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diff --git a/30721-h/30721-h.htm b/30721-h/30721-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9969f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/30721-h/30721-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5800 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Robert Burns, by Gabriel Setoun. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Burns, by Gabriel Setoun + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Robert Burns + Famous Scots Series + +Author: Gabriel Setoun + +Release Date: December 20, 2009 [EBook #30721] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT BURNS *** + + + + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<div class="figleft" style="width: 67px;"> +<img src="images/spine.jpg" width="67" height="600" alt="Spine" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 380px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="380" height="600" alt="Cover" title="" /> + +</div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span></p> + + + + +<h1 style="margin-bottom: 10em;">ROBERT<br /> +BURNS:</h1> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 362px;"> +<img src="images/title.jpg" width="362" height="600" alt="ROBERT +BURNS + +BY + +GABRIEL +SETOUN + +FAMOUS +SCOTS +SERIES + +PUBLISHED BY +OLIPHANT ANDERSON +& FERRIER EDINBURGH +AND LONDON" title="" /></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class='center' style="font-size: x-large;">ROBERT<br /> +BURNS</p> + +<p class='center' style="font-size: large;">BY<br /> +GABRIEL<br /> +SETOUN</p> + + +<p class='center' style="font-size: large;">FAMOUS<br /> + +·SCOTS·<br /> +·SERIES·</p> + +<p class='center' style="font-size: large;">PUBLISHED BY<br /> +OLIPHANT ANDERSON<br /> +& FERRIER · EDINBURGH<br /> +AND LONDON</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">{4}</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The designs and ornaments of this +volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, +and the printing from the press of +Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh.</p></div> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>June 1896.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">{5}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="right" colspan='2'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Birth and Education</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Lochlea and Mossgiel</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Series of Satires</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Kilmarnock Edition</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Edinburgh Edition</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Burns's Tours</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ellisland</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Dumfries</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Summary and Estimate</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">{7}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ROBERT_BURNS" id="ROBERT_BURNS"></a>ROBERT BURNS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">BIRTH AND EDUCATION</span></h2> + + +<p>Of the many biographies of Robert Burns that have +been written, most of them laboriously and carefully, +perhaps not one gives so luminous and vivid a portrait, +so lifelike and vigorous an impression of the personality +of the poet and the man, as the picture the author has +given of himself in his own writings. Burns's poems +from first to last are, almost without exception, the +literary embodiment of his feelings at a particular +moment. He is for ever revealing himself to the +reader, even in poems that might with propriety be +said to be purely objective. His writings in a greater +degree than the writings of any other author are the +direct expression of his own experiences; and in his +poems and songs he is so invariably true to himself, so +dominated by the mood of the moment, that every one +of them gives us some glimpse into the heart and soul +of the writer. In his letters he is rarely so happy; frequently +he is writing up to certain models, and ceases to +be natural. Consequently we often miss in them the +character and spirituality that is never absent from his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">{8}</a></span> +poetry. But his poems and songs, chronologically +arranged, might make in themselves, and without the +aid of any running commentary, a tolerably complete +biography. Reading them, we note the development of +his character and the growth of his powers as a poet; +we can see at any particular time his attitude towards +the world, and the world's attitude towards him; we +have, in fine, a picture of the man in his relations to his +fellow-man and in relation to circumstances, and may +learn if we will what mark he made on the society of +his time, and what effect that society had on him. +And that surely is an important essential of perfect +biography.</p> + +<p>But otherwise the story of Burns's life has been told +with such minuteness of detail, that the internal evidence +of his poetry would seem only to be called in to verify +or correct the verdict of tradition and the garbled gossip +of those wise after the fact of his fame. It is so easy +after a man has compelled the attention of the world +to fill up the empty years of his life when he was all +unknown to fame, with illustrative anecdotes and almost +forgotten incidents, revealed and coloured by the light +of after events! This is a penalty of genius, and it is +sometimes called fame, as if fame were a gift given of +the world out of a boundless and unintelligent curiosity, +and not the life-record of work achieved. It is easier to +collect ana and to make them into the patchwork pattern +of a life than to read the character of the man in his +writings; and patchwork, of necessity, has more of +colour than the homespun web of a peasant-poet.</p> + +<p>Burns has suffered sorely at the hands of the anecdote-monger. +One great feature of his poems is their perfect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">{9}</a></span> +sincerity. He pours out his soul in song; tells the tale +of his loves, his joys and sorrows, of his faults and +failings, and the awful pangs of remorse. And if a man +be candid and sincere, he will be taken at his word when +he makes the world his confessional, and calls himself a +sinner. There is pleasure to small minds in discovering +that the gods are only clay; that they who are guides +and leaders are men of like passions with themselves, +subject to the same temptations, and as liable to fall. +This is the consolation of mediocrity in the presence of +genius; and if from the housetops the poet proclaims +his shortcomings, the world will hear him gladly and +believe; his faults will be remembered, and his genius +forgiven. What more easy than to bear out his testimony +with the weight of collateral evidence, and the charitable +anecdotage of acquaintances who knew him not? Information +that is vile and valueless may ever be had for the +seeking; and it needs only to be whispered about for +a season to find its way ultimately into print, and to +flourish.</p> + +<p>It might naturally be expected at this time of day that +all that is merely mythical and traditional might have +been sifted from what is accredited and attested fact, +that the chaff might have been winnowed from the grain +in the life of Burns. In some of the most recently-published +biographies this has been most carefully and +conscientiously done; but through so many years wild +and improbable stories had been allowed to thrive and +to go unchallenged, that fiction has come to take the +colour and character of fact, and to pass into history. +'The general impression of the place,' that unfortunate +phrase on which the late George Gilfillan based an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">{10}</a></span> +unpardonable attack on the character of the poet, has +grown by slow degrees, and gained credence by the +lapse of time, till it is accepted as the general impression +of the country. Those who would speak of the poet +Robert Burns are expected to speak apologetically, and +to point a moral from the story of a wasted life. For +that has become a convention, and convention is always +respectable. But after all is said and done, the devil's +advocate makes a wretched biographer. It seems +strange and unaccountable that men should dare to +become apologists for one who has sung himself into +the heart and conscience of his country, and taken the +ear of the world. Yet there have been apologists even +for the poetry of Burns. We are told, wofully, that +he wrote only short poems and songs; was content with +occasional pieces; did not achieve any long and sustained +effort—to be preserved, it is to be expected, in a +folio edition, and assigned a fitting place among other +musty and hide-bound immortals on the shelves of +libraries under lock and key. As well might we seek +to apologise for the fields and meadows, in so far as +they bring forth neither corn nor potatoes, but only +grasses and flowers, to dance to the piping of the wind, +and nod in the sunshine of summer.</p> + +<p>It is a healthier sign, however, that the more recent +biographers of Burns snap their fingers in the face of +convention, and, looking to the legacy he has left the +world, refuse to sit in sackcloth and ashes round his +grave, either in the character of moralising mourners +or charitable mutes. Whatever has to be said against +them nowadays, the 'cant of concealment'—to adopt +another of Gilfillan's phrases—is not to be laid to their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">{11}</a></span> +charge. Rather have they rushed to the other extreme, +and in their eagerness to do justice to the memory of +the poet, led the reader astray in a wilderness of +unnecessary detail. So much is now known of Burns, +so many minute and unimportant details of his life and +the lives of others have been unearthed, that the poet is, +so to speak, buried in biography; the character and the +personality of the man lost in the voluminous testimony +of many witnesses. Reading, we note the care and +conscientiousness of the writer; we have but a confused +and blurred impression of the poet. Although a century +has passed since his death, we do not yet see the events +of Burns's life in proper perspective. Things trifling in +themselves, and of little bearing on his character, have +been preserved, and are still recorded with painful +elaboration; while the sidelights from friends, companions, +and acquaintances, male and female, are many +and bewildering.</p> + +<p>Would it not be possible out of this mass of material +to tell the story of Robert Burns's life simply and clearly, +neither wandering away into the family histories and +genealogies of a crowd of uninteresting contemporaries, +nor wasting time in elaborating inconsequential trifles? +What is wanted is a picture of the man as he was, and +an understanding of all that tended to make him the +name and the power he is in the world to-day.</p> + +<p>William Burness, the father of the poet, was a native +of Kincardineshire, and 'was thrown by early misfortunes +on the world at large.' After many years' wanderings, +he at last settled in Ayrshire, where he worked at first +as a gardener before taking a lease of some seven acres +of land near the Bridge of Doon, and beginning business<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">{12}</a></span> +as a nurseryman. It was to a clay cottage which he +built on this land that he brought his wife, Agnes Broun, +in December 1757; and here the poet was born in 1759. +The date of his birth is not likely to be forgotten.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Our monarch's hindmost year but ane<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was five-and-twenty days begun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas then a blast o' Jan'war' win'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blew hansel in on Robin.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To his father Burns owed much; and if there be anything +in heredity in the matter of genius, it was from +him that he inherited his marvellous mental powers. +His mother is spoken of as a shrewd and sagacious +woman, with education enough to enable her to read her +Bible, but unable to write her own name. She had a +great love for old ballads, and Robert as a boy must +often have listened to her chanting the quaint old songs +with which her retentive memory was stored. The poet +resembled his mother in feature, although he had the +swarthy complexion of his father. Attempts have been +made now and again to trace his ancestry on the +father's side, and to give to the world a kind of +genealogy of genius. Writers have demonstrated to +their own satisfaction that it was perfectly natural that +Burns should have been the man he was. But the +other children of William Burness were not great poets. +It has even been discovered that his genius was Celtic, +whatever that may mean! Excursions and speculations +of this kind are vain and unprofitable, hardly more +reputable than the profanities of the Dumfries craniologists +who, in 1834, in the early hours of April 1st,—a +day well chosen,—desecrated the poet's dust. They +fingered his skull, 'applied their compasses to it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">{13}</a></span> +satisfied themselves that Burns had capacity enough to +write <i>Tam o' Shanter</i>, <i>The Cotter's Saturday Night</i>, and +<i>To Mary in Heaven</i>.' Let us take the poet as he comes +to us, a gift of the gods, and be thankful. As La +Bruyère puts it, 'Ces hommes n'ont ni ancêtres ni +postérités; ils forment eux seuls toute une descendance.'</p> + +<p>What Burns owed particularly to his father he has +told us himself both in prose and verse. The exquisite +and beautiful picture of the father and his family at +their evening devotions is taken from life; and William +Burness is the sire who</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">'turns o'er with patriarchal grace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The big ha'-bible ance his father's pride';<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and in his fragment of autobiography the poet remarks: +'My father picked up a pretty large quantity of observation +and experience, to which I am indebted for +most of my pretensions to wisdom. I have met with +few men who understood men, their manners and their +ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly integrity and +headlong, ungovernable irascibility are disqualifying circumstances; +consequently I was born a very poor man's +son.... It was his dearest wish and prayer to have it +in his power to keep his children under his own eye till +they could discern between good and evil; so with the +assistance of his generous master, he ventured on a small +farm in that gentleman's estate.'</p> + +<p>This estimate of William Burness is endorsed and +amplified by Mr. Murdoch, who had been engaged by +him to teach his children, and knew him intimately.</p> + +<p>'I myself,' he says, 'have always considered William<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">{14}</a></span> +Burness as by far the best of the human race that ever +I had the pleasure of being acquainted with. He was +an excellent husband; a tender and affectionate father. +He had the art of gaining the esteem and goodwill of +those that were labourers under him. He carefully +practised every known duty, and avoided everything +that was criminal; or, in the apostle's words, <i>Herein did +he exercise himself in living a life void of offence towards +God and man</i>.'</p> + +<p>Even in his manner of speech he was different from +men in his own walk in life. 'He spoke the English +language with more propriety (both with respect to +diction and pronunciation) than any man I ever knew +with no greater advantages.'</p> + +<p>Truly was Burns blessed in his parents, especially in +his father. Naturally such a father wished his children +to have the best education his means could afford. It +may be that he saw even in the infancy of his firstborn +the promise of intellectual greatness. Certain it is he +laboured, as few fathers even in Scotland have done, to +have his children grow up intelligent, thoughtful, and +virtuous men and women.</p> + +<p>Robert Burns's first school was at Alloway Mill, about +a mile from home, whither he was sent when in his +sixth year. He had not been long there, however, when +the father combined with a few of his neighbours to +establish a teacher in their own neighbourhood. That +teacher was Mr. Murdoch, a young man at that time in +his nineteenth year.</p> + +<p>This is an important period in the poet's life, although +he himself in his autobiography only briefly touches on +his schooling under Murdoch. He has more to say of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">{15}</a></span> +what he owed to an old maid of his mother's, remarkable +for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. +'She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the +country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, +fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, +elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, +enchanted towers, giants, dragons, and other trumpery. +This cultivated the latent seeds of Poesy; but had so +strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, +in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp lookout +in suspicious places; and though nobody can be +more sceptical in these matters than I, yet it often +takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle +terrors.'</p> + +<p>It ought not to be forgotten that Burns had a better +education than most lads of his time. Even in the +present day many in better positions have not the +advantages that Robert and Gilbert Burns had, the +sons of such a father as William Burness, and under +such an earnest and thoughtful teacher as Mr. Murdoch. +It is important to notice this, because Burns is too often +regarded merely as a <i>lusus naturæ</i>; a being gifted with +song, and endowed by nature with understanding from +his birth. We hear too much of the <i>ploughman</i> poet. +His genius and natural abilities are unquestioned and +unquestionable; but there is more than mere natural +genius in his writings. They are the work of a man +of no mean education, and bear the stamp—however +spontaneously his songs sing themselves in our ears—of +culture and study. In a letter to Dr. Moore several +years later than now, Burns himself declared against +the popular view. 'I have not a doubt but the knack,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">{16}</a></span> +the aptitude to learn the Muses' trade is a gift +bestowed by Him who forms the secret bias of the +soul; but I as firmly believe that <i>excellence</i> in the +profession is the fruit of industry, attention, labour, +and pains. At least I am resolved to try my doctrine +by the test of experience.' There is a class of people, +however, to whom this will sound heretical, forbidding +them, as it were, the right to babble with grovelling +familiarity of Rab, Rob, Robbie, Scotia's Bard, and +the Ploughman Poet; and insisting on his name being +spoken with conscious pride of utterance, Robert Burns, +Poet.</p> + +<p>Gilbert Burns, writing to Dr. Currie of the school-days +under Mr. Murdoch, says: 'We learnt to read English +tolerably well, and to write a little. He taught us, too, +the English Grammar. I was too young to profit much +by his lessons in grammar, but Robert made some proficiency +in it—a circumstance of considerable weight in +the unfolding of his genius and character, as he soon +became remarkable for the fluency and correctness of +his expression, and read the few books that came in +his way with much pleasure and improvement; for even +then he was a reader when he could get a book.'</p> + +<p>After the family removed to Mount Oliphant, the +brothers attended Mr. Murdoch's school for two years +longer, until Mr. Murdoch was appointed to a better +situation, and the little school was broken up. Thereafter +the father looked after the education of his boys +himself, not only helping them with their reading at +home after the labours of the day, but 'conversing +familiarly with them on all subjects, as if they had been +men, and being at great pains, as they accompanied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">{17}</a></span> +him on the labours of the farm, to lead conversation to +such subjects as might tend to increase their knowledge +or confirm them in virtuous habits.' Among the books +he borrowed or bought for them at that period were +Salmon's <i>Geographical Grammar</i>, Derham's <i>Physico-Theology</i>, +Ray's <i>Wisdom of God in the Works of +Creation</i>, and Stackhouse's <i>History of the Bible</i>. It +was about this time, too, that Robert became possessed +of <i>The Complete Letter-Writer</i>, a book which Gilbert +declared was to Robert of the greatest consequence, +since it inspired him with a great desire to excel in +letter-writing, and furnished him with models by some +of the first writers in our language. Perhaps this book +was a great gain. It is questionable. What would +Robert Burns's letters have been had he never seen a +Complete Letter-Writer, and never read 'those models +by some of the first writers in our language'? Easier +and more natural, we are of opinion; and he might +have written fewer. Those in the Complete Letter-Writer +style we could easily have spared. His teacher, +Mr. Murdoch, furnishes some excellent examples of the +stilted epistolary style that was then fashionable.</p> + +<p>'But now the plains of Mount Oliphant began to +whiten, and Robert was summoned to relinquish the +pleasing scenes that surrounded the grotto of Calypso, +and, armed with a sickle, to seek glory by signalising +himself in the fields of Ceres.' Though Robert Burns +never perpetrated anything like this, his models were +not without their pernicious effect on his prose compositions.</p> + +<p>When Robert was about fourteen years old, he and +Gilbert were sent for a time, week about, to a school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">{18}</a></span> +at Dalrymple, and the year following Robert was sent +to Ayr to revise his English grammar under Mr. Murdoch. +While there he began the study of French, +bringing with him, when he returned home, a French +Dictionary and Grammar and Fenelon's <i>Telemaque</i>. +In a little while he could read and understand any +French author in prose. He also gave some time to +Latin; but finding it dry and uninteresting work, he +soon gave it up. Still he must have picked up a little +of that language, and we know that he returned to the +rudiments frequently, although 'the Latin seldom predominated, +a day or two at a time, or a week at most.' +Under the heading of general reading might be mentioned +<i>The Life of Hannibal</i>, <i>The Life of Wallace</i>, <i>The +Spectator</i>, Pope's <i>Homer</i>, Locke's <i>Essay on the Human +Understanding</i>, <i>Allan Ramsay's Works</i>, and several +<i>Plays of Shakspeare</i>. All this is worth noting, even at +some length, because it shows how Burns was being +educated, and what books went to form and improve +his literary taste.</p> + +<p>Yet when we consider the circumstances of the +family we see that there was not much time for study. +The work on the farm allowed Burns little leisure, but +every spare moment would seem to have been given +to reading. Father and sons, we are told by one who +afterwards knew the family at Lochlea, used to sit at +their meals with books in their hands; and the poet +says that one book in particular, <i>A Select Collection of +English Songs</i>, was his <i>vade mecum</i>. He pored over +them, driving his cart or walking to labour, song by +song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true, tender, or +sublime from affectation or fustian. 'I am convinced,'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">{19}</a></span> +he adds, 'I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, +such as it is.'</p> + +<p>The years of their stay at Mount Oliphant were years of +unending toil and of poverty bravely borne. The whole +period was a long fight against adverse circumstances. +Looking back on his life at this time, Burns speaks of +it as 'the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing +moil of a galley slave'; and we can well believe +that this is no exaggerated statement. His brother +Gilbert is even more emphatic. 'Mount Oliphant,' +he says, 'is almost the poorest soil I know of in a +state of cultivation.... My father, in consequence +of this, soon came into difficulties, which were increased +by the loss of several of his cattle by accident and +disease. To the buffetings of misfortune we could only +oppose hard labour and the most rigid economy. We +lived very sparingly. For several years butcher's meat +was a stranger in the house, while all the members of +the family exerted themselves to the utmost of their +strength, and rather beyond it, in the labours of the +farm. My brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in +thrashing the crop of corn, and at fifteen was the +principal labourer on the farm; for we had no hired +servant, male or female. The anguish of mind we felt +at our tender years under these straits and difficulties +was very great. To think of our father growing old +(for he was now above fifty), broken down with the +long-continued fatigues of his life, with a wife and five +other children, and in a declining state of circumstances, +these reflections produced in my brother's mind and +mine sensations of the deepest distress. I doubt not +but the hard labour and sorrow of this period of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">{20}</a></span> +life was in a great measure the cause of that depression of +spirits with which Robert was so often afflicted through +his whole life afterwards. At this time he was almost +constantly afflicted in the evenings with a dull headache, +which at a future period of his life was exchanged +for a palpitation of the heart and a threatening of +fainting and suffocation in his bed in the night-time.'</p> + +<p>This, we doubt not, is a true picture—melancholy, +yet beautiful. But not only did this increasing toil and +worry to make both ends meet, injure the bodily health +of the poet, but it did harm to him in other ways. It +affected, to a certain extent, his moral nature. Those +bursts of bitterness which we find now and again in +his poems, and more frequently in his letters, are +assuredly the natural outcome of these unsocial and +laborious years. Burns was a man of sturdy independence; +too often this independence became aggressive. +He was a man of marvellous keenness of perception; +too frequently did this manifest itself in a sulky suspicion, +a harshness of judgment, and a bitterness of speech. +We say this in no spirit of fault-finding, but merely +point it out as a natural consequence of a wretched +and leisureless existence. This was the education of +circumstances—hard enough in Burns's case; and if it +developed in him certain sterling qualities, gave him +an insight into and a sympathy with the lives of his +struggling fellows, it at the same time warped, to a +certain extent, his moral nature.</p> + +<p>What was his outlook on the world at this time? He +measured himself with those he met, we may be sure, +for Burns certainly (as he says of his father) 'understood +men, their manners and their ways,' as it is given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">{21}</a></span> +to very few to be able to do. Of the ploughmen, farmers, +lairds, or factors, he saw round about him there was none +to compare with him in natural ability, few his equal in +field-work. 'At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook,' he +remarks, 'I feared no competitor.' Yet, conscious of +easy superiority, he saw himself a drudge, almost a slave, +while those whom nature had not blessed with brains +were gifted with a goodly share of this world's wealth.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It's hardly in a body's power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To keep at times frae being sour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To see how things are shar'd;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How best o' chiels are whiles in want,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While coofs on countless thousands rant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' ken na how to wair 't.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His father, his brother, and himself—all the members +of the family indeed—toiled unceasingly, yet were unable +to better their position. Matters, indeed, got worse, and +worst of all when their landlord died, and they were left +to the tender mercies of a factor. The name of this man +we do not know, nor need we seek to know it. We know +the man himself, and he will live for ever a type of +tyrannous, insolent insignificance.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'I've noticed, on our Laird's court-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' mony a time my heart's been wae,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How they maun thole a factor's snash:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an swear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'll apprehend them, poind their gear:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Is it to be wondered at that Burns's blood boiled at +times, or that he should now and again look at those in +easier circumstances with snarling suspicion, and give<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">{22}</a></span> +vent to his feelings in words of rankling bitterness? +Robert Burns and his father were just such men as an +insolent factor would take a fiendish delight in torturing. +'My indignation yet boils,' Burns wrote years afterwards, +'at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent, +threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.' +Had they 'boo'd and becked' at his bidding, and +grovelled at his feet, he might have had some glimmering +sense of justice, and thought it mercy. But the Burnses +were men of a different stamp. 'William Burness always +treated superiors with a becoming respect, but he never +gave the smallest encouragement to aristocratical arrogance'; +and his son Robert was not less manly and +independent. He was too sound in judgment; too +conscious of his own worth, to sink into mean and abject +servility. But this factor, perhaps more than anyone +else, did much to pervert, if he could not kill, the poet's +spirit of independence.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, the opening sentences of his autobiographical +sketch have a suspicious ring of the pride +that apes humility. There is something harsh and +aggressive in his unnecessary confidence. 'I have not +the most distant pretensions to assume the character +which the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a +gentleman. When at Edinburgh last winter I got acquainted +at the Herald's office; and, looking through +that granary of honours, I there found almost every name +in the kingdom; but for me,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"My ancient but ignoble blood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had crept through scoundrels ever since the flood."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Gules, Purpure, Argent, etc., quite disowned me.' All +this is quite gratuitous and hardly in good taste.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">{23}</a></span></p> + +<p>Yet, in spite of untoward circumstances, ceaseless +drudgery, and insufficient diet, the family of Mount +Oliphant was not utterly lost to happiness. With such a +shrewd mother and such a father as William Burness—a +man of whom Scotland may be justly proud—no home +could be altogether unhappy. In Burns's picture of the +family circle in <i>The Cotter's Saturday Night</i> there is +nothing of bitterness or gloom or melancholy.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Anticipation forward points the view:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the work of the farm, too, hard as it was, there was +pleasure, and the poet's first song, with the picture he +gives of the partners in the harvest field, breaks forth +from this life of cheerless gloom and unceasing moil like +a blink of sunshine through a lowering sky. Burns's +description of how the song came to be made is worthy +of quotation, because it gives us a very clear and well-defined +likeness of himself at the time, a lad in years, +but already counting himself among men. 'You know +our country custom of coupling a man and a woman +together in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth +autumn my partner was a bewitching creature who just +counted an autumn less. In short, she, unwittingly to +herself, initiated me into a certain delicious passion, +which ... I hold to be the first of human joys.... I did not +well know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">{24}</a></span> +her when returning in the evening from our labours; +why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill +like an Æolian harp; and particularly why my pulse +beat such a furious rantann when I looked and fingered +over her hand to pick out the nettle-stings and thistles. +Among her other love-inspiring qualifications she sang +sweetly; and 'twas her favourite Scotch reel that I attempted +to give an embodied vehicle to in rhyme. I +was not so presumptive as to imagine 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 be +composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his +father's maids with whom he was in love; and I saw no +reason why I might not rhyme as well as he.'</p> + +<p>He had already measured himself with this moorland +poet, and admits no inferiority; and what a laird's son +has done he too may do. Writing of this song afterwards, +Burns, who was always a keen critic, admits that it is +'very puerile and silly.' Still, we think there is something +of beauty, and much of promise, in this early effusion. +It has at least one of the merits, and, in a sense, the +peculiar characteristic of all Burns's songs. It is sincere +and natural; and that is the beginning of all good writing.</p> + +<p>'Thus with me,' he says, 'began love and poetry, +which at times have been my only and ... my highest +enjoyment.' This was the first-fruit of his poetic genius, +and we doubt not that in the composition, and after the +composition, life at Mount Oliphant was neither so +cheerless nor so hard as it had been. A new life was +opened up to him with a thousand nameless hopes and +aspirations, though probably as yet he kept all these +things to himself, and pondered them in his heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">{25}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">LOCHLEA AND MOSSGIEL</span></h2> + + +<p>The farm at Mount Oliphant proved a ruinous failure, +and after weathering their last two years on it under the +tyranny of the scoundrel factor, it was with feelings of +relief, we may be sure, that the family removed to Lochlea, +in the parish of Tarbolton. This was a farm of 130 +acres of land rising from the right bank of the river Ayr. +The farm appeared to them more promising than the +one they had left. The prospect from its uplands was +extensive and beautiful. It commanded a view of the +Carrick Hills, and the Firth of Clyde beyond; but where +there are extensive views to be had the land is necessarily +exposed. The farm itself was bleak and bare, and +twenty shillings an acre was a high rent for fields so +situated.</p> + +<p>The younger members of the family, however, were +now old enough to be of some assistance in the house +or in the fields, and for a few years life was brighter than +it had been before; not that labour was lighter to them +here, but simply because they had escaped the meshes +and machinations of a petty tyrant, and worked more +cheerfully, looking to the future with confidence. Father, +mother, and children all worked as hard as they were +able, and none more ungrudgingly than the poet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">{26}</a></span></p> + +<p>We know little about those first few years of life at +Lochlea, which should be matter for special thanksgiving. +Better we should know nothing at all than that +we should learn of misfortunes coming upon them, and +see the family again in tears and forced to thole a factor's +snash; better silence than the later unsavoury episodes, +which have not yet been allowed decent burial. Probably +life went evenly and beautifully in those days. +The brothers accompanied their father to the fields; +Agnes milked the cows, reciting the while to her younger +sisters, Annabella and Isabella, snatches of song or +psalm; and in the evening the whole family would again +gather round the ingle to raise their voices in <i>Dundee</i> or +<i>Martyrs</i> or <i>Elgin</i>, and then to hear the priest-like father +read the sacred page.</p> + +<p>The little that we do know is worth recording. +'Gilbert,' to quote from Chambers's excellent edition of +the poet's works, 'used to speak of his brother as being +at this period a more admirable being than at any other. +He recalled with delight the days when they had to go +with one or two companions to cut peats for the winter +fuel, because Robert was sure to enliven their toil with +a rattling fire of witty remarks of men and things, +mingled with the expressions of a genial glowing heart, +and the whole perfectly free from the taint which he +afterwards acquired from his contact with the world. +Not even in those volumes which afterwards charmed his +country from end to end, did Gilbert see his brother in so +interesting a light as in those conversations in the bog, +with only two or three noteless peasants for an audience.'</p> + +<p>This is a beautiful picture: the poet enlivening toil +with talk, lighting and illustrating all he said with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">{27}</a></span> +lively imagination; Gilbert listening silently, and a group +of noteless peasants dumb with wonder. No artist has +yet painted this picture of Burns, as his brother saw him, +at his best. Writers have glanced at the scene and +passed it by. It needed to be looked at with naked, +appreciative eyes; they had come with microscopes to +the study of Burns. Far more interesting material +awaited them farther on: <i>The Poet's Welcome</i>, for example! +They could amplify that. Here, too, is the +first hint of Burns's brilliant powers as a talker; a +glimpse on this lonely peat moss of the man who, not +many years afterwards, was to dazzle literary Edinburgh +with the sparkle and force of his graphic speech.</p> + +<p>Probably it was about this time that Burns went for +a summer to a school at Kirkoswald. In his autobiography +he says it was his seventeenth year, and, if so, +it must have been before the family had left Mount +Oliphant. Gilbert's recollection was that the poet +was then in his nineteenth year, which would bring +the incident into the Lochlea period. In the new +edition of Chambers's Burns, William Wallace accepts +Robert's statement as correct; yet we hardly think the +poet would have spent a summer at school at a time +when the family was under the heel of that merciless +factor. Besides, although he speaks of his seventeenth +year, he has just made mention of the fact that he was +in the secret of half the amours of the parish; and it +was in the parish of Tarbolton that we hear of him +acting 'as the second of night-hunting swains.' Probably +also it would be after the family had found comparative +peace and quiet in their new home that it would +occur to Burns to resume his studies in a methodical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">{28}</a></span> +way. The point is a small one. The important thing +is, that in his seventeenth or nineteenth summer he went +to a noted school on a smuggling coast to learn mathematics, +surveying, dialling, etc., in which he made a +pretty good progress. 'But,' he says, 'I made a greater +progress in the knowledge of mankind. The contraband +trade was at this time very successful; scenes of swaggering +riot and roaring dissipation were as yet new to +me, and I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I +learnt to look unconcernedly on a large tavern bill and +mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on +with a high hand in my geometry.'</p> + +<p>The glimpses we have of Burns during his stay here +are all characteristic of the man. We see a young man +looking out on a world that is new to him; moving in a +society to which he had hitherto been a stranger. His +eyes are opened not only to the knowledge of mankind, +but to a better knowledge of himself. Thirsting for information +and power, we find him walking with Willie Niven, +his companion from Maybole, away from the village to +where they might have peace and quiet, and converse +on subjects calculated to improve their minds. They +sharpen their wits in debate, taking sides on speculative +questions, and arguing the matter to their own satisfaction. +No doubt in these conversations and debates he was +developing that gift of clear reasoning and lucid expression +which afterwards so confounded the literary and +legal luminaries of Edinburgh. They had made a study +of logic, but here was a man from the plough who held +his own with them, discussing questions which in their +opinion demanded a special training. For an uncouth +country ploughman gifted with song they were prepared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">{29}</a></span> +but they did not expect one who could meet them in +conversation with the fence and foil of a skilled logician. +We may see also his burning desire for distinction in that +scene in school when he led the self-confident schoolmaster +into debate and left him humiliated in the eyes +of the pupils. Even in his contests with John Niven +there was the same eagerness to excel. When he could +not beat him in wrestling or putting the stone, he was +fain to content himself with a display of his superiority in +mental calisthenics. The very fact that a charming +<i>fillette</i> overset his trigonometry, and set him off at a +tangent, is a characteristic ending to this summer of +study. Peggy Thomson in her kail-yard was too much +for the fiery imagination of a poet: 'it was in vain to +think of doing more good at school.'</p> + +<p>Too much stress is not to be laid on Burns's own +mention of 'scenes of swaggering riot and dissipation' +at Kirkoswald. Such things were new to him, and +made a lasting impression on his mind. We know that +he returned home very considerably improved. His +reading was enlarged with the very important addition +of Thomson's and Shenstone's works. He had seen +human nature in a new phasis, and now he engaged in +literary correspondence with several of his schoolfellows.</p> + +<p>It was not long after his return from Kirkoswald that +the Bachelor's Club was founded, and here could Burns +again exercise his debating powers and find play for his +expanding intellect. The members met to forget their +cares in mirth and diversion, 'without transgressing the +bounds of innocent decorum'; and the chief diversion +appears to have been debate.</p> + +<p>If we are to believe Gilbert, the seven years of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">{30}</a></span> +stay in Tarbolton parish were not marked by much +literary improvement in Robert. That may well have +been Gilbert's opinion at the time; for the poet was +working hard on the farm, and often spending an evening +at Tarbolton or at one or other of the neighbouring farms. +But he managed all the same to get through a considerable +amount of reading; and though, perhaps, he did +not devote himself so sedulously to books as he had been +accustomed to do in the seclusion of Mount Oliphant, he +was storing his mind in other ways. His keen observation +was at work, and he was studying what was of more +interest and importance to him than books—'men, their +manners and their ways.' 'I seem to be one sent into +the world,' he remarks in a letter to Mr. Murdoch, 'to +see and observe; and I very easily compound with the +knave who tricks me of my money, if there be anything +original about him, which shows me human nature in a +different light from anything I have seen before.' Partly it +was this passion to see and observe, partly it was another +passion that made him the assisting confidant of most of +the country lads in their amours. 'I had a curiosity, zeal, +and intrepid dexterity in these matters which recommended +me as a proper second in duels of that kind.' +His song, <i>My Nannie, O</i>, which belongs to this period, is +not only true as a lyric of sweet and simple love, but is also +true to the particular style of love-making then in vogue.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The westlin wind blaws loud an' shill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The night's baith mirk and rainy, O:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' owre the hills to Nannie, O.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>According to Gilbert, the poet himself was constantly +the victim of some fair enslaver, although, being jealous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">{31}</a></span> +of those richer than himself, he was not aspiring in his +loves. But while there was hardly a comely maiden in +Tarbolton to whom he did not address a song, we are not +to imagine that he was frittering his heart away amongst +them all. A poet may sing lyrics of love to many while +his heart is true to one. The one at this time to Robert +Burns was Ellison Begbie, to whom some of his songs +are addressed—notably <i>Mary Morrison</i>, one of the +purest and most beautiful love lyrics ever poet penned. +Nothing is more striking than the immense distance +between this composition and any he had previously +written. In this song he for the first time stepped to +the front rank as a song-writer, and gave proof to himself, +if to nobody else at the time, of the genius that was in +him. A few letters to Ellison Begbie are also preserved, +pure and honourable in sentiment, but somewhat artificial +and formal in expression. It was because of his love +for her, and his desire to be settled in life, that he took to +the unfortunate flax-dressing business in Irvine. That +is something of an unlovely and mysterious episode in +Burns's life. Suffice it to say in his own words: 'This +turned out a sadly unlucky affair. My partner was a +scoundrel of the first water, and, to finish the whole +business, while we were giving a welcome carousal to the +New Year, our shop, by the drunken carelessness of my +partner's wife, took fire and burned to ashes, and I was +left, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence.'</p> + +<p>His stay at Irvine was neither pleasant for him at the +time nor happy in its results. He met there 'acquaintances +of a freer manner of thinking and living than he +had been used to'; and it needs something more than +the family misfortunes and the deathbed of his father to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">{32}</a></span> +account for that terrible fit of hypochondria when he +returned to Lochlea. 'For three months I was in a +diseased state of body and mind, scarcely to be envied +by the hopeless wretches who have just got their sentence, +<i>Depart from me, ye cursed</i>.'</p> + +<p>Up to this time, the twenty-fifth year of his age, Burns +had not written much. Besides <i>Mary Morrison</i> might +be mentioned <i>The Death and Dying Words of Poor +Mailie</i>, and another bewitching song, <i>The Rigs o' Barley</i>, +which is surely an expression of the innocent abandon, +the delicious rapture of pure and trustful love. But +what he had written was work of promise, while at least +one or two of his songs had the artistic finish as well as +the spontaneity of genuine poetry. In all that he had +done, 'puerile and silly,' to quote his own criticism of +<i>Handsome Nell</i>, or at times halting and crude, there was +the ring of sincerity. He was not merely an echo, as too +many polished poetasters in their first attempts have been. +Such jinglers are usually as happy in their juvenile +effusions as in their later efforts. But Burns from the +first tried to express what was in him, what he himself +felt, and in so far had set his feet on the road to perfection. +Being natural, he was bound to improve by practice, +and if there was genius in him to become in time a great +poet. That he was already conscious of his powers we +know, and the longing for fame, 'that last infirmity of noble +mind,' was strong in him and continually growing stronger.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Then out into the world my course I did determine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My talents they were not the worst, nor yet my education;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Resolved was I at least to try to mend my situation.'<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">{33}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Before this he had thought of more ambitious things +than songs, and had sketched the outlines of a tragedy; +but it was only after meeting with Fergusson's <i>Scotch +Poems</i> that he 'struck his wildly resounding lyre with +rustic vigour.' In his commonplace book, begun in 1783, +we have ever-recurring hints of his devoting himself to +poetry. 'For my own part I never had the least +thought or inclination of turning poet till I got once +heartily in love, and then Rhyme and Song were in a +measure the spontaneous language of my heart.'</p> + +<p>The story of Wallace from the poem by Blind Harry +had years before fired his imagination, and his heart +had glowed with a wish to make a song on that hero in +some measure equal to his merits.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'E'en then, a wish, I mind its power—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wish that to my latest hour<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall strongly heave my breast—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some usefu' plan or beuk could make,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or sing a sang at least.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This was written afterwards, but it is retrospective of +the years of his dawning ambition.</p> + +<p>For a time, however, all dreams of greatness are to +be set aside as vain. The family had again fallen on +evil days, and when the father died, his all went 'among +the hell-hounds that grovel in the kennel of justice.' +This was no time for poetry, and Robert was too much +of a man to think merely of his own aims and ambitions +in such a crisis. It was only by ranking as creditors to +their father's estate for arrears of wages that the children +of William Burness made a shift to scrape together a +little money, with which Robert and Gilbert were able to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">{34}</a></span> +stock the neighbouring farm of Mossgiel. Thither the +family removed in March 1784; and it is on this farm +that the life of the poet becomes most deeply interesting. +The remains of the father were buried in Alloway Kirkyard; +and on a small tombstone over the grave the poet +bears record to the blameless life of the loving husband, +the tender father, and the friend of man. He had +lived long enough to hear some of his son's poems, and +to express admiration for their beauty; but he had also +noted the passionate nature of his first-born. There +was one of his family, he said on his deathbed, for +whose future he feared; and Robert knew who that one +was. He turned to the window, the tears streaming +down his cheeks.</p> + +<p>Mossgiel, to which the brothers now removed, taking +with them their widowed mother, was a farm of about +one hundred and eighteen acres of cold clayey soil, +close to the village of Mauchline. The farm-house, +having been originally the country house of their landlord, +Mr. Gavin Hamilton, was more commodious and +comfortable than the home they had left. Here the +brothers settled down, determined to do all in their +power to succeed. They made a fresh start in life, +and if hard work and rigid economy could have compelled +success, they might now have looked to the +future with an assurance of comparative prosperity. +Mr. Gavin Hamilton was a kind and generous landlord, +and the rent was only £90 a year; considerably +lower than they had paid at Lochlea.</p> + +<p>But misfortune seemed to pursue this family, and ruin +to wait on their every undertaking. Burns says: 'I +entered on this farm with a full resolution, "Come, go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">{35}</a></span> +to, I will be wise." I read farming books; I calculated +crops; I attended markets; and, in short, in spite of +the devil, the world, and the flesh, I should have been +a wise man; but the first year, from unfortunately +buying in bad seed; the second from a late harvest, we +lost half of both our crops. This overset all my wisdom, +and I returned like the dog to his vomit, and the sow +that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.'</p> + +<p>That this resolution was not just taken in a repentant +mood merely to be forgotten again in a month's time, +Gilbert bears convincing testimony. 'My brother's +allowance and mine was £7 per annum each, and +during the whole time this family concern lasted, which +was four years, as well as during the preceding period +at Lochlea, his expenses never in any one year exceeded +his slender income. His temperance and frugality were +everything that could be wished.'</p> + +<p>Honest, however, as Burns's resolution was, it was +not to be expected that he would—or, indeed, could—give +up the practice of poetry, or cease to indulge in +dreams of after-greatness. Poetry, as he has already +told us, had become the spontaneous expression of his +heart. It was his natural speech. His thoughts +appeared almost to demand poetry as their proper +vehicle of expression, and rhythmed into verse as +inevitably as in chemistry certain solutions solidify +in crystals. Besides this, Burns was conscious of his +abilities. He had measured himself with his fellows, +and knew his superiority. More than likely he had +been measuring himself with the writers he had studied, +and found himself not inferior. The great misfortune +of his life, as he confessed himself, was never to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">{36}</a></span> +an aim. He had felt early some stirrings of ambition, +but they were like gropings of Homer's Cyclops round +the walls of his cave. Now, however, we have come +to a period of his life when he certainly did have an +aim, but necessity compelled him to renounce it as +soon as it was recognised. It was not a question of +ploughing or poetry. There was no alternative. However +insidiously inclination might whisper of poetry, +duty's voice called him to the fields, and that voice he +determined to obey. Reading farming books and +calculating crops is not a likely road to perfection in +poetry. Yet, in spite of all noble resolution, the voice +of Poesy was sweet, and he could not shut his ears to it. +He might sing a song to himself, even though it were +but to cheer him after the labours of the day, and he +sang of love in 'the genuine language of his heart.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'There's nought but care on every hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In every hour that passes, O:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What signifies the life o' man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' 'twere na for the lasses, O?'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>For song must come in spite of him. The caged +lark sings, though its field be but a withered sod, and the +sky above it a square foot of green baize. Nor was his +commonplace book neglected; and in August we come +upon an entry which shows that poetical aspirations were +again possessing him; this time not to be cast forth, +either at the timorous voice of Prudence or the importunate +bidding of Poverty. Burns has calmly and +critically taken stock—so to speak—of his literary +aptitudes and abilities, and recognised his fitness for a +place in the ranks of Scotland's poets. 'However I am +pleased with the works of our Scotch poets, particularly +the excellent Ramsay, and the still more excellent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">{37}</a></span> +Fergusson, yet I am hurt to see other places of +Scotland, their towns, rivers, woods, haughs, etc., immortalised +in such celebrated performances, whilst my +dear native country, the ancient Bailieries of Carrick, +Kyle, and Cunningham, famous both in ancient and +modern times for a gallant and warlike race of inhabitants; +a country where civil and particularly religious +liberty have ever found their first support and their +last asylum, a country the birthplace of many famous +philosophers, soldiers, and statesmen, and the scene of +many important events in Scottish history, particularly a +great many of the actions of the glorious Wallace, the +saviour of his country; yet we have never had one +Scottish poet of any eminence to make the fertile banks +of Irvine, the romantic woodlands and sequestered +scenes of Aire, and the heathy mountainous source and +winding sweep of Doon, emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, +Tweed, etc. This is a complaint I would gladly remedy; +but, alas! I am far unequal to the task, both in native +genius and education. Obscure I am, and obscure I +must be, though no young poet nor young soldier's +heart ever beat more fondly for fame than mine.' The +same thoughts and aspirations are echoed later in his +<i>Epistle to William Simpson</i>—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Ramsay and famous Fergusson<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yarrow and Tweed, to mony a tune,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Owre Scotland rings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Naebody sings.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> . . . . . .<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We'll gar our streams and burnies shine<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Up wi' the best!'<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">{38}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>The dread of obscurity spoken of here was almost a +weakness with Burns. We hear it like an ever-recurring +wail in his poems and letters. In the very next entry +in his commonplace book, after praising the old bards, +and drawing a parallel between their sources of inspiration +and his own, he shudders to think that his fate may be +such as theirs. 'Oh mortifying to a bard's vanity, their +very names are buried in the wreck of things that were!'</p> + +<p>Close on the heels of these entries came troubles on +the head of the luckless poet, troubles more serious +than bad seed and late harvests. During the summer +of 1784, we know that he was in bad health, and again +subject to melancholy. His verses at this time are of a +religious cast, serious and sombre, the confession of +fault, and the cry of repentance.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Thou know'st that Thou hast formèd me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With passions wild and strong;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And listening to their witching voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has often led me wrong.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Perhaps this is only the prelude to his verses to +Rankine, written towards the close of the year, and his +poem, <i>A Poet's Welcome</i>. They must at least be all +read together, if we are to have any clear conception of +the nature of Burns. It is not enough to select his +<i>Epistle to Rankine</i>, and speak of its unbecoming levity. +This was the time when Burns was first subjected to +ecclesiastical discipline; and some of his biographers +have tried to trace the origin of that wonderful series of +satires, written shortly afterwards, to the vengeful feelings +engendered in the poet by this degradation. But Burns's +attack on the effete and corrupt ceremonials of the +Church was not a burst of personal rancour and bitterness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">{39}</a></span> +The attack came of something far deeper and +nobler, and was bound to be delivered sooner or later. +His own personal experience, and the experience of his +worthy landlord, Gavin Hamilton, may have given the +occasion, but the cause of the attack was in the Church +itself, and in Burns's inborn loathing of humbug, hypocrisy, +and cant.</p> + +<p>Well was it the satires were written by so powerful a +satirist, that the Church purged itself of the evil thing +and cleansed its ways. This, however, is an episode of +such importance in the life of Burns, and in the religious +history of Scotland, as to require to be taken up carefully +and considered by itself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">{40}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE SERIES OF SATIRES</span></h2> + + +<p>Before we can clearly see and understand Burns's +attitude to the Church, we must have studied the nature +of the man himself, and we must know something also of +his religious training. It will not be enough to select +his series of satires, and, from a study of them alone, +try to make out the character of the man. His previous +life must be known; the natural bent of his mind apprehended, +and once that is grasped, these satires will +appeal to the heart and understanding of the reader +with a sense of naturalness and expectedness. They are +as inevitable as his love lyrics, and are read with the +conviction that his merciless exposure of profanity masquerading +in the habiliments of religion, was part of the +life-work and mission of this great poet. He had been +born, it is recognised, not only to sing the loves and joys +and sorrows of his fellow men and women, but to purge +their lives of grossness, and their religion of the filth of +hypocrisy and cant. Let it be admitted, that he himself +went 'a kennin wrang.' What argument is there? We +do not deny the divine mission of Samson because of +Delilah. Surely that giant's life was a wasted one, yet +in his very death he was true to his mission, and fulfilled +the purpose of his birth. In other lands and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">{41}</a></span> +other times the satirist is recognised and his work appraised; +the abuses he scourged, the pretensions he +ridiculed, are seen in all their hideousness; but when a +great satirist arises amongst ourselves to probe the ulcers +of pharisaism, he is banned as a profaner of holy things, +touching with impious hands the ark of the covenant. +Why should the <i>cloth</i>—as it is so ingenuously called—be +touched with delicate hands, unless it be that it is +shoddy? Yet the man who would stand well in the +eyes of society must not whisper a word against pharisaism; +for the Pharisee is a highly respectable person, and +observes the proprieties; he typifies the conventional +righteousness and religion of his time.</p> + +<p>Let us have done with all this timidity and coward +tenderness. If the Church is filthy, it must be cleansed; +if there be money-changers within its gates, let them be +driven out with a whip of small cords. This awe of the +<i>cloth</i>, not yet stamped out in Scotland, is but the remains +of a pagan superstition, and has nothing to do with +the manliness and courage of true religion. But prophets +have no honour in their own country, rarely in +their own time; they have ever been persecuted, and it +is the Church's martyrs that have handed down through +the ages the light of the world.</p> + +<p>The profanities and religious blasphemies Burns attacked +were evils insidious and poisonous, eating to the +very heart of the religious life of the country, and they +required a desperate remedy. Let us be thankful that +the remedy was applied in time; and, looking to the +righteousness he wrought, let us bless the name of +Burns.</p> + +<p>Burns's father, stern and severe moralist as he was,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">{42}</a></span> +was not a strict Calvinist. Anyone who takes the +trouble to read 'The Manual of Religious Belief in a +Dialogue between Father and Son, compiled by William +Burness, Farmer, Mount Oliphant, and transcribed with +Grammatical Corrections by John Murdoch, Teacher,' +will see that the man was of too loving and kindly a +nature to be strictly orthodox. What was rigid and +unlovely to him in the Calvinism of the Scottish Church +of that day has been here softened down into something +not very far from Arminianism. He had had a +hard experience in the world himself, and that may have +drawn him nearer to his suffering fellow-men and into +closer communion with his God. He had learned that +religion is a thing of the spirit, and not a matter of +creeds and catechisms. Of Robert Burns's own religion +it would be impertinent to inquire too curiously. The +religion of a man is not to be paraded before the public +like the manifesto of a party politician. After all, is +there a single man who can sincerely, without equivocation +or mental reservation, label himself Calvinist, +Arminian, Socinian, or Pelagian? If there be, his +mind must be a marvel of mathematical nicety and +nothing more. All that we need know of Burns is +that he was naturally and sincerely religious; that he +worshipped an all-loving Father, and believed in an +ever-present God; that his charity was boundless; that +he loved what was good and true, and hated with an +indignant hatred whatever was loathsome and false. +He loved greatly his fellow-creatures, man and beast +and flower; he could even find something to pity in +the fate of the devil himself. That he was not orthodox, +in the narrow interpretation of orthodoxy in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">{43}</a></span> +day, we are well enough aware, else had he not been +the poet we love and cherish.</p> + +<p>In his early days at Mount Oliphant there is a hint +of these later satires. 'Polemical divinity about this +time was,' he says, 'putting the country half-mad, and +I, ambitious of shining on Sundays, between sermons, +in conversation parties, at funerals, etc., in a few years +more, used to puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and +indiscretion that I raised a hue and cry of heresy against +me, which has not ceased to this hour.' And heresy is a +terrible cry to raise against a man in Scotland. In +those days it was Anathema-maranatha; even now it is +still the war-slogan of the Assemblies.</p> + +<p>The polemical divinity which he refers to as putting +the country half-mad was the wordy war that was being +carried on at that time between the Auld Lights and the +New Lights. These New Lights, as they were called, +were but a birth of the social and religious upheaval that +was going on in Scotland and elsewhere. The spirit of +revolution was abroad; in France it became acutely +political; in Scotland there was a desire for greater +religious freedom. The Church, as reformed by Knox, +was requiring to be re-reformed. The yoke of papacy +had been lifted certainly, but the yoke of pseudo-Protestantism +which had taken its place was quite as +heavy on the necks of the people. So long as it had +been new; so long as it had been of their own choosing, +it had been endured willingly. But a generation was +springing up—stiff-necked they might have been called, +in that they fretted under the yoke of their fathers—that +sought to be delivered from the tyranny of their +pastors and the fossilised formalism of their creed. To<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">{44}</a></span> +the people in their bondage a prophet was born, and +that prophet was Robert Burns.</p> + +<p>It was natural that a man of Burns's temperament and +clearness of perception should be on the side of the +'common-sense' party. In one of his letters to Mr. +James Burness, Montrose, wherein he describes the +strange doings of a strange sect called the Buchanites,—surely +in itself a convincing proof of the degeneracy of +the times in the matter of religion,—we have an interesting +reflection which gives us some insight into the +poet's mind. 'This, my dear Sir, is one of the many +instances of the folly in leaving the guidance of sound +reason and common sense in matters of religion. Whenever +we neglect or despise those sacred monitors, the +whimsical notions of a perturbed brain are taken for the +immediate influences of the Deity, and the wildest +fanaticism and the most inconsistent absurdities will +meet with abettors and converts. Nay, I have often +thought that the more out of the way and ridiculous +their fancies are, if once they are sanctified under the +name of religion, the unhappy, mistaken votaries are the +more firmly glued to them.'</p> + +<p>The man who wrote that was certainly not the man, +when the day of battle came, to join himself with the +orthodox party, the party that stuck to the pure, undiluted +Puritanism of Covenanting times. Yet many +biographers have not seen the bearing that such a letter +has on Burns's attitude to the Church. Principal Shairp +seems to say that Burns, had it not been for the accident +of ecclesiastical discipline to which he had been +subjected, would have joined the orthodox party. The +notion is absurd. Burns had attacked orthodox Calvinism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">{45}</a></span> +even in his boyhood, and was already tainted +with heresy. 'These men,' the worthy Principal informs +us, 'were democratic in their ecclesiastical views, and +stout protesters against patronage. All Burns's instincts +would naturally have been on the side of those who +wished to resist patronage and "cowe the lairds" had +not this, his natural tendency, been counteracted by a +stronger bias drawing him in an opposite direction.' +This is a narrowing—if not even a positive misconception—of +the case with a vengeance. The question was +not of patronage at all, but of moral and religious +freedom; while the democracy of those ministers was +a terribly one-sided democracy. The lairds may have +dubbed them democrats, but they were aristocratic +enough, despotic even, to their herds. But Principal +Shairp has been led altogether wrong by imagining that +'Burns, smarting under the strict church discipline, +naturally threw himself into the arms of the opposite +or New Light party, who were more easy in their life +and in their doctrine.' More charitable also, and Christ-like +in their judgments, I should fain hope; less blinded +by a superstitious awe of the Church. 'Nothing could +have been more unfortunate,' he continues, 'than that +in this crisis of his career he should have fallen into +intimacy with those hard-headed but coarse-minded +men.' Surely this zeal for the Church has carried him +too far. Were these men all coarse minded? Nobody +believes it. The coarse-minded Dr. Dalrymple of Ayr, +and the coarse-minded Mr. Lawrie of Loudon! This is +not argument. Besides, it is perfectly gratuitous. The +question, again, is not one of men—that ecclesiastical +discipline has been an offence and a stumbling-block—either<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">{46}</a></span> +coarse minded or otherwise. It is a question of principle, +and Burns fought for it with keen-edged weapons.</p> + +<p>It would be altogether a mistake to identify Burns +with the New Light party, or with any other sect. He +was a law unto himself in religion, and would bind himself +by no creed. Because he attacked rigid orthodoxy +as upheld by Auld Light doctrine, that does not at all +mean that he was espousing, through thick and thin, the +cause of the New Light party. He fought in his own +name, with his own weapons, and for humanity. It +ought to be clearly understood that in his series of +satires he was not attacking the orthodoxy of the Auld +Lights from the bulwarks of any other creed. His +criticism was altogether destructive. From his own +conception of a wise and loving God he satirised what +he conceived to be their irrational and inhuman conception +of Deity, whose attitude towards mankind was +assuredly not that of a father to his children. Burns's +God was a God of love; the god they worshipped was +the creation of their creed, a god of election. It is +quite true that Burns made many friends amongst the +New Lights, but we are certain he did not hold by all +their tenets or subscribe to their doctrine. In the +<i>Dictionary of National Biography</i> we read: 'Burns +represented the revolt of a virile and imaginative +nature against a system of belief and practice which, +as he judged, had degenerated into mere bigotry and +pharisaism.... That Burns, like Carlyle, who at once +retained the sentiment and rejected the creed of his race +more decidedly than Burns, could sympathise with the +higher religious sentiments of his class is proved by <i>The +Cotter's Saturday Night</i>.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">{47}</a></span></p> + +<p>Principal Shairp, however, has not seen the matter in +this broad light. All he sees is a man of keen insight +and vigorous powers of reasoning, who 'has not only his +own quarrel with the parish minister and the stricter +clergy to revenge, but the quarrel also of his friend and +landlord, Gavin Hamilton, a county lawyer who had +fallen under church censure for neglect of church ordinances,'—a +question of new potatoes in fact,—'and had +been debarred from the communion.'</p> + +<p>It is pleasing to see that the academic spirit is not +always so blinding and blighting. Professor Blackie +recognises that the abuses Burns castigated were real +abuses, and admits that the verdict of time has been in +his favour. 'In the case of <i>Holy Willie</i> and <i>The Holy +Fair</i>,' he remarks, 'the lash was wisely and effectively +wielded'; and on another occasion he wrote, 'Though +a sensitive pious mind will naturally shrink from the +bold exposure of devout abuses in holy things, in <i>The +Holy Fair</i> and other similar satires, on a broad view of +the matter we cannot but think that the castigation was +reasonable, and the man who did it showed an amount +of independence, frankness, and moral courage that +amply compensates for the rudeness of the assault.'</p> + +<p>Rude, the assault certainly was and overwhelming. +Augean stables are not to be cleansed with a spray of +rose-water.</p> + +<p>Lockhart, whilst recognising the force and keenness +of these satires, has regretfully pointed out that the very +things Burns satirised were part of the same religious +system which produced the scenes described in <i>The +Cotter's Saturday Night</i>. But is this not really the +explanation of the whole matter? It was just because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">{48}</a></span> +Burns had seen the beauty of true religion at home, that +he was fired to fight to the death what was false and +rotten. It was the cause of true religion that he +espoused.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'All hail religion! Maid divine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pardon a muse so mean as mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who in her rough imperfect line<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thus dares to name thee.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To stigmatise false friends of thine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Can ne'er defame thee.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Compare the reading of the sacred page, when the +family is gathered round the ingle, and 'the sire turns +o'er with patriarchal grace the big ha'-bible' and 'wales +a portion with judicious care,' with the reading of +<i>Peebles frae the Water fit</i>—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'See, up he's got the word o' God,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And meek and mim has viewed it.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>What a contrast! The two readings are as far apart +as is heaven from hell, as far as the true from the +false. It is strange that both Lockhart and Shairp +should have stumbled on the explanation of Burns's +righteous satire in these poems; should have been so +near it, and yet have missed it. It was just because +Burns could write <i>The Cotter's Saturday Night</i> that he +could write <i>The Holy Tulzie</i>, <i>Holy Willie's Prayer</i>, <i>The +Ordination</i>, and <i>The Holy Fair</i>. Had he not felt the +beauty of that family worship at home; had he not seen +the purity and holiness of true religion, how could such +scenes as those described in <i>The Holy Fair</i>, or such +hypocrisy as Holy Willie's, ever have moved him to +scathing satire? Where was the poet's indignation to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">{49}</a></span> +come from? That is not to be got by tricks of rhyme +or manufactured by rules of metre; but let it be alive +and burning in the heart of the poet, and all else will +be added unto him for the perfect poem, as it was to +Burns. That Burns, though he wrote in humorous +satire, was moved to the writing by indignation, he tells +us in his epistle to the Rev. John M'Math—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'But I gae mad at their grimaces,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their sighin', cantin', grace-prood faces,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Their raxin' conscience,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whase greed, revenge, and pride disgraces<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Waur nor their nonsense.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The first of Burns's satires, if we except his epistle to +John Goudie, wherein we have a hint of the acute differences +of the time, is his poem <i>The Twa Herds</i>, or +<i>The Holy Tulzie</i>. The two herds were the Rev. John +Russell and the Rev. Alexander Moodie, both afterwards +mentioned in <i>The Holy Fair</i>. These reverend gentlemen, +so long sworn friends, bound by a common bond +of enmity against a certain New Light minister of the +name of Lindsay, 'had a bitter black outcast,' and, in +the words of Lockhart, 'abused each other <i>coram populo</i> +with a fiery virulence of personal invective such as has +long been banished from all popular assemblies.' This +degrading spectacle of two priests ordained to preach +the gospel of love, attacking each other with all the +rancour of malice and uncharitableness, and foaming +with the passion of a pothouse, was too flagrant an +occasion for satire for Burns to miss. He held them +up to ridicule in <i>The Holy Tulzie</i>, and showed them +themselves as others saw them. It has been objected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">{50}</a></span> +by some that Burns made use of humorous satire; did +not censure with the fiery fervour of a righteous indignation. +Burns used the weapon he could handle best; +and a powerful weapon it is in the hands of a master. +We acknowledge Horace's satires to be scathing enough, +though they are light and delicate, almost trifling and +flippant at times. He has not the volcanic utterance of +Juvenal, but I doubt not his castigations were quite as +effective. 'Quamquam ridentem dicere verum quid +vetat?' Burns might have well replied to his censors +with the same question. Quick on the heels of this +poem came <i>Holy Willie's Prayer</i>, wherein he took up +the cudgels for his friend, Mr. Gavin Hamilton, and +fought for him in his own enthusiastic way. The satire +here is so scathing and scarifying that we can only read +and wonder, shuddering the while for the wretched +creature so pitilessly flayed. Not a word is wasted; +not a line without weight. The character of the self-righteous, +sensual, spiteful Pharisee is a merciless exposure, +and, hardest of all, the picture is convincing. +For Burns believed in his own mind that these men, +Holy Willie and the crew he typified, were thoroughly +dishonest. They were not in his judgment—and Burns +had keen insight—mere bigots dehumanised by their +creed, but a pack of scheming, calculating scoundrels.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'They take religion in their mouth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They talk o' mercy, grace, and truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For what? to gie their malice skouth<br /></span> +<span class="i8">On some puir wight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hunt him down, o'er right and ruth<br /></span> +<span class="i8">To ruin straight.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But it must be noted in <i>Holy Willie</i> that the poet is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">{51}</a></span> +not letting himself out in a burst of personal spleen. +He is again girding at the rigidity of a lopped and +maimed Calvinism, and attacking the creed through the +man. The poem is a living presentment of the undiluted, +puritanic doctrine of the Auld Light party, to whom +Calvinism meant only a belief in hell and an assurance +of their own election. It is evident that Burns was not +sound on either essential. <i>The Address to the Unco +Guid</i> is a natural sequel to this poem, and, in a sense, +its culmination. There is the same strength of satire, +but now it is more delicate and the language more +dignified. There is the same condemnation of pharisaism; +but the poem rises to a higher level in its appeal +for charitable views of human frailty, and its kindly +counsel to silence; judgment is to be left to Him who</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Knows each cord, its various tone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each spring its various bias.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Of all the series of satires, however, <i>The Holy Fair</i> is +the most remarkable. It is in a sense a summing up of +all the others that preceded it. The picture it gives of +the mixed and motley multitude fairing in the churchyard +at Mauchline, with a relay of ministerial mountebanks +catering for their excitement, is true to the life. +It is begging the question to deplore that Burns was +provoked to such an attack. The scene was provocation +sufficient to any right-thinking man who associated the +name of religion with all that was good and beautiful +and true. Such a state of things demanded reformation. +The churchyard—that holy ground on which the church +was built and sanctified by the dust of pious and saintly +men—cried aloud against the desecration to which it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">{52}</a></span> +was subjected; and Burns, who alone had the power to +purify it from such profanities, would have been untrue +to himself and a traitor to the religion of his country +had he merely shrugged his shoulders and allowed things +to go on as they were going. And after all what was the +result? For the poem is part and parcel of the end it +achieved. 'There is a general feeling in Ayrshire,' says +Chambers, 'that <i>The Holy Fair</i> was attended with a good +effect; for since its appearance the custom of resorting +to the occasion in neighbouring parishes for the sake of +holiday-making has been much abated and a great increase +of decorous observance has taken place.' To that +nothing more need be added.</p> + +<p>In this series of satires <i>The Address to the Deil</i> ought +also to be included. Burns had no belief at all in that +Frankenstein creation. It was too bad, he thought, to +invent such a monster for the express purpose of imputing +to him all the wickedness of the world. If such +a creature existed, he was rather sorry for the maligned +character, and inclined to think that there might be +mercy even for him.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'I'm wae to think upon yon den,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Even for your sake.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Speaking of this address, Auguste Angellier says: 'All +at once in their homely speech they heard the devil +addressed not only without awe, but with a spice of +good-fellowship and friendly familiarity. They had +never heard the devil spoken of in this tone before. It +was a charming address, jocund, full of raillery and good-humour, +with a dash of friendliness, as if the two speakers +had been cronies and companions ready to jog along<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">{53}</a></span> +arm in arm to the nether regions. He simply laughs +Satan out of countenance, turns him to ridicule, pokes +his fun at him, scolds and defies him just as he might +have treated a person from whom he had nothing to +fear. Nor is that all. He must admonish him, tell him +he has been naughty long enough, and wind up by +giving him some good advice, counselling him to mend +his ways. This was certainly without theological precedent. +It was, however, a simple idea which would +have arranged matters splendidly.... Even to-day to +speak well of the devil is an abomination almost as +serious as to speak evil of the Deity. There was +assuredly a great fortitude of mind as well as daring of +conduct to write such a piece as this.'</p> + +<p>The poem has done more than anything else to kill +the devil of superstition in Scotland. After his death +he found, it is averred, a quiet resting-place in Kirkcaldy, +where pious people have built a church on his grave.</p> + +<p>When Burns later in life made the witches and warlocks +dance to the piping of the devil in Alloway's auld +haunted kirk, he was but assembling them in their fit +and proper house of meeting. Here had they been +called into being; here had they the still-born children +of superstition been thrashed into life and trained in +unholiness. One can imagine them oozing out from the +walls that had echoed their names so often through +centuries of Sabbath days. The devil himself, by virtue +of his rank, takes his place in the east, rising we have no +doubt from the very spot on which the pulpit once had +stood. In the church had superstition exorcised this +hellish legion out of the dead mass of ignorance into the +swarming maggots that batten on corruption; and it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">{54}</a></span> +in accordance with the eternal fitness of things that here +their spirits should abide, and, when they took bodily +shape, that they should assume the form and feature in +which their mother Superstition had conceived them.</p> + +<p>Upon the holy table too lay 'twa span-lang wee unchristened +bairns.' For this hell the poet pictures is the +creation of a creed that throngs it with the souls of +innocent babes. 'Suffer little children to come unto +me,' Christ had said; 'for of such is the kingdom of +heaven.' 'But unbaptized children must come unto +me,' the devil of superstition said; 'for of such is the +kingdom of hell.'</p> + +<p>What pathos is in this line of Burns! There is in its +slow spondaic movement an eternity of tears. Could +satire or sermon have shown more forcibly the revolting +inhumanity of a doctrine upheld as divine? Yet were +there devout men, in other things gentle and loving and +charitable, who preached this as the law of a loving God. +With one stroke of genius they were brought face to face +with the logical sequence of their barbarous teaching, +and that without a word of coarseness or a touch of +caricature.</p> + +<p>Only once again did Burns return to this attack on +bigotry and superstition, and that was when he was induced +to fight for Dr. Macgill in <i>The Kirk's Alarm</i>. +But he had done his part in the series of satires of this +year to expose the loathsomeness of hypocrisy and to +purge holy places and the most solemn ceremonies of +what was blasphemous and grossly profane. That in +this Burns was fulfilling a part of his mission as a poet, +we can hardly doubt; and that his work wrought for +righteousness, the purer religious life that followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">{55}</a></span> +amply proves. The true poet is also a prophet; and +Robert Burns was a prophet when he spoke forth boldly +and fearlessly the truth that was in him, and dared to +say that sensuality was foul even in an elder of the kirk, +and that profanities were abhorred of God even though +sanctioned and sanctified under the sacred name of +religion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">{56}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE KILMARNOCK EDITION</span></h2> + + +<p><i>The Holy Tulzie</i> had been written probably in April +1785, and the greatest of the satires, <i>The Holy Fair</i>, is +dated August of the same year. It may, however, have +been only drafted, and partly written, when the recent +celebration of the sacrament at Mauchline was fresh in +the poet's mind. At the very latest, it must have been +taken up, completed, and perfected, in the early months +of 1786. That is a period of some ten months between +the first and the last of this series of satires; and during +that time he had composed <i>Holy Willie's Prayer</i>, <i>The +Address to the Deil</i>, <i>The Ordination</i>, and <i>The Address to +the Unco Guid</i>. But this represents a very small part of +the poetry written by Burns during this busy period. +From the spring of 1785 on to the autumn of 1786 was +a time of great productiveness in his life, a productiveness +unparalleled in the life of any other poet. If, according +to Gilbert, the seven years of their stay at Lochlea were +not marked by much literary improvement in his brother, +we take it that the poet had been 'lying fallow' all those +years; and what a rich harvest do we have now! Here, +indeed, was a reward worth waiting for. To read over +the names of the poems, songs, and epistles written +within such a short space of time amazes us. And there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">{57}</a></span> +is hardly a poem in the whole collection without a claim +to literary excellence. A month or two previous to the +composition of his first satire he had written what Gilbert +calls his first poem, <i>The Epistle to Davie</i>, 'a brother poet, +lover, ploughman, and fiddler.' It is worthy of notice +that, in the opening lines of this poem—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'While winds frae aff Ben Lomond blaw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bar the doors wi' driving snaw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hing us ower the ingle'—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>we see the poet and his surroundings, as he sets himself +down to write. He plunges, as Horace advises, in <i>medias +res</i>, and we have the atmosphere of the poem in the first +phrase. This is Burns's usual way of beginning his +poems and epistles, as well as a great many of his songs. +The metre of this poem Burns has evidently taken from +<i>The Cherry and the Slae</i>, by Alexander Montgomery, +which he must have read in Ramsay's <i>Evergreen</i>. The +stanza is rather complicated, although Burns, with his +extraordinary command and pliancy of language, uses it +from the first with masterly ease. But there is much +more than mere jugglery of words in the poem. Indeed, +such is this poet's seeming simplicity of speech that his +masterly manipulation of metres always comes as an +afterthought. It never disturbs us in our first reading +of the poem. Gilbert's opinion of this poem is worth +recording, the more especially as he expressly tells us +that the first idea of Robert's becoming an author was +started on this occasion. 'I thought it,' he says, 'at +least equal to, if not superior, to many of Allan Ramsay's +epistles, and that the merit of these and much other +Scottish poetry seemed to consist principally in the knack<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">{58}</a></span> +of the expression; but here there was a strain of interesting +sentiment, and the Scotticism of the language scarcely +seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural language +of the poet.' It startles us to hear Gilbert talking thus +of the Scotticism, after having heard so much of Robert +Burns writing naturally in the speech of his home and +county. In this poem we have, at least, the first proof +of that graphic power in which Burns has never been +excelled, and in it we have the earliest mention of his +Bonnie Jean. In his next poem, <i>Death and Dr. +Hornbook</i>, his command of language and artistic phrasing +are more apparent, while pawky humour and genial satire +sparkle and flash from every line. The poem is written +in that form of verse which Burns has made particularly +his own. He had become acquainted with it, it is most +likely, in the writings of Fergusson, Ramsay, and Gilbertfield, +who had used it chiefly for comic subjects; but +Burns showed that, in his hands at least, it could be made +the vehicle of the most pensive and tender feeling. In +an interesting note to the <i>Centenary Burns</i>, edited by +Henley and Henderson, it is pointed out that 'the six-line +stave in rime couée built on two rhymes,' was used +by the Troubadours in their <i>Chansons de Gestes</i>, and that +it dates at the very latest from the eleventh century. +Burns's happiest use of it was in those epistles which +about this time he began to dash off to some of his friends; +and it is with these epistles that the uninterrupted stream +of poetry of this season may be said properly to begin. +Perhaps it was in the use of this stanza that Burns first +discovered his command of rhymes and his felicity of +phrasing. Certain it is, that after his first epistle to +Lapraik, we have epistles, poems, songs, satires flowing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">{59}</a></span> +from his pen, uninterrupted for a period, and apparently +with marvellous ease. It has to be remembered, too, +that he was now inspired by the dream of becoming an +author—in print. When or where or how, had not been +determined; but the idea was delightful all the same; the +hope was inspiration itself. Some day his work would +be published, and he would be read and talked about! +He would have done something for poor auld Scotland's +sake. The one thing now was to make the book, and to +that he set himself deliberately. Poetry was at last to +have its chance. Farming had been tried, with little +success. The crops of 1784 had been a failure, and this +year they were hardly more promising. In these discouraging +circumstances the poet was naturally driven in +upon himself. His eyes were turned <i>ad intra</i>, and he +sought consolation in his Muse. He was conscious of +some poetical ability, and he knew that his compositions +were not destitute of merit. Poetry, too, was to him, and +particularly so at this time, its own exceeding great reward. +He rhymed 'for fun'; and probably he was finding in +the exercise that excitement his passionate nature craved. +Herein was his stimulant after the routine of farm-work—spiritless +work that was little better than slavery, incessant +and achieving nothing. We can imagine him in +those days returning from the fields, 'forjesket, sair, with +weary legs,' and becoming buoyant as soon as he has +opened the drawer of that small deal table in the garret.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My chief, amaist, my only pleasure;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At hame, afield, at wark or leisure,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The Muse, poor hizzie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though rough and raploch be her measure,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">She's seldom lazy.'<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">{60}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>But, lazy or not, she becomes 'ramfeezled' with constant +work, when he vows if 'the thowless jad winna mak +it clink,' to prose it,—a terrible threat. For he must +write, though it be but to keep despondency at arm's +length. Yet it had become more than a pleasure and a +recreation to him; and this he was beginning to understand. +This, after all, was his real work, not the drudgery +of the fields; in it he must live his life, and fulfil his +mission. The more he wrote the more he accustomed +himself with the idea of being an author. He knew that +the critic-folk, deep read in books, might scoff at the very +suggestion of a ploughman turning poet, but he recognised +also that they might be wrong. It was not by dint +of Greek that Parnassus was to be climbed. 'Ae spark +o' Nature's fire' was the one thing needful for poetry that +was to touch the heart.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The star that rules my luckless lot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has fated me the russet coat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And damned my fortune to the groat;<br /></span> +<span class="i6">But, in requit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has blest me with a random shot<br /></span> +<span class="i6">O' countra wit.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This while my notion's ta'en a sklent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To try my fate in guid, black prent;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still the mair I'm that way bent,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Something cries, "Hoolie!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I red you, honest man, tak tent!<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Ye'll shaw your folly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There's ither poets, much your betters,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hae thought they had ensured their debtors,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">A' future ages;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now moths deform in shapeless tatters<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Their unknown pages."'<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">{61}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>The works of such scholars enjoyed of the moths! There +is gentle satire here. They themselves had grubbed on +Greek, and now is Time avenged.</p> + +<p>It is in his epistles that we see Burns most vividly +and clearly, the man in all his moods. They are just +such letters as might be written to intimate friends +when one is not afraid of being himself, and can speak +freely. In sentiment they are candid and sincere, and +in language transparently unaffected. Whatever occurs +to him as he writes goes down; we have the thoughts +of his heart at the time of writing, and see the varying +expressions of his face as he passes from grave to gay, +from lively to severe. Now he is tender, now indignant; +now rattling along in good-natured raillery without +broadening into burlesque; now becoming serious and +pensively philosophic without a suggestion of mawkish +morality. For Burns, when he is himself, is always an +artist; says his say, and lets the moral take care of +itself; and in his epistles he lets himself go in a very +revelry of artistic abandon. He does not think of +style—that fetich of barren minds—and style comes to +him; for style is a coquette that flies the suppliant +wooer to kiss the feet of him who worships a goddess; +a submissive handmaiden, a wayward and moody +mistress. But along with delicacy of diction, force and +felicity of expression, pregnancy of phrase and pliancy +of language, what knowledge there is of men—the +passions that sway, the impulses that prompt, the +motives that move them to action. Clearness of +vision and accuracy of observation are evidenced in +their vividness of imagery; naturalness and truthfulness—the +first essential of all good writing—in their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">{62}</a></span> +convincing sincerity of sentiment. Wit and humour, +play and sparkle of fancy, satire genial or scathing, a +boundless love of nature and all created things, are +harmoniously unified in the glowing imagination of +the poet, and welded into the perfect poem. Behind +all is the personality of the writer, captivating the +reader as much by his kindliness and sympathy as by +his witchery of words. Others have attempted poetic +epistles, but none has touched familiar intercourse to +such fine issues; none has written with such natural +grace or woven the warp and woof of word and sentiment +so cunningly into the web of poetry as Robert +Burns. Looseness of rhythm may be detected, excruciating +rhymes are not awanting, but all are forgiven and +forgotten in the enjoyment of the feast as a whole.</p> + +<p>Besides the satires and epistles we have during this +fertile period poems as different in subject, sentiment, +and treatment as <i>The Cotter's Saturday Night</i> and +<i>The Jolly Beggars</i>; <i>Hallowe'en</i> and <i>The Mountain +Daisy</i>; <i>The Farmer's Address to his Auld Mare Maggie</i> +and <i>The Twa Dogs</i>; <i>Address to a Mouse</i>, <i>Man was +made to Mourn</i>, <i>The Vision</i>, <i>A Winter's Night</i>, and <i>The +Epistle to a Young Friend</i>. Perhaps of all these poems +<i>The Vision</i> is the most important. It is an epoch-marking +poem in the poet's life. All that he had +previously written had been leading to this; the finer +the poem the more surely was it bringing him to this +composition. The time was bound to come when he +had to settle for himself finally and firmly what his +work in life was to be. Was poetry to be merely a pastime; +a recreation after the labours of the day were done; a +solace when harvests failed and ruin stared the family<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">{63}</a></span> +in the face? That question Burns answered when he +sat down by the ingle-cheek, and, looking backward, +mused on the years of youth that had been spent 'in +stringing blethers up in rhyme for fools to sing.' He +saw what he might have been; he knew too well what +he was—'half-mad, half-fed, half-sarket.' Yet the +picture of what he might have been he dismissed +lightly, almost disdainfully; for he saw what he might +be yet—what he should be. Turning from the toilsome +past and the unpromising present, he looked to the +future with a manly assurance of better things. He +should shine in his humble sphere, a rustic bard; +his to</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Preserve the dignity of Man,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">With soul erect;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And trust, the Universal Plan<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Will all protect.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The poem is pitched on a high key; the keynote is +struck in the opening lines, and the verses move to +the end with stateliness and dignity. It is calm, contemplative, +with that artistic restraint that comes of +conscious power. Burns took himself seriously, and +knew that if he were true to his genius he would become +the poet and prophet of his fellow-men.</p> + +<p>It is worth while dwelling a little on this particular +poem, because it marks a crisis in Burns's life. At +this point he shook himself free from the tyranny of the +soil. He had considered all things, and his resolution +for authorship was taken. Some of the other poems will +be mentioned afterwards; meantime we have to consider +another crisis in his life—some aspects of his nature less +pleasing, some episodes in his career dark and unlovely.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">{64}</a></span></p> + +<p>Speaking of the effect <i>Holy Willie's Prayer</i> had on +the kirk-session, he says that they actually held three +meetings to see if their holy artillery could be pointed +against profane rhymers. 'Unluckily for me,' he adds, +'my idle wanderings led me on another side, point-blank +within reach of their heaviest metal. This is the +unfortunate story alluded to in my printed poem <i>The +Lament</i>. 'Twas a shocking affair, which I cannot yet +bear to recollect, and it had very nearly given me one +or two of the principal qualifications for a place with +those who have lost the chart and mistaken the reckoning +of rationality.'</p> + +<p>Throughout the year 1785 Burns had been acquainted +with Jean Armour, the daughter of a master mason in +Mauchline. Her name, besides being mentioned in +his <i>Epistle to Davie</i>, is mentioned in <i>The Vision</i>, and +we know from a verse on the six belles of Mauchline +that 'Armour was the jewel o' them a'.' From the +depressing cares and anxieties of that gloomy season +the poet had turned to seek solace in song, but he had +also found comfort and consolation in love.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'When heart-corroding care and grief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deprive my soul of rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her dear idea brings relief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And solace to my breast.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Now in the spring of 1786 Burns as a man of honour +must acknowledge Jean as his wife. The lovers had imprudently +anticipated the Church's sanction to marriage, +and it was his duty, speaking in the homely phrase of +the Scottish peasantry, to make an honest woman of +his Bonnie Jean. But, unfortunately, matters had been +going from bad to worse on the farm of Mossgiel, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">{65}</a></span> +about this time the brothers had come to a final decision +to quit the farm. Robert, as Gilbert informs us, durst +not then engage with a family in his poor, unsettled +state, but was anxious to shield his partner by every +means in his power from the consequences of their +imprudence. It was agreed, therefore, between them, +that they should make a legal acknowledgment of +marriage, that he should go to Jamaica to push his +fortune, and that she should remain with her father till +it should please Providence to put the means of supporting +a family in his power. He was willing even to +work as a common labourer so that he might do his +duty by the woman he had already made his wife. But +Jean's father, whatever were his reasons, would allow +her to have nothing whatever to do with a man like +Burns. A husband in Jamaica was, in his judgment, +no husband at all. What inducement he held out, or +what arguments he used, we may not know, but he +prevailed on Jean to surrender to him the paper +acknowledging the irregular marriage. This he deposited +with Mr. Aitken of Ayr, who, as Burns heard, +deleted the names, thus rendering the marriage null +and void. This was the circumstance, what he regarded +as Jean's desertion, which brought Burns, as he has +said, to the verge of insanity.</p> + +<p>Now it was that he finally resolved to leave the +country. It was not the first time he had thought of +America. Poverty, before this, had led him to think of +emigrating; the success of others who had gone out +as settlers tempted him to try his fortune beyond the +seas, even though he 'should herd the buckskin kye +in Virginia.' Now, imprudence as well as poverty urged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">{66}</a></span> +him, while, wounded so sorely by the action of the +Armours both in his love and his vanity, he had little +desire to remain at home. There is no doubt that, +prior to the birth of his twin children and the publication +of his poems, he would have quitted Scotland with little reluctance. +But he was so poor that, even after accepting +a situation in Jamaica, he had not money to pay +his passage; and it was at the suggestion of Gavin +Hamilton that he began seriously to prepare for the +publication of his poems by subscription, in order to +raise a sum sufficient to buy his banishment. Accordingly +we find him under the date April 3, 1786, writing +to Mr. Aitken, 'My proposals for publishing I am just +going to send to press.'</p> + +<p>But what a time this was in the poet's life! It was +a long tumult of hope and despair, exultation and +despondency, poetry and love; revelry, rebellion, and +remorse. Everything was excitement; calmness itself +a fever. Yet through it all inspiration was ever with +him, and poem followed poem with miraculous, one +might almost say, unnatural rapidity. Now he is +apostrophising Ruin; now he is wallowing in the mire +of village scandal; now he is addressing a mountain +daisy in words of tenderness and purity; now he is +scarifying a garrulous tailor, and ranting with an alien +flippancy; now it is Beelzebub he addresses, now the +King; now he is waxing eloquent on the virtues of +Scotch whisky, anon writing to a young friend in words +of wisdom that might well be written on the fly-leaf of +his Bible.</p> + +<p>This was certainly a period of ageing activity in +Burns's life. It seemed as if there had been a conspiracy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">{67}</a></span> +of fate and circumstance to herald the birth of +his poems with the wildest convulsions of labour and +travail. The parish of Tarbolton became the stage of +a play that had all the makings of a farce and all the +elements of a tragedy. There were endless complications +and daily developments, all deepening the dramatic +intensity without disturbing the unity. We watch with +breathless interest, dumbly wondering what the end will +be. It is tragedy, comedy, melodrama, and burlesque +all in one.</p> + +<p>Driven almost to madness by the faithlessness of +Jean Armour, he rends himself in a whirlwind of passion, +and seeks sympathy and solace in the love of Mary +Campbell. What a situation for a novelist! This is +just how the story-teller would have made his jilted +hero act; sent him with bleeding heart to seek consolation +in a new love. For novelists make a study of the +vagaries of love, and know that hearts are caught in +the rebound.</p> + +<p>Most of the biographers of Burns are agreed that +this Highland lassie was the object of by far the deepest +passion he ever knew. They may be right. Death +stepped in before disillusion, and she was never other +than the adored Mary of that rapturous meeting when +the white hawthorn-blossom no purer was than their +love. Thus was his love for Mary Campbell ever a +holy and spiritual devotion. Auguste Angellier says: +'This was the purest, the most lasting, and by far the +noblest of his loves. Above all the others, many of +which were more passionate, this one stands out with +the chasteness of a lily. There is a complete contrast +between his love for Jean and his love for Mary. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">{68}</a></span> +the one case all the epithets are material; here they +are all moral. The praises are borrowed, not from the +graces of the body, but from the features of the soul. +The words which occur again and again are those of +honour, of purity, of goodness. The idea of seeing her +again some day was never absent from his mind. Every +time he thought of eternity, of a future life, of reunions +in some unknown state, it was to her that his heart +went out. The love of that second Sunday of May was +ever present. It was the love which led Burns to the +most elevated sphere to which he ever attained; it was +the inspiration of his most spiritual efforts. This sweet, +blue-eyed Highland lassie was his Beatrice, and waved +to him from the gates of heaven.'</p> + +<p>We know little about Mary Campbell from the poet +himself; and though much has been ferreted out about +her by a host of snappers-up of unconsidered trifles, +this episode in his life is still involved in mystery. It +is pleasant to reflect that his reticence here has kept at +least one love passage in his life sacred and holy. Is +not mystery half the charm and beauty of love? Yet, +in spite of his silence, or probably because of it, details +have been raked up from time to time, some grey +and colourless fossil-remains of what was once fresh +and living fact. From Burns himself we know that the +lovers took a tender farewell in a sequestered spot by +the banks of the Ayr, and parted never to meet again. +All the romance and tragedy are there, and what need +we more? We are not even certain as to either the +place or the date of her death. Mrs. Begg, the poet's +sister, knew little or nothing about Mary Campbell. +She remembered, however, a letter being handed in to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">{69}</a></span> +him after the work of the season was over. 'He went +to the window to open and read it, and she was struck +by the look of agony which was the consequence. He +went out without uttering a word.' What he felt he +expressed afterwards in song—song that has become +the language of bereaved and broken hearts for all +time. The widowed lover knows 'the dear departed +shade,' but he may not have heard of Mary Campbell.</p> + +<p>It was in May that Burns and Highland Mary had +parted; in June he wrote to a friend about ungrateful +Armour, confessing that he still loved her to distraction, +though he would not tell her so. But all his letters +about this time are wild and rebellious. He raves in +a tempest of passion, and cools himself again, perhaps +in the composition of a song or poem. Just about the +time this letter was written, his poems were already in +the press. His proposal for publishing had met with +so hearty a reception, that success financially was to a +certain extent assured, and the printing had been put +into the hand of John Wilson, Kilmarnock. Even yet +his pen was busy. He wrote often in a gay and lively +style, almost, it would seem, in a struggle to keep +himself from sinking into melancholy, 'singing to keep +his courage up.' His gaiety was 'the madness of an +intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner.' +<i>A Bard's Epitaph</i>, however, among the many pieces of +this season, is earnest and serious enough to disarm +hostile criticism; and his loose and flippant productions +are read leniently in the light of this pathetic confession. +It is a self-revelation truly, but it is honest, straightforward, +and manly. There <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">{70}</a></span>is nothing plaintive or +mawkish about it.</p> + +<p>We next find Burns flying from home to escape legal +measures that Jean Armour's father was instituting against +him. He was in hiding at Kilmarnock to be out of the +way of legal diligence, and it was in such circumstances +that he saw his poems through the press. Surely never +before in the history of literature had book burst from +such a medley of misfortunes into so sudden and certain +fame. Born in tumult, it vindicated its volcanic birth, +and took the hearts of men by storm. Burns says little +about those months of labour and bitterness. We know +that he had then nearly as high an idea of himself and +his works as he had in later life; he had watched every +means of information as to how much ground he occupied +as a man and a poet, and was sure his poems would meet +with some applause. He had subscriptions for about +three hundred and fifty, and he got six hundred copies +printed, pocketing, after all expenses were paid, nearly +twenty pounds. With nine guineas of this sum he +bespoke a passage in the first ship that was to sail for +the West Indies. 'I had for some time,' he says, 'been +skulking from covert to covert under all the terrors of a +jail, as some ill-advised, ungrateful people had uncoupled +the merciless, legal pack at my heels. I had taken the +last farewell of my friends; my chest was on the road to +Greenock; I had composed the song <i>The Gloomy Night +is Gathering Fast</i>, which was to be the last effort of my +muse in Caledonia, when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to +a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by rousing +my poetic ambition. The doctor belonged to a class of +critics, for whose applause I had not even dared to hope. +His idea that I would meet with every encouragemen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">{71}</a></span>t +for a second edition fired me so much, that away I +posted to Edinburgh, without a single acquaintance in +town, or a single letter of recommendation in my pocket.'</p> + +<p>It was towards the end of July that the poems were +published, and they met with a success that must have +been gratifying to those friends who had stood by the +poet in his hour of adversity, and done what they could +to ensure subscriptions. In spite of the fact that Burns +certainly looked upon himself as possessed of some +poetic abilities, the reception the little volume met with, +and the impression it at once made, must have exceeded +his wildest anticipations. Even yet, however, he did not +relinquish the idea of going to America. On the other +hand, as we have seen, the first use he made of the +money which publication had brought him, was to +secure a berth in a vessel bound for Jamaica. But he +was still compelled by the dramatic uncertainty of circumstance. +The day of sailing was postponed, else had +he certainly left his native land. It was only after Jean +Armour had become the mother of twin children that +there was any hint of diffidence about sailing. In a +letter to Robert Aitken, written in October, he says: +'All these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these +reasons I have one answer—the feelings of a father. +That in the present mood I am in overbalances everything +that can be laid in the scale against it.'</p> + +<p>His friends, too, after the success of his poems, were +beginning to be doubtful about the wisdom of his going +abroad, and were doing what they could to secure for +him a place in the Excise. For his fame had gone +beyond the bounds of his native county, and others than +people in his own station had recognised his genius.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">{72}</a></span> +Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop was one of the first to seek the +poet's acquaintance, and she became an almost lifelong +friend; through his poems he renewed acquaintance +with Mrs. Stewart of Stair. He was 'roosed' by Craigen-Gillan; +Dugald Stewart, the celebrated metaphysician, +and one of the best-known names in the learned and +literary circles of Edinburgh, who happened to be +spending his vacation at Catrine, not very far from +Mossgiel, invited the poet to dine with him, and on that +occasion he 'dinnered wi' a laird'—Lord Daer. Then +came the appreciative letter from Dr. Blacklock to the +Rev. George Lawrie of Loudon, already mentioned. +Even this letter might not have proved strong enough to +detain him in Scotland, had it not been that he was +disappointed of a second edition of his poems in Kilmarnock. +Other encouragement came from Edinburgh +in a very favourable criticism of his poems in the <i>Edinburgh +Magazine</i>. This, taken along with Dr. Blacklock's +suggestion about 'a second edition more numerous than +the former,' led the poet to believe that his work would +be taken up by any of the Edinburgh publishers. The +feelings of a father also urged him to remain in Scotland; +and at length—probably in November—the thought of +exile was abandoned. It was with very different feelings, +we may be sure, that he contemplated setting out from +Mossgiel to sojourn for a season in Edinburgh—a name +that had ever been associated in his mind with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">{73}</a></span> best +traditions of learning and literature in Scotland.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE EDINBURGH EDITION</span></h2> + + +<p>Edinburgh towards the close of last century was a +very different place from Edinburgh of the present day. +It was then to a certain extent the hub of Scottish +society; the centre of learning and literature; the winter +rendezvous of not a few of the nobility and gentry of +Scotland. For in those days it had its society and its +season; county families had not altogether abandoned +the custom of keeping their houses in town. All roads +did not then lead to London as they do now, when Edinburgh +is a capital in little more than name, and its +prestige has become a tradition. A century ago Edinburgh +had all the glamour and fascination of the capital +of a no mean country; to-day it is but the historical +capital invested with the glamour and fascination of a +departed glory. The very names of those whom Burns +met on his first visit to Edinburgh are part of the history +of the nation. In the University there were at that time, +representative of the learning of the age, Dugald Stewart, +Dr. Blair, and Dr. Robertson. David Hume was but +recently dead, and the lustre of his name remained. +His great friend, Adam Smith, author of <i>The Wealth of +Nations</i>, was still living; while Henry Mackenzie, <i>Th<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">{74}</a></span>e +Man of Feeling</i>, the most popular writer of his day, was +editing <i>The Lounger</i>; and Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, +was also a name of authority in the world of letters. +Nor was the Bar, whose magnates have ever figured in +the front rank of Edinburgh society, eclipsed by the +literary luminaries of the University. Lord Monboddo +has left a name, which his countrymen are not likely to +forget. He was an accomplished, though eccentric +character, whose classical bent was in the direction of +Epicurean parties. His great desire was to revive the +traditions of the elegant suppers of classical times. Not +only were music and painting employed to this end, but +the tables were wreathed with flowers, the odour of +incense pervaded the room; the wines were of the +choicest, served from decanters of Grecian design. But, +perhaps, the chief attraction to Burns in the midst of +all this super-refinement was the presence of 'the +heavenly Miss Burnet,' daughter of Lord Monboddo. +'There has not been anything nearly like her,' he wrote +to his friend Chalmers, 'in all the combinations of +beauty and grace and goodness the great Creator has +formed since Milton's Eve in the first day of her +existence.' The Hon. Henry Erskine was another well-known +name, not only in legal circles, but as well in +fashionable society. His genial and sunny nature made +him so great a favourite in his profession, that having +been elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 1786, +he was unanimously re-elected every year till 1796, when +he was victorious over Dundas of Arniston, who had +been brought forward in opposition to him. The leader +of fashion was the celebrated Duchess of Gordon, who +was never absent from a public place, and 'the late<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">{75}</a></span>r the +hour so much the better.' Her amusements—her life, +we might say—were dancing, cards, and company. With +such a leader, the season to the very select and elegant +society of Edinburgh was certain to be a time of brilliance +and gaiety; while its very exclusiveness, and the fact +that it affected or reflected the literary life of the University +and the Bar, would make it all the more ready to +lionise a man like Burns when the opportunity came.</p> + +<p>The members of the middle class caught their tone +from the upper ranks, and took their nightly sederunts +and morning headaches as privileges they dared aristocratic +exclusiveness to deny them. Douce citizens, merchants, +respectable tradesmen, well-to-do lawyers, forgathered +when the labours of the day were done to spend +a few hours in some snug back-parlour, where mine host +granted them the privileges and privacy of a club. Such +social beings as these, met to discuss punch, law, and +literature, were no less likely than their aristocratic +neighbours to receive Burns with open arms, and once +he was in their midst to prolong their sittings in his +honour. Nor was Burns, if he found them honest and +hearty fellows, the man to say them nay. He was +eminently a social and sociable being, and in company +such as theirs he could unbend himself as he might not +do in the houses of punctilious society. The etiquette +of that howff of the Crochallan Fencibles in the Anchor +Close or of Johnnie Dowie's tavern in Libberton's +Wynd was not the etiquette of drawing-rooms; and the +poet was free to enliven the hours with a rattling fire of +witty remarks on men and things as he had been wont +to do on the bog at Lochlea, with only a few noteless +peasants for audience.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">{76}</a></span></p> +<p>Burns entered Edinburgh on November 28, 1786. +He had spent the night after leaving Mossgiel at the +farm of Covington Mains, where the kind-hearted host, +Mr. Prentice, had all the farmers of the parish gathered +to meet him. This is of interest as showing the popularity +Burns's poems had already won; while the eagerness +of those farmers to see and know the man after they had +read his poems proves most strikingly how straight the +poet had gone to the hearts of his readers. They had +recognised the voice of a human being, and heard it +gladly. This gathering was convincing testimony, if such +were needed, of the truthfulness and sincerity of his +writings. No doubt Burns, with his great force of understanding, +appreciated the welcome of those brother-farmers, +and valued it above the adulation he afterwards +received in Edinburgh. The Kilmarnock Edition was +but a few months old, yet here was a gathering of hard-working +men, who had read his poems, we may be sure, +from cover to cover, and now they were eager to thank +him who had sung the joys and sorrows of their workaday +lives. Of course there was a great banquet, and +night wore into morning before the company dispersed. +They had seen the poet face to face, and the man was +greater than his poems.</p> + +<p>Next morning he resumed his journey, breakfasting at +Carnwath, and reaching Edinburgh in the evening. He +had come, as he tells us, without a letter of introduction +in his pocket, and he took up his abode with John +Richmond in Baxter's Close, off the Lawnmarket. He +had known Richmond when he was a clerk with Gavin +Hamilton, and had kept up a correspondence with him +ever since he had left Mauchline. The lodging was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">{77}</a></span> +humble enough one, the rent being only three shillings a +week; but here Burns lodged all the time he was in +Edinburgh, and it was hither he returned from visiting +the houses of the rich and great, to share a bed with his +friend and companion of many a merry meeting at +Mauchline.</p> + +<p>It would be vain to attempt to describe Burns's feelings +during those first few days in Edinburgh. He had never +before been in a larger town than Kilmarnock or Ayr; +and now he walked the streets of Scotland's capital, to +him full of history and instinct with the associations of +centuries. This was really the heart of Scotland, the +home of heroes who fought and fell for their country, +'the abode of kings of other years.' His sentimental +attachment to Jacobitism became more pronounced as +he looked on Holyrood. For Burns, a representative of +the strength and weakness of his countrymen, was no less +representative of Scotland's sons in his chivalrous pity for +the fate of Queen Mary and his romantic loyalty to the +gallant Prince Charlie. His poetical espousal of the cause +of the luckless Stuarts was purely a matter of sentiment, a +kind of pious pity that had little to do with reason; and +in this he was typical of his countrymen even of the +present day, who are loyal to the house of Stuart in +song, and in life are loyal subjects of their Queen.</p> + +<p>We are told, and we can well believe that for the first +few days of his stay he wandered about, looking down +from Arthur's Seat, gazing at the Castle, or contemplating +the windows of the booksellers' shops. We know that he +made a special pilgrimage to the grave of Fergusson, and +that in a letter, dated February 6, 1787, he applied to +the honourable bailies of Canongate, Edinburgh, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">{78}</a></span> +permission 'to lay a simple stone over his revered ashes'; +which petition was duly considered and graciously +granted. The stone was afterwards erected, with the +simple inscription, 'Here lies Robert Fergusson, Poet. +Born September 5th, 1751; died 16th October, 1774.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"No storied urn nor animated bust";<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To pour her sorrow o'er her poet's dust.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>On the reverse side is recorded the fact that the stone +was erected by Robert Burns, and that the ground was +to remain for ever sacred to the memory of Robert +Fergusson.</p> + +<p>It is related, too, that he visited Ramsay's house, and +that he bared his head when he entered. Burns over +and over again, both in prose and verse, turned to these +two names with a kind of fetich worship, that it is difficult +to understand. He must have known that, as a poet, +he was immeasurably superior to both. It may have +been that their writings first opened his eyes to the +possibilities of the Scots tongue in lyrical and descriptive +poetry; and there was something also which appealed to +him in the wretched life of Fergusson.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'O thou, my elder brother in misfortune,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By far my elder brother in the Muses.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His elder brother indeed by some six years! But there +is more of reverence than sound judgment in his estimate +of either Ramsay or Fergusson.</p> + +<p>Burns, however, had come to Edinburgh with a fixed +purpose in view, and it would not do to waste his time +mooning about the streets. On December 7 we find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">{79}</a></span> +him writing to Gavin Hamilton, half seriously, half +jokingly: 'I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as +Thomas à Kempis or John Bunyan, and you may expect +henceforth to see my birthday inserted among the +wonderful events in the Poor Robins' and Aberdeen +Almanacs along with the Black Monday and the Battle +of Bothwell Bridge. My Lord Glencairn and the Dean +of Faculty, Mr. H. Erskine, have taken me under their +wing, and by all probability I shall soon be the tenth +worthy and the eighth wise man of the world. Through +my lord's influence it is inserted in the records of the +Caledonian Hunt that they universally one and all subscribe +for the second edition.'</p> + +<p>This letter shows that Burns had already been taken +up, as the phrase goes, by the élite of Edinburgh; and +it shows also and quite as clearly in the tone of quiet +banter, that he was little likely to lose his head by the +notice taken of him. To the Earl of Glencairn, mentioned +in it, he had been introduced probably by Mr. +Dalrymple of Orangefield, whom he knew both as a +brother-mason and a brother-poet. The Earl had +already seen the Kilmarnock Edition of the poems, and +now he not only introduced Burns to William Creech, +the leading publisher in Edinburgh, but he got the +members of the Caledonian Hunt to become subscribers +for a second edition of the poems. To Erskine he had +been introduced at a meeting of the Canongate Kilwinning +Lodge of Freemasons; and assuredly there +was no man living more likely to exert himself in the +interests of a genius like Burns.</p> + +<p>Two days after this letter to Gavin Hamilton there +appeared in <i>The Lounger</i> Mackenzie's apprec<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">{80}</a></span>iative +notice of the Kilmarnock Edition. This notice has +become historical, and at the time of its appearance +it must have been peculiarly gratifying to Burns. He +had remarked before, in reference to the letter from +Dr. Blacklock, that the doctor belonged to a class of +critics for whose applause he had not even dared to +hope. Now his work was criticised most favourably by +the one who was regarded as the highest authority on +literature in Scotland. If a writer was praised in <i>The +Lounger</i>, his fame was assured. He went into the world +with the hall-mark of Henry Mackenzie; and what more +was needed? The oracle had spoken, and his decision +was final. His pronouncement would be echoed and +re-echoed from end to end of the country. And this +great critic claimed no special indulgence for Burns on +the plea of his mean birth or poor education. He saw +in this heaven-taught ploughman a genius of no ordinary +rank, a man who possessed the spirit as well as the fancy +of a great poet. He was a poet, and it mattered not +whether he had been born a peasant or a peer. 'His +poetry, considered abstractedly and without the apologies +arising from his situation, seems to me fully entitled to +command our feelings and obtain our applause.... +The power of genius is not less admirable in tracing the +manners, than in painting the passions or in drawing the +scenery of nature. That intuitive glance with which a +writer like Shakspeare discerns the character of men, +with which he catches the many changing hues of life, +forms a sort of problem in the science of mind, of which +it is easier to see the truth than assign the cause.'</p> + +<p>But Mackenzie did more than praise. He pointed +out the fact that the author had had a terrible struggle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">{81}</a></span> +with poverty all the days of his life, and made an appeal +to his country 'to stretch out her hand and retain the +native poet whose wood-notes wild possessed so much +excellence.' There seems little doubt that the concluding +words of this notice led Burns for the first time +to hope and believe that, through some influential patron, +he might be placed in a position to face the future +without a fear, and to cultivate poetry at his leisure. +There is no mistaking the meaning of Mackenzie's +words, and he had evidently used them with the conviction +that something would be done for Burns. +Unfortunately, he was mistaken; the poet, at first +misled, was slowly disillusioned and somewhat embittered. +'To repair the wrongs of suffering or neglected +merit; to call forth genius from the obscurity where it +had pined indignant, and place it where it may profit or +delight the world—these are exertions which give to +wealth an enviable superiority, to greatness and to +patronage a laudable pride.'</p> + +<p>To Burns, at the time, such a criticism as this must +have been all the more pleasing, inasmuch as it was the +verdict of a man whose best-known work had been one +of the poet's favourite books. We can easily imagine +that, under the patronage of Lord Glencairn and Henry +Erskine, and after Mackenzie's generous recognition of +his genius, the doors of the best houses in Edinburgh +would be open to him. His letter to John Ballantine, +Ayr, written a few days after this criticism appeared, +shows in what circles the poet was then moving. 'I +have been introduced to a good many of the <i>noblesse</i>, +but my avowed patrons and patronesses are, the Duchess +of Gordon, the Countess of Glencairn with my Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">{82}</a></span> +and Lady Betty, the Dean of Faculty, Sir John Whitefoord. +I have likewise warm friends among the <i>literati</i>; +Professors Stewart, Blair, and Mr. Mackenzie, <i>The Man +of Feeling</i>.... I am nearly agreed with Creech to print +my book, and I suppose I will begin on Monday.... +Dugald Stewart and some of my learned friends put me +in a periodical called <i>The Lounger</i>, a copy of which I +here enclose you. I was, Sir, when I was first honoured +with your notice, too obscure; now I tremble lest I +should be ruined by being dragged too suddenly into +the glare of learned and polite observation.'</p> + +<p>Burns was now indeed the lion of Edinburgh. It +must have been a great change for a man to have come +straight from the stilts of the plough to be dined and +toasted by such men as Lord Glencairn, Lord Monboddo, +and the Hon. Henry Erskine; to be fêted and +flattered by the Duchess of Gordon, the Countess of +Glencairn, and Lady Betty Cunningham; to count +amongst his friends Mr. Mackenzie and Professors +Stewart and Blair. It would have been little wonder if +his head had been turned by the patronage of the +nobility, the deference and attention of the literary and +learned coteries of Edinburgh. But Burns was too +sensible to be carried away by the adulation of a season. +A man of his keenness of penetration and clearness of +insight would appreciate the praise of the world at its +proper value. He bore himself with becoming dignity, +taking his place in refined society as one who had a +right there, without showing himself either conceitedly +aggressive or meanly servile. He took his part in +conversation, but no more than his part, and expressed +himself with freedom and decision. His conversation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">{83}</a></span> +in fact, astonished the <i>literati</i> even more than his poems +had done. Perhaps they had expected some uncouth +individual who would stammer crop-and-weather +commonplaces in a rugged vernacular, or, worse still, +in ungrammatical English; but here was one who held +his own with them in speculative discussion, speaking +not only with the eloquence of a poet, but with the +readiness, clearness, and fluency of a man of letters. +His pure English diction astonished them, but his +acuteness of reasoning, his intuitive knowledge of men +and the world, was altogether beyond their comprehension. +All they had got by years of laborious study +this man appeared to have as a natural gift. In repartee, +even, he could more than hold his own with them, and +in the presence of ladies could turn a compliment with +the best. 'It needs no effort of imagination,' says +Lockhart, 'to conceive what the sensations of an isolated +set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or professors) +must have been in the presence of this big-boned, black-browed, +brawny stranger, who, having forced his way +among them from the plough-tail at a single stride, +manifested in the whole strain of his bearing and conversation +a most thorough conviction that in the society +of the most eminent men of his nation he was exactly +where he was entitled to be.' It was a new world to +Burns, yet he walked about as if he were of old familiar +with its ways; he conducted himself in society like +one to the manner born.</p> + +<p>All who have left written evidence of Burns's visit to +Edinburgh are agreed that he conducted himself with +manliness and dignity, and all have left record of the +powerful impression his conversation made on them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">{84}</a></span> +His poems were wonderful; himself was greater than +his poems, a giant in intellect. A ploughman who +actually dared to have formed a distinct conception of +the doctrine of <i>association</i> was a miracle before which +schools and scholars were dumb. 'Nothing, perhaps,' +Dugald Stewart wrote, 'was more remarkable among his +various attainments than the fluency, precision, and +originality of his language when he spoke in company; +more particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn of +expression, and avoided more successfully than most +Scotchmen the peculiarities of Scottish phraseology.'</p> + +<p>And Professor Stewart goes further than this when he +speaks of the soundness and sanity of Burns's nature. +'The attentions he received during his stay in town from +all ranks and descriptions of persons, were such as would +have turned any head but his own. He retained the +same simplicity of manner and appearance which had +struck me so forcibly when I first saw him in the country; +nor did he seem to feel any additional self-importance +from the number and rank of his new acquaintance. +His dress was perfectly suited to his station, plain and +unpretentious, with a sufficient attention to neatness.' +Principal Robertson has left it on record, that he had +scarcely ever met with any man whose conversation +displayed greater vigour than that of Burns. Walter +Scott, a youth of some sixteen years at the time, met +Burns at the house of Dr. Adam Ferguson, and was +particularly struck with his poetic eye, 'which literally +glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest,' and with +his forcible conversation. 'Among the men who were +the most learned of their time and country, he expressed +himself with perfect firmness, but without the l<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">{85}</a></span>east intrusive +forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he +did not hesitate to express it firmly, and at the same +time with modesty.... I never saw a man in company +more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation +of embarrassment.' To these may be added the +testimony of Dr. Walker, who gives, perhaps, the most +complete and convincing picture of the man at this +time. He insists on the same outstanding characteristics +in Burns, his innate dignity, his unaffected demeanour +in company, and brilliancy in conversation. In no part +of his manner, we read, was there the slightest degree of +affectation, and no one could have guessed from his +behaviour or conversation, that he had been for some +months the favourite of all the fashionable circles of a +metropolis. 'In conversation he was powerful. His +conceptions and expression were of corresponding vigour, +and on all subjects were as remote as possible from +commonplace.'</p> + +<p>But whilst ladies of rank and fashion were deluging +this Ayrshire ploughman with invitations, and vying +one with another in their patronage and worship, the +mind of the poet was no less busy registering impressions +of every new experience. If the learned men +of Edinburgh set themselves to study the character of a +genius who upset all their cherished theories of birth +and education, and to chronicle his sayings and doings, +Burns at the same time was studying them, gauging their +powers intuitively, telling their limitations at a glance. +For he must measure every man he met, and himself +with him. His standard was always the same; every +brain was weighed against his own; but with Burns this +was never more than a comparison of capacities. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">{86}</a></span> +took his stand, not by what work he had done, but by +what he felt he was capable of doing. And that is not, +and cannot be, the way of the world. In all his letters +at this time we see him studying himself in the circles +of fashion and learning. He could look on Robert +Burns, as he were another person, brought from the +plough and set down in a world of wealth and refinement, +of learning and wit and beauty. He saw the +dangers that beset him, and the temptations to which he +was exposed; he recognised that something more than +his poetic abilities was needed to explain his sudden +popularity. He was the vogue, the favourite of a season; +but public favour was capricious, and next year the doors +of the great might be closed against him; while patrician +dames who had schemed for his smiles might glance at +him with indifferent eyes as at a dismissed servant once +high in favour. His letter to Mrs. Dunlop, dated +January 15, may be taken as a just, deliberate, and clear +expression of his views of himself and society at this time. +The letter is so quietly dignified that we may quote at +some length. 'You are afraid I shall grow intoxicated +with my prosperity as a poet. Alas! madam, I know +myself and the world too well. I do not mean any airs +of affected modesty; I am willing to believe that my +abilities deserve some notice, but in a most enlightened, +informed age and nation, where poetry is and has been +the study of men of the first natural genius, aided with +all the powers of polite learning, polite books, and polite +company—to be dragged forth to the full glare of learned +and polite observation, with all my imperfections of +awkward rusticity and crude and unpolished ideas on +my head—I assure you, madam, I do not dissemble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">{87}</a></span> +when I tell you I tremble for the consequences. The +novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any +of those advantages that are reckoned necessary for that +character, at least at this time of day, has raised a partial +tide of public notice which has borne me to a height +where I am absolutely, feelingly certain my abilities are +inadequate to support me; and too surely do I see that +time when the same tide will leave me and recede, perhaps +as far below the mark of truth. I do not say this +in the ridiculous affectation of self-abasement and +modesty. I have studied myself, and know what ground +I occupy; and however a friend or the world may differ +from me in that particular, I stand for my own opinion +in silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness of property. +I mention this to you once for all to disburden my mind, +and I do not wish to hear or say more about it. But—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>you will bear me witness that when my bubble of fame +was at the highest, I stood unintoxicated with the inebriating +cup in my hand, looking forward with rueful +resolve to the hastening time when the blow of calamity +should dash it to the ground with all the eagerness of +vengeful triumph.'</p> + +<p>In a letter to Dr. Moore he harps on the same string, +for he sees clearly enough that though his abilities as a +poet are worthy of recognition, it is the novelty of his +position and the strangeness of the life he has pictured +in his poems that have brought him into polite notice. +The field of his poetry, rather than the poetry itself, +is the wonder in the eyes of stately society. To the +Rev. Mr. Lawrie of Loudon he writes in a similar strain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">{88}</a></span> +and speaks even more emphatically. From all his letters, +indeed, at this time we gather that he saw that novelty +had much to do with his present éclat; that the tide +of popularity would recede, and leave him at his leisure +to descend to his former situation; and, above all, that +he was prepared for this, come when it would.</p> + +<p>All this time he had been busy correcting the proofs +of his poems; and now that he was already assured the +edition would be a success, he began to think seriously +of the future and of settling down again as farmer. +The appellation of Scottish Bard, he confessed to Mrs. +Dunlop, was his highest pride; to continue to deserve +it, his most exalted ambition. He had no dearer aim +than to be able to make 'leisurely pilgrimages through +Caledonia, to sit on the fields of her battles, to wander +on the romantic banks of her rivers, and to muse by the +stately towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured +abodes of her heroes.' But that was a Utopian dream; +he had dallied long enough with life, and now it was +time he should be in earnest. 'I have a fond, an aged +mother to care for; and some other bosom ties perhaps +equally tender.'</p> + +<p>Perhaps, had Burns received before he left Edinburgh +the £500 which Creech ultimately paid him for the +Edinburgh Edition, he might have gone straight to a +farm in the south country, and taken up what he considered +the serious business of life. He himself, about +this time, estimated that he would clear nearly £300 by +authorship, and with that sum he intended to return to +farming. Mr. Miller of Dalswinton had expressed a +wish to have Burns as tenant of one of his farms, and +the poet had been already approached on the subject.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">{89}</a></span> +We also gather from almost every letter written just +before the publication of his poems, that he contemplated +an immediate return 'to his shades.' However, when +the Edinburgh Edition came out, April 21, 1787, the +poet found that it would be a considerable time before +the whole profits accruing from publication could be +paid over to him. Indeed, there was certainly an unnecessary +delay on Creech's part in making a settlement. +The first instalment of profits was not sufficient for +leasing and stocking a farm; and during the months that +elapsed before the whole profits were in his hands, Burns +made several tours through the Borders and Highlands +of Scotland. This was certainly one of his dearest aims; +but these tours were undertaken somewhat under compulsion, +and we doubt not he would much more gladly +have gone straight back to farm-life, and kept these +leisurely pilgrimages to a more convenient season. One +is not in a mood for dreaming on battlefields, or wandering +in a reverie by romantic rivers, when the future is +unsettled and life is for the time being without an aim. +There is something of mystery and melancholy hanging +about these peregrinations, and the cause, it seems to +us, is not far to seek. These months are months of +waiting and wearying; he is unsettled, oftentimes moody +and despondent; his bursts of gaiety appear forced, and +his muse is well-nigh barren. In the circumstances, no +doubt it was the best thing he could do, to gratify his +long-cherished desire of seeing these places in his native +country, whose names were enshrined in song or story. +But how much more pleasant—and more profitable both +to the poet himself and the country he loved—had these +journeys been made under more favourable conditions!</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">{90}</a></span></p> +<p>The past also as much as the future weighed on the +poet's mind. His days had been so fully occupied in +Edinburgh that he had little leisure to think on some +dark and dramatic episodes of Mauchline and Kilmarnock; +but now in his wanderings he has time not only +to think but to brood; and we may be sure the face of +Bonnie Jean haunted him in dreams, and that his heart +heard again and again the plaintive voices of little +children. In several of his letters now we detect a +tone of bitterness, in which we suspect there is more +of remorse than of resentment with the world. He +certainly was disappointed that Creech could not pay +him in full, but he must have been gratified with the +reception his poems had got. The list of subscribers +ran to thirty-eight pages, and was representative of +every class in Scotland. In the words of Cunningham: +'All that coterie influence and individual exertion—all +that the noblest and humblest could do, was done to +aid in giving it a kind reception. Creech, too, had +announced it through the booksellers of the land, and +it was soon diffused over the country, over the colonies, +and wherever the language was spoken. The literary +men of the South seemed even to fly to a height beyond +those of the North. Some hesitated not to call him the +Northern Shakspeare.'</p> + +<p>This surely was a great achievement for one who, +a few months previously, had been skulking from covert +to covert to escape the terrors of a jail. He had +hardly dared to hope for the commendation of the +Edinburgh critics, yet he had been received by the best +society of the capital; his genius had been recognised +by the highest literary authorities of Scotland; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">{91}</a></span>and +now the second edition of his poems was published +under auspices that gave it the character of a national +book.</p> + +<p>If the poems this volume contained established fully +and finally the reputation of the poet, the subscription +list was a no less substantial proof of a generous and +enthusiastic appreciation of his genius on the part of his +countrymen. And that Burns must have recognised. +A man of his s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">{92}</a></span>ound common sense could not have +expected more.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">BURNS'S TOURS</span></h2> + + +<p>The Edinburgh Edition having now been published, +there was no reason for the poet to prolong his stay in +the city. It was only after being disappointed of a +second Kilmarnock Edition of his poems that he had +come to try his fortunes in the capital; and now that his +hopes of a fuller edition and a wider field had been +realised, the purpose of his visit was accomplished, and +there was no need to fritter his time away in idleness.</p> + +<p>In a letter to Lord Buchan, Burns had doubted the +prudence of a penniless poet faring forth to see the +sights of his native land. But circumstances have +changed. With the assured prospect of the financial +success of his second venture, he felt himself in a +position to gratify the dearest wish of his heart and +to fire his muse at Scottish story and Scottish scenes. +Moreover, as has been said, it would be some time +before Creech could come to a final settlement of +accounts with the poet, and he may have deemed +that the interval would be profitably spent in travel. +His travelling companion on his first tour was a Mr. +Robert Ainslie, a young gentleman of good education +and some natural ability, with whom he left Edinburgh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">{93}</a></span> +on the 5th May, a fortnight after the publication of his +poems. We are told that the poet, just before he +mounted his horse, received a letter from Dr. Blair, +which, having partly read, he crumpled up and angrily +thrust into his pocket. A perusal of the letter will +explain, if it does not go far to justify, the poet's irritation. +It is a sleek, superior production, with the tone of +a temperance tract, and the stilted diction of a dominie. +The doctor is in it one of those well-meaning, meddlesome +men, lavish of academic advice. Burns resented +moral prescriptions at all times—more especially from +one whose knowledge of men was severely scholastic; +and we can well imagine that he quitted Edinburgh in +no amiable mood.</p> + +<p>From Edinburgh the two journeyed by the Lammermuirs +to Berrywell, near Duns, where the Ainslie family +lived. On the Sunday he attended church with the +Ainslies, where the minister, Dr. Bowmaker, preached a +sermon against obstinate sinners. 'I am found out,' +the poet remarked, 'wherever I go.' From Duns they +proceeded to Coldstream, where, having crossed the +Tweed, Burns first set foot on English ground. Here +it was that, with bared head, he knelt and prayed for a +blessing on Scotland, reciting with the deepest devotion +the two concluding verses of <i>The Cotter's Saturday Night</i>.</p> + +<p>The next place visited was Kelso, where they admired +the old abbey, and went to see Roxburgh Castle, thence +to Jedburgh, where he met a Miss Hope and a Miss +Lindsay, the latter of whom 'thawed his heart into +melting pleasure after being so long frozen up in the +Greenland Bay of indifference amid the noise and nonsense +of Edinburgh.' When he left this romantic city<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">{94}</a></span> +his thoughts were not of the honour its citizens had done +him, but of Jed's crystal stream and sylvan banks, and, +above all, of Miss Lindsay, who brings him to the verge +of verse. Thereafter he visited Kelso, Melrose, and +Selkirk, and after spending about three weeks seeing +all that was to be seen in this beautiful country-side, +he set off with a Mr. Ker and a Mr. Hood on a visit to +England. In this visit he went as far as Newcastle, returning +by way of Hexham and Carlisle. After spending +a day here he proceeded to Annan, and thence to +Dumfries. Whilst in the Nithsdale district he took the +opportunity of visiting Dalswinton and inspecting the +unoccupied farms; but he did not immediately close +with Mr. Miller's generous offer of a four-nineteen years' +lease on his own terms. From Nithsdale he turned +again to his native Ayrshire, arriving at Mossgiel in the +beginning of June, after an absence from home of six +eventful months.</p> + +<p>We can hardly imagine what this home-coming would +be like. The Burnses were typical Scots in their undemonstrative +ways; but this was a great occasion, and +tradition has it that his mother allowed her feeling so far +to overcome her natural reticence that she met him at +the threshold with the exclamation, 'O Robert!' He +had left home almost unknown, and had returned with a +name that was known and honoured from end to end of +his native land. He had left in the direst poverty, and +haunted with the terrors of a jail, now he came back +with his fortune assured; if not actually rich, at least +with more money due to him than the family had ever +dreamed of possessing. The mother's excess of feeling +on such an o<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">{95}</a></span>ccasion as this may be easily understood +and excused.</p> + +<p>Of this Border tour Burns kept a scrappy journal, but +he was more concerned in jotting down the names and +characteristics of those with whom he forgathered than +of letting himself out in snatches of song. He makes +shrewd remarks by the way on farms and farming, on +the washing and shearing of sheep, but the only verse +he attempted was his <i>Epistle to Creech</i>. He who had +longed to sit and muse on 'those once hard-contested +fields' did not go out of his way to look on Ancrum +Moor or Philiphaugh, nor do we read of him musing +pensive in Yarrow.</p> + +<p>However, we are not to regard these days as altogether +barren. The poet was gathering impressions which +would come forth in song at some future time. +'Neither the fine scenery nor the lovely women,' +Cunningham regrets, 'produced any serious effect on +his muse.' This is a rash statement. Poets do not +sow and reap at the same time—not even Burns. If +his friends were disappointed at what they considered +the sterility of his muse on this occasion, the fault did +not lie with the poet, but with their absurd expectations. +It may be as well to point out here that the greatest +harm Edinburgh did to Burns was that it gathered round +him a number of impatient and injudicious admirers +who could not understand that poetry was not to be +forced. The burst of poetry that practically filled the +Kilmarnock Edition came after a seven years' growth of +inspiration; but after his first visit to Edinburgh he +was never allowed to rest. It was expected that he +should write whenever a subject was suggested, or burst +into verse at the first glimpse of a lovely landscape<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">{96}</a></span>. +Every friend was ready with advice as to how and what +he should write, and quite as ready, the poet unfortunately +knew, to criticise afterwards. The poetry +of the Mossgiel period had come from him spontaneously. +He had flung off impressions in verse fearlessly, without +pausing to consider how his work would be appreciated +by this one or denounced by that; and was true to +himself. Now he knew that every verse he wrote would +be read by many eyes, studied by many minds; some +would scent heresy, others would spot Jacobitism, or +worse, freedom; some would suspect his morality, +others would deplore his Scots tongue; all would criticise +favourably or adversely his poetic expression. It +has to be kept in mind, too, that Burns at this time +was in no mood for writing poetry. His mind was +not at ease; and after his long spell of inspiration and +the fatiguing distractions of Edinburgh, it was hardly to +be wondered at that brain and body were alike in need +of rest. The most natural rest would have been a +return direct to the labours of the farm. That, however, +was denied him, and the period of his journeyings +was little else than a season of unsettlement and +suspense.</p> + +<p>Burns only stayed a few days at home, and then set +off on a tour to the West Highlands, a tour of which +we know little or nothing. Perhaps this was merely a +pilgrimage to the grave of Highland Mary. We do +not know, and need not curiously inquire. Burns, as +has been already remarked, kept sacred his love for +this generous-hearted maiden, hidden away in his own +heart, and the whole story is a beautiful mystery. We +do know that before he left he visited the Armours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">{97}</a></span>, +and was disgusted with the changed attitude of the +family towards himself. 'If anything had been wanting,' +he wrote to Mr. James Smith, 'to disgust me +completely at Armour's family, their mean, servile compliance +would have done it.' To his friend, William +Nicol, he wrote in the same strain. 'I never, my +friend, thought mankind very capable of anything +generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, +and the servility of my plebeian brethren (who +perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since I returned +home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with +my species.'</p> + +<p>This shows Burns in no very enviable frame of mind; +but the cause is obvious. He is as yet unsettled in +life, and now that he has met again his Bonnie Jean, +and seen his children, he is more than ever dissatisfied +with aimless roving. 'I have yet fixed on nothing with +respect to the serious business of life. I am just as +usual a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle +fellow. However, I shall somewhere have a farm soon. +I was going to say a wife too, but that must never be +my blessed lot.'</p> + +<p>To his own folks he was nothing but kindness, ready +to share with them his uttermost farthing, and to have +them share in the glory that was his; but he was at +enmity with himself, and at war with the world. Like +Hamlet, who felt keenly, but was incapable of action, he +saw that 'the times were out of joint'; circumstances +were too strong for him. Almost the only record we +have of this tour is a vicious epigram on what he considered +the flunkeyism of Inveraray. Nor are we in the +least astonished to hear that on the homeward route he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">{98}</a></span> +spent a night in dancing and boisterous revel, ushering +in the day with a kind of burlesque of pagan sun-worship. +This was simply a reaction from his gloom +and despondency; he sought to forget himself in reckless +conviviality.</p> + +<p>About the end of July we find him back again in +Mauchline, and on the 25th May he set out on a +Highland tour along with his friend William Nicol, one +of the masters of the High School. Of this man Dr. +Currie remarks that he rose by the strength of his +talents, and fell by the strength of his passions. Burns +was perfectly well aware of the passionate and quarrelsome +nature of the man. He compared himself with such a +companion to one travelling with a loaded blunderbuss +at full-cock; and in his epigrammatic way he said of him +to Mr. Walker, 'His mind is like his body; he has a +confounded, strong, in-kneed sort of a soul.' The man, +however, had some good qualities. He had a warm +heart; never forgot the friends of his early years, and +he hated vehemently low jealousy and cunning. These +were qualities that would appeal strongly to Burns, and +on account of which much would be forgiven. Still we +cannot think that the poet was happy in his companion; +nor was he yet happy in himself. Otherwise the Highland +tour might have been more interesting, certainly +much more profitable to the poet in its results, than it +actually proved.</p> + +<p>In his diary of this tour, as in his diary of the Border +tour, there is much more of shrewd remark on men +and things than of poetical jottings. The fact is, poetry +is not to be collected in jottings, nor is inspiration to +be culled in catalogue cuttings; and if many of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">{99}</a></span>his +friends were again disappointed in the immediate +poetical results of this holiday, it only shows how +little they understood the comings and goings of inspiration. +Those, however, who read his notes and +reflections carefully and intelligently are bound to notice +how much more than a mere verse-maker Burns was. +This was the journal of a man of strong, sound sense +and keen observation. It has also to be recognised that +Burns was at his weakest when he attempted to describe +scenery for mere scenery's sake. His gift did not lie +that way. His landscapes, rich in colour and deftly +drawn though they be, are always the mere backgrounds +of his pictures. They are impressionistic sketches, the +setting and the complement of something of human +interest in incident or feeling.</p> + +<p>The poet and his companion set out in a postchaise, +journeying by Linlithgow and Falkirk to Stirling. They +visited 'a dirty, ugly place called Borrowstounness,' +where he turned from the town to look across the Forth +to Dunfermline and the fertile coast of Fife; Carron +Iron Works, and the field of Bannockburn. They were +shown the hole where Bruce set his standard, and the +sight fired the patriotic ardour of the poet till he saw in +imagination the two armies again in the thick of battle. +After visiting the castle at Stirling, he left Nicol for a +day, and paid a visit to Mrs. Chalmers of Harvieston. +'Go to see Caudron Linn and Rumbling Brig and Deil's +Mill.' That is all he has to say of the scenery; but in +a letter to Gavin Hamilton he has much more to tell +of Grace Chalmers and Charlotte, 'who is not only +beautiful but lovely.'</p> + +<p>From Stirling the tourists proceeded northwards by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">{100}</a></span> +Crieff and Glenalmond to Taymouth; thence, keeping +by the banks of the river, to Aberfeldy, whose birks he +immortalised in song. Here he had the good fortune +to meet Niel Gow and to hear him playing. 'A short, +stout-built, honest, Highland figure,' the poet describes +him, 'with his greyish hair shed on his honest, social +brow—an interesting face, marking strong sense, kind +open-heartedness mixed with unmistaking simplicity.'</p> + +<p>By the Tummel they rode to Blair, going by Fascally +and visiting—both those sentimental Jacobites—'the +gallant Lord Dundee's stone,' in the Pass of Killiecrankie. +At Blair he met his friend Mr. Walker, who +has left an account of the poet's visit; while the two +days which Burns spent here, he has declared, were +among the happiest days of his life.</p> + +<p>'My curiosity,' Walker wrote, 'was great to see how +he would conduct himself in company so different from +what he had been accustomed to. His manner was +unembarrassed, plain, and firm. He appeared to have +complete reliance on his own native good sense for +directing his behaviour. He seemed at once to perceive +and appreciate what was due to the company and +to himself, and never to forget a proper respect for the +separate species of dignity belonging to each. He did +not arrogate conversation, but when led into it he spoke +with ease, propriety, and manliness. He tried to exert +his abilities, because he knew it was ability alone gave +him a title to be there.'</p> + +<p>Burns certainly enjoyed his stay, and would, at the +family's earnest solicitation, have stayed longer, had the +irascible and unreasonable Nicol allowed it. Here it +was he met Mr. Graham of Fintry, and if he had stay<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">{101}</a></span>ed +a day or two longer he would have met Dundas, a man +whose patronage might have done much to help the +future fortunes of the poet. After leaving Blair, he +visited, at the Duke's advice, the Falls of Bruar, and a +few days afterwards he wrote from Inverness to Mr. +Walker enclosing his verses, <i>The Humble Petition of +Bruar Water to the Noble Duke of Athole</i>.</p> + +<p>Leaving Blair, they continued their journey northwards +towards Inverness, viewing on the way the Falls of +Foyers,—soon to be lost to Scotland,—which the poet +celebrated in a fragment of verse. Of course two such +Jacobites had to see Culloden Moor; then they came +through Nairn and Elgin, crossed the Spey at Fochabers, +and Burns dined at Gordon Castle, the seat of the +lively Duchess of Gordon, whom he had met in +Edinburgh. Here again he was received with marked +respect, and treated with the same Highland hospitality +that had so charmed him at Blair; and here also +the pleasure of the whole party was spoilt by the +ill-natured jealousy of Nicol. That fiery dominie, +imagining that he was slighted by Burns, who seemed +to prefer the fine society of the Duchess and her friends +to his amiable companionship, ordered the horses to +be put to the carriage, and determined to set off alone. +As the spiteful fellow would listen to no reason, Burns +had e'en to accompany him, though much against his +will. He sent his apologies to Her Grace in a song in +praise of Castle Gordon.</p> + +<p>From Fochabers they drove to Banff, and thence to +Aberdeen. In this city he was introduced to the Rev. +John Skinner, a son of the author of <i>Tullochgorum</i>, and +was exceedingly disappointed when he learned that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">{102}</a></span>on +his journey he had been quite near to the father's +parsonage, and had not called on the old man. Mr. +Skinner himself regretted this, when he learned the +fact from his son, as keenly as Burns did; but the +incident led to a correspondence between the two +poets. From Aberdeen he came south by Stonehaven, +where he 'met his relations,' and Montrose to Dundee. +Hence the journey was continued through Perth, Kinross, +and Queensferry, and so back to Edinburgh, 16th +September 1787.</p> + +<p>His letter to his brother from Edinburgh is more +meagre even than his journal, being simply a catalogue +of the places visited. 'Warm as I was from Ossian's +country,' he remarks, 'what cared I for fishing towns or +fertile carses?' Yet although the journal reads now +and again like a railway time-table, we come across +references which give proof of the poet's abounding +interest in the locality of Scottish Song; and it was +probably the case, as Professor Blackie writes, that +'such a lover of the pure Scottish Muse could not fail +when wandering from glen to glen to pick up fragments +of traditional song, which, without his sympathetic touch, +would probably have been lost.'</p> + +<p>Burns's wanderings were not yet, however, at an end. +Probably he had expected on his return to Edinburgh +some settlement with Creech, and was disappointed. +Perhaps he was eager to revisit some places or people—Peggy +Chalmers, no doubt—without being hampered +in his movements by such a companion as Nicol. +Anyhow, we find him setting out again on a tour +through Clackmannan and Perthshire with his friend +Dr. Adair, a warm but somewhat injudicious admi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">{103}</a></span>rer +of the poet's genius. It was probably about the +beginning of October that the two left Edinburgh, going +round by Stirling to Harvieston, where they remained +about ten days, and made excursions to the various +parts of the surrounding scenery. The Caldron Linn +and Rumbling Bridge were revisited, and they went to +see Castle Campbell, the ancient seat of the family of +Argyle. 'I am surprised,' the doctor ingenuously remarks, +'that none of these scenes should have called +forth an exertion of Burns's muse. But I doubt if he +had much taste for the picturesque.' One wonders +whether Dr. Adair had actually read the published +poems. What a picture it must have been to see the +party dragging Burns about, pointing out the best views, +and then breathlessly waiting for a torrent of verse. +The verses came afterwards, but they were addressed, +not to the Ochils or the Devon, but to Peggy Chalmers.</p> + +<p>From Harvieston he went to Ochtertyre on the +Teith to visit Mr. Ramsay, a reputed lover of Scottish +literature; and thence he proceeded to Ochtertyre in +Strathearn, in order to visit Sir William Murray.</p> + +<p>In a letter to Dr. Currie, Mr. Ramsay speaks thus of +Burns on this visit: 'I have been in the company of +many men of genius, some of them poets, but never +witnessed such flashes of intellectual brightness, the +impulse of the moment, sparks of celestial fire! I +never was more delighted, therefore, than with his company +for two days' <i>tête-à-tête</i>.' Of his residence with Sir +William Murray he has left two poetical souvenirs, one +<i>On Scaring some Water Fowl in Loch Turit</i>, and the +other, a love song, <i>Blithe, Blithe, and Merry was She</i>, +in honour o<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">{104}</a></span>f Miss Euphemia Murray, the flower of +Strathearn.</p> + +<p>Returning to Harvieston, he went back with Dr. +Adair to Edinburgh, by Kinross and Queensferry. At +Dunfermline he visited the ruined abbey, where, kneeling, +he kissed the stone above Bruce's grave.</p> + +<p>It was on this tour, too, that he visited at Clackmannan +an old Scottish lady, who claimed to be a +lineal descendant of the family of Robert the Bruce. +She conferred knighthood on the poet with the great +double-handed sword of that monarch, and is said to +have delighted him with the toast she gave after dinner, +'Hooi Uncos,' which means literally, 'Away Strangers,' +and politically much more.</p> + +<p>The year 1787 was now drawing to a close, and Burns +was still waiting for a settlement with Creech. He could +not understand why he was kept hanging on from month +to month. This was a way of doing business quite new +to him, and after being put off again and again he at last +began to suspect that there was something wrong. He +doubted Creech's solvency; doubted even his honesty. +More than ever was he eager to be settled in life, and +he fretted under commercial delays he could not understand. +On the first day of his return to Edinburgh he +had written to Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, telling him of +his ambitions, and making an offer to rent one of his +farms. We know that he visited Dalswinton once or +twice, but returned to Edinburgh. His only comfort at +this time was the work he had begun in collecting +Scottish songs for Johnson's Museum; touching up old +ones and writing new ones to old airs. This with Burns +was altogether a labour of love. The idea of writing a song +with a view to money-making was abhorrent to him. 'He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">{105}</a></span> +entered into the views of Johnson,' writes Chambers, 'with +an industry and earnestness which despised all money +considerations, and which money could not have purchased'; +while Allan Cunningham marvels at the number +of songs Burns was able to write at a time when a sort of +civil war was going on between him and Creech. Another +reason for staying through the winter in Edinburgh +Burns may have had in the hope that through the influence +of his aristocratic friends some office of profit, +and not unworthy his genius, might have been found for +him. Places of profit and honour were at the disposal +of many who might have helped him had they so wished. +But Burns was not now the favourite he had been when +he first came to Edinburgh. The ploughman-poet was +no longer a novelty; and, moreover, Burns had the pride +of his class, and clung to his early friends. It is not +possible for a man to be the boon-companion of peasants +and the associate of peers. Had he dissociated himself +altogether from his past life, the doors of the nobility might +have been still held open to him; and no doubt the +cushioned ease of a sinecure's office would have been +had for the asking. But in that case he would have lost +his manhood, and we should have lost a poet. Burns +would not have turned his back on his fellows for the +most lucrative office in the kingdom; that, he would +have considered as selling his soul to the devil. Yet, on +the other hand, what could any of these men do for a +poet who was 'owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool'? +Burns waited on in the expectation that those who had +the power would take it upon themselves to do something +for him. Perhaps he credited them with a sense +and a generosity they could not lay claim to; though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">{106}</a></span> +had one of them taken the initiative in this matter, he +would have honoured himself in honouring Burns, and +endeared his name to the hearts of his countrymen +for all time. But such offices are created and kept +open for political sycophants, who can importune with +years of prostituted service. They are for those +who advocate the opinions of others; certainly not for +the man who dares to speak fearlessly his own mind, +and to assert the privileges and prerogatives of his +manhood. The children's bread is not to be thrown +to the dogs. Burns asked for nothing, and got nothing. +The Excise commission which he applied for, and +graduated for, was granted. The work was laborious, +the remuneration small, and <i>gauger</i> was a name of +contempt.</p> + +<p>But whilst waiting on in the hope of something +'turning up,' he was still working busily for Johnson's +Museum, and still trying to bring Creech to make a +settlement. At last, however, out of all patience with +his publisher, and recognising the futility of his hopes of +preferment, he had resolved early in December to leave +Edinburgh, when he was compelled to stay against his +will. A double accident befell him; he was introduced +to a Mrs. Maclehose, and three days afterwards, through +the carelessness of a drunken coachman, he was thrown +from a carriage, and had his knee severely bruised. +The latter was an accident that kept him confined to +his room for a time, and from which he quickly recovered; +but the meeting with Mrs. Maclehose was a +serious matter, and for both, most unfortunate in its +results.</p> + +<p>It was while he was 'on the rack of his present agon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">{107}</a></span>y' +that the Sylvander-Clarinda correspondence was begun +and continued. That much may be said in excuse for +Burns. A man, especially one with the passion and +sensitiveness of a poet, cannot be expected to write in all +sanity when he is racked by the pain of an injured limb. +Certainly the poet does not show up in a pleasant light in +this absurd interchange of gasping epistles; nor does Mrs. +Maclehose. 'I like the idea of Arcadian names in a +commerce of this kind,' he unguardedly admits. The +most obvious comment that occurs to the mind of +the reader is that they ought never to have been +written. It is a pity they were written; more than a +pity they were ever published. It seems a terrible +thing that, merely to gratify the morbid curiosity of the +world, the very love-letters of a man of genius should +be made public. Is there nothing sacred in the lives +of our great men? 'Did I imagine,' Burns remarked +to Mrs. Basil Montagu in Dumfries, 'that one half of the +letters which I have written would be published when +I die, I would this moment recall them and burn +them without redemption.'</p> + +<p>After all, what was gained by publishing this correspondence? +It adds literally nothing to our knowledge +of the poet. He could have, and has, given more of +himself in a verse than he gives in the whole series +of letters signed Sylvander. Occasionally he is natural +in them, but rarely. 'I shall certainly be ashamed of +scrawling whole sheets of incoherence.' We trust he +was. The letters are false in sentiment, stilted in +diction, artificial in morality. We have a picture of the +poet all through trying to batter himself into a passion +he does not feel, into love of an accomplished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">{108}</a></span> and intellectual +woman; while in his heart's core is registered +the image of Jean Armour, the mother of his children. +He shows his paces before Clarinda and tears passion to +tatters in inflated prose; he poses as a stylist, a moralist, +a religious enthusiast, a poet, a man of the world, and +now and again accidentally he assumes the face and figure +of Robert Burns. We read and wonder if this be really +the same man who wrote in his journal, 'The whining +cant of love, except in real passion and by a masterly +hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of +old father Smeaton, Whig minister at Kilmaurs. Darts, +flames, cupids, love graces and all that farrago are just +... a senseless rabble.'</p> + +<p>Clarinda comes out of the correspondence better than +Sylvander. Her letters are more natural and vastly +more clever. She grieves to hear of his accident, and +sympathises with him in his suffering; were she his sister +she would call and see him. He is too romantic in his +style of address, and must remember she is a married +woman. Would he wait like Jacob seven years for a +wife? And perhaps be disappointed! She is not unhappy: +religion has been her balm for every woe. She +had read his autobiography as Desdemona listened to +the narration of Othello, but she was pained because of +his hatred of Calvinism; he must study it seriously. +She could well believe him when he said that no woman +could love as ardently as himself. The only woman +for him would be one qualified for the companion, the +friend, and the mistress. The last might gain Sylvander, +but the others alone could keep him. She admires him +for his continued fondness for Jean, who perhaps does +not possess his tenderest, faithfulest friendship. How<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">{109}</a></span> +could that bonnie lassie refuse him after such proofs of +love? But he must not rave; he must limit himself to +friendship. The evening of their third meeting was one +of the most exquisite she had ever experienced. Only +he must now know she has faults. She means well, but +is liable to become the victim of her sensibility. She +too now prefers the religion of the bosom. She cannot +deny his power over her: would he pay another evening +visit on Saturday?</p> + +<p>When the poet is leaving Edinburgh, Clarinda is heartbroken. +'Oh, let the scenes of nature remind you of +Clarinda! In winter, remember the dark shades of her +fate; in summer, the warmth of her friendship; in +autumn, her glowing wishes to bestow plenty on all; and +let spring animate you with hopes that your friend may +yet surmount the wintry blasts of life, and revive to taste +a spring-time of happiness. At all events, Sylvander, +the storms of life will quickly pass, and one unbounded +spring encircle all. Love, there, is not a crime. I +charge you to meet me there, O God! I must lay down +my pen.'</p> + +<p>Poor Clarinda! Well for her peace of mind that the +poet was leaving her; well for Burns, also, that he was +leaving Clarinda and Edinburgh. Only one thing +remained for both to do, and it had been wise, to burn +their letters. Would that Clarinda had been as much +alive to her own good name, and the poet's fair fame, as +Peggy Chalmers, who did not preserve her letters from +Burns!</p> + +<p>It was February 1788 before Burns could settle with +Creech; and, after discharging all expenses, he found a +balance in his favour of about five hundred pounds. To<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">{110}</a></span> +Gilbert, who was in sore need of the money, he advanced +one hundred and eighty pounds, as his contribution to +the support of their mother. With what remained of +the money he leased from Mr. Miller of Dalswinton +the f<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">{111}</a></span>arm of Ellisland, on which he entered at Whitsunday +1788.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">ELLISLAND</span></h2> + + +<p>When Burns turned his back on Edinburgh in February +1788, and set his face resolutely towards his native +county and the work that awaited him, he left the city a +happier and healthier man than he had been all the +months of his sojourn in it. The times of aimless roving, +and of still more demoralising hanging on in the hope of +something being done for him, were at an end; he looked +to the future with self-reliance. His vain hopes of preferment +were already 'thrown behind and far away,' and +he saw clearly that by the labour of his own hands he +had to live, independent of the dispensations of patronage, +and trusting no longer to the accidents of fortune. +'The thoughts of a home,' to quote Cunningham's words, +'of a settled purpose in life, gave him a silent gladness +of heart such as he had never before known.'</p> + +<p>Burns, though he had hoped and was disappointed, +left the city not so much with bitterness as with contempt. +If he had been received on this second visit with punctilious +politeness, more ceremoniously than cordially, it +was just as he had himself expected. Gossip, too, had +been busy while he was absent, and his sayings and +doings had been bruited abroad. His worst fault was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">{112}</a></span> +that he was a shrewd observer of men, and drew, in a +memorandum book he kept, pen-portraits of the people +he met. 'Dr Blair is merely an astonishing proof of +what industry and application can do. Natural parts +like his are frequently to be met with; his vanity is proverbially +known among his acquaintance.' The Lord +Advocate he pictured in a verse:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'He clenched his pamphlets in his fist,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He quoted and he hinted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till in a declamation-mist,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His argument he tint it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He gap'd for't, he grap'd for't,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He fand it was awa, man;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But what his common sense came short,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He eked it out wi' law, man.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Had pen-portraits, such as these, been merely caricatures, +they might have been forgiven; but, unfortunately, +they were convincing likenesses, therefore libels. We +doubt not, as Cunningham tells us, that the <i>literati</i> of +Edinburgh were not displeased when such a man left +them; they could never feel at their ease so long as he +was in their midst. 'Nor were the titled part of the +community without their share in this silent rejoicing; +his presence was a reproach to them. The illustrious +of his native land, from whom he had looked for patronage, +had proved that they had the carcass of greatness, +but wanted the soul; they subscribed for his poems, and +looked on their generosity "as an alms could keep a god +alive." He turned his back on Edinburgh, and from that +time forward scarcely counted that man his friend who +spoke of titled persons in his presence.'</p> + +<p>It was with feelings of relief, also, that Burns left the +super-scholarly litterateurs; 'white curd of asses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">{113}</a></span>' milk,' +he called them; gentlemen who reminded him of some +spinsters in his country who 'spin their thread so fine +that it is neither fit for weft nor woof.' To such men, +recognising only the culture of schools, a genius like +Burns was a puzzle, easier dismissed than solved. Burns +saw them, in all their tinsel of academic tradition, +through and through.</p> + +<p>Coming from Edinburgh to the quiet home-life of +Mossgiel was like coming out of the vitiated atmosphere +of a ballroom into the pure and bracing air of early +morning. Away from the fever of city life, he only +gradually comes back to sanity and health. The artificialities +and affectations of polite society are not to be +thrown off in a day's time. Hardly had he arrived at +Mauchline before he penned a letter to Clarinda, that +simply staggers the reader with the shameless and heartless +way in which it speaks of Jean Armour. 'I am +dissatisfied with her—I cannot endure her! I, while my +heart smote me for the profanity, tried to compare her +with my Clarinda. 'Twas setting the expiring glimmer +of a farthing taper beside the cloudless glory of the +meridian sun. <i>Here</i> was tasteless insipidity, vulgarity +of soul, and mercenary fawning; <i>there</i>, polished good +sense, heaven-born genius, and the most generous, the +most delicate, the most tender passion. I have done +with her, and she with me.'</p> + +<p>Poor Jean! Think of her too confiding and trustful +love written down <i>mercenary fawning</i>! But this was not +Burns. The whole letter is false and vulgar. Perhaps +he thought to please his Clarinda by the comparison; +she had little womanly feeling if she felt flattered. Let +us believe, for her own sake, that she was disgusted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">{114}</a></span> +His letter to Ainslie, ten days later, is something very +different, though even yet he gives no hint of acknowledging +Jean as his wife. 'Jean I found banished like a +martyr—forlorn, destitute, and friendless—all for the +good old cause. I have reconciled her to her fate; I +have reconciled her to her mother; I have taken her a +room; I have taken her to my arms; I have given her a +guinea, and I have embraced her till she rejoiced with +joy unspeakable and full of glory.'</p> + +<p>This is flippant in tone, but something more manly in +sentiment; Burns was coming to his senses. On 13th +June, twin girls were born to Jean, but they only lived +a few days. On the same day their father wrote from +Ellisland to Mrs. Dunlop a letter, in which we see the +real Burns, true to the best feelings of his nature, and +true to his sorely-tried and long-suffering wife. 'This +is the second day, my honoured friend, that I have been +on my farm. A solitary inmate of an old smoky spence, +far from every object I love, or by whom I am beloved; +nor any acquaintance older than yesterday, except Jenny +Geddes, the old mare I ride on; while uncouth cares +and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and +bashful inexperience.... Your surmise, madam, is just; +I am, indeed, a husband.... You are right that a +bachelor state would have ensured me more friends; +but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace +in the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting +confidence in approaching my God, would seldom have +been of the number. I found a once much-loved and +still much-loved female, literally and truly cast out to the +mercy of the naked elements; but I enabled her to +<i>purchase</i> a she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">{115}</a></span>lter,—there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's +happiness or misery.'</p> + +<p>It was not till August that the marriage was ratified +by the Church, when Robert Burns and Jean Armour +were rebuked for their acknowledged irregularity, and +admonished 'to adhere faithfully to one another, as man +and wife, all the days of their life.'</p> + +<p>This was the only fit and proper ending of Burns's +acquaintance with Jean Armour. As an honourable +man, he could not have done otherwise than he did. +To have deserted her now, and married another, even +admitting he was legally free to do so, which is doubtful, +would have been the act of an abandoned wretch, and +certainly have wrought ruin in the moral and spiritual +life of the poet. In taking Jean as his wedded wife, he +acted not only honourably, but wisely; and wisdom and +prudence were not always distinguishing qualities of +Robert Burns.</p> + +<p>Some months had to elapse, however, before the wife +could join her husband at Ellisland. The first thing he +had to do when he entered on his lease was to rebuild +the dwelling-house, he himself lodging in the meanwhile +in the smoky spence which he mentions in his letter to +Mrs. Dunlop. In the progress of the building he not +only took a lively interest, but actually worked with his +own hands as a labourer, and gloried in his strength: +'he beat all for a dour lift.' But it was some time +before he could settle down to the necessarily monotonous +work of farming. 'My late scenes of idleness +and dissipation,' he confessed to Dunbar, 'have enervated +my mind to a considerable degree.' He was restless +and rebellious at times, and we are not surprised +to find the sudden settling down from gaiety and travel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">{116}</a></span> +to the home-life of a farmer marked by bursts of impatience, +irritation, and discontent. The only steadying +influence was the thought of his wife and children, and +the responsibility of a husband and a father. He grew +despondent occasionally, and would gladly have been +at rest, but a wife and children bound him to struggle +with the stream. His melancholy blinded him even to +the good qualities of his neighbours. The only things +he saw in perfection were stupidity and canting. 'Prose +they only know in graces, prayers, etc., and the value +of these they estimate, as they do their plaiding webs, +by the ell. As for the Muses, they have as much an +idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet.' He was, in fact, +ungracious towards his neighbours, not that they were +boorish or uninformed folk, but simply because, though +living at Ellisland in body, his mind was in Ayrshire +with his darling Jean, and he was looking to the future +when he should have a home and a wife of his own. His +eyes would ever wander to the west, and he sang, to +cheer him in his loneliness, a song of love to his Bonnie +Jean:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I dearly lo'e the west;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For there the bonnie lassie lives,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lassie I lo'e best.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was not till the beginning of December that he was +in a position to bring his wife and children to Ellisland; +and this event brought him into kindlier relations with +his fellow-farmers. His neighbours gathered to bid his +wife welcome; and drank to the roof-tree of the house +of Burns. The poet, now that he had made his home +amongst them, was regarded as one of themselves;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">{117}</a></span> +while Burns, on his part, having at last got his wife and +children beside him, was in a healthier frame of mind +and more charitably disposed towards those who had +come to give them a welcome. That he was now as +one settled in life with something worthy to live for, +we have ample proof in his letter written to Mrs. Dunlop +on the first day of the New Year. It is discursive, yet +philosophical and reflective, and its whole tone is that +of a man who looks on the world round about him with +a kindly charity, and looks to the future with faith and +trust. Life passed very sweetly and peacefully with the +poet and his family for a time here. The farm, it would +appear, was none of the best,—Mr. Cunningham told him +he had made a poet's not a farmer's choice,—but Burns +was hopeful and worked hard. Yet the labour of the +farm was not to be his life-work. Even while waiting +impatiently the coming of his wife, he had been contributing +to Johnson's Museum, and he fondly imagined +that he was going to be farmer, poet, and exciseman +all in one. Some have regretted his appointment to +the Excise at this time, and attributed to his frequent +absences from home his failure as a farmer. They +may be right. But what was the poet to do? He +knew by bitter experience how precarious the business +of farming was, and thought that a certain salary, even +though small, would always stand between his family +and absolute want. 'I know not,' he wrote to Ainslie, +'how the word exciseman, or, still more opprobrious, +gauger, will sound in your ears. I too have seen the +day when my auditory nerves would have felt very +delicately on this subject; but a wife and children have +a wonderful power in blunting these kind of sensation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">{118}</a></span>s. +Fifty pounds a year for life and a pension for widows +and orphans, you will allow, is no bad settlement for a +<i>poet</i>.' And to Blacklock he wrote in verse:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'But what d'ye think, my trusty fier,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm turned a gauger—Peace be here!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Parnassian queans, I fear, I fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Ye'll now disdain me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then my fifty pounds a year<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Will little gain me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I hae a wife and twa wee laddies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye ken yoursel's my heart right proud is—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I needna vaunt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I'll sned besoms—thraw saugh woodies,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Before they want.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But to conclude my silly rhyme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(I'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make a happy fireside clime<br /></span> +<span class="i8">To weans and wife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's the true pathos and sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Of human life.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This was nobly said; and the poet spoke from the +heart.</p> + +<p>Not content with being gauger, farmer, and poet, +Burns took a lively interest in everything affecting the +welfare of the parish and the well-being of its inhabitants. +For this was no poet of the study, holding himself aloof +from the affairs of the world, and fearing the contamination +of his kind. Burns was alive all-round, and always +acted his part in the world as a husband and father; as +a citizen and a man. He made himself the poet of +humanity, because he himself was so intensely human, +and joyed and sorrowed with his fellows. At this time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">{119}</a></span> +he established a library in Dunscore, and himself undertook +the whole management,—drawing out rules, purchasing +books, acting for a time as secretary, treasurer, +and committee all in one. Among the volumes he +ordered were several of his old favourites, <i>The Spectator</i>, +<i>The Man of Feeling</i>, and <i>The Lounger</i>; and we know +that there was on the shelves even a folio Hebrew +Concordance.</p> + +<p>A favourite walk of the poet's while he stayed here +was along Nithside, where he often wandered to take a +'gloamin' shot at the Muses.' Here, after a fall of rain, +Cunningham records, the poet loved to walk, listening +to the roar of the river, or watching it bursting impetuously +from the groves of Friar's Carse. 'Thither he +walked in his sterner moods, when the world and its +ways touched his spirit; and the elder peasants of the +vale still show the point at which he used to pause and +look on the red and agitated stream.'</p> + +<p>In spite of his multifarious duties, he was now more +than ever determined to make his name as a poet. To +Dr. Moore he wrote (4th January 1789): 'The character +and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure, +but now my pride.... Poesy I am determined to +prosecute with all my vigour. Nature has given very +few, if any, of the profession the talents of shining in +every species of composition. I shall try (for until trial +it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified me +to shine in any one.'</p> + +<p>It was inevitable that one whose district as an exciseman +reached far and wide could not regularly attend to +ploughing, sowing, and reaping, and the farm was very +often left to the care of servants. Dr. Currie appears<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">{120}</a></span> +to count it as a reproach that his farm no longer occupied +the principal part of his care or his thoughts. Yet it +could not have been otherwise. Burns after having +undertaken a duty would attend to it religiously, and +we know that he pursued his work throughout his ten +parishes diligently, faithfully, and with unvarying punctuality. +Others have bemoaned that those frequent Excise +excursions led the poet into temptation, that he was +being continually assailed by the sin that so easily beset +him. Let it be admitted frankly that the temptations +to social excess were great; is it not all the more +creditable to Burns that he did not sink under those +temptations and become the besotted wreck conventional +biography has attempted to make him? If those who +raise this plaint mean to insinuate that Burns became +a confirmed toper, then they are assuredly wrong; if they +be only drawing attention to the fact that drinking was +too common in Scotland at that time, then they are +attacking not the poet but the social customs of his +day. It would be easy if we were to accept 'the +general impression of the place,' and go by the tale +of gossip, to show that Burns was demoralised by his +duties as a gauger, and sank into a state of maudlin +intemperance. But ascertained fact and the testimony +of unimpeachable authority are at variance with the +voice of gossip. 'So much the worse for fact,' biography +would seem to have said, and gaily sped on the work of +defamation. We only require to forget Allan Cunningham's +<i>Personal Sketch of the Poet</i>, the letters from Mr. +Findlater and Mr. Gray, and to close our eyes to the +excellence of the poetry of this period, in order to see +Burns on the downgrade, and to preach g<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">{121}</a></span>rand moral +lessons from the text of a wasted life.</p> + +<p>But, after all, 'facts are chiels that winna ding,' and +we must take them into account, however they may +baulk us of grand opportunities of plashing in watery +sentiment. Speaking of the poet's biographers, Mr. +Findlater remarks that they have tried to outdo one +another in heaping obloquy on his name; they have +made his convivial habits, habitual drunkenness; his +wit and humour, impiety; his social talents, neglect of +duty; and have accused him of every vice. Then he +gives his testimony: 'My connection with Robert +Burns commenced immediately after his admission into +the Excise, and continued to the hour of his death. +In all that time the superintendence of his behaviour as +an officer of the revenue was a branch of my especial +province; and it may be supposed I would not be an +inattentive observer of the general conduct of a man +and a poet so celebrated by his countrymen. In the +former capacity, so far from its being impossible for +him to discharge the duties of his office with that +regularity which is almost indispensable, as is palpably +assumed by one of his biographers, and insinuated, not +very obscurely even, by Dr. Currie, he was exemplary +in his attention as an Excise officer, and was even +jealous of the least imputation on his vigilance.'</p> + +<p>But a glance at the poems and songs of this period +would be a sufficient vindication of the poet's good +name. There are considerably over a hundred songs +and poems written during his stay at Ellisland, many +of them of his finest. The third volume of Johnson's +Museum, published in February 1790, contained no +fewer than forty songs by Burns. Among the Ellislan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">{122}</a></span>d +songs were such as, <i>Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie +Doon</i>, <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>, <i>Willie brewed a Peck o' Maut</i>, +<i>To Mary in Heaven</i>, <i>Of a' the Airts the Wind can blaw</i>, +<i>My Love she's but a Lassie yet</i>, <i>Tam Glen</i>, <i>John Anderson +my Jo</i>, songs that have become the property of the +world. Of the last-named song, Angellier remarks that +the imagination of the poet must have indeed explored +every situation of love to have led him to that which +he in his own experience could not have known. Even +the song <i>Willie brewed a Peck o' Maut</i>, the first of +bacchanalian ditties, is the work of a man of sane +mind and healthy appetite. It is not of the diseased +imagination of drunken genius. But the greatest poem +of this period, and one of Burns's biggest achievements, +is <i>Tam o' Shanter</i>. This poem was written in answer +to a request of Captain Grose that the poet would +provide a witch story to be printed along with a drawing +of Alloway Kirk, and was first published in Grose's +<i>Antiquities of Scotland</i>. We have been treated by +several biographers to a private view of the poet, with +wild gesticulations, agonising in the composition of this +poem; but where his wife did not venture to intrude, we +surely need not seek to desecrate. 'I stept aside with +the bairns among the broom,' says Bonnie Jean; not, we +should imagine, to leave room for aliens and strangers. +He has been again burlesqued for us rending himself +in rhyme, and stretched on straw groaning elegiacs to +Mary in heaven. All this is mere sensationalism provided +for illiterate readers. We have the poem, and its +excellence sufficeth.</p> + +<p>It is worthy of note that in <i>Tam o' Shanter</i>, as well as +in <i>To Mary in Heaven</i>, the poet goes back to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">{123}</a></span> his earlier +years in Ayrshire. They are posthumous products of +the inspiration which gave us the Kilmarnock Edition. +I am not inclined to agree with Carlyle in his estimate +of <i>Tam o' Shanter</i>. It is not the composition of a man +of great talent, but of a man of transcendent poetical +genius. The story itself is a conception of genius, and +in the narration the genius is unquestionable. It is a +panorama of pictures so vivid and powerful that the +characters and scenes are fixed indelibly on the mind, +and abide with us a cherished literary possession. After +reading the poem, the words are recalled without +conscious effort of memory, but as the only possible +embodiment of the mental impressions retained. Short +as the poem is, there is in it character, humour, pathos, +satire, indignation, tenderness, fun, frolic, diablerie, +almost every human feeling. I have heard Burns in +the writing of this poem likened to a composer at an +organ improvising a piece of music in which, before he +has done, he has used every stop and touched every +note on the keyboard. Even the weakest lines of the +piece, which mark a dramatic pause in the rapid narration, +have a distinctive beauty and are the most frequently +quoted lines of the poem. In artistic word-painting +and graphic phrasing Burns is here at his best. His +description of the horrible is worthy of Shakspeare; and +it is questionable if even the imagination of that master +ever conceived anything more awful than the scene and +circumstance of the infernal orgies of those witches and +warlocks. What Zolaesque realism there is! In the +line, 'The grey hairs yet stack to the heft,' all the +gruesomeness of murder is compressed into a distich. +Yet the horrible details are controlled and unified <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">{124}</a></span>in +the powerful imagination of the poet. We believe Dr. +Blacklock was right in thinking that this poem, though +Burns had never written another syllable, would have +made him a high reputation. Certainly it was not the +work of a man daily dazing his faculties with drink; +no more was that exquisite lyric <i>To Mary in Heaven</i>. +Another poem of this period deserving special mention +is <i>The Whistle</i>, not merely because of its dramatic force +and lyrical beauty, but because it gives a true picture +of the drinking customs of the time. And again I dare +assert that this is not the work of a mind enfeebled or +debased by drink. It is a bit of simple, direct, sincere +narration, humanly healthy in tone; the ideas are clear +and consecutive, and the language fitting. It is not so +that drunken genius expresses itself. The language of +a poetical mind enfeebled by alcohol or opium is +frequently mystic and musical; it never deals with the +realities and responsibilities of life, but in a witchery +of words winds and meanders through the realms of +reverie and dream. It may be sweet and sensuous; +it is rarely narrative or simple; never direct nor +forcible.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Kirk's Alarm</i>, wherein he again reverted to +his Mossgiel period, he displayed all his former force of +satire, as well as his sympathy with those who advocated +rational views in religion. Dr. Macgill had written a +book which the Kirk declared to be heretical, and +Burns, at the request of some friends, fought for the +doctor in his usual way, though with little hope of doing +him any good. 'Ajax's shield consisted, I think, of +seven bull-hides and a plate of brass, which altogether +set Hector's utmost force at defiance. Alas! I am not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">{125}</a></span> +a Hector, and the worthy doctor's foes are as securely +armed as Ajax was. Ignorance, superstition, bigotry, +stupidity, malevolence, self-conceit, envy—all strongly +bound in a massy frame of brazen impudence; to such +a shield humour is the peck of a sparrow and satire the +pop-gun of a schoolboy. Creation-disgracing scélérats +such as they, God only can mend, and the devil only +can punish.' The doctor yielded, Cunningham tells +us, and was forgiven, but not the poet; pertinently +adding, 'so much more venial is it in devout men's eyes +to be guilty of heresy than of satire.'</p> + +<p>Into political as well as theological matters Burns +also entered with all his wonted enthusiasm. Of his +election ballads, the best, perhaps, are <i>The Five Carlins</i> +and the <i>Epistle to Mr. Graham of Fintry</i>. But these +ballads are not to be taken as a serious addition to the +poet's works; he did not wish them to be so taken. +He was a man as well as a poet; was interested with +his neighbours in political affairs, and in the day of +battle fought with the weapons he could wield with +effect. Nor are his ballads always to be taken as +representing his political principles; these he expressed +in song that did not owe its inspiration to the excitement +of elections. Burns was not a party man; he had +in politics, as in religion, some broad general principles, +but he had 'the warmest veneration for individuals of +both parties.' The most important verse in his <i>Epistle +to Graham of Fintry</i> is the last:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'For your poor friend, the Bard, afar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hears and only hears the war,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">A cool spectator purely:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, when the storm the forest rends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The robin in the hedge descends,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">{126}</a></span><span class="i8">And sober chirps securely.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Burns's life was, therefore, quite full at Ellisland, too +full indeed; for, towards the end of 1791, we find him +disposing of the farm, and looking to the Excise alone +for a livelihood. In the farm he had sunk the greater +part of the profits of his Edinburgh Edition; and now +it was painfully evident that the money was lost. He +had worked hard enough, but he was frequently absent, +and a farm thrives only under the eye of a master. On +Excise business he was accustomed to ride at least two +hundred miles every week, and so could have little +time to give to his fields. Besides this, the soil of +Ellisland had been utterly exhausted before he entered +on his lease, and consequently made a miserable return +for the labour expended on it. The friendly relations +that had existed between him and his landlord were +broken off before now; and towards the close of his stay +at Ellisland Burns spoke rather bitterly of Mr. Miller's +selfish kindness. Miller was, in fact, too much of a lord +and master, exacting submission as well as rent from his +tenants; while Burns was of too haughty a spirit to beck +and bow to any man. 'The life of a farmer is,' he wrote +to Mrs. Dunlop, 'as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable +rent, a cursed life.... Devil take the life of reaping +the fruits that others must eat!'</p> + +<p>The poet, too, had been overworking himself, and was +again subject to his attacks of hypochondria. 'I feel +that horrid hypochondria pervading every atom of both +body and soul. This farm has undone my enjoyment +of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands.' In the +midst of his troubles and vexations with his farm, he +began to look more hopefully to the Excise, and to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">{127}</a></span> +in the future a life of literary ease, when he could devote +himself wholly to the Muses. He had already got +ranked on the list as supervisor, an appointment that he +reckoned might be worth one hundred or two hundred +pounds a year; and this determined him to quit the farm +entirely, and to try to make a living by one profession. +As farmer, exciseman, and poet he had tried too much, +and even a man of his great capacity for work was bound +to have succumbed under the strain. Even had the +farm not proved the ruinous bargain it did, we imagine +that he must have been compelled sooner or later to +relinquish one of the two, either his farm or his Excise +commission. Circumstances decided for him, and in +December 1791 he sold by auction his stock and implements, +and removed to Dumfries, 'leaving nothing at +Ellisland but a putting-stone, with which he loved to +exercise his strength; a memory of his musings, which +can never die; and three hundred pounds of his money, +sunk beyond redemption <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">{128}</a></span>in a speculation from which +all augured happiness.'</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">DUMFRIES</span></h2> + + +<p>When Burns removed from Ellisland to Dumfries, he +took up his abode in a small house of three apartments +in the Wee Vennel. Here he stayed till Whitsunday +1793, when the family removed to a detached house of +two storeys in the Mill Vennel. A mere closet nine +feet square was the poet's writing-room in this house, +and it was in the bedroom adjoining that he died.</p> + +<p>The few years of his residence in Dumfries have been +commonly regarded as a period of poverty and intemperance. +But his intemperance has always been most +religiously exaggerated, and we doubt not also that the +poverty of the family at this time has been made to +appear worse than it was. Burns had not a salary +worthy of his great abilities, it is true, but there is good +reason to believe that the family lived in comparative +ease and comfort, and that there were luxuries in their +home, which neither father nor mother had known in +their younger days. Burns liked to see his Bonnie Jean +neat and trim, and she went as braw as any wife of +the town. Though we know that he wrote painfully, +towards the end of his life, for the loan of paltry sums, we +are to regard this as a sign more of temporary <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">{129}</a></span>embarrassment +than of a continual struggle to make ends meet. +The word debt grated so harshly on Burns's ears that he +could not be at peace with himself so long as the pettiest +account remained unpaid; and if he had no ready +money in his hands to meet it, he must e'en borrow +from a friend. His income, when he settled in Dumfries, +was 'down money £70 per annum,' and there +were perquisites which must have raised it to eighty or +ninety. Though his hopes of preferment were never +realised, he tried his best on this slender income 'to +make a happy fireside clime to weans and wife,' and in +a sense succeeded.</p> + +<p>What he must have felt more keenly than anything +else in leaving Ellisland was, that in giving up farming +he was making an open confession of failure in his ideal +of combining in himself the farmer, the poet, and the +exciseman. There was a stigma also attaching to the +name of gauger, that must often have been galling to +the spirit of Burns. The ordinary labourer utters the +word with dry contempt, as if he were speaking of a spy. +But the thoughts of a wife and bairns had already prevailed +over prejudice; he realised the responsibilities of a husband +and father, and pocketed his pride. A great change +it must have been to come from the quiet and seclusion +of Ellisland to settle down in the midst of the busy life +of an important burgh.</p> + +<p>Life in provincial towns in Scotland in those days was +simply frittered away in the tittle-tattle of cross and +causeway, and the insipid talk of taverns. The most +trifling incidents of everyday life were dissected and discussed, +and magnified into events of the first importance. +Many residents had no trade or profession whateve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">{130}</a></span>r. +Annuitants and retired merchants built themselves +houses, had their portraits painted in oil, and thereafter +strutted into an aristocracy. Without work, without hobby, +without healthy recreation, and cursed with inglorious +leisure, they simply dissipated time until they should pass +into eternity. The only amusement such lumpish creatures +could have was to meet in some inn or tavern, and +swill themselves into a debauched joy of life. Dumfries, +when Burns came to it in 1791, was no better and no +worse than its neighbours; and we can readily imagine +how eagerly such a man would be welcomed by its +pompously dull and leisured topers. Now might their +meetings be lightened with flashes of genius, and the lazy +hours of their long nights go fleeting by on the wings of +wit and eloquence. Too often in Dumfries was Burns +wiled into the howffs and haunts of these seasoned casks. +They could stand heavy drinking; the poet could not. +He was too highly strung, and if he had consulted his +own inclination would rather have shunned than sought +the company of men who met to quaff their quantum of +wine and sink into sottish sleep. For Burns was never +a drunkard, not even in Dumfries; though the contrary +has been asserted so often that it has all the honour that +age and the respectability of authority can give it. There +was with him no animal craving for drink, nor has he +been convicted of solitary drinking; but he was intensely +convivial, and drank, as Professor Blackie put it, 'only +as the carnal seasoning of a rampant intellectuality.' +There is no doubt that he came to Dumfries a comparatively +pure and sober man; and if he now began to +frequent the Globe Tavern, often to cast his pearls before +swine, let it be remembered that he was compelled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">{131}</a></span> +frequently to meet there strangers and tourists who had +journeyed for the express purpose of meeting the poet. +Nowadays writers and professional men have their +clubs, and in general frequent them more regularly than +Burns ever haunted the howffs of Dumfries. But +we have heard too much about 'the poet's moral +course after he settled in Dumfries being downward.' +'From the time of his migration to Dumfries,' +Principal Shairp soberly informs us, 'it would +appear that he was gradually dropped out of acquaintance +by most of the Dumfriesshire lairds, as he had long been +by the parochial and other ministers.' Poor lairds! +Poor ministers! If they preferred their own talk of +crops and cattle and meaner things to the undoubted +brilliancy of Burns's conversation, surely their dulness +and want of appreciation is not to be laid to the charge +of the poet. I doubt not had the poet lived to a good +old age he would have been gradually dropped out of +acquaintance by some who have not scrupled to write +his biography. Politics, it is admitted, may have formed +the chief element in the lairds' and ministers' aversion, +but there is a hint that his irregular life had as much +to do with it. Is it to be seriously contended +that these men looked askance at Burns because +of his occasional convivialities? 'Madam,' he answered +a lady who remonstrated with him on this very subject, +'they would not thank me for my company if I did not +drink with them.' These lairds, perhaps even these +ministers, could in all probability stand their three +bottles with the best, and were more likely to drop the +acquaintance of one who would not drink bottle for +bottle with them than of one who indulged to excess.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">{132}</a></span> +It was considered a breach of hospitality not to imbibe +so long as the host ordained; and in many cases glasses +were supplied so constructed that they had to be drained +at every toast. 'Occasional hard drinking,' he confessed +to Mrs. Dunlop, 'is the devil to me; against this I have +again and again set my resolution, and have greatly +succeeded. Taverns I have totally abandoned; it is the +private parties in the family way among the hard-drinking +gentlemen of this county that do me the mischief; +but even this I have more than half given over.' Most +assuredly whatever these men charged against Robert +Burns it was not drunkenness. But he has been accused +of mixing with low company! That is something +nearer the mark, and goes far to explain the aversion of +those stately Tories. But again, what is meant by low +company? Are we to believe that the poet made +associates of depraved and abandoned men? Not for +a moment! This low company was nothing more than +men in the rank of life into which he had been born; +mechanics, tradesmen, farmers, ploughmen, who did not +move in the aristocratic circles of patrician lairds or +ministers ordained to preach the gospel to the poor. +It was simply the old, old cry of 'associating with +publicans and sinners.'</p> + +<p>We do not defend nor seek to hide the poet's aberrations; +he confessed them remorselessly, and condemned +himself. But we do raise our voice against the exaggeration +of occasional over-indulgence into confirmed +debauchery; and dare assert that Burns was as sober a +man as the average lairds and ministers who had the +courage of their prejudices, and wrote themselves down +asses to all posterity.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">{133}</a></span></p> +<p>But here again the work the poet managed to do is a +sufficient disproof of his irregular life. He was at this +time, besides working hard at his Excise business, writing +ballads and songs, correcting for Creech the two-volume +edition of his poems, and managing somehow or other +to find time for a pretty voluminous correspondence. +His hands were full and his days completely occupied. +He would not have been an Excise officer very long had +he been unable to attend to his duties. William Wallace, +the editor of <i>Chambers's Burns</i>, has studied very carefully +this period of the poet's life, and found that in those +days of petty faultfinding he has not once been reprimanded, +either for drunkenness or for dereliction of duty. +There were spies and informers about who would not +have left the Excise Commissioners uninformed of the +paltriest charge they could have trumped up against +Burns. Nor is there, when we look at his literary work, +any falling off in his powers as a poet. He sang as +sweetly, as purely, as magically as ever he did; and this +man, who has been branded as a blasphemer and a +libertine, had nobly set himself to purify the polluted +stream of Scottish Song. He was still continuing his +contributions to Johnson's Museum, and now he had +also begun to write for Thomson's more ambitious +work.</p> + +<p>Some of the first of his Dumfriesshire songs owe +their inspiration to a hurried visit he paid to Mrs. +Maclehose in Edinburgh before she sailed to join her +husband in the West Indies. The best of these +are, perhaps, <i>My Nannie's Awa'</i> and <i>Ae Fond Kiss</i>. The +fourth verse of the latter was a favourite of Byron's, +while Scot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">{134}</a></span>t claims for it that it is worth a thousand +romances—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Had we never loved so kindly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had we never loved so blindly!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never met—or never parted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We had ne'er been broken-hearted.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Another song of a different kind, <i>The Deil's awa wi' the +Exciseman</i>, had its origin in a raid upon a smuggling +brig that had got into shallow water in the Solway. The +ship was armed and well manned; and while Lewars, a +brother-excisemen, posted to Dumfries for a guard of +dragoons, Burns, with a few men under him, watched to +prevent landing or escape. It was while impatiently +waiting Lewars's return that he composed this song. +When the dragoons arrived Burns put himself at their +head, and wading, sword in hand, was the first to board +the smuggler. The affair might ultimately have led to +his promotion had he not, next day at the sale of the +vessel's arms and stores in Dumfries, purchased four +carronades, which he sent, with a letter testifying his admiration +and respect, to the French Legislative Assembly. +The carronades never reached their destination, having +been intercepted at Dover by the Custom House +authorities. It is a pity perhaps that Burns should have +testified his political leanings in so characteristic a way. +It was the impetuous act of a poet roused to enthusiasm, +as were thousands of his fellow-countrymen at the time, +by what was thought to be the beginning of universal +brotherhood in France. But whatever may be said as +to the impulsive imprudence of the step, it is not to be +condemned as a most absurd and presumptuous breach +of decorum. We were not at war with France at this +time; had not even begun to await developments with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">{135}</a></span> +critical suspicion. Talleyrand had not yet been slighted +by our Queen, and protestations of peace and friendship +were passing between the two Governments. Any subject +of the king might at this time have written a friendly +letter or forwarded a token of goodwill to the French +Government, without being suspected of disloyalty. +But by the time the carronades had reached Dover the +complexion of things had changed; and yet even in those +critical times Burns's action, though it may have hindered +promotion, does not appear to have been interpreted as +'a most absurd and presumptuous breach of decorum.' +That interpretation was left for biographers made wise +with the passions of war; and yet they have not said in +so many words, what they darkly insinuate, that the poet +was not a loyal British subject. His love of country is too +surely established. That, later, he thought the Ministry +engaging in an unjust and unrighteous war, may be +frankly admitted. He was not alone in his opinion; nor +was he the only poet carried away with a wild enthusiasm +of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Societies were then +springing up all over the country calling for redress of +grievances and for greater political freedom. Such +societies were regarded by the Government of the day +as seditious, and their agitations as dangerous to the +peace of the country; and Burns, though he did not +become a member of the Society of the Friends of the +People, was at one with them in their desire for reform. +It was known also that he 'gat the <i>Gazeteer</i>,' and that +was enough to mark him out as a disaffected person. +No doubt he also talked imprudently; for it was not the +nature of this man to keep his sentiments hidden in his +heart, and to talk the language of expediency. What he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">{136}</a></span> +thought in private he advocated publicly in season and +out of season; and it was quite in the natural course of +things that information regarding his political opinions +should be lodged against him with the Board of Excise. +His political conduct was made the subject of official +inquiry, and it would appear that for a time he was in +danger of dismissal from the service. This is a somewhat +painful episode in his life; and we find him in a +letter to Mr. Graham of Fintry repudiating the slanderous +charges, yet confessing that the tender ties of wife +and children 'unnerve courage and wither resolution.' +Mr. Findlater, his superior, was of opinion that only a very +mild reprimand was administered, and the poet warned +to be more prudent in his speech. But what appeared +mild to Mr. Findlater was galling to Burns. In his letter +to Erskine of Mar he says: 'One of our supervisors-general, +a Mr. Corbet, was instructed to inquire on the +spot and to document me—that my business was to act, +<i>not to think</i>; and that whatever might be men or measures +it was for me to be <i>silent</i> and <i>obedient</i>.'</p> + +<p>We can hardly conceive a harsher sentence on one of +Burns's temperament, and we doubt not that the degradation +of being thus gagged, and the blasting of his +hopes of promotion, were the cause of much of the +bitterness that we find bursting from him now more +frequently than ever, both in speech and writing. That +remorse for misconduct irritated him against himself and +against the world, is true; but it is none the less true +that he must have chafed against the servility of an +office that forbade him the freedom of personal opinion. +In the same letter he unburdens his heart in a burst of +eloquent and noble indignation.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">{137}</a></span></p> +<p>'Burns was a poor man from birth, and an exciseman +by necessity; but—I <i>will</i> say it—the sterling of his +honest worth no poverty could debase; his independent +British mind oppression might bend, but could not +subdue.... I have three sons who, I see already, +have brought into the world souls ill-qualified to inhabit +the bodies of slaves.... Does any man tell me that +my full efforts can be of no service, and that it does not +belong to my humble station to meddle with the concerns +of a nation? I can tell him that it is on such individuals +as I that a nation has to rest, both for the hand +of support and the eye of intelligence.'</p> + +<p>What the precise charges against him were, we are not +informed. It is alleged that he once, when the health +of Pitt was being drunk, interposed with the toast of +'A greater than Pitt—George Washington.' There can +be little fault found with the sentiment. It is given to +poets to project themselves into futurity, and declare the +verdict of posterity. But the occasion was ill-chosen, +and he spoke with all a poet's imprudence. In another +company he aroused the martial fury of an unreasoning +captain by proposing the toast, 'May our success in the +present war be equal to the justice of our cause.' A +very humanitarian toast, one would think, but regarded +as seditious by the fire-eating captain, who had not the +sense to see that there was more of sedition in his +resentment than in Burns's proposal. Yet the affair +looked black enough for a time, and the poet was +afraid that even this story would be carried to the ears +of the commissioners, and his political opinions be again +misrepresented.</p> + +<p>Another thing that came to disturb his peace of mi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">{138}</a></span>nd +was his quarrel with Mrs. Riddell of Woodley Park, +where he had been made a welcome guest ever since +his advent to this district. That Burns, in the heat of a +fever of intoxication, had been guilty of a glaring act of +impropriety in the presence of the ladies seated in the +drawing-room, we may gather from the internal evidence +of his letter written the following morning 'from the +regions of hell, amid the horrors of the damned.' It +would appear that the gentlemen left in the dining-room +had got ingloriously drunk, and there and then proposed +an indecorous raid on the drawing-room. Whatever it +might be they did, it was Burns who was made to suffer +the shame of the drunken plot. His letter of abject +apology remained unanswered, and the estrangement +was only embittered by some lampoons which he wrote +afterwards on this accomplished lady. The affair was +bruited abroad, and the heinousness of the poet's offence +vastly exaggerated. Certain it is that he became deeply +incensed against not only the lady, but her husband as +well, to whom he considered he owed no apology whatever. +Matters were only made worse by his unworthy +verses, and it was not till he was almost on the brink +of the grave that he and Mrs. Riddell met again, and +the old friendship was re-established. The lady not +only forgot and forgave, but she was one of the first +after the poet's death to write generously and appreciatively +of his character and abilities.</p> + +<p>That the quarrel with Mrs. Riddell was prattled about +in Dumfries, and led other families to drop the acquaintance +of the poet, we are made painfully aware; and in +his correspondence now there is rancour, bitterness, and +remorse more pronounced and more settled than at any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">{139}</a></span> +other period of his life. He could not go abroad without +being reminded of the changed attitude of the world; +he could not stay at home without seeing his noble wife +uncomplainingly nursing a child that was not hers. He +cursed himself for his sins and follies; he cursed the +world for its fickleness and want of sympathy. 'His +wit,' says Heron, 'became more gloomy and sarcastic, +and his conversation and writings began to assume a +misanthropical tone, by which they had not been before +in any eminent degree distinguished. But with all his +failings his was still that exalted mind which had raised +itself above the depression of its original condition, with +all the energy of the lion pawing to free his hinder limbs +from the yet encumbering earth.'</p> + +<p>His health now began to give his friends serious +concern. To Cunningham he wrote, February 24, 1794: +'For these two months I have not been able to lift +a pen. My constitution and my frame were <i>ab origine</i> +blasted with a deep, incurable taint of hypochondria, +which poisons my existence.' A little later he confesses: +'I have been in poor health. I am afraid that I am +about to suffer for the follies of my youth. My medical +friends threaten me with a flying gout, but I trust they +are mistaken.' His only comfort in those days was his +correspondence with Thomson and with Johnson. He +kept pouring out song after song, criticising, rewriting, +changing what was foul and impure into songs of the +tenderest delicacy. He showed love in every mood, +from the rapture of pure passion in the <i>Lea Rig</i>, the +maidenly abandon of <i>Whistle and I'll come to you, my +Lad</i>, to the humour of <i>Last May a Braw Wooer</i> and +<i>Duncan Gray</i>, and the guileless devotion of <i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">{140}</a></span>O wert +thou in the Cauld Blast</i>. But he sang of more than +love. Turning from the coldness of the high and +mighty, who had once been his friends, he found +consolation in the naked dignity of manhood, and +penned the hymn of humanity, <i>A Man's a Man for a' +that</i>. Perhaps he found his text in <i>Tristram Shandy</i>: +'Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an +ideal and local value to a bit of base metal, but gold +and silver pass all the world over with no other recommendation +than their own weight.' Something like +this occurs in Massinger's <i>Duke of Florence</i>, where it +is said of princes that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'They can give wealth and titles, but no virtues;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This is without their power.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Gower also had written—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'A king can kill, a king can save;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A king can make a lord a knave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And of a knave a lord also.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But the poem is undoubtedly Burns's, and it is one he +must have written ere he passed away. <i>Scots wha hae</i> +is another of his Dumfries poems. Mr. Syme gives a +highly-coloured and one-sided view of the poet riding in +a storm between Gatehouse and Kenmure, where we are +assured he composed this ode. Carlyle accepts Syme's +authority, and adds: 'Doubtless this stern hymn was +singing itself, as he formed it, through the soul of Burns; +but to the external ear it should be sung with the throat +of the whirlwind.' Burns gives an account of the writing +of the poem, which it is difficult to reconcile with +Mr. Syme's sensational details. It matters not, however, +when or how it was written; we have it now, one of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">{141}</a></span>the +most martial and rousing odes ever penned. Not only +has it gripped the heart of Scotsmen, but it has taken +the ear of the world; its fire and vigour have inspired +soldiers in the day of battle, and consoled them in the +hour of death. We are not forgetful of the fact that +Mrs. Hemans, who wrote some creditable verse, and +the placid Wordsworth, discussed this ode, and agreed +that it was little else than the rhodomontade of a schoolboy. +It is a pity that such authorities should have +missed the charm of <i>Scots wha hae</i>. More than likely +they made up for the loss in a solitary appreciation of +<i>Betty Foy</i> or <i>The Pilgrim Fathers</i>.</p> + +<p>Another martial ode, composed in 1795, was called +forth by the immediate dangers of the time. The +country was roused by the fear of foreign invasion, and +Burns, who had enrolled himself in the ranks of the +Dumfriesshire Volunteers, penned the patriotic song, +<i>Does Haughty Gaul Invasion threat?</i> This song itself +might have reinstalled him in public favour, and dispelled +all doubt as to his loyalty, had he cared again to +court the society of those who had dropped him from +the list of their acquaintance. But Burns had grown +indifferent to any favour save the favour of his Muse; +besides, he was now shattered in health, and assailed +with gloomy forebodings of an early death. For himself +he would have faced death manfully, but again +it was the thought of wife and bairns that unmanned +him.</p> + +<p>Not content with supplying Thomson with songs, he +wrote letters full of hints and suggestions anent songs +and song-making, and now and then he gave a glimpse +of himself at work. We see him sitting under the shade<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">{142}</a></span> +of an old thorn crooning to himself until he gets a verse +to suit the measure he has in his mind; looking round +for objects in nature that are in unison and harmony +with the cogitations of his fancy; humming every now +and then the air with the verses; retiring to his study to +commit his effusions to paper, and while he swings at +intervals on the hind legs of his elbow-chair, criticising +what he has written. A common walk of his when he +was in the poetical vein was to the ruins of Lincluden +Abbey, whither he was often accompanied by his eldest +boy; sometimes towards Martingdon ford, on the north +side of the Nith. When he returned home with a set of +verses, he listened attentively to his wife singing them, +and if she happened to find a word that was harsh in +sound, a smoother one was immediately substituted; +but he would on no account ever sacrifice sense to +sound.</p> + +<p>During the earlier part of this year Burns had taken +his full share in the political contest that was going on, +and fought for Heron of Heron, the Whig candidate, +with electioneering ballads, not to be claimed as great +poems nor meant to be so ranked, but marked with +all his incisiveness of wit and satire, and with his +extraordinary deftness of portraiture. Heron was the +successful candidate, and his poetical supporter again +began to indulge in dreams of promotion: 'a life +of literary leisure with a decent competency was the +summit of his wishes.' But his dreams were not to +be realised.</p> + +<p>In September his favourite child and only daughter, +Elizabeth, died at Mauchline, and he was prostrated +with grief. He had also taken very much to heart the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">{143}</a></span> +inexplicable silence of his old friend, and for many years +constant correspondent, Mrs. Dunlop. To both these +griefs he alludes in a letter to her, dated January 31, +1796: 'These many months you have been two packets +in my debt. What sin of ignorance I have committed +against so highly valued a friend I am utterly at a loss to +guess. Alas! madam, I can ill afford at this time to be +deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. +I have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. The +autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling +child, and that at a distance, too, and so rapidly as +to put it out of my power to pay my last duties to +her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that +shock when I became myself the victim of a severe +rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful, until, +after many weeks of a sickbed, it seems to have turned +up life.'</p> + +<p>There was an evident decline in the poet's appearance, +Dr. Currie tells us, for upwards of a year before +his death, and he himself was sensible that his constitution +was sinking. During almost the whole of the +winter of 1795-96 he had been confined to the house. +Then follows the unsubstantiated story which has done +duty for Shakspeare and many other poets. 'He dined +at a tavern, returned home about three o'clock in a very +cold morning, benumbed and intoxicated. This was +followed by an attack of rheumatism.' It is difficult to +kill a charitable myth, especially one that is so agreeable +to the levelling instincts of ordinary humanity, and +of such sweet consolation to the weaker brethren. Of +course there are variants of the story, with a stair and +sleep and snow brought in as sensational, if improb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">{144}</a></span>able, +accessories; but such stories as these all good men +refuse to believe, unless they are compelled to do so by +the conclusive evidence of direct authority; and that, in +this case, is altogether awanting. All evidence that has +been forthcoming has gone directly against it, and the +story may be accepted as a myth. The fact is that brains +have been ransacked to find reason for the poet's early +death,—as if the goings and comings of death could be +scientifically calculated in biography,—and the last years +of his 'irregular life' are blamed: Dumfries is set apart +as the chief sinner. No doubt his life was irregular +there; his duties were irregular; his hours were irregular. +But Burns in his thirty-six years, had lived a full life, +putting as much into one year as the ordinary sons of +men put into two. He had had threatenings of rheumatism +and heart disease when he was an overworked +lad at Lochlea; and now his constitution was breaking +up from the rate at which he had lived. Excess of work +more than excess of drink brought him to an early +grave. During his few years' stay at Dumfries he had +written over two hundred poems, songs, etc., many of +them of the highest excellence, and most of them now +household possessions. Besides his official duties, we +know also that he took a great interest in his home and +in the education of his children. Mr. Gray, master of +the High School of Dumfries, who knew the poet intimately, +wrote a long and interesting letter to Gilbert +Burns, in which he mentions particularly the attention +he paid to his children's education. 'He was a kind +and attentive father, and took great delight in spending +his evenings in the cultivation of the minds of his children. +Their education was the grand object of his life;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">{145}</a></span> +and he did not, like most parents, think it sufficient to +send them to public schools; he was their private +instructor; and even at that early age bestowed great +pains in training their minds to habits of thought and +reflection, and in keeping them pure from every form of +vice. This he considered a sacred duty, and never to +his last illness relaxed in his diligence.'</p> + +<p>Throughout the winter of 1795 and spring of 1796, +he could only keep up an irregular correspondence with +Thomson. 'Alas!' he wrote in April, 'I fear it will be +long ere I tune my lyre again. I have only known +existence by the pressure of the heavy hand of sickness, +and counted time by the repercussion of pain. I close my +eyes in misery and open them without hope.' Yet it was +literally on his deathbed that he composed the exquisite +song, <i>O wert thou in the Cauld Blast</i>, in honour of +Jessie Lewars, who waited on him so faithfully. In June +he wrote: 'I begin to fear the worst. As to my individual +self I am tranquil, and would despise myself if I +were not; but Burns's poor widow and half a dozen of +his dear little ones—helpless orphans!—there, I am +weaker than a woman's tear.'</p> + +<p>From Brow, whither he had gone to try the effect of +sea-bathing, he wrote several letters all in the same +strain, one to Cunningham; a pathetic one to Mrs. +Dunlop, regretting her continued silence; and letters +begging a temporary loan to James Burness, Montrose, +and to George Thomson, whom he had been supplying +with songs without fee or reward. Thomson at once +forwarded the amount asked—five pounds! To his wife, +who had not been able to accompany him, he wrote: +'My dearest love, I delayed writing until I could tell <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">{146}</a></span>you +what effect sea-bathing was likely to produce. It would +be injustice to deny it has eased my pain.... I will +see you on Sunday.'</p> + +<p>During his stay at Brow he met again Mrs. Riddell, +and she has left in a letter her impression of his +appearance at that time. 'The stamp of death was +imprinted on his features. He seemed already touching +the brink of eternity.... He spoke of his death with +firmness as well as feeling as an event likely to happen +very soon.... He said he was well aware that his +death would occasion some noise, and that every scrap +of his writing would be revived against him, to the +injury of his future reputation.... The conversation +was kept up with great evenness and animation on +his side. I had seldom seen his mind greater or more +collected.'</p> + +<p>When he returned from Brow he was worse than when +he went away, and those who saw him tottering to his +door knew that they had looked their last on the poet. +The question in Dumfries for a day or two was, 'How +is Burns now?' And the question was not long in +being answered. He knew he was dying, but neither +his humour nor his wit left him. 'John,' he said to +one of his brother volunteers, 'don't let the awkward +squad fire over me.'</p> + +<p>He lingered on for a day or two, his wife hourly +expecting to be confined and unable to attend to +him, and Jessie Lewars taking her place, a constant +and devoted nurse. On the fourth day after his +return, July 21, he sank into delirium, and his children +were summoned to the bedside of their dying +father, who quietly and gradually sank to rest. His<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">{147}</a></span> +last words showed that his mind was still disturbed +by the thought of the small debt that had caused him +so much annoyance. 'And thus he passed,' says +Carlyle, 'not softly, yet speedily, into that still country +where the hailstorms and fire-showers do not reach, and +the he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">{148}</a></span>aviest laden wayfarer at length lays down his +load.'</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">SUMMARY AND ESTIMATE</span></h2> + + +<p>In Mrs. Riddell's sketch of Burns, which appeared +shortly after his death, she starts with the somewhat +startling statement that poetry was not actually his <i>forte</i>. +She did not question the excellence of his songs, or +seek to depreciate his powers as a poet, but she spoke +of the man as she had known him, and was one of the +first to assert that Burns was very much more than an +uneducated peasant with a happy knack of versification. +Even in the present day we hear too much of the inspired +ploughman bursting into song as one that could +not help himself, and warbling of life and love in a +kind of lyrical frenzy. The fact is that Burns was a +great intellectual power, and would have been a force +in any sphere of life or letters. All who met him and +heard him talk have insisted on the greatness of the +man, apart from his achievements in poetry. It was not +his fame as a poet that made him the lion of a season +in Edinburgh, but the force and brilliancy of his conversation; +and it needs more than the reputation of a +minstrel to explain the hold he has on the affection and +intelligence of the world to-day.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, it would be a mistake to accept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">{149}</a></span> +his intellectual greatness as a mere tradition of those +who knew him, and to regret that he has not left us +some long and ponderous work worthy of the power he +possessed. It is an absurd idea to imagine that every +great poet ought to write an epic or a play. Burns's +powers were concentrative, and he could put into a +song what a dramatist might elaborate into a five-act +tragedy; but that is not to say that the dramatist is +the greater poet. After all, the song is the more likely +to live, and the more likely, therefore, to keep the +mission of the poet an enduring and living influence in +the lives of men.</p> + +<p>Still Burns might have been a great song-writer +without becoming the name and power he is in the +world to-day. The lyrical gift implies a quick emotional +sense, which in some cases may be little more than +a beautiful defect in a weak nature. But Burns was +essentially a strong man. His very vices are the vices +of a robust and healthy humanity. Besides being +possessed of all the qualities of a great singer, he was +at the same time vigorously human and throbbing with +the love and joy of life. It is this sterling quality of +manhood that has made Burns the poet and the power +he is. He looked out on the world with the eyes of a +man, and saw things in their true colours and in their +natural relations. He regarded the world into which +he had been born, and saw it not as some other poet +or an artist or a painter might have beheld it,—for the +purposes of art,—but in all its uncompromising realism; +and what his eye saw clearly, his lips as clearly uttered. +His first and greatest gift, therefore, as a poet was his +manifest sincerity. His men and women are living<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">{150}</a></span> +human beings; his flowers are real flowers; his dogs, +real dogs, and nothing more. All his pictures are +presented in the simplest and fewest possible words. +There is no suspicion of trickery; no attempt to force +words to carry a weight of meaning they are incapable +of expressing. He knew nothing of the deification of +style, and on absolute truthfulness and unidealised +reality rested his poetical structure. Wordsworth +speaks of him—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Whose light I hailed when first it shone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And showed my youth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How verse may build a princely throne<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On humble truth.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is this quality that made Burns the interpreter of +the lives of his fellow-men, not only to an outside world +that knew them not, but to themselves. And he has +glorified those lives in the interpretation, not by the +introduction of false elements or the elimination of +unlovely features, but simply by his insistence, in spite +of the sordidness of poverty, on the naked dignity of +man.</p> + +<p>Everything he touched became interesting because +it was interesting to him, and he spoke forth what he +felt. For Burns did not go outside of his own life, +either in time or place, for subject. There are poetry +and romance, tragedy and comedy ever waiting for the +man who has eyes to see them; and Burns's stage +was the parish of Tarbolton, and he found his poetry +in (or rendered poetical) the ordinary humdrum life +round about him. For that reason it is, perhaps, that +he has been called the satirist and singer of a parish. +Had he lived nowadays, he would have been relegated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">{151}</a></span> +to the kailyard, there to cultivate his hardy annuals and +indigenous daisies. For Burns did not affect exotics, +and it requires a specialist in manure to produce blue +dandelions or sexless ferns. In the narrow sense of the +word he was not parochial. Whilst true to class and +country, he reached out a hand to universal man. A +Scotsman of Scotsmen, he endeared himself to the +hearts of a people; but he was from first to last a man, +and so has found entrance to the hearts of all men. +Although local in subject, he was artistic in treatment; +he might address the men and women of Mauchline, +but he spoke with the voice of humanity, and his message +was for mankind.</p> + +<p>Besides interpreting the lives of the Scottish peasantry, +he revived for them their nationality. For he was but +the last of the great bards that sang the Iliad of Scotland; +and in him, when patriotism was all but dead, and +a hybrid culture was making men ashamed of their land +and their language, the voices of nameless ballad-makers +and forgotten singers blended again into one +great voice that sang of the love of country, till men +remembered their fathers, and gloried in the name +of Scotsmen. His patriotism, however, was not +parochial. It was no mere prejudice which bound him +hand and foot to Scottish theme and Scottish song. +He knew that there were lands beyond the Cheviots, +and that men of other countries and other tongues joyed +and sorrowed, toiled and sweated and struggled and hoped +even as he did. He was attached to the people of his +own rank in life, the farmers and ploughmen amongst +whom he had been born and bred; but his sympathies +went out to all men, prince or peasant, beggar or ki<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">{152}</a></span>ng, +if they were worthy of the name of men he recognised +them as brothers. It is this sympathy which gives him +his intimate knowledge of mankind. He sees into the +souls of his fellows; the thoughts of their hearts are +visible to his piercing eye. He who had mixed only +with hard-working men, and scarcely ever been beyond +the boundary of his parish, wrote of court and parliament +as if he had known princes and politicians from his boyhood. +The goodwife of Wauchope House would hardly +credit that he had come straight from the plough-stilts—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And then sae slee ye crack your jokes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O' Willie Pitt and Charlie Fox;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our great men a' sae weel descrive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And how to gar the nation thrive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ane maist would swear ye dwalt amang them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as ye saw them sae ye sang them.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But his intuitive knowledge of men is apparent in +almost all he wrote. Every character he has drawn +stands out a living and breathing personality. This is +greatly due to the fact that he studied those he met, +as <i>men</i>, dismissing the circumstance of birth and rank, +of costly apparel, or beggarly rags. For rank and +station after all are mere accidents, and count for +nothing in an estimate of character. Indeed, Burns +was too often inclined from his hard experience of life +to go further than this, and to count them disqualifying +circumstances. This aggressive independence was, however, +always as far removed from insolence as it was +from servility. He saw clearly that the 'pith o' sense +and pride o' worth' are beyond all the dignities a king +can bestow; and he looked to the time when class distinctions +would cease, and the glo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">{153}</a></span>ry of manhood be the +highest earthly dignity.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Then let us pray that come it may—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As come it will for a' that—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May bear the gree and a' that!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a' that, and a' that,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It's comin' yet, for a' that,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That man to man, the warld o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall brothers be for a' that!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Besides this abiding love of his fellow-man, or because +of it, Burns had also a childlike love of nature and all +created things. He sings of the mountain daisy turned +up by his plough; his heart goes out to the mouse +rendered homeless after all its provident care. Listening +at home while the storm made the doors and windows +rattle, he bethought him on the cattle and sheep and +birds outside—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'I thought me on the ourie cattle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle<br /></span> +<span class="i6">O' wintry war,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Beneath a scaur.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Nor is there in his love of nature any transcendental +strain; no mawkish sentimentality, and consequently in +its expression no bathos. Everywhere in his poetry +nature comes in, at times in artistically selected detail, +at times again with a deft suggestive touch that is +telling and effective, yet always in harmony with the +feeling of the poem, and always subordinate to it. His +descriptions of scenery are never dragged in. They are +incidental and complementary; human life and human +feeling are the first consideration; to this his sc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">{154}</a></span>enery is +but the setting and background. He is never carried +away by the force or beauty of his drawing as a smaller +artist might have been. The picture is given with +simple conciseness, and he leaves it; nor does he ever +attempt to elaborate a detail into a separate poem. The +description of the burn in <i>Hallowe'en</i> is most beautiful +in itself, yet it is but a detail in a great picture—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As thro' the glen it wimpl't;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wi' bickerin', dancin' dazzle;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whyles cookit underneath the braes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Below the spreading hazel,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Unseen that night.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That surely is the perfection of description; whilst the +wimple of the burn is echoed in the music of the +verse!</p> + +<p>Allied to the clearness of vision and truthfulness of +presentment of Burns, growing out of them it may be, +is that graphic power in which he stands unexcelled. +He is a great artist, and word-painting is not the least +of his many gifts. He combines terseness and lucidity, +which is a rare combination in letters; his phrasing is +as beautiful and fine as it is forcible, which is a distinction +rarer still. Hundreds of examples of his +pregnant phrasing might be cited, but it is best to see +them in the poems. Many have become everyday expressions, +and have passed into the proverbs of the +country.</p> + +<p>Another of Burns's gifts was the saving grace of humour. +This, of course, is not altogether a quality distinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">{155}</a></span> in +itself, but rather a particular mode in which love or +tenderness or pity may manifest itself. This humour is +ever glinting forth from his writings. Some of his poems—<i>The +Farmer's Address to his Auld Mare</i>, for example—are +simply bathed in it, and we see the subject glowing +in its light, soft and tremulous, as of an autumn sunset. +In others, again, it flashes and sparkles, more sportive +than tender. But, however it manifest itself, we recognise +at once that it has a character of its own, which marks +it off from the humour of any other writer; it is a peculiar +possession of Burns.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the poem in which all Burns's poetic qualities +are seen at their best is <i>The Jolly Beggars</i>. The subject +may be low and the materials coarse, but that only makes +the finished poem a more glorious achievement. For the +poem is a unity. We see those vagabonds for a moment's +space holding high revel in Poosie Nansie's; but in that +brief glance we see them from their birth to their death. +They are flung into the world, and go zigzagging through +it, chaffering and cheating, swaggering and swearing; +kicked and cuffed from parish to parish; their only joy +of existence an occasional night like this, a carnival of +drink and all sensuality; snapping their fingers in the +face of the world, and as they have lived so going down +defiantly to death, a laugh on their lips and a curse in +their heart. Every character in it is individual and +distinct from his neighbour; the language from first to +last simple, sensuous, musical. Of this poem Matthew +Arnold says: 'It has a breadth, truth, and power which +make the famous scene in Auerbach's cellar of Goethe's +<i>Faust</i> seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are +only matched by Shakspeare and Aristophanes.'</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">{156}</a></span></p> +<p><i>The Cotter's Saturday Night</i> has usually, in Scotland, +been the most lauded of his poems. Many writers give +it as his best. It is a pious opinion, but is not sound +criticism. Burns handicapped himself, not only by the +stanza he selected for this poem, but also by the attitude +he took towards his subject. He is never quite himself +in it. We admire its many beauties; we see the life of +the poor made noble and dignified; we see, in the end, +the soul emerging from the tyranny of time and circumstance; +but with all that we feel that there is something +awanting. The priest-like father is drawn from life, and +the picture is beautiful; not less deftly drawn is the +mother's portrait, though it be not so frequently quoted:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What makes the youth so bashfu' and so grave;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The last line gives one of the most natural and most +subtle touches in the whole poem. The closing verses +are, I think, unhappy. The poet has not known when +to stop, keeps writing after he has finished, and so becomes +stilted and artificial.</p> + +<p>It is in his songs, however, more than in his poems, +that we find Burns most regularly at his best. And +excellence in song-writing is a rare gift. The snatches +scattered here and there throughout the plays of Shakspeare +are perhaps the only collection of lyrics that can +at all stand comparison with the wealth of minstrelsy +Burns has left behind him. This was his undying legacy +to the world. Song-writing was a labour of love, almost +his only comfort and consolation in the dark days of his +later years. He set himself to this as to a congenial t<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">{157}</a></span>ask, +and he knew that he was writing himself into the hearts +of unborn generations. His songs live; they are immortal, +because every one is a bit of his soul. These +are no feverish, hysterical jingles of clinking verse, dead +save for the animating breath of music. They sing +themselves, because the spirit of song is in them. Quite +as marvellous as his excellence in this department of +poetry is his variety of subject. He has a song for every +age; a musical interpretation of every mood. But this is +a subject for a book to itself. His songs are sung all +over the world. The love he sings appeals to all, for it +is elemental, and is the love of all. Heart speaks to +heart in the songs of Robert Burns; there is a freemasonry +in them that binds Scotsmen to Scotsmen across +the seas in the firmest bonds of brotherhood.</p> + +<p>What place Burns occupies as a poet has been determined +not so much by the voice of criticism, as by the +enthusiastic way in which his fellow-mortals have taken +him to their heart. The summing-up of a judge counts for +little when the jury has already made up its mind. What +matters it whether a critic argues Burns into a first +or second or third rate poet? His countrymen, and +more than his countrymen, his brothers all the world +over, who read in his writings the joys and sorrows, the +temptations and trials, the sins and shortcomings of a +great-hearted man, have accepted him as a prophet, and +set him in the front rank of immortals. They admire +many poets; they love Robert Burns. They have been +told their love is unreasoning and unreasonable. It may +be so. Love goes by instinct more than by reason; and +who shall say it is wrong? Yet Burns is not loved +because of his faults and failings, but in spite o<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">{158}</a></span>f them. +His sins are not hidden. He himself confessed them +again and again, and repented in sackcloth and ashes. +If he did not always abjure his weaknesses, he denounced +them, and with no uncertain voice; nor do we know how +hardly he strove to do more.</p> + +<p>What estimate is to be taken of Burns as a man +will have many and various answers. Those who still +denounce him as the chief of sinners, and without +mercy condemn him out of his own mouth, are those +whom Burns has pilloried to all posterity. There are +dull, phlegmatic beings with blood no warmer than +ditch-water, who are virtuous and sober citizens because +they have never felt the force of temptation. What +power could tempt them? The tree may be parched +and blistered in the heat of noonday, but the parasitical +fungus draining its sap remains cool—and poisonous. +So in the glow of sociability the Pharisee remains cold +and clammy; the fever of love leaves his blood at zero. +How can such anomalies understand a man of Burns's +wild and passionate nature, or, indeed, human nature +at all? The broad fact remains, however much we may +deplore his sins and shortcomings, they are the sins +and shortcomings of a large-hearted, healthy, human +being. Had he loved less his fellow men and women, +he might have been accounted a better man. After all, +too, it must be remembered that his failings have been +consistently exaggerated. Coleridge, in his habit of +drawing nice distinctions, admits that Burns was not a +man of degraded genius, but a degraded man of genius. +Burns was neither the one nor the other. In spite of +the occasional excesses of his later years, he did not +degenerate into drunkenness, nor was the sense of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">{159}</a></span> +responsibilities as a husband, a father, and a man less +clear and acute in the last months of his life than it had +ever been. Had he lived a few years longer, we should +have seen the man mellowed by sorrow and suffering, +braving life, not as he had done all along with the +passionate vehemence of undisciplined youth, but with +the fortitude and dignity of one who had learned that +contentment and peace are gifts the world cannot give, +and, if he haply find them in his own heart, which it +cannot take away. That is the lesson we read in the +closing months of Burns's chequered career.</p> + +<p>But it was not to be. His work was done. The +message God had sent him into the world to deliver he +had delivered, imperfectly and with faltering lips it may +be, but a divine message all the same. And because it +is divine men still hear it gladly and believe.</p> + +<p>Let all his failings and defects be acknowledged, his +sins as a man and his limitations as a poet, the want of +continuity and purpose in his work and life; but at the +same time let his nobler qualities be weighed against +these, and the scale 'where the pure gold is, easily turns +the balance.' In the words of Angellier: 'Admiration +grows in proportion as we examine his qualities. When +we think of his sincerity, of his rectitude, of his kindness +towards man and beast; of his scorn of all that is +base, his hatred of all knavery which in itself would be +an honour; of his disinterestedness, of the fine impulses +of his heart, and the high aspirations of his spirit; of +the intensity and idealism necessary to maintain his soul +above its circumstances; when we reflect that he has +expressed all these generous sentiments to the extent +of their constituting his intellectual life; that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">{160}</a></span>y have +fallen from him as jewels ... as if his soul had been +a furnace for the purification of precious metals, we are +tempted to regard him as belonging to the elect spirits +of humanity, to those gifted with exceptional goodness. +When we recall what he suffered, what he surmounted, and +what he has effected; against what privations his genius +struggled into birth and lived; the perseverance of his +apprenticeship; his intellectual exploits; and, after all, +his glory, we are inclined to maintain that what he failed +to accomplish or undertake is as nothing in comparison +with his achievements.... There is nothing left but to +confess that the clay of which he was made was thick +with diamonds, and that his life was one of the most +valiant and the most noble a poet ever has lived.'</p> + +<p>With Burns's own words we may fitly conclude. +They are words not merely to be read and admired, +but to be remembered in our hearts and practised in +our lives—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Then gently scan your brother Man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still gentler sister Woman;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To step aside is human:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One point must still be greatly dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moving <i>Why</i> they do it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And just as lamely can ye mark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How far perhaps they rue it.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who made the heart, 'tis He alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Decidedly can try us,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He knows each chord—its various tone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each spring—its various bias:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then at the balance let's be mute,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We never can adjust it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What's <i>done</i> we partly may compute,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But know not what's <i>resisted</i>.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Burns, by Gabriel Setoun + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT BURNS *** + +***** This file should be named 30721-h.htm or 30721-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/2/30721/ + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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