[Footnote 1: This paper was written at the request of a literary
society of which the author was a member, and the facts are gathered
principally from Currie. Some extracts from the poet's own letters,
and from an eloquent review of Lockhart's Burns, which appeared a few
years since in the Edinburgh Review, are interwoven, and the whole
made up as an essay to be "read not printed."]
If we take the different definitions of the term "Poetry," that have
been given this beautiful and magical art by the various writers upon
its nature and properties, as _each_ supported by reason and fact, we
shall hardly arrive at any degree of certainty as to its _real_
meaning. It has been called "the art of imitation," or mimickry.
Aristotle and Plato characterize it as "the expression of thoughts by
fictions;" and there are innumerable other definitions, none of which
are more satisfactory to the student than is that of the celebrated
"Blair." He says, "it is the language of Passion,--or enlivened
Imagination, formed, most commonly, into regular numbers. The primary
object of a poet is to _please_, and to _move_; and therefore it is
to imagination and the passions that he speaks. He may, and he ought
to have it in his view to _instruct_ and _reform_; but it is
_indirectly_, and by _pleasing_, and _moving_, that he accomplishes
this end. His mind is supposed to be animated by some interesting
object which fires his imagination or engages his passions: and
which, of course, communicates to his style a peculiar elevation,
suited to his ideas, very different from that mode of expression
which is natural to the mind in its calm, ordinary state." And this
definition will allow of being yet more particularly and minutely
understood: it is susceptible of being analyzed still farther, and
described as "a language, in which fiction and imagination may, with
propriety, be indulged beyond the strict limits of truth and
reality."
Who is there that has not felt the power of Poetry? For it is not
essential that it be embodied in regular and finely wrought periods,
and conveyed to the ear in alternate rhyme, and made to harmonize in
nicely-toned successions of sounds. Who is there that has not felt
its power? It originated with the very nature of man; and is confined
to no nation, age, or situation. This is proved by the well-attested
fact, that Poetry ever diminishes in strength of thought, boldness of
conception, and power of embodying striking images, in proportion as
it becomes polished and cultivated. The uncivilized tenant of our
forests is, _by nature_, a Poet! Whether he would lead his brethren
to the field of warfare, or conclude with the white man a treaty of
peace and future amity, still his style evinces the same grand
characteristic,--_the spirit of true Poetry_. The barbarous Celt, the
benighted Icelander, and the earliest and most unenlightened nations
of the world, as described on the page of history, are proofs of the
principle we have been considering; and it was not, indeed, until
society became settled and civilized, that poetical composition
ceased to embrace _every_ impulse of which the human soul is
susceptible. It was not till _then_, that, in the language of a
distinguished writer, "Poetry became a separate art, calculated,
chiefly, to _please_; and confined, generally, to such subjects as
related to the imagination and the passions." Then was it that there
arose, naturally, divisions in the classes or schools of Poetry,--as
Lyric, Elegiac, Pastoral, Didactic, Descriptive, and Dramatic. A
consideration of _each_ of these classes might furnish us with
_materiel_ for an interesting examination of their individual
peculiarities: but time will not permit so wide a range.
ROBERT BURNS was born on the 25th of January, 1759, in the town of
Ayr, in Scotland. His pretensions by birth, were a descent from poor
and humble, but honest and intelligent parents; and a title to
inherit all their intelligence and virtue, as well as all their
poverty. Upon the nature of these pretensions, Burns, in a letter to
a friend, dated many years after, takes occasion to say: "I have not
the most distant pretensions to assume that character, which the
pye-coatcd guardians {239} of escutcheons call a gentleman. When at
Edinborough last winter, I got acquainted in the Herald's Office; and
looking through that granary of honors, I there found almost every
name in the kingdom: but for _me_,--
'My ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.'"
His father was a native of the north of Scotland, but he was driven
by various misfortunes to Edinborough, and thence still farther south
to Ayrshire, where he was first employed as a gardener in one of the
families in that vicinity, and afterwards, being desirous of settling
in life, took a lease of a little farm of seven acres, on which he
reared a clay cottage with his own hands, and soon after married a
wife. The first fruit of this union was our poet, whose birth took
place two years thereafter. Robert, during his early days, was by no
means a favorite with any body. He was remarkable, however, for a
retentive memory, and a thoughtful turn of mind. His ear was dull,
and his voice harsh and dissonant, and he evinced no musical talent
or poetical genius until his fifteenth or sixteenth year. It is
pretended by his biographers, (of whom there have been several, and
who all agree in this opinion,) that the seeds of Poetry were very
early implanted in his mind, and that the recitations and fireside
chaunts of an old crone, who was familiar in his father's family,
served to cherish their growth, and strengthen their hold upon his
memory. This "auld gudewife" is said to have had the largest
collection in the country of tales and songs concerning fairies,
witches, warlocks, apparitions, giants, dragons, and other agents of
romantic fiction. Speaking of these tales and songs, he says, in his
later years, "so strong an effect had they upon my imagination, that
even to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I am fain to keep a sharp
look out in suspicious places; and, though nobody can feel more
sceptical than I have ever done in such matters, yet it often
requires an effort of Philosophy to shake off these idle terrors."
When Robert was in his seventh year, his father quitted the
birth-place of the poet, and took a lease of a small farm on the
estate of Mr. Fergusson, called Mount Oliphant. He had been, for a
year or two previous to this event, a pupil of Dr. Murdoch, who is
represented as being a very worthy and acute man, and who took much
pains with the education of the future poet. In fact, his _father_
had previously taught him arithmetic, and whatever of lore could be
gathered from the "big ha' bible," as they sat by their solitary
candle; and he had been sent, alternately with his brother, a week at
a time during a summer's quarter, to a writing master at the parish
school at Dalrymple. But Dr. Murdoch, his faithful friend in youth
and age, instructed him in English Grammar, and aided him in the
acquisition of a little French. After a fortnight's instruction in
the latter language, he was able to translate it into English prose,
but, farther than this, his new attainment was never of much
advantage to him. Indeed, his attempts to speak the language were
ridiculously futile at times. On one occasion, when he called in
Edinborough at the house of an accomplished friend, a lady who had
been educated in France, he found her conversing with a French lady,
to whom he was introduced. The French woman understood English; but
Burns must need try his powers. His first sentence was intended to
compliment the lady on her apparent eloquence in conversation; but by
mistaking some idiom, he made the lady understand that she was too
fond of hearing herself speak. The French woman, highly incensed,
replied, that there were more instances of vain poets than of
talkative women; and Burns was obliged to use his own language in
appeasing her. He attempted the Latin, but his success did not
encourage him to persevere. And, in fine, with the addition of a
quarter's attendance to Geometry and Surveying, at the age of
nineteen, and a few lessons at a country dancing school, I have now
mentioned all his opportunities of acquiring a scholastic education.
He says of himself, in allusion to his boyish days, "though it cost
the schoolmaster many _thrashings_, I made an excellent English
scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a
critic in substantives, verbs and particles."
As soon as young Burns had strength to work, he was employed as a
laborer upon his father's farm. At twelve he was a good ploughman; a
year later he assisted at the threshing-floor; and was his father's
main dependance at fifteen, there being no hired laborers, male or
female, in the family at the time. In one of his letters, (and it is
by extracting copiously from them, that I propose chiefly to narrate
his history,) he remarks upon this subject--"I saw my father's
situation entailed on me perpetual labor: the only two openings by
which I could enter the temple of fortune, were the gate of niggardly
economy, or the path of little, chicaning bargain-making. The _first_
is so contracted an aperture, I never could squeeze myself into it;
the _last_ I _always_ hated--there was contamination in the very
entrance!" And it was this kind of life,--the cheerless gloom of a
hermit, with the unceasing toil of a galley-slave, that brought him
to his sixteenth year, at about which period he first perpetrated the
sin of rhyming. Of this you shall have an account in the author's own
language.
"You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as
partners in the labors of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn my partner
was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of
English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language;
but you know the Scottish idiom,--_she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie
lass_. In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me
in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment,
rigid prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of
human joys, our dearest blessing here below! How she caught the
contagion I cannot tell. You medical people--(he was addressing the
celebrated Dr. Moore) you medical people talk much of infection from
breathing the same air, the touch, &c.; but I never expressly said I
loved her. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to
loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our
labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like
an Eolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious
ratan, when I plucked the cruel nettle-stings and thistles from her
little white hand. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung
sweetly; and it was her favorite reel, to which I attempted giving an
embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine
that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had
Greek and Latin: but my girl sung a song, which was said to have been
composed by a country laird's son upon a neighboring maiden with whom
he was in love! and I saw; no reason why I might not rhyme as well as
_he_; for, excepting that he could shear sheep and cast peats, (his
father living in the moorlands,) he had no more _scholar_ craft than
myself."
Thus, with Burns, began Love and Poetry. This, his first effort, is
valuable, more from the promise it {240} gave of his future
excellence as a poet, than for any intrinsic merit which it possessed
as a performance of so gifted a genius. I have been the more
particular in describing the circumstances attending the composition
of these, his earliest verses, for the proof they afford of the truth
of the general remark, that of all the poetical compositions of
Burns, his love-songs, and amatory poetry are far the best. His
feelings predominated over his fancy, and whenever the latter is
introduced we are forced to deem it an intrusion for the strong
contrast it presents with the native and characteristic simplicity of
his more natural and heartfelt effusions.
Referring to the predilections which I have said gave a character to
so large a portion of his poetical writings, he says,--"My heart was
completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or
other: and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was
various; sometimes I was received with favor, and sometimes I was
mortified with a repulse." And in another letter he says farther,
"Another circumstance in my life which made some alterations in my
mind and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a
smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to
learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c. in which I made a pretty
good progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of
mankind. Scenes of riot and roaring dissipation were, till now, new
to me; but I was no enemy to social life. For all that, I went on
with a high hand in my geometry till the sun entered _Virgo_, (a
month, which is always a carnival in my bosom,) when a charming fair
one, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and
set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my duties. I, however,
struggled on with my _sines_ and _co-sines_ for a few days more, but
stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the sun's
altitude, there I met my angel,
'Like Proserpine, gathering flowers,
Herself, a fairer flower.'
It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The
remaining weeks I staid I did nothing but craze the faculties of my
soul about her, or steal out to meet her. And the two last nights of
my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of
this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless."
This brings us to a period, which the poet calls an important era in
his life--his twenty-third year; and he explains this in the
following näive and characteristic style. "Partly through whim, and
partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a
flax-dresser in the neighboring town of Irvine to learn his trade.
This was an unlucky affair; as we were welcoming in the new year with
a carousal, our shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left
like a true poet, not worth a sixpence." About this time the clouds
of misfortune thickened around his father's head, who, indeed, was
already far gone in a consumption; and to crown the distresses
incident to his situation, a girl, to whom he was engaged to be
married, jilted him with peculiar circumstances of mortification.
During his residence at Irvine, our poet was miserably poor and
dispirited. His food consisted chiefly of oat meal, and this was sent
to him from his father's family; and so small was, of necessity, his
allowance, that he was obliged to borrow often of a neighbor, until
he should again be supplied. He was very melancholy with the idea,
that the dreams of future eminence and distinction which his
imagination had presented to his mind, were _only_ dreams; and to
dissipate this melancholy his resource was society with its
enjoyments. The incidents to which I have alluded took place some
years before the publication of his poems. About this time William
Burns removed from Mount Oliphant to Lochlea, and later still, to the
parish of Tarbolton, where, as we are informed by a letter from Dr.
Murdoch, written in 1799, that "Robert wrote most of his poems." It
was in Tarbolton that Burns established a debating club, which
consisted of the poet, his brother Gilbert, and five or six other
young peasants of the neighborhood--the laws and regulations for
which were furnished by the former. Among these members was David
Sillar, to whom the two beautiful poems, entitled "Epistles to Davie,
a brother poet," were addressed. Some of the rules and regulations of
this club are so peculiar, and bespeak so forcibly the character of
their author, that I cannot resist the temptation to transcribe some
of them. The eighth is in the following words:
"Every member shall attend at the meetings, without he can give a
proper excuse for not attending. And it is desired, that every one
who cannot attend will send his excuse with some other member: and he
who shall be absent three meetings without sending such excuse, shall
be summoned to the club night, when if he fail to appear, or send an
excuse, he shall be excluded."
And the tenth and last rule is worthy of particular notice, and a
part of it of incorporation into the code even of more extensive and
more pretending societies: it is as follows:
"Every man proper for a member of this club, must have a frank,
honest, open heart--above any thing low or mean, and must be a
professed lover of the female sex. No haughty, self-conceited person,
who looks upon himself as superior to the rest of the club--and
especially no mean spirited, worldly mortal, whose only will is to
heap up money, shall, upon any pretence whatever, be admitted. In
short, the proper person for this society, is a cheerful,
honest-hearted lad--who, if he has a friend that is true, a mistress
that is kind, and as much wealth as genteely to make both ends meet,
is just as happy as this world can make him."
But I must, however reluctantly, omit many interesting particulars in
the earlier, and more private life of our poet, and hasten to his
visit to Edinborough in the winter of 1786. The celebrated Dugald
Stewart, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Edinborough, in
a letter to Dr. Currie, alludes to several of Burns's early poems,
and avers, that it was upon _his_ showing a volume of them to Henry
McKenzie, (the celebrated author of "The Man of Feeling,") that this
gentleman introduced the rustic bard to the notice of the public, in
the xcvii No. of The Lounger, which justly famous periodical paper
was then in the course of publication, and had long been a favorite
work with the young poet.
Depressed by poverty, and chagrined with the contrasts which fate
seemed malignantly bent upon opposing to his ambitious aspirations,
his only object, at last, had been to accumulate the petty sum of
nine guineas, (which he did by the publication of a few of his
poems,) and to take passage in the steerage of a ship bound to the
West Indies, determined to become a negro driver, or any thing else,
so that he could escape the fangs of that merciless pack, the
bailiffs; for, said he,
"Hungry ruin had me in the wind."
He had taken leave of his friends--had despatched _his_ {241} _single
chest_ to the vessel--had written his Farewell Song, which he sang to
the beautiful air of "Roslin Castle," and which closes with,
"Adieu, my friends!--Adieu, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those:
The bursting tears my heart declare,
Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr!"
when a letter from Dr. Blacklock, elicited by a perusal of the volume
to which I have just now alluded, opened for him new prospects to his
poetic ambition, by inviting him to Edinborough. Thither, then, he
went--and his reception by all classes, ages and ranks, was as
flattering as, in his most sanguine aspirations, he could have
desired. Dr. Robertson, the celebrated historian, Dr. Blair, Dr.
Gregory, Professor Stewart, Mr. McKenzie, and many more men of
letters were particularly interested in his reception, and in the
cultivation of his genius. He became, from his first entrance into
Edinborough, the object of universal attention, and it seemed as if
there was no possibility of rewarding his merits too highly. Mr.
Lockhart, the latest and most eloquent of the numerous biographers of
Burns, has a note, containing an extract from a letter of Sir Walter
Scott, and furnished by the latter for his work, which is too
interesting to be passed over. It relates to a personal interview of
Sir Walter with our poet, during his first visit to Edinborough.
"As for Burns," writes he, "I may truly say, 'Virgilium vidi tantum.'
I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinborough,
but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry,
and would have given the world to know him: but I had very little
acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry
of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented." ... "As
it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor
Fergusson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary
reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart.
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, with the ideas suggested to his
mind upon reading the story whereof, (written under it) he was moved
even to 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. I passed this information to Burns by a friend, and I
was rewarded with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility,
I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure." ...
"His person," continues Sir Walter, "was strong and robust: his
manners rustic, not clownish, a sort of dignified plainness and
simplicity. 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, and of a dark cast, which
glowed, (I say literally _glowed_,) when he spoke with feeling or
interest." ... "I never saw another such eye in a human head, though
I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation
expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest
presumption."
After making a few more observations with relation to the poet's
conversation and manner, the writer I have been quoting concludes his
reminiscence as follows:
"This is all I can tell you about Burns. I never saw him again,
except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not
expect he should. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded
with his manner. He was like a farmer, dressed in his _best_, to dine
with the laird. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address
to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn to the
pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I
do not know that I can add any thing to these recollections of forty
years since."
These are extracts, that, one day or other, will be looked upon as
curiosities in literature, and will be inestimably precious: at
present, I fear me, an apology should follow their introduction, at
such length: but I shall only say in the language of another, in
excuse for dwelling so long on this incident in the life of Burns,
that it forms "the most remarkable phenomenon in the history of
modern literature."
But if this, his first winter in Edinborough, produced a favorable
effect upon the future fame of Robert Burns, as a poet, it was also
the source of vast unhappiness to him, during his after life. Not
only was he admitted to the company of men of letters and virtue, but
he was pressed into the society of those, whose social habits, and
love of the pleasures of life were their chief attractions. When
among his superiors in rank and intelligence, his carriage was
decorous and diffident: but among others, his boon companions, he, in
his turn, was lord of the ascendant: and thus commenced a career,
which, had its outset been a more prudent one, would probably not
have closed until a later period, nor without a much greater measure
of glory and honor to him, who was thus unfortunately misguided.
During the residence of Burns at Edinborough, he published a new and
enlarged edition of his poems, and was thus enabled to visit other
parts of his native country, and some parts of England beside. Having
done this, he returned, and during most of the following winter, we
find him again in the gay and literary metropolis, much less an
object of novelty, and, of course, of general attention and interest,
than before. Unable to find employment or occupation of a literary
nature, he quitted Edinborough in the spring of 1788, and took the
farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries: besides advancing 200_l._ for the
liberation of his brother Gilbert from some difficulties into which
certain agricultural misfortunes had involved him. He was, soon
after, united to his "bonnie Jean," the theme of so much of his
delightful verse, and employed himself in stocking and cultivating
his farm, and rebuilding the dwelling house upon it. There is an
anecdote of him in the history furnished by Dr. Currie, the truth of
which Mr. Lockhart seems disposed to question: his doubts originate
from a consideration of the absurd costume in which the older
biographer has seen fit to invest the poet in his narration. As this
is the only exception taken to it, and as it is certainly
illustrative of Burns's character and manners in other respects, and
as it is related, too, upon so good authority, I shall venture to
introduce it in this, its proper place, in point of time.
"In the summer of 1791, two English gentlemen, who had before met
Burns at Edinborough, paid a visit to him in Ellisland. On calling at
his house, they were informed that he had walked out on the banks of
the river; and, dismounting from their horses, they proceeded in
search of him. On a rock that projected into the stream, they saw a
man employed in angling, of a singular appearance. He had a cap, made
of a fox's skin, on his head, a loose great coat fixed round him by a
belt, from which {242} depended an enormous Highland broadsword. It
was Burns. He received them with great cordiality, and asked them to
share his humble dinner; an invitation which they accepted. On the
table they found boiled beef with vegetables and barley-broth, after
the manner of Scotland, of which they partook heartily. After dinner,
the bard told them ingenuously that he had no wine to offer
them--nothing better than Highland whiskey, a bottle of which Mrs.
Burns set on the board. He produced, at the same time, his
punch-bowl, made of Inverary marble; and mixing the spirit with water
and sugar, filled their glasses, and invited them to drink. The
travellers were in haste, and besides, the flavor of the whiskey to
their _southron_ palates was scarcely tolerable: but the generous
poet offered them his best, and his ardent hospitality they found it
impossible to resist. Burns was in his happiest mood, and the charms
of his conversation were altogether fascinating. He ranged over a
great variety of topics, illuminating whatever he touched. He related
the tales of his infancy and his youth; he recited some of the
gayest, and some of the tenderest of his poems: in the wildest of his
strains of mirth he threw in some touches of melancholy, and spread
around him the electric emotions of his powerful mind. The Highland
whiskey improved in its flavor; the bowl was more than once emptied,
and as often replenished: the guests of our poet forgat the flight of
time and the dictates of prudence; at the hour of midnight they lost
their way in returning to Dumfries, and could scarcely distinguish
it, when assisted by the morning's dawn."
On his farm at Ellisland, Burns continued some few years; but the
novelty of his situation soon wore off, and then returned the
irregularities, to which, from his warm imagination, and his love of
society, and his independent turn of mind, he was so strongly
predisposed. Fearing that his farm alone would be insufficient to
procure for him that independence, which he had hoped one day or
other to attain, he applied for and obtained the office of exciseman,
or as it was vulgarly called _guager_, for the district in which he
lived. About the year 1792, he was solicited to contribute to a
collection of Scottish songs, to be published by Mr. Thompson, of
Edinborough. Abandoning his farm, which, from neglect and
mismanagement was by no means productive, and receiving from the
Board of Excise an appointment to a new district, with a salary of
70_l._ per annum, he removed to a small house in Dumfries, and
commenced the fulfilment of his literary engagement with Mr.
Thompson. His principal songs were written during this time, and day
after day was adding heighth and durability to the towering and
imperishable monument, which will hand down his name and fame to many
generations.
But now commences his rapid and melancholy decay, the fast withering
consumption of his mental and physical faculties. His had been a
short but brilliant course in literature--a short and melancholy one
indeed, in other respects. Defeated in his hopes, mortified in the
discovery that of the two classes of friends who offered him their
society and their example in the outset of his career, he had chosen
the least improving and efficient as his guides and counsellors--he
fast declined into that common receptacle of dust which covers alike
the remains of the gifted and the simple, the prudent and the weak.
He was worn with toil and poverty, and disappointed hope.
"Can the laborer rest from his labor too soon?
He had toiled all the morning, and slumbered at noon."
* * * * *
Imprudent in the declaration of his political sentiments, Burns lost
the path to preferment in the line of his political duties; easily
enticed beyond the sway of his sober and virtuous resolutions, he
became broken in health, and destitute of resources; too proud to beg
and too proud to complain, his temper became irritable and gloomy,
and at length a fever, attended with delirium and debility,
terminated his life in the thirty-eighth year of his age. Leaving a
widow, who is still living in the house where he died,[2] and four
sons, of whom three are also at present living. Thus died Robert
Burns, "poor, but not in debt, and bequeathing to posterity a name,
the fame of which will not soon be eclipsed."
[Footnote 2: Since deceased.]
_Burns_, though he sometimes forgot his homage to the purer and
brighter and more enduring orbs of heaven, in chasing the ignis
fatuus lights of earth, must ever interest us as a poet and a man. A
great many considerations may be properly urged in answer to the too
common, and far from just charges upon his moral character. I am of
opinion, that his own declaration, made not many months previous to
his death, is capable of full and complete support and proof, by a
reference to all the circumstances of his life. When accused of
disloyalty to his government, he says, in a letter to a distinguished
friend--
"In your hands, sir, permit me to lodge my strong disavowal, and
defiance of such slanderous falsehoods. Be assured--and tell the
world, that Burns was a poor man from his birth, and an exciseman
from necessity; but--I _will_ say it! the sterling of his _honesty_,
poverty _could_ not debase, and his independent British spirit,
oppression might bend, but could not subdue!"
I have advanced the opinion that the crisis of Burns's fate was his
visit, his _first_ visit to Edinborough. From that event may be dated
the complete establishment of his character during his after life;
and with those who received him there, and undertook the task of
doing what they, in their wisdom, thought expedient for the
cultivation of his genius, and for his advancement or settlement in
life, must, I think, rest the credit or the blame of much--of almost
_all_ his future excellence or failure. Burns went into the midst of
that gay and literary circle, ready and liable to receive the most
striking impressions, as the guides of his opinions and the
regulators of his actions. It was another world! It had all the
freshness of a new existence in the eyes, and to the mind of the
rustic Ayrshire bard. Strong-minded and high-hearted as he was, he
could not but look up to his new friends and patrons, as exemplars
for his own imitation: and although he was not _visibly_ perplexed
with the flashings of these new and unaccustomed lights, yet he was,
_at heart_, led astray by them. They were like the fabled
corpse-fires, which danced merrily before the wildered eyes of the
traveller, luring him onward to his doom--_a grave!_ He had left the
"bonnie banks of Ayr," _a young plant_, shooting luxuriantly up into
a tall and rugged, but healthful tree; and it was upon the _new_
soil, into which it had been transplanted, that this beautiful exotic
received an inclination which was destined to be a final one. And yet
I would not throw upon the fame of such men as Stewart, and Blair,
and Robertson, and McKenzie, the imputation of design, or even of
imprudence, in thus being accessory to the melancholy ruin, which
followed the victim's acceptance of their kind, and really benevolent
patronage. It is only to be lamented that upon his arrival at
Edinburgh, he was not introduced _at once, and alone_, into that
circle, which might reasonably have been designated as the only one,
in which such a genius and {243} character as Burns's could be duly
appreciated and cultivated. But the secret is, he was regarded by
them, _not_ as a being for their _sympathy_, but a thing for the
indulgence of their _curiosity_. In the language of another, "By the
great he was treated in the customary fashion; entertained at their
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."
Instead of treating with him, as a man, whose genius entitled him to
a stand upon their own proud and distinguished level, all
uncultivated and unpolished as that genius was--they universally
spoke _to_ him, and _of_ him, as an object of patronage--as something
that was to become valuable to the world, only through _their_
instrumentality. This feeling, this mode of treatment, are not to be
objected to, in themselves considered: their existence was natural,
and, rightly conducted, might have been made productive of much good,
and lasting happiness to him, who was their subject. But Burns was
not the man to rest quietly under the most oppressive burthen that a
proud man can ever feel--_Patronage_. And thus his relative situation
to his literary friends could not but be viewed by a mind so
sensitive as his own, in its true character. And we find (as soon as
the novelty of a "ploughman-poet" had worn off--as every fashionable
novelty _will_ wear off in time,) that our poet began to remember
that "a life of pleasure and praise would not support his family,"
and having experienced a portion of these reverses, which they, who
depend on popular favor and flattery, must ever find inseparable
therefrom--we see him stocking his little farm, and soon after adding
the emoluments of the office of exciseman for the district of Ayr, to
his scanty income. And here he might have been
"Content to breathe his native air,
On his own ground,"
but for his kind yet misjudging friends, "the patrons," as they were
called, "of his genius." Unfortunately for his future peace, each new
arrival at his little home of Ellisland, of those who had known him
at Edinborough, furnished proof that his old habits of conviviality
were only interrupted, but by no means broken: And it was only by the
frequency of these opportunities of good cheer in the society of the
gay companions of his city life, that he became inattentive to his
agricultural concerns, and that he finally lost the composure and
happiness, which were the attendants of his new situation, and with
these was lost his inclination to temperate and assiduous exertion.
I would not be understood as denying, in this argument, a previous,
perhaps a _natural_ tendency in the character of Burns, to undue and
intemperate excitement: but the impression upon my own mind is
strong, that this bias might have been checked and regulated, and
turned to good account by the noble and learned patrons of his
genius. Tried by the statutes of strict morality, a man like Burns
has many things to plead in his own defence, which those of less mind
and dimmer intellect cannot justly claim as their own: and it is in
the unwillingness to make this distinction, that the world are, too
often, unfair judges in cases of character. A distinguished writer
thus elegantly remarks, upon a similar subject.
"The world is habitually unjust in its judgments: It is not the few
inches of deflection from the mathematical orbit, which are so
_easily_ measured, but the _ratio_ of these to the _whole_ diameter,
which constitutes the _real_ aberration. With the world, this orbit
may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the solar system: or
it may be a city hippodrome, nay, the circle of a mill-course, its
diameter a score of feet or paces--but the inches of _deflection_,
_only_, are measured; and it is assumed that the diameter of the
mill-course, and that of the planet, will yield the same ratio when
compared with them. Here, then, lies the root of the blind, cruel
condemnation of such men as Robert Burns, which one never listens to
with approval. Granted--the ship comes into harbor with her shrouds
and tackle damaged, and is the pilot therefore blame-worthy, because
he has not been _all_-wise and _all_-powerful? For us to know _how_
blame-worthy he is, tell us how long and how arduous his voyage has
been."
But, after all, it is chiefly with Burns as a _poet_ that we have to
do--it is in _this_ light that _posterity_ will regard him, and it is
into the hands of this tribunal that he must, finally, be resigned. I
would that time had allowed me to refer more particularly to the
works of this delightful bard, than I have been enabled to do on the
present occasion. They began with his earliest, and were continued
until his latest years. Scattered along his devious, and often
_gloomy_ path, they seem like beautiful wild flowers, which he threw
there to cheer and animate the passer-by, with their undying bloom
and sweet fragrance. "In the changes of language his songs may, no
doubt, suffer change--but the associated strain of sentiment and of
music will perhaps survive, while the clear stream sweeps down the
Vale of Yarrow, or the yellow broom waves on the Cowdenknowes."
I have had occasion, in the course of this essay, to remark, that the
_songs_ of Burns are, by far, the most finished productions of his
muse: and his admirers may safely rest his fame upon them alone, even
if his longer and more elaborate poems should fail to secure him the
immortality he deserves. The celebrated Fletcher somewhere says,
"Give me the making of a people's _songs_, and let who will make
their laws!" And Burns has, in the composition of _his_ songs, placed
himself on an equality with the legislators of the _world!_ for
where, in the cottage or the palace, are they unsung? Whose blood has
not thrilled, and whose lip has not been compressed, as the noble air
of "Scots! wha hae wi' Wallace bled!" has swelled upon his ear? Who
cannot join in the touching and beautiful chorus of his "Auld lang
syne?" Who has not laughed over his "Willie brewed a peck o' maut,"
nor felt the rising tear of sympathetic sadness whilst listening to
his "Farewell to Ayr!" and his celebrated "Mary in Heaven?" In all
these, and many more, which are familiar as _very proverbs_ in our
mouths, the poet has shown such a versatility, and yet such an
entireness of talent--such tenderness and delicacy in his sorrow--yet
withal, so pure and delightful a rapture in his mirth; he weeps with
so true and feeling a heart, and laughs with such loud, and at the
same time such unaffected mirth, that he finds sympathy wherever his
harp is strung. The subjects he chose, and the free, natural style in
which he treated them, have won him this praise--and it shall endure,
the constant and lasting tribute of generation after generation.
But it has been beautifully said, (and who will not agree in the
sentiment?) that "in the hearts of men of right feelings, there
exists no consciousness of need to plead for Burns. In pitying
admiration, he lies {244} enshrined in all our hearts, in a far
nobler mausoleum than one of marble: neither will his works, even as
they are, pass away from the memory of men. While the Shakspeares and
Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of thought,
bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their
waves, this little Vauclusa Fountain will also arrest the eye: For
this also is of nature's own and most cunning workmanship, and bursts
from the depths of the earth with a full, gushing current, into the
light of day. And often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its
clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines."
For Heaven, sweet bard! on thee bestowed
A boon, beyond all name:
And, bounteous, lighted up thy soul
With its own native flame.
Soft may thy gentle spirit rest,
Sweet poet of the plain!
Light lay the green turf on thy breast,
Till it's illum'd again!