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THE REAL ROBERT BURNS
THE REAL ROBERT BURNS
BY J. L. HUGHES, LL.D.
Author of 'Dickens as an Educator,' &c.
LONDON: 38 Soho Square, W.1
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED
EDINBURGH: 339 High Street
THE RYERSON PRESS
TORONTO: Corner Queen and John Streets
Printed in Great Britain.
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LTD., LONDON and EDINBURGH.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD 7
I. THE TRUE VALUES OF BIOGRAPHY 9
II. THE EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGES OF BURNS 17
III. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BURNS 35
IV. BURNS WAS A RELIGIOUS MAN 63
V. BURNS THE DEMOCRAT 99
VI. BURNS AND BROTHERHOOD 126
VII. BURNS A REVEALER OF PURE LOVE 135
VIII. BURNS A PHILOSOPHER 167
IX. THE DEVELOPMENT OF BURNS 197
FOREWORD.
The writer of the following pages learned years ago to reverence the
memories of Burns and Dickens. Frequently hearing one or the other
attacked from platform or pulpit, and believing both to be great
interpreters of the highest things taught by Christ, as the basis of the
development of humanity towards the Divine, he resolved that some day he
would try to help the world to understand correctly the work of these two
great men. His book, _Dickens as an Educator_, has helped to give a new
conception of Dickens, as an educational pioneer and as a philosopher. The
purpose of this book is to show that Burns was well educated, and that
both in his poems and in his letters he was an unsurpassed exponent of the
highest human ideals yet expressed of religion--democracy based on the
value of the individual soul, brotherhood, love, and the philosophy of
human life.
The writer believes that gossiping in regard to the weakness of the living
is indecent and degrading, but that it is pardonable as compared with the
debasing practice of gossiping about the weaknesses of the dead. Those who
can wallow in the muck of degraded biographers are only a degree less
wicked than the biographers themselves, who sin against the dead, and sin
against the living by providing debasing matter for them to read.
The evidence to prove the positions claimed to be true in this book is
mainly taken from the poems and letters of Burns himself. Some may doubt
the sincerity of Burns. Carlyle had no doubt about his sincerity or his
honesty. He says of the popularity of Burns: 'The grounds of so singular
and wide a popularity, which extends, in a literal sense, from the palace
to the hut, and over all regions where the English tongue is spoken, are
well worth inquiring into. After every just deduction, it seems to imply
some rare excellence in these works. What is that excellence? To answer
this question will not lead us far. The excellence of Burns is, indeed,
among the rarest, whether in poetry or in prose, but, at the same time, it
is plain and easily recognised--_his sincerity, his indisputable air of
truth_.'
Speaking of the moral character of Burns, Carlyle said: 'We are far from
regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average;
nay, from doubting that _he is less guilty than one of ten thousand_....
What he _did_ under such circumstances, and what he _forbore to do_, alike
fill us with astonishment at the _natural strength and worth of his
character_.'
Shakespeare says in _Hamlet_: 'Ay, sir, to be honest, as this world goes,
is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.' Carlyle chose Burns as one
of ten thousand.
These quotations should help two classes of men: the 'unco guid,' who
believe evil stories, most of which had no real foundation; and those
professed lovers of Burns who love him for his weaknesses. The real Robert
Burns was not weak enough to suit either of these two classes. 'Less
guilty than one in ten thousand' is a high standard.
To do something to help all men and women to a juster understanding of the
real Robert Burns is the aim of the writer. Let us learn, and ever
remember, that he was a reverent writer about religion, a clear
interpreter of Christ's teaching of democracy and brotherhood, a profound
philosopher, and the author of the purest love-songs ever written.
THE REAL ROBERT BURNS.
CHAPTER I.
THE TRUE VALUES OF BIOGRAPHY.
A man's biography should relate the story of his development in power, and
his achievements for his fellow-men. Biography can justify itself only in
two ways: by revealing the agencies and experiences that formed a man's
character and aided in the growth of his highest powers; and by relating
the things he achieved for humanity, and the processes by which he
achieved them.
Only the good in the lives of great men should be recorded in biographies.
To relate the evil men do, or describe their weaknesses, is not only
objectionable, it is in every way execrable. It degrades those who write
it and those who read it. Biography should not be mainly a story; it
should be a revelation, not of evil, but of good. It should unfold and
impress the value of the visions of the great man whose biography is being
written, and his success in revealing his high visions to his fellow-men.
It should tell the things he achieved or produced to make the world
better; the things that aid in the growth of humanity towards the divine.
The biographer who tells of evils is, from thoughtlessness or malevolence,
a mischievous enemy of mankind.
No man's memory was ever more unjustly dealt with than the memory of
Robert Burns. His first editor published many poems that Burns said on his
death-bed should be allowed 'to sink into oblivion,' and told all of
weakness that he could learn in order that he might be regarded as just.
He considered justice to himself of more consequence than justice to
Burns, or to humanity. His only claim to be remembered is the fact that he
prepared the poems of Burns for publication, and wrote his biography. It
is much to be regretted that he had not higher ideals of what a biography
should be, not merely for the memory of the man about whom it is written,
but for its influence in enlightening and uplifting those who read it.
Biographers should reveal not weaknesses, but the things achieved for God
and humanity.
Carlyle, writing of the biographers of Burns, says: 'His former
biographers have done something, no doubt, but by no means a great deal,
to assist us. Dr Currie and Mr Walker, the principal of these writers,
have both, we think, mistaken one important thing: their own and the
world's true relation to the author, and the style in which it became such
men to think and to speak of such a man. Dr Currie loved the poet truly,
more perhaps than he avowed to his readers, or even to himself; yet he
everywhere introduces him with a certain patronising, apologetic air, as
if the polite public might think it strange and half unwarrantable that
he, a man of science, a scholar and a gentleman, should do such honour to
a rustic. In all this, however, we readily admit that his fault was not
want of love, but weakness of faith; and regret that the first and kindest
of all our poet's biographers should not have seen farther, or believed
more boldly what he saw. Mr Walker offends more deeply in the same kind,
and both err alike in presenting us with a detached catalogue of his
attributes, virtues, and vices, _instead of a delineation of the resulting
character as a living unity_.'
The biographers of Robert Burns criticised reputed defects of his--defects
common among men of all classes and all professions in his time--but
failed to give him credit for his revelations of divine wisdom. They
bemoaned his lack of religion--though he was a reverently religious
man--instead of telling the simple truth that he was the greatest
religious reformer of his time in any part of the world. They said he was
not a Christian because he did not perform certain ceremonies required by
the churches, when freer and less bigoted men would have told the real
fact, that he was one of the world's greatest interpreters of Christ's
highest ideals--democracy and brotherhood. He still holds that high rank.
They related idle gossip about his vanity and other trivial stories,
instead of being content with proclaiming him the greatest genius of his
time in the comprehensiveness of his visions, and in the scope of his
powers. Some of them tried to prove that he was not a loyal man; they
should have revealed him as the giant leader of men in making them
conscious of the value of liberty and of the right of every man to its
fullest enjoyment.
The oft-repeated charge of disloyalty was disproved when the charge was
made during the life of Burns, but the false accusation has been accepted
as a fact by many people to the present time. Fortunately the records of
the Dumfries Volunteers have been discovered recently, and Mr William
Will has published them in a book entitled _Robert Burns as a Volunteer_.
They prove most conclusively that Burns was a truly loyal man. When the
Provost of Dumfries called a meeting of the citizens of Dumfries to
consider the need of establishing a company of Volunteers Burns attended
the meeting, and was chosen as a member of a small committee to write to
the king asking permission to form a company. When permission was granted
by the king, Burns joined the company on the night when it was first
organised, and sat up most of the night composing 'The Dumfries
Volunteers,' the most inspiring poem of its kind ever written. It did more
to arouse the people of Scotland and England to put down the bolshevism of
the time than any other loyal propaganda.
The minutes of the Volunteer Company in Dumfries give a perfect answer to
the basest slander ever made against Burns--that he had sunk so low as a
hopelessly vile drunkard the respectable people of Dumfries would not
associate with him; that he was ostracised by the community at large. Yet
this 'ostracised man' was chosen by the best citizens of Dumfries as one
of the committee to write to King George, and was elected as a member of
the committee to manage the company. This slander was so generally
accepted in Carlyle's time that even Carlyle himself wrote that Burns did
not die too soon, as he had lost the respect of his fellow-men, and had
lost also the power to write. His first statement is proved to have no
true foundation by the record of the Dumfries Volunteer Company, and the
second by the fact that Burns wrote the greatest poem ever written by any
man to interpret Christ's highest visions, democracy and brotherhood, 'A
Man's a Man for a' That,' the year before he died, and 'The Dumfries
Volunteers.' The second year before his death he wrote 'The Tree of
Liberty' and 'The Ode to Liberty,' and the third year before he died he
wrote the clarion call to fight in defence of freedom, 'Scots, wha hae.'
These poems have no equals in any literature of their kind. During the
same three years of his life he wrote one hundred and seventeen other fine
songs and sent them to Edinburgh for publication, the last one on the
ninth day before his death. It should be remembered, too, that Burns had
to ride two hundred miles each week in the discharge of his duty to the
government; and that after the organisation of the Volunteer Company he
had to drill four hours each week, and attend the meetings of the company
committee. The minutes of the company show he was never fined for absence.
The last meeting he attended before his fatal illness was called to
prepare a letter of gratitude to God for preserving the life of the king
when the London bolshevistic mob tried to kill him on his way to the House
of Commons. Assisting to prepare this letter to the king was the last
public act of Burns.
Had his weaknesses been tenfold what they were, his biographers should
have said nothing about them, for in spite of his human weakness he had
divine power to reveal to all men Christ's teachings--democracy and
brotherhood, based on the value of the individual soul. He was also the
greatest poet of religion, ethics, and love; and he holds a high place
among the loving interpreters of Nature.
To relate facts in his life to account for the development of his powers,
so that he was able to be so great a revealer of the highest things in the
lives of men and women, should have been the work of his biographers.
It is worthy of note that Wordsworth wrote to the publishers of the
biography of Burns in regard to the true attitude of a biographer. He
objected to recording imputed failings, and expressed indignation at Dr
Currie for devoting so much attention to the infirmities of Burns.
Chambers and Douglas were in most respects better than his other early
biographers. The Rev. Lauchlan MacLean Watt, of Edinburgh, wrote for the
Nation's Library in 1914 the sanest, truest book yet written about Burns.