"This kind of life--the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the
unceasing toil of a galley-slave--brought me to my sixteenth year;
a little before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme."
It was at this time that he first fell in love, and it may be added that
after this he was never out of that interesting state. He says:--
"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 into that delicious passion, which in spite
of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm
philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest
blessing here below! 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 AEolian harp; and particularly, why my pulse beat such a furious
rattan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out
the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Thus with me began love and
poetry, which at times have been my only, and till within the last
twelve months, have been my highest enjoyment."
To a later period than this belongs the episode of Highland Mary, of
which the
"Banks and braes and streams around
The castle of Montgomery"
still whisper to the lovers of Burns, as they keep a solemn tryst with
old-time recollections there.
"How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom,
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasped her to my bosom!
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary."
It was the sweetest and tenderest romance of his life; and it is with
unbidden tears that the world still remembers that there
"fell death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early!
Now green's the sod and cauld's the clay
That wraps my Highland Mary."
After a hundred years there are still hearts that take a tender interest
in poor Mary's fate, and that feel for poor Robbie as he wrote:--
"Oh, pale, pale now those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed sae fondly,
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust
That heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary."
In the monument to Burns, near his old home, are deposited the two
volumes of the little pocket Bible which Burns gave to Mary when they
pledged their faith to one another. It is poorly printed on coarse
paper. A verse of Scripture is written within each cover by the poet's
hand, and fastened within is a lock of Mary's golden hair. It is fitting
that some memorial of her should find a place in that splendid monument
which the Scottish people erected to his memory, after his life of
poverty and sorrow had been brought to an untimely end.
Burns in his twenty-third year took the farm at Mossgiel, where he first
became acquainted with Jane Armour. This lady was the daughter of a
respectable mason in the village of Mauchline, where she was the
reigning beauty and belle. It was almost love at first sight upon the
part of both, and a close intimacy soon sprung up between them. Burns
was very handsome at this time, gay and fascinating in manners, and a
more experienced and highly-placed woman than Jane Armour might have
been excused for loving the wild young poet. For wild he undoubtedly
was, even at this time,--so much so that her parents objected to the
friendship. He was nearly six feet high, with a robust yet agile frame,
a finely formed head, and an uncommmonly interesting countenance. His
eyes were large, dark, and full of ardor and animation. His conversation
was full of wit and humor. He was very proud, and would be under
pecuniary obligation to no one. He was also very generous with his own
money. Of the first five hundred pounds which he received for his poems,
he immediately gave two hundred to his brother Gilbert to help toward
the support of their mother; and he was always as ready to share
whatever sum he had with those he loved.
The consequences of the intimacy between the poet and Jane Armour were
soon such as could not be concealed, and the farm having been a
disastrous speculation in the hands of Burns, he was not in a situation
to marry, although extremely anxious to do so. It was therefore agreed
upon between them that he should give her a written acknowledgment of
marriage, and then sail for Jamaica, and push his fortunes there. This
arrangement, however, did not suit the lady's father, who had a very
poor opinion of Burns's general character, and he prevailed upon Jane
to destroy this document. Under these circumstances she became the
mother of twins, and great scandal followed Burns even to Edinburgh,
where he had been induced to stop instead of sailing for Jamaica. But
his poems, which he succeeded in publishing at this time, gave him a
name and some money, and he returned to Mossgiel, and getting her father
to consent, married Jane, and moved on to a farm six miles from
Dumfries. He had become a lion, and the tables of the neighboring gentry
were soon open to him, as the houses of the great had been in Edinburgh.
Those were the days of conviviality, and Burns took his part in the
hilarity of the table, soon with very direful consequences to himself
and his family. He made many resolutions of amendment; but temperance
was a very rare virtue in those days, and Burns, who could not bear it,
was expected to drink just as much as those who could bear it, and who
could afford it. His genius suffered from this irregular life, and in a
little while he was not capable of doing justice to himself in his
writings; but he continued to be good company at table, and to be
invited with the local magnates, long after he had become a confirmed
drunkard. The farm was given up, and he soon depended entirely upon his
seventy pounds a year, the pay of an exciseman. He felt his degradation
very deeply, and had fearful struggles with his temptation, but was
always overborne. The horrible sufferings of genius in such thraldom
have never been adequately represented, nor indeed can they ever be.
When the will has become so enfeebled that no real resistance can be
made, while yet pride and kind-heartedness survive, the agony of such a
man is appalling. He loves his family, he knows better than any other
all they suffer for his sake; he determines a thousand times to reform,
only to find himself powerless to do so. He strives with more than the
heroism of a martyr many times, but he is beaten. We often blame him for
his defeat, but there comes a time to such a man when defeat is
inevitable. Happy he who makes his manful struggle while there is yet
time. Poor Burns, alas, did not. He went from bad to worse, while his
wife and five small children suffered as the families of such men always
suffer. From October, 1795, to the January following, an accident
confined him to his house. A few days after he began to go out, he dined
at a tavern, and returned home about three o'clock of a very cold
morning, benumbed and intoxicated. This was followed by rheumatism. He
was never well again, though he lived until the end of June. His mind
during all this time was wrung with the most poignant agony in regard to
the family he must leave,--for he knew he should not recover. It is
heart-rending to read of his sufferings and remorse, and to know that on
the morning of her husband's funeral Mrs. Burns gave birth to another
child. It is pleasant to learn that a subscription was immediately taken
up for the destitute family, which placed them in comparative comfort.
"Fight who will," says Byron, "about words and forms, Burns's rank is in
the first class of his art;" and this has long been the deliberate
judgment of the world. No finer flower of genius than that of Robert
Burns has ever blossomed, and it will be long before the world will see
another as fair. But, as Mr. Lockhart observes, "To accumulate all that
has been said of Burns, even by men like himself, of the first order,
would fill a volume." Not even the most carping critic has ever
questioned his genius. The "Cotter's Saturday Night," and "Tam
O'Shanter," and "Highland Mary," would stand before the world to refute
such a critic; and it would be a venturesome man indeed who would care
to contend for such a proposition as that Robert Burns was not a great
poet. That he was a great wit is also as well established, and that he
might have been a great master of prose is equally unquestionable. That
he was great in his life we dare not affirm, but that his life has a
great claim upon our charity we will gladly allow. Few writers have been
better loved than he. There is a personal warmth in all that he wrote,
and we feel that we knew him in a sort of personal way, as if we had
shaken hands with him, and heard his voice; and we always have a feeling
that he is addressing us in our own person. All of the many pilgrims who
visit the places he made immortal have something of this feeling, and
the banks of Doon are as classic now as the lovely Avon. And whenever we
are tempted to look upon the darker sides of his life-picture, we may
well refrain, and repeat his words:--
"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler, sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human;
One point must still be greatly dark,--
The moving why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark
How far perhaps they rue it."
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