lights of the University
were the magnates of the Bench and Bar. During the eighteenth century
and the earlier part of the nineteenth, the Scottish Bar was recruited
almost entirely from the younger sons of ancient Scottish families. To
the patrician feelings which they brought with them from their homes
these men added that exclusiveness which clings to a profession
claiming for itself the highest place in the city where they resided.
Modern democracy has made rude inroads on what was formerly something
of a select patrician caste. But the profession of the Bar has never
wanted either then or in more recent times some genial and original
spirits who broke through the crust of exclusiveness. Such, at the
time of Burns's advent, was Lord Monboddo, the speculative and
humorous judge, who in his own way anticipated the theory of man's
descent from the monkey. Such, too, was the genial and graceful Henry
Erskine, the brother of the Lord Chancellor of that name, the pride
and the favourite of his profession--the sparkling and ready wit who,
thirteen years before the day of Burns, had met the rude manners of
Dr. Johnson with a well-known repartee. When the Doctor visited the
Parliament House, Erskine was presented to him by Boswell, and was
somewhat gruffly received. After having made his bow, Erskine (p. 046)
slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, whispering that it was
for the sight of his _bear_!
Besides these two classes, the occupants of the Professorial chair and
of the Bar, there still gathered every winter in Edinburgh a fair
sprinkling of rank and beauty, which had not yet abandoned the
Scottish for the English capital. The leader at that time in gay
society was the well-known Duchess of Gordon,--a character so
remarkable in her day that some rumour of her still lives in Scottish
memory. The impression made upon her by Burns and his conversation
shall afterwards be noticed.
Though Burns for the first day or two after his arrival wandered about
companionless, he was not left long unfriended. Mr. Dalrymple, of
Orangefield, an Ayrshire country gentleman, a warm-hearted man, and a
zealous Freemason, who had become acquainted with Burns during the
previous summer, now introduced the Ayrshire bard to his relative, the
Earl of Glencairn. This nobleman, who had heard of Burns from his
Ayrshire factor, welcomed him in a very friendly spirit, introduced
him to his connexion, Henry Erskine, and also recommended him to the
good offices of Creech, at that time the first publisher in Edinburgh.
Of Lord Glencairn, Chambers says that "his personal beauty formed the
index to one of the fairest characters." As long as he lived he did
his utmost to befriend Burns, and on his death, a few years after this
time, the poet, who seldom praised the great unless he respected and
loved them, composed one of his most pathetic elegies.
It was not, however, to his few Ayrshire connexions only, Mr. Dalrymple,
Dugald Stewart, and others, that Burns was indebted for his introduction
to Edinburgh society. His own fame was now enough to secure it. (p. 047)
A criticism of his poems, which appeared within a fortnight after
his arrival in Edinburgh, in the _Lounger_, on the 9th of December,
did much to increase his reputation. The author of that criticism was
The Man of Feeling, and to him belongs the credit of having been the
first to claim that Burns should be recognized as a great original
poet, not relatively only, in consideration of the difficulties he had
to struggle with, but absolutely on the ground of the intrinsic
excellence of his work. He pointed to his power of delineating manners,
of painting the passions, and of describing scenery, as all bearing
the stamp of true genius; he called on his countrymen to recognize
that a great national poet had arisen amongst them, and to appreciate
the gift that in him had been bestowed upon their generation. Alluding
to his narrow escape from exile, he exhorted them to retain and to
cherish this inestimable gift of a native poet, and to repair, as far
as possible, the wrongs which suffering or neglect had inflicted on
him. The _Lounger_ had at that time a wide circulation in Scotland,
and penetrated even to England. It was known and read by the poet
Cowper, who, whether from this or some other source, became acquainted
with the poems of Burns within the first year of their publication. In
July, 1787, we find the poet of _The Task_ telling a correspondent
that he had read Burns's poems twice; "and though they be written in a
language that is new to me ... I think them, on the whole, a very
extraordinary production. He is, I believe, the only poet these
kingdoms have produced in the lower rank of life since Shakespeare (I
should rather say since Prior), who need not be indebted for any part
of his praise to a charitable consideration of his origin, and (p. 048)
the disadvantages under which he has laboured." Cowper thus endorses
the verdict of Mackenzie in almost the same language.
It did not however require such testimonials, from here and there a
literary man, however eminent, to open every hospitable door in
Edinburgh to Burns. Within a month after his arrival in town he had
been welcomed at the tables of all the celebrities--Lord Monboddo,
Robertson, the historian, Dr. Hugh Blair, Dugald Stewart, Dr. Adam
Ferguson, The Man of Feeling, Mr. Fraser Tytler, and many others. We
are surprised to find that he had been nearly two months in town
before he called on the amiable Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who in
his well-known letter to Dr. Laurie had been the first Edinburgh
authority to hail in Burns the rising of a new star.
How he bore himself throughout that winter when he was the chief lion
of Edinburgh society many records remain to show, both in his own
letters and in the reports of those who met him. On the whole, his
native good sense carried him well through the ordeal. If he showed
for the most part due respect to others, he was still more bent on
maintaining his respect for himself; indeed, this latter feeling was
pushed even to an exaggerated independence. As Mr. Lockhart has
expressed it, he showed, "in the whole strain of his bearing, his
belief that in the society of the most eminent men of his nation he
was where he was entitled to be, hardly deigning to flatter them by
exhibiting a symptom of being flattered." All who heard him were
astonished by his wonderful powers of conversation. These impressed
them, they said, with a greater sense of his genius than even his
finest poems.
With the ablest men that he met he held his own in argument, astonishing
all listeners by the strength of his judgment, and the keenness (p. 049)
of his insight both into men and things. And when he warmed on
subjects which interested him, the boldest stood amazed at the flashes
of his wit, and the vehement flow of his impassioned eloquence. With
the "high-born ladies" he succeeded even better than with the "stately
patricians,"--as one of those dames herself expressed it, fairly
carrying them off their feet by the deference of his manner, and the
mingled humour and pathos of his talk.
It is interesting to know in what dress Burns generally appeared in
Edinburgh. Soon after coming thither he is said to have laid aside his
country clothes for "a suit of blue and buff, the livery of Mr. Fox,
with buckskins and top-boots." How he wore his hair will be seen
immediately. There are several well-known descriptions of Burns's
manner and appearance during his Edinburgh sojourn, which, often as
they have been quoted, cannot be passed by in any account of his life.
Mr. Walker, who met him for the first time at breakfast in the house
of Dr. Blacklock, says, "I was not much struck by his first
appearance. His person, though strong and well-knit, and much superior
to what might be expected in a ploughman, appeared to be only of the
middle size, but was rather above it. His motions were firm and
decided, and, though without grace, were at the same time so free from
clownish constraint as to show that he had not always been confined to
the society of his profession. His countenance was not of that elegant
cast which is most frequent among the upper ranks, but it was manly
and intelligent, and marked by a thoughtful gravity which shaded at
times into sternness. In his large dark eye the most striking index of
his genius resided. It was full of mind.... He was plainly but properly
dressed, in a style midway between the holiday costume of a (p. 050)
farmer and that of the company with which he now associated. His black
hair without powder, at a time when it was generally worn, was tied
behind, and spread upon his forehead. Had I met him near a seaport, I
should have conjectured him to be the master of a merchant vessel....
In no part of his manner was there the slightest affectation; nor
could a stranger have suspected, from anything in his behaviour or
conversation, that he had been for some months the favourite of all
the fashionable circles of the metropolis. In conversation he was
powerful. His conceptions and expressions were of corresponding
vigour, and on all subjects were as remote as possible from
commonplaces. Though somewhat authoritative, it was in a way which
gave little offence, and was readily imputed to his inexperience in
those modes of smoothing dissent and softening assertion, which are
important characteristics of polished manners.
"The day after my first introduction to Burns, I supped with him at
Dr. Blair's. The other guests were few, and as they had come to meet
Burns, the Doctor endeavoured to draw him out, and to make him the
central figure of the group. Though he therefore furnished the
greatest proportion of the conversation, he did no more than what he
saw evidently was expected. From the blunders often committed by men
of genius Burns was unusually free; yet on the present occasion he
made a more awkward slip than any that are reported of the poets or
mathematicians most noted for absence of mind. Being asked from which
of the public places he had received the greatest gratification, he
named the High Church, but gave the preference as a preacher to the
colleague of our worthy entertainer, whose celebrity rested on his
pulpit eloquence, in a tone so pointed and decisive as to throw (p. 051)
the whole company into the most foolish embarrassment!" Dr. Blair,
we are told, relieved their confusion by seconding Burns's praise. The
poet saw his mistake, but had the good sense not to try to repair it.
Years afterwards he told Professor Walker that he had never spoken of
this unfortunate blunder, so painful to him had the remembrance of it
been.
There seems little doubt from all the accounts that have been
preserved, that Burns in conversation gave forth his opinions with
more decision than politeness. He had not a little of that mistaken
pride not uncommon among his countrymen, which fancies that gentle
manners and consideration for others' feelings are marks of servility.
He was for ever harping on independence, and this betrayed him into
some acts of rudeness in society which have been recorded with perhaps
too great minuteness.
Against these remarks, we must set the testimony of Dugald Stewart,
who says,--"The attentions he received from all ranks and descriptions
of persons would have turned any head but his own. I cannot say that I
perceived any unfavourable effect which they left on his mind. He
retained the same simplicity which had struck me so forcibly when
first I saw him in the country, nor did he seem to feel any additional
self-importance from the number and rank of his new acquaintance. He
walked with me in spring, early in the morning, to the Braid Hills,
when he charmed me still more by his private conversation than he had
ever done in company. He was passionately fond of the beauties of
nature; and he once told me, when I was admiring a distant prospect in
one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many smoking cottages
gave a pleasure to his mind which none could understand who had (p. 052)
not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and worth which they
contained.... The idea which his conversation conveyed of the powers
of his mind exceeded, if possible, that which is suggested by his
writings. All his faculties were, as far as I could judge, equally
vigorous, and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his
own enthusiastic and impassioned temper, than of a genius exclusively
adapted to that species of composition. I should have pronounced him
fitted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he had chosen.... The
remarks he made on the characters of men were shrewd and pointed,
though frequently inclining too much to sarcasm. His praise of those
he loved was sometimes indiscriminate and extravagant.... His wit was
ready, and always impressed with the marks of a vigorous understanding;
but, to my taste, not often pleasing or happy."
While the learned of his own day were measuring him thus coolly, and
forming their critical estimates of him, youths of the younger
generation were regarding him with far other eyes. Of Jeffrey, when a
lad in his teens, it is recorded that one day in the winter of
1786-87, as he stood on the High Street of Edinburgh, staring at a man
whose appearance struck him, a person at a shop door tapped him on the
shoulder and said, "Aye, laddie, ye may weel look at that man. That's
Robbie Burns." This was the young critic's first and last look at the
poet of his country.
But the most interesting of all the reminiscences of Burns, during his
Edinburgh visit, or indeed, during any other time, was the day when
young Walter Scott met him, and received from him that one look of
approbation.
This is the account of that meeting which Scott himself gave to (p. 053)
Lockhart: "As for Burns, I may truly say, '_Virgilium vidi tantum_.'
I was a lad of fifteen when he came to Edinburgh. I saw him one day at
the late venerable Professor Adam Fergusson's. Of course we youngsters
sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember which was
remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a
print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his
dog sitting in misery on one side,--on the other, his widow, with a
child in her arms. These lines were written beneath:--
Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain,--
Bent o'er the babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery baptized in tears.
"Burns seemed much affected by the print: he actually shed tears. He
asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself
remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's,
called by the unpromising title of The Justice of Peace. I whispered
my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who
rewarded me with a look and a word, which though of mere civility, I
then received with very great pleasure. His person was strong and
robust; his manner rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness
and simplicity. His countenance was more massive than it looks in any
of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known who he
was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school,--the
_douce gudeman_ who held his own plough. There was a strong expression
of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think,
indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, (p. 054)
and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he
spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a
human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time."
While men of the upper ranks, old and young, were thus receiving their
impressions, and forming their various estimates of Burns, he, we may
be sure, was not behind-hand in his reflections on them, and on himself.
He had by nature his full share of that gnawing self-consciousness
which haunts the irritable tribe, from which no modern poet but Walter
Scott has been able wholly to escape. While he was bearing himself
thus manfully to outward appearance, inwardly he was scrutinizing
himself and others with a morbid sensitiveness. In the heyday of his
Edinburgh popularity, he writes to Mrs. Dunlop, one of his most
trusted friends, what he repeats to other correspondents, that he had
long been at pains to take a true measure of himself and to form a
just estimate of his powers: that this self-estimate was not raised by
his present success, nor would it be depressed by future neglect; that
though the tide of popularity was now at full flood, he foresaw that
the ebb would soon set in, and that he was prepared for it. In the
same letters he speaks of his having too much pride for servility, as
though there was no third and more excellent way; of "the stubborn
pride of his own bosom," on which he seems mainly to have relied.
Indeed throughout his life there is much talk of what Mr. Carlyle well
calls the altogether barren and unfruitful principle of pride; much
prating about "a certain fancied rock of independence,"--a rock which
he found but a poor shelter when the worst ills of life overtook him.
This feeling reached its height when soon after leaving Edinburgh, (p. 055)
we find him writing to a comrade in the bitterness of his heart that
the stateliness of Edinburgh patricians and the meanness of Mauchline
plebeians had so disgusted him with his kind, that he had bought a
pocket copy of Milton to study the character of Satan, as the great
exemplar of "intrepid, unyielding independence."
If during his stay in Edinburgh, his "irascible humour" never went so
far as this, "the contumely of condescension" must have entered pretty
deeply into the soul of the proud peasant when he made the following
memorable entry in his diary, on the 9th April, 1787. After some
remarks on the difficulty of true friendship, and the hazard of losing
men's respect by being too confidential with friends, he goes on: "For
these reasons, I am determined to make these pages my confidant. I
will sketch every character that any way strikes me, to the best of my
power, with unshrinking justice. I will insert anecdotes and take down
remarks, in the old law phrase, without feud or favour.... I think a
lock and key a security at least equal to the bosom of any friend
whatever. My own private story likewise, my love adventures, my rambles;
the frowns and smiles of fortune on my bardship my poems and fragments,
that must never see the light, shall be occasionally inserted. In
short, never did four shillings purchase so much friendship, since
confidence went first to the market, or honesty was set up for
sale....
"There are few of the sore evils under the sun give me more uneasiness
and chagrin, than the comparison how a man of genius, nay, of avowed
worth, is received everywhere, with the reception which a mere ordinary
character, decorated with the trappings and futile distinctions of
fortune, meets: I imagine a man of abilities, his breast glowing (p. 056)
with honest pride, conscious that men are born equal, still giving
honour to whom honour is due; he meets at a great man's table a Squire
Something or a Sir Somebody; he knows the noble landlord at heart
gives the bard, or whatever he is, a share of his good wishes, beyond,
perhaps, any one at the table; yet how will it mortify him to see a
fellow whose abilities would scarcely have made an eightpenny tailor,
and whose heart is not worth three farthings, meet with attention, and
notice that are withheld from the son of genius and poverty!
"The noble Glencairn has wounded me to the soul here, because I dearly
esteem, respect, and love him. He showed so much attention, engrossing
attention, one day, to the only blockhead at table (the whole company
consisted of his lordship, dunder-pate, and myself), that I was within
half a point of throwing down my gage of contemptuous defiance, but he
shook my hand and looked so benevolently good at parting, God bless
him! though I should never see him more, I shall love him to my dying
day! I am pleased to think I am so capable of gratitude, as I am
miserably deficient in some other virtues."
Lockhart, after quoting largely from this Common-place Book, adds,
"This curious document has not yet been printed entire. Another
generation will, no doubt, see the whole of the confession." All that
remains of it has recently been given to the world. The original
design was not carried on, and what is left is but a fragment, written
chiefly in Edinburgh, with a few additions made at Ellisland. The only
characters which are sketched are those of Blair, Stewart, Creech, and
Greenfield. The remarks on Blair, if not very appreciative, are mild
and not unkindly. There seems to be irony in the praise of Dugald (p. 057)
Stewart for the very qualities in which Burns probably thought him to
be deficient. Creech's strangely composite character is well touched
off. Dr. Greenfield, the colleague of Dr. Blair, whose eloquence Burns
on an unfortunate occasion preferred to that of his host, alone comes
in for unaffected eulogy. The plain and manly directness of these
prose sketches is in striking contrast to the ambitious flights which
the poet attempts in many of his letters.
Dugald Stewart in his cautious way hints that Burns did not always keep
himself to the learned circles which had welcomed him, but sometimes
indulged in "not very select society." How much this cautious phrase
covers may be seen by turning to Heron's account of some of the scenes
in which Burns mingled. Tavern life was then in Edinburgh, as
elsewhere, more or less habitual in all classes. In those clubs and
brotherhoods of the middle class, which met in taverns down the closes
and wynds of High Street, Burns found a welcome, warmer, freer, more
congenial than any vouchsafed to him in more polished coteries.
Thither convened when their day's work was done, lawyers, writers,
schoolmasters, printers, shopkeepers, tradesmen,--ranting, roaring
boon companions--who gave themselves up, for the time, to coarse
songs, rough raillery, and deep drinking. At these meetings all
restraint was cast to the winds, and the mirth drove fast and furious.
With open arms the clubs welcomed the poet to their festivities; each
man proud to think that he was carousing with Robbie Burns. The poet
the while gave full vein to all his impulses, mimicking, it is said,
and satirizing his superiors in position, who, he fancied, had looked
on him coldly, paying them off by making them the butt of his raillery,
letting loose all his varied powers, wit, humour, satire, drollery,
and throwing off from time to time snatches of licentious song, (p. 058)
to be picked up by eager listeners,--song wildly defiant of all the
proprieties. The scenes which Burns there took part in far exceeded
any revelries he had seen in the clubs of Tarbolton and Mauchline, and
did him no good. If we may trust the testimony of Heron, at the
meetings of a certain Crochallan club, and at other such uproarious
gatherings, he made acquaintances who, before that winter was over,
led him on from tavern dissipations to still worse haunts and habits.
By the 21st of April (1787), the ostensible object for which Burns had
come to Edinburgh was attained, and the second edition of his poems
appeared in a handsome octavo volume. The publisher was Creech, then
chief of his trade in Scotland. The volume was published by subscription,
"for the sole benefit of the author," and the subscribers were so
numerous that the list of them covered thirty-eight pages. In that
list appeared the names of many of the chief men of Scotland, some of
whom subscribed for twenty--Lord Eglinton for as many as forty-two,
copies. Chambers thinks that full justice has never been done to the
liberality of the Scottish public in the way they subscribed for this
volume. Nothing equal to the patronage that Burns at this time met
with, had been seen since the days of Pope's Iliad. This second
edition, besides the poems which had appeared in the Kilmarnock one,
contained several additional pieces the most important of which had
been composed before the Edinburgh visit. Such were _Death and Doctor
Hornbook_, _The Brigs of Ayr_, _The Ordination_, _The Address to the
Unco Guid_. The proceeds from this volume ultimately made Burns the
possessor of about 500_l._, quite a little fortune for one who, as (p. 059)
he himself confesses, had never before had 10_l._ he could call his
own. It would, however, have been doubly welcome and useful to him,
had it been paid down without needless delay. But unfortunately this
was not Creech's way of transacting business, so that Burns was kept
for many months waiting for a settlement--months during which he could
not for want of money turn to any fixed employment, and which were
therefore spent by him unprofitably enough.