CHARACTER, POEMS, SONGS.
If this narrative has in any way succeeded in giving the lights and
the shadows of Burns's life, little comment need now be added. The
reader will, it is hoped, gather from the brief record of facts here
presented, a better impression of the man as he was, in his strength
and in his weakness, than from any attempt which might have been made
to bring his various qualities together into a moral portrait. Those
who wish to see a comment on his character, at once wise and tender,
should turn to Mr. Carlyle's famous essay on Burns.
What estimate is to be formed of Burns--not as a poet, but as a
man--is a question that will long be asked, and will be variously
answered, according to the principles men hold, and the temperament
they are of. Men of the world will regard him in one way, worshippers
of genius in another; and there are many whom the judgments of neither
of these will satisfy. One thing is plain to every one; it is the
contradiction between the noble gifts he had and the actual life he
lived, which make his career the painful tragedy it was. When,
however, we look more closely into the original outfit of the man, we
seem in some sort to see how this came to be.
Given a being born into the world with a noble nature, endowments (p. 189)
of head and heart beyond any of his time, wide-ranging sympathies,
intellectual force of the strongest man, sensibility as of the
tenderest woman, possessed also by a keen sense of right and wrong
which he had brought from a pure home--place all these high gifts on
the one side, and over against them a lower nature, fierce and
turbulent, filling him with wild passions which were hard to restrain
and fatal to indulge--and between these two opposing natures, a weak
and irresolute will, which could overhear the voice of conscience, but
had no strength to obey it; launch such a man on such a world as this,
and it is but too plain what the end will be. From earliest manhood
till the close, flesh and spirit were waging within him interminable
war, and who shall say which had the victory? Among his countrymen
there are many who are so captivated with his brilliant gifts and his
genial temperament, that they will not listen to any hint at the deep
defects which marred them. Some would even go so far as to claim
honour for him, not only as Scotland's greatest poet, but as one of
the best men she has produced. Those who thus try to canonize Burns
are no true friends to his memory. They do but challenge the
counter-verdict, and force men to recall facts which, if they cannot
forget, they would fain leave in silence. These moral defects it is
ours to know; it is not ours to judge him who had them.
While some would claim for Burns a niche among Scotland's saints,
others would give him rank as one of her religious teachers. This
claim, if not so absurd as the other, is hardly more tenable. The
religion described by Burns in _The Cotter's Saturday Night_ is, it
should be remembered, his father's faith, not his own. The fundamental
truths of natural religion, faith in God and in immortality, amid (p. 190)
sore trials of heart, he no doubt clung to, and has forcibly
expressed. But there is nothing in his poems or in his letters which
goes beyond sincere deism--nothing which is in any way distinctively
Christian.
Even were his teaching of religion much fuller than it is, one
essential thing is still wanting. Before men can accept any one as a
religious teacher, they not unreasonably expect that his practice
should in some measure bear out his teaching. It was not as an
authority on such matters that Burns ever regarded himself. In his
_Bard's Epitaph_, composed ten years before his death, he took a far
truer and humbler measure of himself than any of his critics or
panegyrists have done:---
The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn and wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow
And softer flame;
But thoughtless folly laid him low,
And stained his name.
Reader, attend!--whether thy soul
Soars fancy's flight beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit;
Know, prudent, cautious self-control
Is wisdom's root.
"A confession," says Wordsworth, "at once devout, poetical, and
human--a history in the shape of a prophecy."
Leaving the details of his personal story, and--
Each unquiet theme,
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
it is a great relief to turn to the bequest that he has left to (p. 191)
the world in his poetry. How often has one been tempted to wish that
we had known as little of the actual career of Burns as we do of the
life of Shakespeare, or even of Homer, and had been left to read his
mind and character only by the light of his works! That poetry, though
a fragmentary, is still a faithful transcript of what was best in the
man; and though his stream of song contains some sediment we could
wish away, yet as a whole, how vividly, clearly, sunnily it flows, how
far the good preponderates over the evil.
What that good is, must now be briefly said. To take his earliest
productions first, his poems as distinct from his songs. Almost all
the best of these are, with the one notable exception of _Tam O'
Shanter_, contained in the Kilmarnock edition. A few pieces actually
composed before he went to Edinburgh were included in later editions,
but, after leaving Mossgiel he never seriously addressed himself to
any form of poetry but song-writing. The Kilmarnock volume contains
poems descriptive of peasant life and manners, epistles in verse
generally to rhyming brethren, a few lyrics on personal feelings, or
on incidents like those of the mouse and the daisy, and three songs.
In these, the form, the metre, the style and language, even that which
is known as Burns's peculiar stanza, all belong to the traditional
forms of his country's poetry, and from earlier bards had been handed
down to Burns by his two immediate forerunners, Ramsay and Fergusson.
To these two he felt himself indebted, and for them he always
expresses a somewhat exaggerated admiration. Nothing can more show
Burns's inherent power than to compare his poems with even the best of
those which he accepted as models. The old framework and metres which
his country supplied, he took; asked no other, no better, and into (p. 192)
those old bottles poured new wine of his own, and such wine! What,
then, is the peculiar flavour of this new poetic wine of Burns'
poetry? At the basis of all his power lay absolute truthfulness,
intense reality, truthfulness to the objects which he saw,
truthfulness to himself as the seer of them. This is what Wordsworth
recognized as Burns's leading characteristic. He who acknowledged few
masters, owned Burns as his master in this respect when he speaks of
him--
Whose light I hailed when first it shone,
And showed my youth,
How verse may build a princely throne
On humble truth.
Here was a man, a son of toil, looking out on the world from his
cottage, on society low and high and on nature homely or beautiful,
with the clearest eye, the most piercing insight, and the warmest
heart; touching life at a hundred points, seeing to the core all the
sterling worth, nor less the pretence and hollowness of the men he
met, the humour, the drollery, the pathos, and the sorrow of human
existence; and expressing what he saw, not in the stock phrases of
books, but in his own vernacular, the language of his fireside, with a
directness, a force, a vitality that tingled to the finger tips, and
forced the phrases of his peasant dialect into literature, and made
them for ever classical. Large sympathy, generous enthusiasm, reckless
abandonment, fierce indignation, melting compassion, rare flashes of
moral insight, all are there. Everywhere you see the strong intellect
made alive, and driven home to the mark, by the fervid heart behind
it. And if the sight of the world's inequalities, and some natural
repining at his own obscure lot, mingled from the beginning, as (p. 193)
has been said, "some bitternesses of earthly spleen and passion with
the workings of his inspiration, and if these in the end ate deep into
the great heart they had long tormented," who that has not known his
experience may venture too strongly to condemn him?
This prevailing truthfulness of nature and of vision manifested itself
in many ways. First. In the strength of it, he interpreted the lives,
thoughts, feelings, manners of the Scottish peasantry to whom he
belonged, as they had never been interpreted before, and never can be
again. Take the poem which stands first in the Kilmarnock edition. The
Cotter's Dog, and the Laird's Dog, are, as has been often said, for
all their moralizing, true dogs in all their ways. Yet through these,
while not ceasing to be dogs, the poet represents the whole contrast
between the Cotters' lives, and their Lairds'. This old controversy,
which is ever new, between rich and poor, has never been set forth
with more humour and power. No doubt it is done from the peasant's
point of view. The virtues and hardships of the poor have full justice
done to them; the prosperity of the rich, with its accompanying
follies and faults, is not spared, perhaps it is exaggerated. The
whole is represented with an inimitably graphic hand, and just when
the caustic wit is beginning to get too biting, the edge of it is
turned by a touch of kindlier humour. The poor dog speaks of
Some gentle master,
Wha, aiblins thrang a-parliamentin,
For Britain's guid his saul indentin--
Then Caesar, the rich man's dog, replies,--
Haith, lad, ye little ken about it:
For Britain's guid!--guid faith! I doubt it.
Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him, (p. 194)
An' saying aye or no's they bid him:
At operas an' plays parading,
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading!
Or, may be, in a frolic daft,
To Hague or Calais takes a waft,
To make a tour an' tak a whirl,
To learn _bon ton_, an' see the worl'.
Then, at Vienna or Versailles,
He rives his father's auld entails;
Or by Madrid he takes the rout,
To thrum guitars and fecht wi' nowt.
* * * * *
For Britain's guid! for her destruction!
Wi' dissipation, feud an' faction.
Then exclaims Luath, the poor man's dog,--
Hech, man! dear sirs! is that the gate
They waste sae many a braw estate!
Are we sae foughten and harass'd
For gear to gang that gate at last?
And yet he allows, that for all that
---- Thae frank, rantin', ramblin' billies,
Fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows.
"Mark the power of that one word, 'nowt,'" said the late Thomas Aird.
"If the poet had said that our young fellows went to Spain to fight
with bulls, there would have been some dignity in the thing, but think
of his going all that way 'to fecht wi' nowt.' It was felt at once to
be ridiculous. That one word conveyed at once a statement of the
folly, and a sarcastic rebuke of the folly."
Or turn to the poem of _Halloween_. Here he has sketched the Ayrshire
peasantry as they appeared in their hours of merriment--painted with a
few vivid strokes a dozen distinct pictures of country lads and (p. 195)
lasses, sires and dames, and at the same time preserved for ever
the remembrance of antique customs and superstitious observances,
which even in Burns's day were beginning to fade, and have now all but
disappeared.
Or again, take _The auld Farmer's New-year-morning Salutation to his
auld Mare_. In this homely, but most kindly humorous poem, you have
the whole toiling life of a ploughman and his horse, done off in two
or three touches, and the elements of what may seem a commonplace, but
was to Burns a most vivid, experience, are made to live for ever. For
a piece of good graphic Scotch, see how he describes the sturdy old
mare in the plough setting her face to the furzy braes.
Thou never braing't, an' fetch't, and fliskit,
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit,
An spread abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket,
Wi' pith an' pow'r,
Till spritty knowes wad rair't and riskit,
An' slypet owre.
To paraphrase this, "Thou didst never fret, or plunge and kick, but
thou wouldest have whisked thy old tail, and spread abroad thy large
chest, with pith and power, till hillocks, where the earth was filled
with tough-rooted plants, would have given forth a cracking sound, and
the clods fallen gently over." The latter part of this paraphrase is
taken from Chambers. What pure English words could have rendered these
things as compactly and graphically?
Of _The Cotter's Saturday Night_ it is hardly needful to speak. As a
work of art, it is by no means at Burns's highest level. The metre was
not native to him. It contains some lines that are feeble, whole
stanzas that are heavy. But as Lockhart has said, in words already
quoted, there is none of his poems that does such justice to the (p. 196)
better nature that was originally in him. It shows how Burns could
reverence the old national piety, however little he may have been able
to practise it. It is the more valuable for this, that it is almost
the only poem in which either of our two great national poets has
described Scottish character on the side of that grave, deep, though
undemonstrative reverence, which has been an intrinsic element in it.
No wonder the peasantry of Scotland have loved Burns as perhaps never
people loved a poet. He not only sympathized with the wants, the
trials, the joys and sorrows of their obscure lot, but he interpreted
these to themselves, and interpreted them to others, and this too in
their own language made musical, and glorified by genius. He made the
poorest ploughman proud of his station and his toil, since Robbie
Burns had shared and had sung them. He awoke a sympathy for them in
many a heart that otherwise would never have known it. In looking up
to him, the Scottish people have seen an impersonation of themselves
on a large scale--of themselves, both in their virtues and in their
vices.
Secondly, Burns in his poetry was not only the interpreter of
Scotland's peasantry, he was the restorer of her nationality. When he
appeared, the spirit of Scotland was at a low ebb. The fatigue that
followed a century of religious strife, the extinction of her
parliament, the stern suppression of the Jacobite risings, the removal
of all symbols of her royalty and nationality, had all but quenched
the ancient spirit. Englishmen despised Scotchmen, and Scotchmen
seemed ashamed of themselves and of their country. A race of literary
men had sprang up in Edinburgh who, as to national feeling, were entirely
colourless, Scotchmen in nothing except their dwelling-place. The (p. 197)
thing they most dreaded was to be convicted of a Scotticism. Among
these learned cosmopolitans in walked Burns, who with the instinct of
genius chose for his subject that Scottish life which they ignored,
and for his vehicle that vernacular which they despised, and who,
touching the springs of long-forgotten emotions, brought back on the
hearts of his countrymen a tide of patriotic feeling to which they had
long been strangers.
At first it was only his native Ayrshire he hoped to illustrate, to
shed upon the streams of Ayr and Doon, the power of Yarrow, and
Teviot, and Tweed. But his patriotism was not merely local; the
traditions of Wallace haunted him like a passion, the wanderings of
Bruce he hoped to dramatize. His well-known words about the Thistle
have been already quoted. They express what was one of his strongest
aspirations. And though he accomplished but a small part of what he
once hoped to do, yet we owe it to him first of all that "the old
kingdom" has not wholly sunk into a province. If Scotchmen to-day love
and cherish their country with a pride unknown to their ancestors of
the last century, if strangers of all countries look on Scotland as a
land of romance, this we owe in great measure to Burns, who first
turned the tide, which Scott afterwards carried to full flood. All
that Scotland had done and suffered, her romantic history, the manhood
of her people, the beauty of her scenery, would have disappeared in
modern commonplace and manufacturing ugliness, if she had been left
without her two "sacred poets."
Thirdly. Burns's sympathies and thoughts were not confined to class
nor country; they had something more catholic in them, they reached to
universal man. Few as were his opportunities of knowing the (p. 198)
characters of statesmen and politicians, yet with what "random shots
o' countra wit" did he hit off the public men of his time! In his
address to King George III. on his birthday, how gay yet caustic is
the satire, how trenchant his stroke! The elder, and the younger Pitt,
"yon ill-tongued tinkler Charlie Fox," as he irreverently calls
him--if Burns had sat for years in Parliament, he could scarcely have
known them better. Every one of the Scottish M.P.'s of the time,
from--
That slee auld-farran chiel Dundas
to--
That glib-gabbit Highland baron
The Laird o' Graham,
and--
Erskine a spunkie Norlan billie,
--he has touched their characters as truly as if they had all been his
own familiars. But of his intuitive knowledge of men of all ranks,
there is no need to speak, for every line he writes attests it. Of his
fetches of moral wisdom something has already been said. He would not
have been a Scotchman, if he had not been a moralizer; but then his
moralizings are not platitudes, but truths winged with wit and wisdom.
He had, as we have seen, his limitations--his bias to overvalue one
order of qualities, and to disparage others. Some pleading of his own
cause and that of men of his own temperament, some disparagement of
the severer, less-impulsive virtues, it is easy to discern in him.
Yet, allowing all this, what flashes of moral insight, piercing to the
quick! what random sayings flung forth, that have become proverbs in
all lands--"mottoes of the heart"!
Such are-- (p. 199)
O wad some Power the giftie gie us,
To see oursel as ithers see us:
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion;
Or the much-quoted--
Facts are chiels that winna ding
And downa be disputed;
Or--
The heart ay's the part ay
That makes us right or wrang.
Who on the text, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast
a stone," ever preached such a sermon as Burns in his _Address to the
unco Guid_? and in his epistle of advice to a young friend, what
wisdom! what incisive aphorisms! In passages like these scattered
throughout his writings, and in some single poems, he has passed
beyond all bonds of place and nationality, and spoken home to the
universal human heart.
And here we may note that in that awakening to the sense of human
brotherhood, the oneness of human nature, which began towards the end
of last century, and which found utterance through Cowper first of the
English poets, there has been no voice in literature, then or since,
which has proclaimed it more tellingly than Burns. And then his
humanity was not confined to man, it overflowed to his lower
fellow-creatures. His lines about the pet ewe, the worn-out mare, the
field-mouse, the wounded hare, have long been household words. In this
tenderness towards animals we see another point of likeness between
him and Cowper.
Fourthly. For all aspects of the natural world he has the same (p. 200)
clear eye, the same open heart that he has for man. His love of nature
is intense, but very simple and direct, no subtilizings, nor refinings
about it, nor any of that nature-worship which soon after his time
came in. Quite unconsciously, as a child might, he goes into the
outward world for refreshment, for enjoyment, for sympathy. Everywhere
in his poetry, nature comes in, not so much as a being independent of
man, but as the background of his pictures of life and human
character. How true his perceptions of her features are, how pure and
transparent the feeling she awakens in him! Take only two examples.
Here is the well-known way he describes the burn in his _Halloween_--
Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
As thro' the glen it wimpl't;
Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays,
Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,
Wi' bickerin', dancin' dazzle:
Whyles cookit underneath the brass,
Below the spreading hazel,
Unseen that night.
Was ever burn so naturally, yet picturesquely described? The next
verse can hardly be omitted--
Amang the brachens on the brae,
Between her an' the moon,
The deil, or else an outler quey,
Gat up an' gae a croon:
Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool;
Near lav'rock height she jumpit;
But miss'd a fit, an' in the pool
Out-owre the lugs she plumpit,
Wi' a plunge that night
"Maist lap the hool," what condensation in that Scotch phrase! (p. 201)
The hool is the pod of a pea--poor Lizzie's heart almost
leapt out of its encasing sheath.
Or look at this other picture:--
Upon a simmer Sunday morn,
When Nature's face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
And snuff the caller air.
The risin' sun owre Galston muirs
Wi' glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
The lav'rocks they were chantin
Fu' sweet that day.
I have noted only some of the excellences of Burns's poetry, which far
outnumber its blemishes. Of these last it is unnecessary to speak;
they are too obvious, and whatever is gross, readers can of themselves
pass by.
Burns's most considerable poems, as distinct from his songs, were
almost all written before he went to Edinburgh. There is, however, one
memorable exception. _Tam o' Shanter_, as we have seen, belongs to
Ellisland days. Most of his earlier poems were entirely realistic, a
transcript of the men and women and scenes he had seen and known, only
lifted a very little off the earth, only very slightly idealized. But
in _Tam o' Shanter_ he had let loose his powers upon the materials of
past experiences, and out of them he shaped a tale which was a pure
imaginative creation. In no other instance, except perhaps in _The
Jolly Beggars_, had he done this; and in that cantata, if the genius
is equal, the materials are so coarse, and the sentiment so gross, as
to make it, for all its dramatic power, decidedly offensive. It is
strange what very opposite judgments have been formed of the intrinsic
merit of _Tam o' Shanter_. Mr. Carlyle thinks that it might have (p. 202)
been written "all but quite as well by a man, who, in place of genius,
had only possessed talent; that it is act so much a poem, as a piece
of sparkling rhetoric; the heart of the story still lies hard and
dead." On the other hand, Sir Walter Scott has recorded this verdict:
"In the inimitable tale of _Tam o' Shanter_, Burns has left us
sufficient evidence of his abilities to combine the ludicrous with the
awful and even the horrible. No poet, with the exception of
Shakespeare, ever possessed the power of exciting the most varied and
discordant emotions with such rapid transitions. His humorous
description of death in the poem on Dr. Hornbrook, borders on the
terrific; and the witches' dance in the Kirk of Alloway is at once
ludicrous and horrible." Sir Walter, I believe, is right, and the
world has sided with him in his judgment about _Tam o' Shanter_.
Nowhere in British literature, out of Shakespeare, is there to be
found so much of the power of which Scott speaks--that of combining in
rapid transition almost contradictory emotions--if we except perhaps
one of Scott's own highest creations, the tale of Wandering Willie, in
_Redgauntlet_.
On the songs of Burns a volume might be written, but a few sentences
must here suffice. It is in his songs that his soul comes out fullest,
freest, brightest; it is as a song-writer that his fame has spread
widest, and will longest last. Mr. Carlyle, not in his essay, which
does full justice to Burns's songs, but in some more recent work, has
said something like this, "Our Scottish son of thunder had, for want
of a better, to pour his lightning through the narrow cranny of
Scottish song--the narrowest cranny ever vouchsafed to any son of
thunder."--The narrowest, it may be, but the most effective, if a man
desires to come close to his fellow-men, soul to soul. Of all forms of
literature the genuine song is the most penetrating, and the most (p. 203)
to be remembered; and in this kind Burns is the supreme master.
To make him this, two things combined. First, there was the great
background of national melody and antique verse, coming down to him
from remote ages, and sounding through his heart from childhood. He
was cradled in a very atmosphere of melody, else he never could have
sung so well. No one knew better than he did, or would have owned more
feelingly, how much he owed to the old forgotten song-writers of his
country, dead for ages before he lived, and lying in their unknown
graves all Scotland over. From his boyhood he had studied eagerly the
old tunes, and the old words where there were such, that had come down
to him from the past, treasured every scrap of antique air and verse,
conned and crooned them over till he had them by heart. This was the
one form of literature that he had entirely mastered. And from the
first he had laid it down as a rule, that the one way to catch the
inspiration, and rise to the true fervour of song, was, as he phrased
it, "to _sowth_ the tune over and over," till the words came
spontaneously. The words of his own songs were inspired by
pre-existing tunes, not composed first, and set to music afterwards.
But all this love and study of the ancient songs and outward melody
would have gone for nothing, but for the second element, that is the
inward melody born in the poet's deepest heart, which received into
itself the whole body of national song; and then when it had passed
through his soul, sent it forth ennobled and glorified by his own
genius.
That which fitted him to do this was the peculiar intensity of his
nature, the fervid heart, the trembling sensibility, the headlong
passion, all thrilling through an intellect strong and keen beyond (p. 204)
that of other men. How mysterious to reflect that the same qualities
on their emotional side made him the great songster of the world, and
on their practical side drove him to ruin! The first word which Burns
composed was a song in praise of his partner on the harvest-rig; the
last utterance he breathed in verse was also a song--a faint
remembrance of some former affection. Between these two he composed
from two to three hundred. It might be wished perhaps that he had
written fewer, especially fewer love songs; never composed under
pressure, and only when his heart was so full he could not help
singing. This is the condition on which alone the highest order of
songs is born. Probably from thirty to forty songs of Burns could be
named which come up to this highest standard. No other Scottish
song-writer could show above four or five of the same quality. Of his
songs one main characteristic is that their subjects, the substance
they lay hold of, belongs to what is most permanent in humanity, those
primary affections, those permanent relations of life which cannot
change while man's nature is what it is. In this they are wholly
unlike those songs which seize on the changing aspects of society. As
the phases of social life change, these are forgotten. But no time can
superannuate the subjects which Burns has sung; they are rooted in the
primary strata, which are steadfast. Then as the subjects are primary,
so the feeling with which Burns regards them is primary too--that is,
he gives us the first spontaneous gush--the first throb of his heart,
and that a most strong, simple, manly heart. The feeling is not turned
over in the reflective faculty, and there artistically shaped,--not
subtilized and refined away till it has lost its power and freshness;
but given at first hand, as it comes warm from within. When he is (p. 205)
at his best you seem to hear the whole song warbling through his
spirit, naturally as a bird's. The whole subject is wrapped in an
element of music, till it is penetrated and transfigured by it. No one
else has so much of the native lilt in him. When his mind was at the
white heat, it is wonderful how quickly he struck off some of his most
perfect songs. And yet he could, when it was required, go back upon
them, and retouch them line by line, as we saw him doing in _Ye Banks
and Braes_. In the best of them the outward form is as perfect as the
inward music is all-pervading, and the two are in complete harmony.
To mention a few instances in which he has given their ultimate and
consummate expression to fundamental human emotions, four songs may be
mentioned, in each of which a different phase of love has been
rendered for all time--
Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,
Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
Go fetch to me a pint o' wine;
and that other, in which the calm depth of long-wedded and happy love
utters itself, so blithely yet pathetically,--
John Anderson, my Jo, John.
Then for comic humour of courtship, there is--
Duncan Gray cam here to woo.
For that contented spirit which, while feeling life's troubles, yet
keeps "aye a heart aboon them a'," we have--
Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair.
For friendship rooted in the past, there is-- (p. 206)
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
even if we credit antiquity with some of the verses.
For wild and reckless daring, mingled with a dash of finer feeling,
there is _Macpherson's Farewell_. For patriotic heroism--
Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled;
and for personal independence, and sturdy, if self-asserting,
manhood--
A man's a man for a' that.
These are but a few of the many permanent emotions to which Burns has
given such consummate expression, as will stand for all time.
In no mention of his songs should that be forgotten which is so
greatly to the honour of Burns. He was emphatically the purifier of
Scottish song. There are some poems he has left, there are also a few
among his songs, which we could wish that he had never written. But we
who inherit Scottish song as he left it, can hardly imagine how much
he did to purify and elevate our national melodies. To see what he has
done in this way, we have but to compare Burns's songs with the
collection of Scottish songs published by David Herd, in 1769, a few
years before Burns appeared. A genuine poet, who knew well what he
spoke of, the late Thomas Aird, has said, "Those old Scottish
melodies, sweet and strong though they were, strong and sweet, were,
all the more for their very strength and sweetness, a moral plague,
from the indecent words to which many of them had long been set. How
was the plague to be stayed? All the preachers in the land could not
divorce the grossness from the music. The only way was to put (p. 207)
something better in its stead. This inestimable something better
Burns gave us."
So purified and ennobled by Burns, these songs embody human emotion in
its most condensed and sweetest essence. They appeal to all ranks,
they touch all ages, they cheer toil-worn men under every clime.
Wherever the English tongue is heard, beneath the suns of India, amid
African deserts, on the western prairies of America, among the
squatters of Australia, whenever men of British blood would give vent
to their deepest, kindliest, most genial feelings, it is to the songs
of Burns they spontaneously turn, and find in them at once a perfect
utterance, and a fresh tie of brotherhood. It is this which forms
Burns's most enduring claim on the world's gratitude.
INDEX (p. 209)
Adair, Dr., 76.
Addington, Mr., 69-70, 144, 171.
_Address to the Deil_, 23.
_Address to the Unco Guid_, 58, 199.
Aiken, Robert, 29.
Ainslie, Mr., 60, 72, 91.
Aird, Thomas, 194.
Alison, Rev. A., 128-129.
Alloway Kirk, 121;
Kirkyard, 16.
Alloway Mill, school at, 5.
_A Man's a Man for a' that_, 167.
Armour, Jean, 26-27, 62-63, 83-84, 85-88, 141, 160.
Armour, Mr., 26, 33, 83-84, 96.
Athole, Duchess of, 65.
Athole, Duke of, 67.
_Auld Lang Syne_, 206.
Auld Lights, The, 18.
Ayr, river, 27.
_Banks o' Doon_, 123-124, 161, 205.
_Bard's Epitaph_, the, 190.
Begbie, Ellison, 12.
Begg, Mrs. (Burns's sister), 25, 62.
Belches of Invermay, The, 75.
_Birks of Invermay, The_, 75.
Blacklock, Dr., 38, 48-49, 104.
Blair Castle, 65, 67.
Blair, Dr. H., 38, 44, 48, 50-51, 56-57.
_Bonnie Peggie Alison_, 12.
_Brigs of Ayr_, 58.
Brow, 179, 184.
Brown, Agnes (Burns's mother), 3.
_Bruar Water, Humble Petition of_, 66-67.
Bruce, Mrs., of Clackmannan, 77-78.
Bruce, Robert, 78, 157.
Burnes, James (Burns's cousin), 183.
Burness (or Burnes), William (Burns's father), 2-3, 6-7, 14-15.
Burns, Gilbert, 5, 9-12, 26, 36, 85, 99-100.
Burns, Mrs. _See_ Armour, Jean.
Burns, Robert, biographies of, 1;
birth, 2;
parentage, 2-3, 6-7, 14-15;
successive homes:
Mount Oliphant, 4-9,
Lochlea, 9-15,
Mossgiel, 15, 20, 22, 24;
school-days, 5-7;
household reading, 6-7;
early love affairs, 8-10, 12, 26-30;
youthful dissipation, 10, 13-15;
Burns as a farmer, 15-16, 20-21, 95, 98-99, 132-133;
religious controversy, 17-20;
poetic aspirations, 21;
two prolific years, 22-26;
Jean Armour, 26, 27;
resolves to emigrate, 27, 30, 32, 34;
Kilmarnock edition of the poems published, 30-34;
literary earnings, 32, 58-59, 85, 152;
immediate popularity, 33-34, 37, 39;
his manners, 36;
first winter in Edinburgh, 42-59;
literary and legal lights, 44-46;
the lion of the season, 48-57;
his appearance, 49-50, 118, 170;
tavern life, 57-58;
second edition of the poems, 58-59;
Border and Highland tours, 60, 63-78;
Burns's descriptions of scenery, 71-72;
disappointing poetic fruits, 73;
knighted by Mrs. Bruce, 78;
second winter in Edinburgh, 79-93;
reasons for his stay, 79;
hypochondria and despondency, 81;
Mrs. M'Lehose, 82-84;
appointment in the excise, 84;
marriage, 85-88;
change in the attitude of Edinburgh society, 89-90;
some reasons for it, 90-92;
life at Ellisland, 94-134;
Burns's farm, 95;
discomfort and despondency, 96-97;
happiest period of his life, 99, 102;
house at Ellisland, 101-102;
as an exciseman, 105-106;
restlessness and discontent, 113, 115-116;
_Tam o' Shanter_, 120-122;
dramatic aspirations, 126;
gives up his farm, 133;
migration to Dumfries, 135;
downward course, 138, 162, 164, 172;
social discredit, 139, 173;
politics, 139, 142-149, 161, 168-169, 171;
friendship with the Liddels, 140, 162, 179-180;
Mrs. M'Lehose reappears, 140-141;
relations with Johnson and Thomson, 150-154, 159;
excursion into Galloway, 156-157;
an unhappy time, 161-164;
declining health, 165, 174;
joins the volunteers, 169-170;
last illness, 176-179;
poverty and anxiety, 180-184;
death, 185;
Burns's grave, 186-187;
character, 188, 189.
As a poet:
satires, 19-20, 31-32,
epistles, 23,
pure landscape not his forte, 71, 72,
at his best in the Scottish dialect, 73, 151,
tenderness towards animals, 106-108, 179,
Bacchanalian songs, 110-112,
Burns in the hour of inspiration, 121-122,
elegies, 123,
circumstance and mental habits forbade long poems, 126,
love songs, 140-141, 160-161,
in the act of composition, 159-160,
piercing insight and large sympathy, 192,
truthfulness of nature, 193,
caustic wit, 193,
the interpreter of Scotland's peasantry, 196,
the restorer of her nationality, 196-197,
catholicity, 197-198,
intense love of nature, 200,
Burns as a song-writer, 202-206.
Campbell, Mary. _See_ Highland Mary.
Carlyle, Thomas, 17, 54, 129, 131-132, 156-157, 169, 202.
Cathcart, Miss, 66.
Chalmers, Margaret, 80-81, 84, 87, 183.
Chambers, Dr., 11, 27, 39 _et passim_.
Clarinda. _See_ M'Lehose, Mrs.
Clark, William, 117-118.
Commonplace Book, Burns's, 55-56, 115.
_Cotter's Saturday Night, The_, 20, 23, 25, 37, 70, 195.
Cowper, 47, 48.
Craig, Mrs., 184.
Creech, Mr., 56-59, 79, 85, 153.
Crochallan Club, The, 58, 61, 63, 91.
Cruikshank, Mr., 78.
Cunningham, Alexander, 163.
Cunningham, Allan, 75, 89, 96, 97, 125, 133 _et passim_.
Currie, Dr., 174.
Daer, Lord, 35, 156.
Dalrymple, Mr., 46.
Dalswinton, 94.
Davidson, John (Souter Johnnie), 122.
_Death and Dr. Hornbook_, 23, 58, 70.
_Death of Poor Mailie, The_, 9.
_Deil's awa' wi' the Exciseman, The_, 145.
_Despondency, Ode to_, 31.
Don, Lady Harriet, 127.
Doon, Brig of, 2, 3, 4.
Dumfries, Burns's life at, 135-154;
social condition of, 136.
Dundas, Mr. Henry, 67, 92, 143, 171.
Dunlop, Mrs., 34, 36-37, 96;
letters to, 54, 86, 89, 96, 100, 109, 113, 114,
149, 165, 169, 174, 175, 183.
Ecclefechan, 168-169.
Edinburgh, Burns's first winter in, 42-59;
tavern life in, 57-58;
second winter in, 79-93.
Eglinton, Lord, 58.
Ellisland, 56, 61, 80, 85, 89, 94-134.
Epistles, Burns's, 23-24.
Erskine, H., 45-46.
Erskine of Mar, Mr., 148.
_Essay on Taste_, Alison's, 128-129.
_Farmer's Address to his Mare_, 23, 108, 195.
Ferguson, Dr. Adam, 48, 53.
Fergusson, the poet, 44, 191.
French Revolution, Burns's sympathy with, 144-146, 157.
Galloway, Burns's tour in, 155-156.
"Geddes, Jenny," 128.
Glencairn, Lady, 104.
Glencairn, Lord, 46, 56, 123.
Globe Tavern, the, 116, 128, 137-138, 176.
Gordon Castle, 68-69.
Gordon, Duchess of, 46, 69.
Gordon, Duke of, 68.
Gow, Neil, 73-74.
Graham, Douglas (Tam o' Shanter), 122.
Graham, Mrs., 66.
Graham of Balnagown, 66.
Graham of Fintray, Mr., 67, 84, 103, 120, 147, 172.
Greenfield, Mr., 56-57.
Grose, Captain, 108-109, 120-121.
_Halloween_, 23, 194, 200.
Hamilton, Charlotte, 80-81, 183.
Hamilton, Gavin, 19, 30, 76, 80.
Hazlitt, 12.
Heron of Heron, 169.
Heron Robert, 33, 57, 58.
Hemans, Mrs., 157.
Highland Mary, 27-31, 34, 112-113.
_Highland Mary, Lament for_, 27, 31-32, 113.
_Holy Fair, The_, 19-20, 25, 31.
_Holy Willie's Prayer_, 19, 31.
Hume, David, 44.
Irvine, 13-14, 26, 41.
Jacobitism, Burns's, 142-143.
Jeffrey, 52, 177.
_John Anderson my Jo_, 114.
Johnson, Dr., 45.
_Johnson's Museum_, 73, 75, 114, 150-151.
Johnson, the engraver, 73, 150, 179.
_Jolly Beggars, The_, 23, 25, 126, 201.
_Justice of Peace_ (Langhorne's), 53.
Kilmarnock edition of the poems, 30-33, 191.
Kirkoswald, 10, 13, 122.
_Kirk's Alarm, The_, 109.
_Land o' Cakes_, 108-109.
_Lass of Cessnock Water, The_, 12.
Laurie, Dr., 38, 48.
Lewars, Jessie, 178, 185.
Lewars, Mr., 105.
Lochlea, 9-15.
Lockhart, Mr., 20, 27, 48, 62, 67, 87, 127, 145.
_Lounger, The_, 45, 47.
M'Culloch, David, 164.
Mackenzie, H., 45, 48.
M'Lehose, Mrs., 82-85, 140-141.
_Macpherson's Farewell_, 71.
_Mary in Heaven_, 73, 112, 114, 120, 161.
_Mary Morrison_, 11-12.
Masterton, Allan, 110.
Mauchline, 15, 62, 99.
Maxwell, Provost, 115.
Mendelssohn, 179.
Miller of Dalswinton, Mr., 85, 95, 98, 133.
Milton, 55, 63.
Mitchell, Collector, 175, 182.
Monboddo, Lord, 45, 48.
Moore, Dr., 72, 125.
Mossgiel, 15, 20, 22, 24, 38, 61.
_Mountain Daisy, The_, 23, 36.
Mount Oliphant, 4-9.
_Mouse, To a_, 23, 108.
Murdoch, Burns's tutor, 5-7.
_My Nannie, O_, 9, 11.
"Nell, Handsome," 7-9.
New Lights, 18-19, 34, 109.
"Nicht wi' Burns," a, 130-131.
Nicol, Mr., 61, 63, 66, 68-70, 72, 91.
North, Christopher, 42.
_Of a' the airts_, 161.
_Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast_, 178.
_Ordination, The_, 19, 25, 58.
Paine, Tom, 146.
Pindar, Peter, 152.
Poems, Kilmarnock edition, 30-33, 191;
second edition, 58-59.
Politics, Burns's part in, 139, 142-149, 161, 169, 171.
Prentice, Mr., 42.
Punch-bowl, Burns's, 96, 131-132.
Ramsay, Allan, 21, 23, 44, 75, 191.
Ramsay of Ochtertyre, 119, 125.
_Rankine, Epistle to John_, 16.
Richmond, John, 43.
Riddel, Mrs. W., 141, 179-180.
Riddel of Friars' Carse, 98, 162.
Riddel, Walter, 139, 162.
Robertson, Dr., 44-48.
"Rosamond," the brig, 145.
_Ruin, Ode to_, 31.
Samson, John, 43.
_Scots wha hae_, 155-157, 206.
Scott-Douglas, Mr., 27-28, 124.
Scott, Sir W., 52, 54, 75-76, 197.
Selkirk, Lord, 155.
Sidmouth, Lord. _See_ Addington, Mr.
_Silver Tassie_, the, 114.
Skinner, Bishop, 74.
Smith, Adam, 45.
Smith, Betty, 99, 101.
Songs, Burns's, 202-205.
Stewart, Dugald, 34-36, 43-44, 46, 51, 56-57.
Syme, Mr., 154-155, 170.
_Tam o' Shanter_, 120-122, 125, 191, 201-202.
Tarbolton, 10.
Thomson, Geo., 126, 151-153, 156, 161, 165, 171, 177, 182-183.
Tours, Border and Highland, 60-78.
_Twa Dogs, The_, 23, 31, 70, 193, 194.
_Twa Herds, The_, 19.
Tytler, Mr. Fraser, 48.
_Vision, The_, 23.
Walker, Prof., 49, 51, 66, 174.
Wallace, William, 21, 36, 197.
Wee Vennel, the, 135, 137.
_Whistle, The_, 111-112.
_Willie brewed a peck o' maut_, 110-112.
Wilson, John (painter), 31.
_Winter Night, The_, 108.
Wolcot, Dr. _See_ Pindar, Peter.
Woodley Park, 140, 162.
Wordsworth, 71, 157-159, 190.
_Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh_.