Robert Burns How To Know Him / Neilson, William Allan, 1869-1946Robert Burns How To Know Him / Neilson, William Allan, 1869-1946| Author: | Neilson, William Allan, 1869-1946 |
| Title: | Robert Burns How To Know Him |
| Date: | 2006-05-14 |
| Contributor(s): | Aatto S., 1855-1898 [Translator] |
| Size: | 456620 |
| Identifier: | etext18388 |
| Language: | en |
| Publisher: | Project Gutenberg |
| Rights: | GNU General Public License |
| Tag(s): | burns william allan neilson ebook cost restrictions whatsoever robert know project gutenberg aatto translator |
| Versions: | original; local mirror; plain HTML (this file); concordance (most frequent 100 words, etc.) |
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Burns, by William Allan Neilson
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Title: Robert Burns
How To Know Him
Author: William Allan Neilson
Release Date: May 14, 2006 [EBook #18388]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT BURNS ***
Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Laura Wisewell and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
ROBERT BURNS
HOW TO KNOW HIM
By
WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON
Professor of English, Harvard University
Author of
Essentials of Poetry, etc.
WITH PORTRAIT
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1917
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N.Y.
TO
MY BROTHER
[Illustration: The Nasmyth Portrait of ROBERT BURNS]
LIST OF POEMS
Address to the Deil 282
Address to the Unco Guid 176
Ae Fond Kiss 56
Afton Water 116
Auld Farmer's New-Year Morning Salutation, The 278
Auld Lang Syne 100
Auld Rob Morris 121
Bannocks o' Barley 165
Bard's Epitaph, A 308
Bessy and Her Spinnin'-Wheel 145
Blue-Eyed Lassie, The 117
Bonnie Lad that's Far Awa, The 139
Bonnie Lesley 118
Braw Braw Lads 140
Ca' the Yowes 115
Charlie He's My Darling 168
Clarinda 58
Come Boat Me o'er to Charlie 163
Comin' through the Rye 154
Contented wi' Little 126
Cotter's Saturday Night, The 8
Death and Doctor Hornbook 287
Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie, The 23
De'il's Awa wi' th' Exciseman, The 154
Deuk's Dang o'er My Daddie, The 155
Duncan Davison 153
Duncan Gray 152
Elegy on Capt. Matthew Henderson 298
Epistle to a Young Friend 200
Epistle to Davie 193
For the Sake o' Somebody 136
Gloomy Night, The 40
Go Fetch to Me a Pint o' Wine 88
Green Grow the Rashes 123
Had I the Wyte? 148
Halloween 209
Handsome Nell 20
Highland Balou, The 151
Highland Laddie, The 164
Highland Mary 113
Holy Fair, The 228
Holy Willie's Prayer 173
How Lang and Dreary 138
I Hae a Wife 59
I Hae Been at Crookieden 167
I'm Owre Young to Marry Yet 143
It Was a' for Our Rightfu' King 162
John Anderson, My Jo 146
Jolly Beggars, The 241
Kenmure's On and Awa 165
Lassie wi' the Lint-White Locks 119
Last May a Braw Wooer 135
Lea-Rig, The 120
MacPherson's Farewell 150
Man's a Man for a' that, A 158
Mary Morison 28
Montgomerie's Peggy 120
My Father Was a Farmer 126
My Heart's in the Highlands 140
My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose 102
My Love She's but a Lassie Yet 144
My Nannie O 29
My Nannie's Awa 57
My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing 108
O for Ane an' Twenty, Tam! 129
O Merry Hae I Been 148
O This Is No My Ain Lassie 107
O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast 123
Of a' the Airts 106
On a Scotch Bard, Gone to the West Indies 42
On John Dove, Innkeeper 205
Open the Door to Me, O! 137
Poet's Welcome to His Love-Begotten Daughter, The 33
Poor Mailie's Elegy 26
Poortith Cauld 107
Prayer in the Prospect of Death, A 32
Rantin' Dog the Daddie o't, The 134
Rigs o' Barley, The 30
Scotch Drink 301
Scots, Wha Hae 160
Simmer's a Pleasant Time 131
Tam Glen 133
Tam o' Shanter 257
Tam Samson's Elegy 294
There Was a Lad 125
There'll Never Be Peace till Jamie Comes Hame 166
To a Haggis 306
To a Louse 274
To a Mountain Daisy 276
To a Mouse 272
To Daunton Me 142
To Mary in Heaven 114
To the Rev. John McMath 181
Twa Dogs, The 219
Wandering Willie 138
Weary Pund o' Tow, The 147
Wha Is that at My Bower Door? 156
What Can a Young Lassie 142
Whistle, and I'll Come to Ye, My Lad 132
Will Ye Go to the Indies, My Mary? 40
Willie Brew'd a Peck o' Maut 238
Willie's Wife 156
Ye Banks and Braes (two versions) 130
Yestreen I Had a Pint o' Wine 104
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BIOGRAPHY 1
1. Alloway, Mount Oliphant, and Lochlea 3
2. Mossgiel 31
3. Edinburgh 44
4. Ellisland 58
5. Dumfries 62
II INHERITANCE: LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 69
III BURNS AND SCOTTISH SONG 90
IV SATIRES AND EPISTLES 171
V DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE POETRY 206
VI CONCLUSION 310
INDEX 325
ROBERT BURNS
BURNS
CHAPTER I
BIOGRAPHY
"I have not the most distant pretence to what the pye-coated
guardians of Escutcheons call a Gentleman. When at Edinburgh last
winter, I got acquainted at the Herald's office; and looking thro'
the granary of honors, I there found almost every name in the
kingdom; but for me,
My ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' scoundrels since the flood.
Gules, purpure, argent, etc., quite disowned me. My forefathers
rented land of the famous, noble Keiths of Marshal, and had the
honor to share their fate. I do not use the word 'honor' with any
reference to political principles: _loyal_ and _disloyal_ I take
to be merely relative terms in that ancient and formidable court
known in this country by the name of 'club-law.' Those who dare
welcome Ruin and shake hands with Infamy, for what they believe
sincerely to be the cause of their God or their King, are--as Mark
Antony in _Shakspear_ says of Brutus and Cassius--'honorable men.'
I mention this circumstance because it threw my Father on the
world at large; where, after many years' wanderings and
sojournings, he 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 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."
"You can now, Sir, form a pretty near guess of what sort of Wight
he is, whom for some time you have honored with your
correspondence. That Whim and Fancy, keen sensibility and riotous
passions, may still make him zig-zag in his future path of life is
very probable; but, come what will, I shall answer for him--the
most determinate integrity and honor [shall ever characterise
him]; and though his evil star should again blaze in his meridian
with tenfold more direful influence, he may reluctantly tax
friendship with pity, but no more."
These two paragraphs form respectively the beginning and the end of a
long autobiographical letter written by Robert Burns to Doctor John
Moore, physician and novelist. At the time they were composed, the
poet had just returned to his native county after the triumphant
season in Edinburgh that formed the climax of his career. But no
detailed knowledge of circumstances is necessary to rouse interest
in a man who wrote like that. You may be offended by the
self-consciousness and the swagger, or you may be charmed by the
frankness and dash, but you can not remain indifferent. Burns had many
moods besides those reflected in these sentences, but here we can see
as vividly as in any of his poetry the fundamental characteristics of
the man--sensitive, passionate, independent, and as proud as
Lucifer--whose life and work are the subject of this volume.
1. Alloway, Mount Oliphant, and Lochlea
William Burnes, the father of the poet, came of a family of farmers
and gardeners in the county of Kincardine, on the east coast of
Scotland. At the age of twenty-seven, he left his native district for
the south; and when Robert, his eldest child, was born on January 25,
1759, William was employed as gardener to the provost of Ayr. He had
besides leased some seven acres of land, of which he planned to make a
nursery and market-garden, in the neighboring parish of Alloway; and
there near the Brig o' Doon built with his own hands the clay cottage
now known to literary pilgrims as the birthplace of Burns. His wife,
Agnes Brown, the daughter of an Ayrshire farmer, bore him, besides
Robert, three sons and three daughters. In order to keep his sons at
home instead of sending them out as farm-laborers, the elder Burnes
rented in 1766 the farm of Mount Oliphant, and stocked it on borrowed
money. The venture did not prosper, and on a change of landlords the
family fell into the hands of a merciless agent, whose bullying the
poet later avenged by the portrait of the factor in _The Twa Dogs_.
I've noticed, on our Laird's court-day,--
And mony a time my heart's been wae,--
Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash,
How they maun thole a factor's snash;
He'll stamp and threaten, curse and swear,
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear;
While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble,
And hear it a', and fear and tremble!
In 1777 Mount Oliphant was exchanged for the farm of Lochlea, about
ten miles away, and here William Burnes labored for the rest of his
life. The farm was poor, and with all he could do it was hard to keep
his head above water. His health was failing, he was harassed with
debts, and in 1784 in the midst of a lawsuit about his lease, he died.
In spite of his struggle for a bare subsistence, the elder Burnes had
not neglected the education of his children. Before he was six, Robert
was sent to a small school at Alloway Mill, and soon after his father
joined with a few neighbors to engage a young man named John Murdoch
to teach their children in a room in the village. This arrangement
continued for two years and a half, when, Murdoch having been called
elsewhere, the father undertook the task of education himself. The
regular instruction was confined chiefly to the long winter evenings,
but quite as important as this was the intercourse between father and
sons as they went about their work.
"My father," says the poet's brother Gilbert, "was for some time
almost the only companion we had. He conversed familiarly on all
subjects with us, as if we had been men; and was at great pains,
as we accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to lead the
conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our
knowledge, or confirm our virtuous habits. He borrowed Salmon's
_Geographical Grammar_ for us, and endeavoured to make us
acquainted with the situation and history of the different
countries in the world; while, from a book-society in Ayr, he
procured for us Derham's _Physics and Astro-Theology_, and Ray's
_Wisdom of God in the Creation_, to give us some idea of astronomy
and natural history. Robert read all these books with an avidity
and industry scarcely to be equalled. My father had been a
subscriber to Stackhouse's _History of the Bible_ ...; from this
Robert collected a competent knowledge of ancient history; for no
book was so voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so
antiquated as to dampen his researches. A brother of my mother,
who had lived with us some time, and had learned some arithmetic
by our winter evening's candle, went into a book-seller's shop in
Ayr to purchase the _Ready Reckoner, or Tradesman's Sure Guide_,
and a book to teach him to write letters. Luckily, in place of the
_Complete Letter-Writer_, he got by mistake a small collection of
letters by the most eminent writers, with a few sensible
directions for attaining an easy epistolary style. This book was
to Robert of the greatest consequence. It inspired him with a
strong desire to excel in letter-writing, while it furnished him
with models by some of the first writers in our language."
Interesting as are the details as to the antiquated manuals from which
Burns gathered his general information, it is more important to note
the more personal implications in this account. Respect for learning
has long been wide-spread among the peasantry of Scotland, but it is
evident that William Burnes was intellectually far above the average
of his class. The schoolmaster Murdoch has left a portrait of him in
which he not only extols his virtues as a man but emphasizes his
zest for things of the mind, and states that "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."
Though tender and affectionate, he seems to have inspired both wife
and children with a reverence amounting to awe, and he struck
strangers as reserved and austere. He recognized in Robert traces of
extraordinary gifts, but he did not hide from him the fact that his
son's temperament gave him anxiety for his future. Mrs. Burnes was a
devoted wife and mother, by no means her husband's intellectual equal,
but vivacious and quick-tempered, with a memory stored with the song
and legend of the country-side. Other details can be filled in from
the poet's own picture of his father's household as given with little
or no idealization in _The Cotter's Saturday Night_.
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT
My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays:
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end,
My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been--
Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.
November chill blaws load wi' angry sough; [wail]
The shortening winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through [stagger]
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. [fluttering]
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnilie, [fire]
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, [worry]
An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil.
Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, [Soon]
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin [drive, heedful run]
A cannie errand to a neibor town: [quiet]
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, [eye]
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, [fine]
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, [hard-won wages]
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,
An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers: [asks]
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; [wonders]
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view.
The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; [Makes old clothes]
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.
Their master's an' their mistress's command
The younkers a' are warned to obey; [youngsters]
An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, [diligent]
An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: [trifle]
'And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,
An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night!
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, [go]
Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!'
But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, [knows]
Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor,
To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek;
Wi' heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; [half]
Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake.
Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben; [in]
A strappin' youth; he takes the mother's eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;
The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. [chats, cows]
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; [shy, bashful]
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave;
Weel-pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. [child, rest]
O happy love! where love like this is found;
O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare:--
'If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.'
Is there, in human form, that bears a heart--
A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth--
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjur'd arts, dissembling, smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,
Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?
But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food: [wholesome]
The sowpe their only hawkie does afford, [milk, cow]
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; [beyond, partition,
The dame brings forth in complimental mood, cud]
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell; [well-saved cheese,
And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it good; strong]
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell
How 'twas a towmond auld sin' lint was i' the bell. [twelve-month, flax,
flower]
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride: [family-Bible]
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; [gray hair on temples]
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide--
He wales a portion with judicious care, [chooses]
And 'Let us worship God!' he says with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin beets the heav'nward flame, [fans]
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. [No, have]
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He who bore in Heaven the second name
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head;
How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.
Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope 'springs exulting on triumphant wing'
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.
Then homeward all take off their several way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.
From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
'An honest man's the noblest work of God;'
And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd!
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And O may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile;
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.
O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide
That streamed thro' Wallace's undaunted heart,
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
Or nobly die--the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert;
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard,
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!
No less impressive than that of his father is the intellectual hunger
of the future poet himself. We have had Gilbert's testimony to the
eagerness with which he devoured such books as came within his reach,
and the use he made of his later fragments of schooling points the
same way. He had a quarter at the parish school of Dalrymple when he
was thirteen; and in the following summer he attended the school at
Ayr under his former Alloway instructor. Murdoch's own account of
these three weeks gives an idea of Burns's quickness of apprehension;
and the style of it is worth noting with reference to the
characteristics of the poet's own prose.
"In 1773," says Murdoch, "Robert Burns came to board and lodge
with me, for the purpose of revising English grammar, etc., that
he might be better qualified to instruct his brothers and sisters
at home. He was now with me day and night, in school, at all
meals, and in all my walks. At the end of one week, I told him as
he was now pretty much master of the parts of speech, etc., I
should like to teach him something of French pronunciation, that
when he should meet with the name of a French town, ship, officer,
or the like, in the newspapers, he might be able to pronounce it
something like a French word. Robert was glad to hear this
proposal, and immediately we attacked the French with great
courage.
"Now there was little else to be heard but the declension of
nouns, the conjugation of verbs, etc. When walking together, and
even at meals, I was constantly telling him the names of different
objects, as they presented themselves, in French; so that he was
hourly laying in a stock of words, and sometimes little phrases.
In short, he took such pleasure in learning, and I in teaching,
that it was difficult to say which of the two was most zealous in
the business; and about the end of the second week of our study of
the French, we began to read a little of the _Adventures of
Telemachus_ in Fenelon's own words.
"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; and so he did, for
although but about fifteen, I was told that he performed the work
of a man."
The record of Burns's school-days is completed by the mention of a
sojourn, probably in the summer of 1775, in his mother's parish of
Kirkoswald. Hither he went to study mathematics and surveying under a
teacher of local note, and, in spite of the convivial attractions of a
smuggling village, seems to have made progress in his geometry till
his head was turned by a girl who lived next door to the school.
So far the education gained by Burns from his schoolmasters and his
father had been almost exclusively moral and intellectual. It was in
less formal ways that his imagination was fed. From his mother he had
heard from infancy the ballads, legends, and songs that were
traditionary among the peasantry; and the influence of these was
re-enforced by a certain Betty Davidson, an unfortunate relative of
his mother's to whom the family gave shelter for a time.
"In my infant and boyish days, too," he writes in the letter to
Doctor Moore already quoted, "I owed much to an old maid of my
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 look-out 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."
His private reading also contained much that must have stimulated his
imagination and broadened his interests. It began with a _Life of
Hannibal_, and Hamilton's modernized version of the _History of Sir
William Wallace_, which last, he says, with the touch of flamboyancy
that often recurs in his style, "poured a Scottish prejudice in my
veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut
in eternal rest." By the time he was eighteen he had, in addition to
books already mentioned, become acquainted with Shakespeare, Pope
(including the translation of Homer), Thomson, Shenstone, Allan
Ramsay, and a _Select Collection of Songs, Scotch and English_; with
the _Spectator_, the _Pantheon_, Locke's _Essay on the Human
Understanding_, Sterne, and Henry Mackenzie. To these must be added
some books on farming and gardening, a good deal of theology, and, of
course, the Bible.
The pursuing of intellectual interests such as are implied in this
list is the more significant when we remember that it was carried on
in the scanty leisure of a life of labor so severe that it all but
broke the poet's health, and probably left permanent marks on his
physique. Yet he had energy left for still other avocations. It was
when he was no more than fifteen that he first experienced the twin
passions that came to dominate his life, love and song. The girl who
was the occasion was his partner in the harvest field, Nelly
Kilpatrick; the song he addressed to her is the following:
HANDSOME NELL
O, once I lov'd a bonnie lass,
Aye, and I love her still,
And whilst that virtue warms my breast
I'll love my handsome Nell.
As bonnie lasses I hae seen,
And mony full as braw, [fine]
But for a modest gracefu' mien
The like I never saw.
A bonnie lass, I will confess,
Is pleasant to the e'e, [eye]
But without some better qualities
She's no a lass for me.
But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet,
And what is best of a', [all]
Her reputation is complete,
And fair without a flaw.
She dresses aye sae clean and neat,
Both decent and genteel;
And then there's something in her gait
Gars ony dress look weel. [Makes]
A gaudy dress and gentle air
May slightly touch the heart,
But it's innocence and modesty
That polishes the dart.
'Tis this in Nelly pleases me,
'Tis this enchants my soul!
For absolutely in my breast
She reigns without control.
Since there may still be readers who suppose that Burns was a mere
unsophisticated singer, without power of self-criticism, it may be as
well to insert here a passage from a Commonplace Book written in 1783,
ten years after the composition of the song.
_Criticism on the Foregoing Song_
"Lest my works should be thought below Criticism; or meet with a
Critic who, perhaps, will not look on them with so candid and
favorable an eye; I am determined to criticise them myself.
"The first distich of the first stanza is quite too much in the
flimsy strain of our ordinary street ballads; and on the other
hand, the second distich is too much in the other extreme. The
expression is a little awkward, and the sentiment too serious.
Stanza the second I am well pleased with; and I think it conveys a
fine idea of that amiable part of the Sex--the agreeables, or what
in our Scotch dialect we call a sweet sonsy Lass. The third Stanza
has a little of the flimsy turn in it; and the third line has
rather too serious a cast. The fourth Stanza is a very indifferent
one; the first line is, indeed, all in the strain of the second
Stanza, but the rest is mostly an expletive. The thoughts in the
fifth Stanza come fairly up to my favorite idea [of] a sweet sonsy
Lass. The last line, however, halts a little. The same sentiments
are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth Stanza,
but the second and fourth lines ending with short syllables hurts
the whole. The seventh Stanza has several minute faults; but I
remember I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to
this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts, and my blood
sallies at the remembrance."
In spite of the early start in poetry given him by Nelly Kilpatrick,
he did not produce more than a few pieces of permanent value during
the next ten years. He did, however, go on developing and branching
out in his social activities, in spite of the depressing grind of the
farm. He attended a dancing school (much against his father's will),
helped to establish a "Bachelors' Club" for debating, and found time
for further love-affairs. That with Ellison Begbie, celebrated by him
in _The Lass of Cessnock Banks_, he took very seriously, and he
proposed marriage to the girl in some portentously solemn epistles
which remain to us as the earliest examples of his prose. In order to
put himself in a position to marry, he determined to learn the trade
of flax-dressing; and though Ellison refused him, he went to the
neighboring seaport of Irvine to carry out his purpose in the summer
of 1781. The flax-dressing experiment ended disastrously with a fire
which burned the workshop, and Burns returned penniless to the farm.
The poems written about this time express profound melancholy, a mood
natural enough in the circumstances, and aggravated by his poor
nervous and physical condition.
But his spirit could not remain permanently depressed, and shortly
after his return to Lochlea, a trifling accident to a ewe he had
bought prompted him to the following delightful and characteristic
production.
THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE, THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE
As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither, [together]
Was ae day nibbling on the tether, [one]
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, [hoof, looped]
An' owre she warsled in the ditch; [over, floundered]
There, groaning, dying, she did lie,
When Hughoc he cam doytin by. [doddering]
Wi glowrin' een, an' lifted han's, [staring]
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan's;
He saw her days were near-hand ended,
But wae's my heart! he could na mend it!
He gaped wide, but naething spak;
At length poor Mailie silence brak:--
'O thou, whase lamentable face
Appears to mourn my woefu' case!
My dying words attentive hear,
An' bear them to my Master dear.
'Tell him, if e'er again he keep [own]
As muckle gear as buy a sheep,-- [much money]
O bid him never tie them mair
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair!
Bat ca' them out to park or hill, [drive]
An' let them wander at their will;
So may his flock increase, an' grow
To scores o' lambs, an' packs o' woo'! [wool]
'Tell him he was a Master kin',
An' aye was guid to me an' mine;
An' now my dying charge I gie him, [give]
My helpless lambs, I trust them wi' him.
'O bid him save their harmless lives
Frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives! [foxes]
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,
Till they be fit to fend themsel: [look after]
An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, [tend]
Wi' teats o' hay an' ripps o' corn. [bunches, handfuls]
'An' may they never learn the gates [ways]
Of ither vile wanrestfu' pets-- [restless]
To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal, [holes in fences]
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail. [plants]
So may they, like their great forbears,
For mony a year come thro' the shears;
So wives will gie them bits o' bread,
An' bairns greet for them when they're dead. [weep]
'My poor tup-lamb, my son an' heir,
O bid him breed him up wi' care!
An', if he live to be a beast,
To pit some havins in his breast! [put, behavior]
An' warn him, what I winna name, [will not]
To stay content wi' yowes at hame; [ewes]
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots, [hoofs]
Like ither menseless graceless brutes. [unmannerly]
'An neist my yowie, silly thing, [next]
Gude keep thee frae a tether string!
O may thou ne'er forgather up [make friends]
Wi' ony blastit moorland tup;
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell, [nibble, meddle]
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel!
'And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath
I lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith;
An' when you think upo' your mither,
Mind to be kind to ane anither.
'Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail
To tell my master a' my tale;
An' bid him burn this cursed tether;
An', for thy pains, thou'se get my blether.' [bladder]
This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head,
An' closed her een amang the dead! [eyes]
POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears tricklin' down your nose, [salt]
Our bardie's fate is at a close,
Past a' remead; [remedy]
The last sad cape-stane of his woes-- [cope-stone]
Poor Mailie's dead!
It's no the loss o' warl's gear [worldly lucre]
That could sae bitter draw the tear,
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear [downcast]
The mourning weed:
He's lost a friend and neibor dear
In Mailie dead.
Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him;
A lang half-mile she could descry him;
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed:
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him
Than Mailie dead.
I wat she was a sheep o' sense, [wot]
An' could behave hersel wi' mense; [manners]
I'll say't, she never brak a fence
Thro' thievish greed.
Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence [parlor]
Sin' Mailie's dead. [Since]
Or, if he wanders up the howe, [glen]
Her living image in her yowe [ewe-lamb]
Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe, [knoll]
For bits o' bread,
An' down the briny pearls rowe [roll]
For Mailie dead.
She was nae get o' moorland tups, [issue]
Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips; [matted fleece]
For her forbears were brought in ships
Frae 'yont the Tweed;
A bonnier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips [fleece, shears]
Than Mailie's, dead.
Wae worth the man wha first did shape [Woe to]
That vile wanchancie thing--a rape! [dangerous]
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape, [growl]
Wi' chokin' dread;
An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape
For Mailie dead.
O a' ye bards on bonnie Doon!
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune! [bagpipes]
Come, join the melancholious croon
O' Robin's reed;
His heart will never get aboon! [rejoice]
His Mailie's dead!
How long he continued to mourn for Ellison Begbie, it is hard to say;
but the three following songs, inspired, it would seem, by three
different girls, testify at once to his power of recuperation and the
rapid maturing of his talent. All seem to have been written between
the date of his return from Irvine and the death of his father.
MARY MORISON
O Mary, at thy window be,
It is the wish'd, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see,
That make the miser's treasure poor:
How blythely wad I bide the stoure, [bear, struggle]
A weary slave frae sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison.
Yestreen, when to the trembling string [Last night]
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', [went]
To thee my fancy took its wing,
I sat, but neither heard nor saw:
Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, [fine]
And yon the toast of a' the town, [the other]
I sigh'd, and said amang them a',
'Ye are na Mary Morison.'
O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,
Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
Or canst thou break that heart of his,
Whase only faut is loving thee? [fault]
If love for love thou wilt na gie,
At least be pity to me shown!
A thought ungentle canna be
The thought o' Mary Morison.
MY NANNIE O
Behind yon hills where Lugar flows,
'Mang moors an' mosses many, O,
The wintry sun the day has clos'd,
And I'll awa' to Nannie, O.
The westlin wind blaws loud an' shill, [western, keen]
The night's baith mirk and rainy, O; [both dark]
But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal,
An' owre the hill to Nannie, O. [over]
My Nannie's charming, sweet, an' young:
Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O:
May ill befa' the flattering tongue
That wad beguile my Nannie, O.
Her face is fair, her heart is true,
As spotless as she's bonnie, O:
The opening gowan, wat wi' dew, [daisy, wet]
Nae purer is than Nannie, O.
A country lad is my degree,
An' few there be that ken me, O;
But what care I how few they be,
I'm welcome aye to Nannie, O.
My riches a's my penny-fee, [wages]
An' I maun guide it cannie, O; [carefully]
But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, [lucre]
My thoughts are a'--my Nannie, O.
Our auld guidman delights to view
His sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, O. [cows]
But I'm as blythe that hauds his pleugh, [holds]
An' has nae care but Nannie, O.
Come weel, come woe, I care na by, [reck not]
I'll tak what Heav'n will send me, O;
Nae ither care in life have I,
But live, an' love my Nannie, O.
THE RIGS O' BARLEY
It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonnie, [ridges]
Beneath the moon's unclouded light
I held awa to Annie: [took my way]
The time flew by wi' tentless heed, [careless]
Till, 'tween the late and early,
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed
To see me thro' the barley.
The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down wi' right good will
Amang the rigs o' barley;
I kent her heart was a' my ain; [knew, own]
I loved her most sincerely;
I kissed her owre and owre again [over]
Amang the rigs o' barley.
I locked her in my fond embrace;
Her heart was beating rarely;
My blessings on that happy place,
Amang the rigs o' barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright,
That shone that hour so clearly,
She aye shall bless that happy night
Amang the rigs o' barley.
I hae been blythe wi' comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinking;
I hae been joyfu' gatherin' gear; [property]
I hae been happy thinking:
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho' three times doubled fairly,
That happy night was worth them a',
Amang the rigs o' barley.
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonnie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.
2. Mossgiel
On the death of their father, Robert and Gilbert Burns moved with the
family to the farm of Mossgiel in the next parish of Mauchline. By
putting in a claim for arrears of wages, they succeeded in drawing
enough from the wreck of their father's estate to supply a scanty
stock for the new venture. The records of the first summer show the
poet in anything but a happy frame of mind. His health was miserable;
and the loosening of his moral principles, which he ascribes to the
influence of a young sailor he had met at Irvine, bore fruit in the
birth to him of an illegitimate daughter by a servant girl, Elizabeth
Paton. The verses which carry allusion to this affair are illuminating
for his character. One group is devout and repentant; the other marked
sometimes by cynical bravado, sometimes by a note of exultation. Both
may be regarded as genuine enough expressions of moods which
alternated throughout his life, and which corresponded to conflicting
sides of his nature. Here is a typical example of the former:
A PRAYER IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH
O Thou unknown Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear!
In whose dread presence ere an hour,
Perhaps I must appear!
If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun;
As something, loudly in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;
Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me
With passions wild and strong;
And list'ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.
Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stept aside,
Do thou, All-Good! for such Thou art,
In shades of darkness hide.
Where with intention I have err'd,
No other plea I have,
But thou art good; and Goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.
In his _Epistle to John Rankine_, with a somewhat hard and heartless
humor, he braves out the affair; in the following _Welcome_ he treats
it with a tender pride, as sincere as his remorse:
THE POET'S WELCOME TO HIS LOVE-BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER
Thou's welcome, wean! Mishanter fa' me, [child! Misfortune befall]
If ought of thee, or of thy mammy,
Shall ever daunton me, or awe me,
My sweet wee lady,
Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me
Tit-ta or daddy.
What tho' they ca' me fornicator,
An' tease my name in kintra clatter: [country gossip]
The mair they talk I'm kent the better, [more]
E'en let them clash; [tattle]
An auld wife's tongue's a feckless matter [feeble]
To gie ane fash. [give one annoyance]
Welcome, my bonnie, sweet wee dochter--
Tho' ye come here a wee unsought for,
An' tho' your comin' I hae fought for
Baith kirk an' queir; [choir]
Yet, by my faith, ye're no unwrought for!
That I shall swear!
Sweet fruit o' mony a merry dint,
My funny toil is no a' tint, [not all lost]
Tho' thou came to the warl' asklent, [askew]
Which fools may scoff at;
In my last plack thy part's be in't-- [a small coin]
The better half o't.
Tho' I should be the waur bested, [worse off]
Thou's be as braw an' bienly clad, [finely, comfortably]
An' thy young years as nicely bred
Wi' education,
As ony brat o' wedlock's bed
In a' thy station.
Wee image of my bonnie Betty,
As fatherly I kiss and daut thee, [pet]
As dear an' near my heart I set thee
Wi' as guid will,
As a' the priests had seen me get thee
That's out o' hell.
Gude grant that thou may aye inherit [God]
Thy mither's looks and gracefu' merit,
An' thy poor worthless daddy's spirit,
Without his failins;
'Twill please me mair to see thee heir it,
Than stockit mailins. [farms]
An' if thou be what I wad hae thee, [would have]
An' tak the counsel I shall gie thee,
I'll never rue my trouble wi' thee--
The cost nor shame o't--
But be a loving father to thee,
And brag the name o't.
At Mossgiel the Burns family was no more successful than in either of
its previous farms. Bad seed and bad weather gave two poor harvests,
and by the summer of 1786 the poet's financial condition was again
approaching desperation. His situation was made still more
embarrassing by the consequences of another of his amours. Shortly
after moving to the parish of Mauchline he had fallen in love with
Jean Armour, the daughter of a mason in the village. What was for
Burns a prolonged courtship ensued, and in the spring of 1786 he
learned that Jean's condition was such that he gave her a paper
acknowledging her as his wife. To his surprise and mortification the
girl's father, who is said to have had a personal dislike to him and
who well may have thought a man with his reputation and prospects was
no promising son-in-law, opposed the marriage, forced Jean to give up
the paper, and sent her off to another town. Burns chose to regard
Jean's submission to her father as inexcusable faithlessness, and
proceeded to indulge in the ecstatic misery of the lover betrayed.
There is no doubt that he suffered keenly from the affair: he writes
to his friends that he could "have no nearer idea of the place of
eternal punishment" than what he had felt in his "own breast on her
account. I have tried often to forget her: I have run into all kinds
of dissipation and riot ... to drive her out of my head, but all in
vain." This is in a later letter than that in which he has "sunk into
a lurid calm," and "subsided into the time-settled sorrow of the sable
widower."
Yet other evidence shows that at this crisis also Burns's emotional
experience was far from simple. It was probably during the summer of
the same year that there occurred the passages with the mysterious
Highland Mary, a girl whose identity, after voluminous controversy,
remains vague, but who inspired some of his loftiest love poetry.
Though Burns's feeling for her seems to have been a kind of interlude
in reaction from the "cruelty" of Jean, he idealized it beyond his
wont, and the subject of it has been exalted to the place among his
heroines which is surely due to the long-suffering woman who became
his wife.
In this same summer Burns formed the project of emigrating. He
proposed to go to the West Indies, and return for Jean when he had
made provision to support her. This offer was refused by James Armour,
but Burns persevered with the plan, obtained a position in Jamaica,
and in the autumn engaged passage in a ship sailing from Greenock. The
song, _Will Ye Go to the Indies; My Mary_, seems to imply that
Highland Mary was invited to accompany him, but substantial evidence
of this, as of most things concerning his relations with Mary
Campbell, is lacking. _From Thee, Eliza, I Must Go_, supposed to be
addressed to Elizabeth Miller, also belongs to this summer, and is
taken to refer to another of the "under-plots in his drama of love."
Meantime, at the suggestion of his friend and patron, Gavin Hamilton,
Burns had begun to arrange for a subscription edition of his poems. It
seems to have been only after he went to Mossgiel that he had
seriously conceived the idea of writing for publication, and the
decision was followed by a year of the most extraordinary fertility in
composition. To 1785-1786 are assigned such satires as _Holy Willie_
and the _Address to the Unco Guid_; a group of the longer poems
including _The Cotter's Saturday Night_, _The Jolly Beggars_,
_Halloween_, _The Holy Fair_, _The Twa Dogs_ and _The Vision_; some
shorter but no less famous pieces, such as the poems _To a Louse_, _To
a Mouse_, _To the Deil_, _To a Mountain Daisy_ and _Scotch Drink_; and
a number of the best of his _Epistles_. Many of these, especially the
church satires, had obtained a considerable local fame through
circulation in manuscript, so that, proposals having been issued for
an edition to be printed by Wilson of Kilmarnock, it was not found
difficult to obtain subscriptions for more than half the edition of
six hundred and twelve copies. The prospect of some return from this
enterprise induced James Armour to take legal measures to obtain
support for Jean's expected child, and Burns, fearing imprisonment,
was forced to go into hiding while his book was passing the press. The
church, too, had taken cognizance of his offense, and both Jean and he
had to stand up before the congregation on three occasions to receive
rebuke and make profession of repentance. He was at the same time
completing the preparations for his voyage. In such extraordinary
circumstances appeared the famous Kilmarnock edition, the immediate
success of which soon produced a complete alteration in the whole
outlook of the poet.
In the first place, the consideration Burns gained from his volume
induced Armour to relax his pursuit, and in September, when Jean
became the mother of twins, the poet was in such a mood that the
sentiment of paternity began to weigh against the proposed emigration.
Some weeks later he learned through a friend that Doctor Blacklock, a
poet and scholar of standing in literary circles in Edinburgh, had
praised his volume highly, and urged a second and larger edition. The
upshot was that he gave up his passage (his trunk had been packed and
was part way to Greenock), and determined instead on a visit to
Edinburgh. The only permanent result of the whole West Indian scheme
was thus a sheaf of amorous and patriotic farewells, of which the
following may be taken as examples:
WILL YE GO TO THE INDIES, MY MARY?
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
And leave auld Scotia's shore?
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
Across the Atlantic's roar?
O sweet grows the lime and the orange,
And the apple on the pine;
But a' the charms o' the Indies
Can never equal thine.
I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary,
I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true;
And sae may the Heavens forget me,
When I forget my vow!
O plight me your faith, my Mary,
And plight me your lily-white hand;
O plight me your faith, my Mary,
Before I leave Scotia's strand.
We hae plighted our troth, my Mary,
In mutual affection to join;
And curst be the cause that shall part us!
The hour, and the moment o' time!
THE GLOOMY NIGHT
The gloomy night is gathering fast,
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast,
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain,
I see it driving o'er the plain;
The hunter now has left the moor,
The scatter'd coveys meet secure,
While here I wander, prest with care,
Along the lonely banks of Ayr.
The Autumn mourns her ripening corn
By early Winter's ravage torn;
Across her placid azure sky,
She sees the scowling tempest fly:
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave,
I think upon the stormy wave,
Where many a danger I must dare,
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr.
'Tis not the surging billow's roar,
'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore;
Tho' death in ev'ry shape appear,
The wretched have no more to fear:
But round my heart the ties are bound,
That heart transpierc'd with many a wound:
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear,
To leave the bonnie banks of Ayr.
Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales,
Her heathy moors and winding vales;
The scenes where wretched fancy roves,
Pursuing past unhappy loves!
Farewell, my friends! Farewell, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those;
The bursting tears my heart declare,
Farewell, my bonnie banks of Ayr!
ON A SCOTCH BARD, GONE TO THE WEST INDIES
A' ye wha live by sowps o' drink, [sups]
A' ye wha live by crambo-clink, [rhyme]
A' ye wha live an' never think,
Come mourn wi' me!
Our billie's gi'en us a' a jink, [fellow, the slip]
An' owre the sea.
Lament him, a' ye rantin core, [jovial set]
Wha dearly like a random-splore; [frolic]
Nae mair he'll join the merry roar,
In social key;
For now he's taen anither shore,
An' owre the sea!
The bonnie lasses weel may wiss him, [wish for]
And in their dear petitions place him,
The widows, wives, an' a' may bless him
Wi' tearfu' e'e;
For weel I wat they'll sairly miss him [wot, sorely]
That's owre the sea!
O Fortune, they hae room to grumble!
Hadst thou taen aff some drowsy bummle, [drone]
Wha can do nought but fyke an' fumble, [fuss]
'Twad been nae plea; [grievance]
But he was gleg as ony wumble, [lively, auger]
That's owre the sea!
Auld cantie Kyle may weepers wear, [cheerful, mourning bands]
An' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear: [salt]
'Twill mak her poor auld heart, I fear,
In flinders flee; [fragments]
He was her Laureat mony a year,
That's owre the sea!
He saw misfortune's cauld nor-west
Lang mustering up a bitter blast;
A jillet brak his heart at last-- [jilt]
Ill may she be!
So took a berth afore the mast,
An' owre the sea.
To tremble under Fortune's cummock [cudgel]
On scarce a bellyfu' o' drummock, [meal and water]
Wi' his proud independent stomach,
Could ill agree;
So row't his hurdies in a hammock, [rolled, buttocks]
An' owre the sea.
He ne'er was gi'en to great misguidin',
Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in; [pockets would]
Wi' him it ne'er was under hidin',
He dealt it free:
The Muse was a' that he took pride in,
That's owre the sea.
Jamaica bodies, use him weel,
An' hap him in a cozie biel; [cover, shelter]
Ye'll find him aye a dainty chiel, [fellow]
And fu' o' glee;
He wad na wrang'd the vera deil,
That's owre the sea.
Fareweel, my rhyme-composing billie!
Your native soil was right ill-willie; [unkind]
But may ye flourish like a lily,
Now bonnilie!
I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie, [last gill]
Tho' owre the sea!
3. Edinburgh
On the twenty-seventh of November, 1786, mounted on a borrowed pony,
Burns set out for Edinburgh. He seems to have arrived there without
definite plans, for, after having found lodging with his old friend
Richmond, he spent the first few days strolling about the city. At
home Burns had been an enthusiastic freemason, and it was through a
masonic friend, Mr. James Dalrymple of Orangefield, near Ayr, that he
was introduced to Edinburgh society. A decade or two earlier, that
society, under the leadership of men like Adam Smith and David Hume
had reached a high degree of intellectual distinction. A decade or two
later, under Sir Walter Scott and the Reviewers it was again to be in
some measure, if for the last time, a rival to London as a literary
center. But when Burns visited it there was a kind of interregnum,
and, little though he or they guessed it, none of the celebrities he
met possessed genius comparable to his own. In a very few weeks it was
evident that he was to be the lion of the season. By December
thirteenth he is writing to a friend at Ayr:
"I have found a worthy warm friend in Mr. Dalrymple, of
Orangefield, who introduced me to Lord Glencairn, a man whose
worth and brotherly kindness to me I shall remember when time
shall be no more. By his interest it is passed in the Caledonian
Hunt, and entered in their books, that they are to take each a
copy of the second edition [of the poems], for which they are to
pay one guinea. I have been introduced to a good many of the
Noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are the Duchess of
Gordon, the Countess of Glencairn, with my Lord and Lady
Betty--the Dean of Faculty [Honorable Henry Erskine]--Sir John
Whitefoord. I have likewise warm friends among the literati;
Professors [Dugald] Stewart, Blair, and Mr. Mackenzie--the Man of
Feeling."
Through Glencairn he met Creech the book-seller, with whom he
arranged for his second edition, and through the patrons he mentions
and the Edinburgh freemasons, among whom he was soon at home, a large
subscription list was soon made up. In the _Edinburgh Magazine_ for
October, November, and December, James Sibbald had published favorable
notices of the Kilmarnock edition, with numerous extracts, and when
Henry Mackenzie gave it high praise in his _Lounger_ for December
ninth, and the _London Monthly Review_ followed suit in the same
month, it was felt that the poet's reputation was established.
Of Burns's bearing in the fashionable and cultivated society into
which he so suddenly found himself plunged we have many contemporary
accounts. They are practically unanimous in praise of the taste and
tact with which he acquitted himself. While neither shy nor
aggressive, he impressed every one with his brilliance in
conversation, his shrewdness in observation, and criticism, and his
poise and common sense in his personal relations. One of the best
descriptions of him was given by Sir Walter Scott to Lockhart. Scott
as a boy of sixteen met Burns at the house of Doctor Adam Ferguson,
and thus reports:
"His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not
clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which
received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his
extraordinary talents.... I would have taken the poet, had I not
known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old
Scotch school; that is, none of your modern agriculturists who
keep labourers for their drudgery, but the _douce guidman_ who
held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and
shrewdness in all his lineaments: the eye alone, I think,
indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large,
and of a cast which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke
with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human
head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.
His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the
slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of
their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect
firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he
differed an opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet
at the same time with modesty.... I have only to add, that his
dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer dressed
in his best to dine with the laird. I do not speak _in malam
partem_, when I say I never saw a man in company with his
superiors in station and information, more perfectly free from
either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was
told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was
extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the
pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly.
I have heard the Duchess of Gordon remark this."
Burns's letters written at this time show an amused consciousness of
his social prominence, but never for a moment did he lose sight of the
fact that it was only the affair of a season, and that in a few months
he would have to resume his humble station. Yet this intellectual
detachment did not prevent his enjoying opportunities for social and
intellectual intercourse such as he had never known and was never
again to know. Careful as he was to avoid presuming on his new
privileges, he clearly threw himself into the discussions in which he
took part with all the zest of his temperament; and in the less formal
convivial clubs to which he was welcomed he became at once the king of
good fellows. To the noblemen and others who befriended him he
expressed himself in language which may seem exaggerated; but the
warmth of his disposition, and the letter writers of the eighteenth
century on whom he had formed his style, sufficiently account for it
without the suspicion of affectation or flattery. Whatever his vices,
ingratitude to those who showed him kindness was not among them; and
the sympathetic reader is more apt to feel pathos than to take offense
in his tributes to his patrons. The real though not extraordinary
kindness of the Earl of Glencairn, for example, was acknowledged again
and again in prose and verse; and the _Lament_ Burns wrote upon his
death closes with these lines which rewarded the noble lord with an
immortality he might otherwise have missed:
The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!
After a sojourn of a little more than five months, Burns left
Edinburgh early in May for a tour in the south of Scotland. The poet
was mounted on an old mare, Jenny Geddes, which he had bought in
Edinburgh, and which he still owned when he settled at Ellisland. He
was accompanied by his bosom friend, Robert Ainslie. The letters and
journals written during the four weeks of this tour give evidence of
his appreciation of scenery and his shrewd judgment of character. He
was received with much consideration in the houses he visited, and was
given the freedom of the burgh of Dumfries. On the ninth of June,
1787, he was back at Mauchline; and, calling at Armour's house to see
his child, he was revolted by the "mean, servile complaisance" he met
with--the result of his Edinburgh triumphs. His disgust at the family,
however, did not prevent a renewal of his intimacy with Jean. After a
few days at home, he seems to have made a short tour in the West
Highlands. July was spent at Mossgiel, and early in August he returned
to Edinburgh in order to settle his accounts with Creech, his
publisher. On the twenty-fifth he set out for a longer tour in the
North accompanied by his friend Nicol, an Edinburgh schoolmaster, the
Willie who "brewed a peck o' maut." They proceeded by Linlithgow,
Falkirk, Stirling, Crieff, Dunkeld, Aberfeldie, Blair Athole,
Strathspey, to Inverness. The most notable episode of the journey
northwards was a visit at the castle of the Duke of Athole, which
passed with great satisfaction to both Burns and his hosts, and of
which his _Humble Petition of Bruar Water_ is a poetical memorial. At
Stonehaven and Montrose he extended his acquaintance among his
father's relatives. He reached Edinburgh again on September sixteenth,
having traveled nearly six hundred miles. In October he made still
another excursion, through Clackmannanshire and into the south of
Perthshire, visiting Ramsay of Ochtertyre, near Stirling, and Sir
William Murray of Ochtertyre in Strathearn. In all these visits made
by Burns to the houses of the aristocracy, it is interesting to note
his capacity for pleasing and profitable intercourse with people of a
class and tradition far removed from his own. Sensitive to an extreme
and quick to resent a slight, he was at the same time finely
responsive to kindness, and his conduct was governed by a tact and
frank naturalness that are among the not least surprising of his
powers. In spite of the fervor and floridness of some of his
expressions of gratitude for favors from his noble friends, Burns was
no snob; and it was characteristic of him to give up a visit to the
Duchess of Gordon rather than separate from his companion Nicol, who,
in a fit of jealous sulks, refused to accompany him to Castle Gordon.
The settlement with Creech proved to be a very tedious affair, and in
the beginning of December the poet was about to leave the city in
disgust when an accident occurred which gave opportunity for one of
the most extraordinary episodes in the history of his relations with
women. Just before, he had met a Mrs. McLehose who lived in Edinburgh
with her three children, while her husband, from whom she had
separated on account of ill-treatment, had emigrated to Jamaica. A
correspondence began immediately after the first meeting, with the
following letter:
"Madam:
"I had set no small store by my tea-drinking tonight, and have not
often been so disappointed. Saturday evening I shall embrace the
opportunity with the greatest pleasure. I leave this town this day
se'ennight, and probably I shall not return for a couple of
twelvemonths; but I must ever regret that I so lately got an
acquaintance I shall ever highly esteem, and in whose welfare I
shall ever be warmly interested. Our worthy common friend, Miss
Nimmo, in her usual pleasant way, rallied me a good deal on my new
acquaintance, and, in the humour of her ideas, I wrote some lines,
which I enclose to you, as I think they have a good deal of poetic
merit; and Miss Nimmo tells me that you are not only a critic but
a poetess. Fiction, you know, is the native region of poetry; and
I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a
tolerable offhand _jeu d'esprit_. I have several poetic trifles,
which I shall gladly leave with Miss Nimmo or you, if they were
worth house-room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by
whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the
distance of nine score miles. I am, Madam, With the highest
respect,
"Your very humble servant,
"ROBERT BURNS."
[December 6, 1787.]
The night before Burns was to take tea with his new acquaintance, he
was overturned by a drunken coachman, and received an injury to his
knee which confined him to his rooms for several weeks. Meantime the
correspondence went on with ever-increasing warmth, from "Madam,"
through "My dearest Madam," "my dear kind friend," "my lovely friend,"
to "my dearest angel." They early agreed to call each other Clarinda
and Sylvander, and the Arcadian names are significant of the
sentimental nature of the relation. By the time of their second
meeting--about a month after the first,--they had exchanged intimate
confidences, had discovered endless affinities, and had argued by the
page on religion, Clarinda striving to win Sylvander over to her
orthodox Calvinism. When he was again able to go out, his visits
became for both of them "exquisite" and "rapturous" experiences,
Clarinda struggling to keep on the safe side of discretion by means of
"Reason" and "Religion," Sylvander protesting his complete submission
to her will. The appearance of passion in their letters goes on
increasing, and Clarinda's fits of perturbation in the next morning's
reflections grow more acute. She does not seem to have become the
poet's mistress, and it is impossible to gather what either of them
expected the outcome of their intercourse to be. With a few notable
exceptions, the verses which were occasioned rather than inspired by
the affair are affected and artificial; and in spite of the warmth of
the expressions in his letters it is hard to believe that his passion
went very deep. In any case, on his return to Mauchline to find Jean
Armour cast out by her own people after having a second time borne him
twins, he faced his responsibilities in a more manly and honorable
fashion than ever before, and made Jean his wife. The explanation of
his final resolution is given repeatedly in almost the same words in
his letters: "I found a much loved female's positive happiness or
absolute misery among my hands, and I could not trifle with such a
sacred deposit." It would appear that, however far the affair between
him and Clarinda had passed beyond the sentimental friendship it began
with, he did not regard it as placing in his hands any such "sacred
deposit" as the fate of Jean, nor had one or two intrigues with
obscure girls in Edinburgh shaken an affection which was much more
deep-rooted than he often imagined. Clarinda was naturally deeply
wounded by his marriage, and her reproaches of "villainy" led to a
breach which was only gradually bridged. At one time, just before she
set out for Jamaica to join her husband in an unsuccessful attempt at
a reconciliation, Burns's letters again became frequent, the old
fervor reappeared, and a couple of his best songs were produced. But
at this time he had the--shall we say reassuring?--belief that he was
not to see her again, and could indulge an emotion that had always
been largely theatrical without risk to either of them. On her return
he wrote her, it would seem, only once. For the character of Burns the
incident is of much curious interest; for literature its importance
lies in the two songs, _Ae fond Kiss_ and _My Nannie's Awa_. The
former was written shortly before her departure for the West Indies;
the second in the summer of her absence. It is noteworthy that in them
"Clarinda" has given place to "Nancy" and "Nannie." Beside them is
placed for contrast, one of the pure Clarinda effusions.
AE FOND KISS
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! [One]
Ae farewell, and then for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure, [every]
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure,
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
MY NANNIE'S AWA
Now in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays,
And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, [hillsides]
While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw; [wooded dell]
But to me it's delightless--my Nannie's awa.
The snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn
And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn: [wet (dew)]
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,
They mind me o' Nannie--and Nannie's awa.
Thou laverock, that springs frae the dews o' the lawn [lark]
The shepherd to warn o' the grey-breaking dawn,
And thou, mellow mavis, that hails the night-fa', [thrush]
Give over for pity--my Nannie's awa.
Come, autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and gray,
And soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay;
The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw
Alane can delight me--now Nannie's awa.
CLARINDA
Clarinda, mistress of my soul,
The measured time is run!
The wretch beneath the dreary pole
So marks his latest sun.
To what dark cave of frozen night
Shall poor Sylvander hie,
Depriv'd of thee, his life and light,
The sun of all his joy?
We part--but by these precious drops
That fill thy lovely eyes!
No other light shall guide my steps
Till thy bright beams arise.
She, the fair sun of all her sex,
Has blest my glorious day;
And shall a glimmering planet fix
My worship to its ray?
4. Ellisland
In the spring of 1788 when Burns married Jean Armour, he took two
other steps of the first importance for his future career. The
Edinburgh period had come and gone, and all that his intercourse with
his influential friends had brought him was the four or five hundred
pounds of profit from his poems and an opportunity to enter the excise
service. With part of the money he relieved his brother Gilbert from
pressing obligations at Mossgiel by the loan of one hundred and eighty
pounds, and with the rest leased the farm of Ellisland on the bank of
the Nith, five or six miles above Dumfries. But before taking up the
farm he devoted six weeks or so to tuition in the duties of an
exciseman, so that he had this occupation to fall back on in case of
another farming failure. During the summer he superintended the
building of the farm-house, and in December Jean joined her husband.
His satisfaction in his domestic situation is characteristically
expressed in a song composed about this time.
I HAE A WIFE
I hae a wife o' my ain,
I'll partake wi' naebody;
I'll tak cuckold frae nane,
I'll gie cuckold to naebody.
I hae a penny to spend,
There--thanks to naebody;
I hae naething to lend,
I'll borrow frae naebody.
I am naebody's lord,
I'll be slave to naebody;
I hae a guid braid sword,
I'll tak dunts frae naebody. [blows]
I'll be merry and free,
I'll be sad for naebody;
Naebody cares for me,
I care for naebody.
Early in his residence at Ellisland he formed a close relation with a
neighboring proprietor, Colonel Robert Riddel. For him he copied into
two volumes a large part of what he considered the best of his
unpublished verse and prose, thus forming the well-known Glenriddel
Manuscript. Had not one already become convinced of the fact from
internal evidence, it would be clear enough from this prose volume
that Burns's letters were often as much works of art to him as his
poems. This is of supreme importance in weighing the epistolary
evidence for his character and conduct. Even when his words seem to be
the direct outpourings of his feelings--of love, of friendship, of
gratitude, of melancholy, of devotion, of scorn--a comparative
examination will show that in prose as much as in verse we are dealing
with the work of a conscious artist, enamored of telling expression,
aware of his reader, and anything but the naif utterer of
unsophisticated emotion. To recall this will save us from much
perplexity in the interpretation of his words, and will clear up many
an apparent contradiction in his evidence about himself.
Burns was never very sanguine about success on the Ellisland farm. By
the end of the summer of 1789 he concluded that he could not depend on
it, determined to turn it into a dairy farm to be conducted mainly by
his wife and sisters, and took up the work in the excise for which he
had prepared himself. He had charge of a large district of ten
parishes, and had to ride some two hundred miles a week in all
weathers. With the work he still did on the farm one can see that he
was more than fully employed, and need not wonder that there was
little time for poetry. Yet these years at Ellisland were on the whole
happy years for himself and his family; he found time for pleasant
intercourse with some of his neighbors, for a good deal of
letter-writing, for some interest in politics, and for the
establishing, with Colonel Riddel, of a small neighborhood library. As
an excise officer he seems to have been conscientious and efficient,
though at times, in the case of poor offenders, he tempered justice
with mercy. Ultimately, despairing of making the farm pay and hoping
for promotion in the government service, he gave up his lease, sold
his stock, and in the autumn of 1791 moved to Dumfries, where he was
given a district which did not involve keeping a horse, and which paid
him about seventy pounds a year. Thus ended the last of Burns's
disastrous attempts to make a living from the soil.
5. Dumfries
The house in which the Burnses with their three sons first lived in
Dumfries was a three-roomed cottage in the Wee Vennel, now Banks
Street. Though his income was small, it must be remembered that the
cost of food was low. "Beef was 3d. to 5d. a lb.; mutton, 3d. to
4-1/2d.; chickens, 7d. to 8d. a pair; butter (the lb. of 24 oz.), 7d.
to 9d.; salmon, 6d. to 9-1/2d. a lb.; cod, 1d. and even 1/2d. a lb."
Though hardly in easy circumstances then, Burns's situation was such
that it was possible to avoid his greatest horror, debt.
Meantime, his interest in politics had greatly quickened. He had been
from youth a sentimental Jacobite; but this had little effect upon his
attitude toward the parties of the day. In Edinburgh he had worn the
colors of the party of Fox, presumably out of compliment to his Whig
friends, Glencairn and Erskine. During the Ellisland period, however,
he had written strongly against the Regency Bill supported by Fox; and
in the general election of 1790 he opposed the Duke of Queensberry and
the local Whig candidate. But in his early months in Dumfries we find
him showing sympathy with the doctrines of the French Revolution, a
sympathy which was natural enough in a man of his inborn democratic
tendencies. A curious outcome of these was an incident not yet fully
cleared up. In February, 1792, Burns, along with some fellow officers,
assisted by a body of dragoons, seized an armed smuggling brig which
had run aground in the Solway, and on her being sold, he bought for
three pounds four of the small guns she carried. These he is said to
have presented "to the French Convention," but they were seized by
the British Government at Dover. As a matter of fact, the Convention
was not constituted till September, and the Legislative Assembly which
preceded it was not hostile to Britain. Thus, Burns's action, though
eccentric and extravagant, was not treasonable in law or in spirit,
and does not seem to have entailed on him any unfortunate
consequences.
In the course of that year symptoms of the infection of part of the
British public with revolutionary principles began to be evident, and
the government was showing signs of alarm. The Whig opposition was
clamoring for internal reform, and Burns sided more and more
definitely with it, and was rash enough to subscribe for a Reform
paper called _The Gazetteer_, an action which would have put him under
suspicion from his superiors, had it become known. Some notice of his
Liberal tendencies did reach his official superiors, and an inquiry
was made into his political principles which caused him no small
alarm. In a letter to Mr. Graham of Fintry, through whom he had
obtained his position, he disclaimed all revolutionary beliefs and all
political activity. No action was taken against him, nor was his
failure to obtain promotion to an Examinership due to anything but
the slow progress involved in promotion by seniority. Hereafter, he
exercised considerable caution in the expression of his political
sympathies, though he allowed himself to associate with men of
revolutionary opinions. The feeling that he was not free to utter what
he believed on public affairs was naturally chafing to a man of his
independent nature.
Burns's chief enjoyment in these days was the work he was doing for
Scottish song. While in Edinburgh he had made the acquaintance of an
engraver, James Johnson, who had undertaken the publication of the
_Scots Musical Museum_, a collection of songs and music. Burns agreed
to help him by the collection and refurbishing of the words of old
songs, and when these were impossible, by providing new words for the
melodies. The work finally extended to six volumes; and before it was
finished a more ambitious undertaking, managed by a Mr. George
Thomson, was set on foot. Burns was invited to cooperate in this also,
and entered into it with such enthusiasm that he was Thomson's main
support. In both of these publications the poet worked purely with
patriotic motives and for the love of song, and had no pecuniary
interest in either. Once Thomson sent him a present of five pounds
and endangered their relations thereby; later, when Burns was in his
last illness, he asked and received from Thomson an advance of the
same amount. Apart from these sums Burns never made or sought to make
a penny from his writings after the publication of the first Edinburgh
edition. Twice he declined journalistic work for a London paper.
Poetry was the great consolation of his life, and even in his severest
financial straits he refused to consider the possibility of writing
for money, regarding it as a kind of prostitution.
By the autumn of 1795 signs began to appear that the poet's
constitution was breaking down. The death of his daughter Elizabeth
and a severe attack of rheumatism plunged him into deep melancholy and
checked for a time his song-writing; and though for a time he
recovered, his disease returned early in the next year. It seems
clear, too, that though the change from Ellisland to Dumfries relieved
him of much of the severer physical exertion, other factors more than
counterbalanced this relief. Burns had never been a slave to drink for
its own sake; it had always been the accompaniment--in those days an
almost inevitable accompaniment--of sociability. Some of his
wealthier friends in the vicinity were in this respect rather
excessive in their hospitality; in Dumfries the taverns were always at
hand; and as Burns came to realize the comparative failure of his
career as a man, he found whisky more and more a means of escape for
depression. Even if we distrust the local gossip that made much of the
dissipations of his later years, it appears from the evidence of his
physician that alcohol had much to do with the rheumatic and digestive
troubles that finally broke him down. In July, 1796, he was sent, as a
last resort, to Brow-on-Solway to try sea-bathing and country life;
but he returned little improved, and well-nigh convinced that his
illness was mortal. His mental condition is shown by the fact that
pressure from a solicitor for the payment of a tailor's debt of some
seven pounds, incurred for his volunteer's uniform, threw him into a
panic lest he should be imprisoned, and his last letters are pitiful
requests for financial help, and two notes to his father-in-law urging
him to send her mother to Jean, as she was about to give birth to
another child. In such harassing conditions he sank into delirium, and
died on July 21, 1796. The child, who died in infancy, was born on
the day his father was buried.
With Burns's death a reaction in popular opinion set in. He was given
a military funeral; and a subscription which finally amounted to one
thousand two hundred pounds was raised for his family. The official
biography, by Doctor Currie of Liverpool, doubled this sum, so that
Jean was enabled to bring up the children respectably, and end her
days in comfort. Scotland, having done little for Burns in his life,
was stricken with remorse when he died, and has sought ever since to
atone for her neglect by an idolatry of the poet and by a more than
charitable view of the man.
CHAPTER II
INHERITANCE: LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Three forms of speech were current in Scotland in the time of Burns,
and, in different proportions, are current to-day: in the Highlands,
north and west of a slanting line running from the Firth of Clyde to
Aberdeenshire, Gaelic; in the Lowlands, south and east of the same
line, Lowland Scots; over the whole country, among the more educated
classes, English. Gaelic is a Celtic language, belonging to an
entirely different linguistic group from English, and having close
affinities to Irish and Welsh. This tongue Burns did not know. Lowland
Scots is a dialect of English, descended from the Northumbrian dialect
of Anglo-Saxon. It has had a history of considerable interest. Down to
the time of Chaucer, whose influence had much to do with making the
Midland dialect the literary standard for the Southern kingdom, it is
difficult to distinguish the written language of Edinburgh from that
of York, both being developments of Northumbrian. But as English
writers tended more and more to conform to the standard of London,
Northern Middle English gradually ceased to be written; while in
Scotland, separated and usually hostile as it was politically, the
Northern speech continued to develop along its own lines, until in the
beginning of the sixteenth century it attained a form more remote from
standard English and harder for the modern reader than it had been a
century before. The close connection between Scotland and France,
continuing down to the time of Queen Mary, led to the introduction of
many French words which never found a place in English; the proximity
of the Highlands made Gaelic borrowings easy; and the Scandinavian
settlements on both coasts contributed additional elements to the
vocabulary. Further, in its comparative isolation, Scots developed or
retained peculiarities in grammar and pronunciation unknown or lost in
the South. Thus by 1550, the form of English spoken in Scotland was in
a fair way to become an independent language.
This process, however, was rudely halted by the Reformation. The
triumph of this movement in England and its comparative failure in
France threw Scotland, when it became Protestant, into close relations
with England, while the "auld Alliance" with France practically ended
when Mary of Scots returned to her native country. Leaders like John
Knox, during the early struggles of the Reformation, spent much time
in England; and when they came home their speech showed the effect of
their intercourse with their southern brethren of the reformed faith.
The language of Knox, as recorded in his sermons and his _History_, is
indeed far from Elizabethan English, but it is notably less "broad"
than the Scots of Douglas and Lindesay. Scotland had no vernacular
translation of the Bible; and this important fact, along with the
English associations of many of the Protestant ministers, finally made
the speech of the Scottish pulpit, and later of Scottish religion in
general, if not English, at least as purely English as could be
achieved.
The process thus begun was carried farther in the next generation
when, in 1603, James VI of Scotland became King of England, and the
Court removed to London. England at that time was, of course, much
more advanced in culture than its poorer neighbor to the north, and
the courtiers who accompanied James to London found themselves marked
by their speech as provincial, and set themselves to get rid of their
Scotticisms with an eagerness in proportion to their social
aspirations. Scottish men of letters now came into more intimate
relation with English literature, and finding that writing in English
opened to them a much larger reading public, they naturally adopted
the southern speech in their books. Thus men like Alexander, Earl of
Stirling, and William Drummond of Hawthornden belong both in language
and literary tradition to the English Elizabethans.
Religion, society, and literature having all thrown their influence
against the native speech of Scotland, it followed that the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the progressive disuse of
that speech among the upper classes of the country, until by the time
of Burns, Scots was habitually spoken only by the peasantry and the
humbler people in the towns. The distinctions between social classes
in the matter of dialect were, of course, not absolute. Occasional
members even of the aristocracy prided themselves on their command of
the vernacular; and among the country folk there were few who could
not make a brave attempt at English when they spoke with the laird or
the minister. With Burns himself, Lowland Scots was his customary
speech at home, about the farm, in the tavern and the Freemasons'
lodge; but, as we have seen, his letters, being written mainly to
educated people, are almost all pure English, as was his conversation
with these people when he met them.
The linguistic situation that has been sketched finds interesting
illustration in the language of Burns's poems. The distinction which
is usually made, that he wrote poetry in Scots and verse in English,
has some basis, but is inaccurately expressed and needs qualification.
The fundamental fact is that for him Scots was the natural language
of the emotions, English of the intellect. The Scots poems are in
general better, not chiefly because they are in Scots but because they
are concerned with matters of natural feeling; the English poems are
in general poetically poorer, not because they are in English but
because they are so frequently the outcome of moods not dominated by
spontaneous emotion, but intellectual, conscious, or theatrical. He
wrote English sometimes as he wore his Sunday blacks, with dignity but
not with ease; sometimes as he wore the buff and blue, with buckskins
and top-boots, which he donned in Edinburgh--"like a farmer dressed in
his best to dine with the laird." In both cases he was capable of
vigorous, common-sense expression; in neither was he likely to exhibit
the imagination, the tenderness, or the humor which characterized the
plowman clad in home-spun.
_The Cotter's Saturday Night_ is an interesting illustration of these
distinctions. The opening stanza is a dedicatory address on English
models to a lawyer friend and patron; it is pure English in language,
stiff and imitatively "literary" in style. The stanzas which follow
describing the homecoming of the cotter, the family circle, the
supper, and the daughter's suitor, are in broad Scots, the language
harmonizing perfectly with the theme, and they form poetically the
sound core of the poem. In the description of family worship, Burns
did what his father would do in conducting that worship, adopted
English as more reverent and respectful, but inevitably as more
restrained emotionally; and in the moralizing passage which follows,
as in the apostrophes to Scotia and to the Almighty at the close, he
naturally sticks to English, and in spite of a genuine enough
exaltation of spirit achieves a result rather rhetorical than
poetical.
Contrast again songs like _Corn Rigs_ or _Whistle and I'll Come To
Thee, My Lad_, with most of the songs to Clarinda. The former, in
Scots, are genial, whole-hearted, full of the power of kindling
imaginative sympathy, thoroughly contagious in their lusty emotion or
sly humor. The latter, in English, are stiff, coldly contrived,
consciously elegant or marked by the sentimental factitiousness of the
affair that occasioned them. But their inferiority is due less to the
difference in language than to the difference in the mood. When,
especially at a distance, his relation to Clarinda really touched his
imagination, we have the genuinely poetical _My Nannie's Awa_ and _Ae
Fond Kiss_. The latter poem can be, with few changes, turned into
English without loss of quality; and its most famous lines have almost
no dialect:
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
Finally, there are the English poems to Highland Mary. For some
reason not yet fully understood, the affair with Mary Campbell was
treated by him in a spirit of reverence little felt in his other love
poetry, and this spirit was naturally expressed by him in English. But
in the almost English
"Ye banks and braes and streams around
The Castle of Montgomery,"
and in the pure English _To Mary in Heaven_, he is not at all hampered
by the use of the Southern speech, Scots would not have heightened the
poetry here, and for Burns Scots would have been less appropriate,
less natural even, for the expression of an almost sacred theme.
The case, then, seems to stand thus. Burns commanded two languages,
which he employed instinctively for different kinds of subject and
mood. The subjects and moods which evoked vernacular utterance were
those that with all writers are more apt to yield poetry, and in
consequence most of his best poetry is in Scots. But when a theme
naturally evoking English was imaginatively felt by him, the use of
English did not prevent his writing poetically. And there were themes
which he could handle equally well in either speech--as we see, for
example, in the songs in _The Jolly Beggars_.
Yet the language had an importance in itself. Though its vocabulary is
limited in matters of science, philosophy, religion, and the like,
Lowland Scots is very rich in homely terms and in humorous and tender
expressions. For love, or for celebrating the effects of whisky,
English is immeasurably inferior. The free use of the diminutive
termination in _ie_ or _y_--a termination capable of expressing
endearment, familiarity, ridicule, and contempt as well as mere
smallness--not only has considerable effect in emotional shading, but
contributes to the liquidness of the verse by lessening the number of
consonantal endings that make English seem harsh and abrupt to many
foreign ears. Moreover, the very indeterminateness of the dialect, the
possibility of using varying degrees of "broadness," increased the
facility of rhyming, and added notably to the ease and spontaneity of
composition. Thus in Scots Burns was not only more at home, but had a
medium in some respects more plastic than English.
Language, however, was not the only element in his inheritance which
helped to determine the nature and quality of Burns's production. He
was extremely sensitive to suggestion from his predecessors, and
frankly avowed his obligations to them, so that to estimate his
originality it is necessary to know something of the men at whose
flame he kindled.
As the Northern dialect of English was, before the Reformation, in a
fair way to become an independent national speech, so literature north
of the Tweed had promise of a development, not indeed independent, but
distinct. Of the writers of the Middle Scots period, Henryson and
Dunbar, Douglas and Lindesay, Burns, it is true, knew little; and the
tradition that they founded underwent in the latter part of the
sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries an experience in
many respects parallel to that which has been described in the matter
of language. The effect of the Reformation upon all forms of artistic
creation will be discussed when we come to speak particularly of the
history of Scottish song; for the moment it is sufficient to say that
the absorption in theological controversy was unfavorable to the
continuation of a poetical development. Under James VI, however, there
were a few writers who maintained the tradition, notably Alexander
Montgomery, Alexander Scott, and the Sempills. To the first of these
is to be credited the invention of the stanza called, from the poems
in which Montgomery used it, the stanza of _The Banks of Helicon_ or
of _The Cherry and the Slae_. It was imitated by some of Montgomery's
contemporaries, revived by Allan Ramsay, and thus came to Burns down a
line purely Scottish, as it never seems to have been used in any other
tongue. He first employed it in the _Epistle to Davie_, and it was
made by him the medium of some of his most characteristic ideas.
It's no in titles nor in rank:
It's no in wealth like Lon'on Bank,
To purchase peace and rest.
It's no in makin muckle, mair, [much, more]
It's no in books, it's no in lear, [learning]
To make us truly blest:
If happiness hae not her seat
An' centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest!
Nae treasures nor pleasures
Could make us happy lang;
The heart aye's the part aye
That makes us right or wrang.
_The Piper of Kilbarchan_, by Sir Robert Sempill of Beltrees
(1595?-1661?), set a model for the humorous elegy on the living which
reached Burns through Ramsay and Fergusson, and was followed by him in
those on Poor Mailie and Tam Samson. The stanza in which it is written
is far older than Sempill, having been traced as far back as the
troubadours in the twelfth century, and being found frequently in both
English and French through the Middle Ages; but from the time of
Sempill on, it was cultivated with peculiar intensity in Scotland, and
is the medium of so many of Burns's best-known pieces that it is often
called Burns's stanza.
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears tricklin' down your nose;
Our Bardie's fate is at a close,
Past a' remead;
The last, sad cape-stane o' his woe's--
Poor Mailie's dead!
The seventeenth century was a barren one for Scottish literature. The
attraction of the larger English public and the disuse of the
vernacular among the upper classes already discussed, drew to the
South or to the Southern speech whatever literary talent appeared in
the North, and it seemed for a time that, except for the obscure
stream of folk poetry, Scottish vernacular literature was at an end.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, interest began to
revive. In 1706-9-11 James Watson published the three volumes of his
_Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Poems_, and in the third
decade began to appear Allan Ramsay's _Tea Table Miscellany_
(1724-40). These collections rescued from oblivion a large quantity of
vernacular verse, some of it drawn from manuscripts of pre-Reformation
poetry, some of it contemporary, some of it anonymous and of uncertain
date, having come down orally or in chap-books and broadsides. The
welcome given to these volumes was an early instance of that renewed
interest in older and more primitive literature that was manifested
still more strikingly when Percy published his _Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry_ in 1765. Its influence on the production of vernacular
literature was evident at once in the original work of Ramsay himself;
and the movement which culminated in Burns, though having its roots
far back in the work of Henryson and Dunbar, was in effect a Scottish
renascence, in which the chief agents before Burns were Hamilton of
Gilbertfield, Ramsay himself, Robert Fergusson, and song-writers like
Mrs. Cockburn and Lady Anne Lindsay.
Of this fact Burns was perfectly aware, and he was not only candid but
generous in his acknowledgment of his debt to his immediate
predecessors.
My senses wad be in a creel, [head would be turned]
Should I but dare a hope to speel, [climb]
Wi' Allan, or wi' Gilbertfield,
The braes o' fame; [hills]
Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel, [lawyer-fellow]
A deathless name.
He knew Ramsay's collection and had a perhaps exaggerated admiration
for _The Gentle Shepherd_. This poem, published in 1728, not only
holds a unique position in the history of the pastoral drama, but is
important in the present connection as being to Burns the most signal
evidence of the possibility of a dignified literature in the modern
vernacular. Hamilton and Ramsay had exchanged rhyming epistles in the
six-line stanza, and in these Burns found the model for his own
epistles. Hamilton's _Last Dying Words of Bonny Heck_--a favorite
grey-hound--had been imitated by Ramsay in _Lucky Spence's Last
Advice_ and the _Last Speech of a Wretched Miser_, and the form had
become a Scottish convention before Burns produced his _Death and
Dying Words of Poor Mailie_. As important as any of these was the
example set by Ramsay and bettered by Burns of refurbishing old
indecent or fragmentary songs. Robert Fergusson (1750-1774) was
regarded by Burns still more highly than Ramsay, and his influence was
even more potent. In his autobiographical letter to Doctor Moore he
tells that about 1782 he had all but given up rhyming: "but meeting
with Fergusson's _Scotch Poems_, I strung anew my wildly-sounding,
rustic lyre with emulating vigour." In the preface to the Kilmarnock
edition he is still more explicit as to his attitude.
"To the poems of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor,
unfortunate Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity,
declares, that, even in the highest pulse of vanity, he has not
the most distant pretensions. These two justly admired Scotch
Poets he has often had in his eye in the following pieces; but
rather with a view to kindle at their flame, than for servile
imitation."
To be more specific, Burns found the model for his _Cotter's Saturday
Night_ in Fergusson's _Farmer's Ingle_, for _The Holy Fair_ in his
_Leith Races_, for _Scotch Drink_ in his _Caller Water_, for _The Twa
Dogs_ and _The Brigs of Ayr_ in his _Planestanes and Causey_, and
_Kirkyard Eclogues_. In later years Burns grew somewhat more critical
of Ramsay, especially as a reviser of old songs; but for Fergusson he
retained to the end a sympathetic admiration. When he went to
Edinburgh, one of his first places of pilgrimage was the grave of him
whom he apostrophized thus,
O thou, my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the muse!
And he later obtained from the managers of the Canongate Kirk
permission to erect a stone over the tomb.
The fact, then, that Burns owed much to the tradition of vernacular
poetry in Scotland and especially to his immediate predecessors is no
new discovery, however recent critics may have plumed themselves upon
it. Burns knew it well, and was ever ready to acknowledge it. What is
more important than the mere fact of his inheritance is the use he
made of it. In taking from his elders the fruits of their experience
in poetical conception and metrical arrangement, he but did what
artists have always done; in outdistancing these elders and in almost
every case surpassing their achievement on the lines they had laid
down, he did what only the greater artists succeed in doing. It is not
in mere inventiveness and novelty but in first-hand energy of
conception, in mastering for himself the old thought and the old form
and uttering them with his personal stamp, in making them carry over
to the reader with a new force or vividness or beauty, that the poet's
originality consists. In these respects Burns's originality is no whit
lessened by an explicit recognition of his indebtedness to the stock
from which he grew.
His relation to the purely English literature which he read is
different and produced very different results. Shakespeare he
reverenced, and that he knew him well is shown by the frequency of
Shakespearean turns of phrase in his letters, as well as by direct
quotation. But of influence upon his poetry there is little trace. He
had a profound admiration for the indomitable will of Milton's Satan,
and he makes it clear that this admiration affected his conduct. The
most frequent praise of English writers in his letters is, however,
given to the eighteenth-century authors--to Pope, Thomson, Shenstone,
Gray, Young, Blair, Beattie, and Goldsmith in verse, to Sterne,
Smollett, and Henry Mackenzie in prose. Echoes of these poets are
common in his work, and the most frigid of his English verses show
their influence most clearly. To the sentimental tendency in the
thought of the eighteenth century he was highly responsive, and the
expression of it in _The Man of Feeling_ appealed to him especially.
In a mood which recurred painfully often he was apt to pride himself
on his "sensibility": the letters to Clarinda are full of it. The less
fortunate effects of it are seen both in his conduct and in his poems
in a fondness for nursing his emotions and extracting pleasure from
his supposed miseries; the more fortunate aspects are reflected in the
tender humanity of poems like those _To a Mouse_, _On Seeing a Wounded
Hare_, and _To a Daisy_--perhaps even in the _Address to the Deil_. He
had naturally a warm heart and strong impulses; it is only when an
element of consciousness or mawkishness appears that his "sensibility"
is to be ascribed to the fashionable philosophy of the day and the
influence of his English models.
For better or worse, then, Burns belongs to the literary history of
Britain as a legitimate descendant of easily traced ancestors. Like
other great writers he made original contributions from his individual
temperament and from his particular environment and experience. But
these do not obliterate the marks of his descent, nor are they so
numerous or powerful as to give support to the old myth of the "rustic
phenomenon," the isolated poetical miracle appearing in defiance of
the ordinary laws of literary dependence and tradition.
If this is true of his models it is no less true of his methods.
Though simplicity and spontaneity are among the most obvious of the
qualities of his work, it is not to be supposed that such effects were
obtained by a birdlike improvisation. "All my poetry," he said, "is
the effect of easy composition but laborious correction," and the
careful critic will perceive ample evidence in support of the
statement. We shall see in the next chapter with what pains he fitted
words to melody in his songs; an examination of the variant readings
which make the establishment of his text peculiarly difficult shows
abundant traces of deliberation and the labor of the file. In the
following song, the first four lines of which are old, it is
interesting to note that, though he preserves admirably the tone of
the fragment which gave him the impulse and the idea, the twelve lines
which he added are in the effects produced by manipulation of the
consonants and vowels and in the use of internal rhyme a triumph of
conscious artistic skill. The interest in technique which this implies
is exhibited farther in many passages of his letters, especially those
to George Thomson.
GO FETCH TO ME A PINT O' WINE
Go fetch to me a pint o' wine,
An' fill it in a silver tassie; [goblet]
That I may drink, before I go,
A service to my bonnie lassie.
The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith,
Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry, [from]
The ship rides by the Berwick-law,
And I maun leave my bonnie Mary. [must]
The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
The glittering spears are ranked ready;
The shouts o' war are heard afar,
The battle closes thick and bloody;
But it's no the roar o' sea or shore
Wad mak me langer wish to tarry;
Nor shout o' war that's heard afar,
It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.
CHAPTER III
BURNS AND SCOTTISH SONG
With song-writing Burns began his poetical career, with song-writing
he closed it; and, brilliant as was his achievement in other fields,
it is as a song-writer that he ranks highest among his peers, it is
through his songs that he has rooted himself most deeply in the hearts
of his countrymen.
The most notable and significant fact in connection with his making of
songs is their relation to the melodies to which they are sung. In the
vast majority of cases these are old Scottish tunes, which were known
to Burns before he wrote his songs, and were singing in his ear during
the process of composition. The poet was no technical musician.
Murdoch, his first teacher, says that Robert and Gilbert Burns "were
left far behind by all the rest of the school" when he tried to teach
them a little church music, "Robert's ear, in particular, was
remarkably dull, and his voice untunable. It was long before I could
get them to distinguish one tune from another." Either Murdoch
exaggerated, or the poet's ear developed later (Murdoch is speaking of
him between the ages of six and nine); for he learned to fiddle a
little, once at least attempted to compose an air, could read music
fairly easily, and could write down a melody from memory. His
correspondence with Johnson and Thomson shows that he knew a vast
number of old tunes and was very sensitive to their individual quality
and suggestion.[1] Such a sentence as the following from one of his
Commonplace Books shows how important his responsiveness to music was
for his poetical composition.
"These old Scottish airs are so nobly sentimental that when one
would compose to them, to _south_ the tune, as our Scottish phrase
is, over and over, is the readiest way to catch the inspiration
and raise the Bard into that glorious enthusiasm so strongly
characteristic of our old Scotch Poetry."
[1] The question of the nature and extent of Burns's musical abilities
may be summed up in the words of the latest and most thorough student
of his melodies:--"His knowledge of music was in fact elemental; his
taste lay entirely in melody, without ever reaching an appreciation of
contra-puntal or harmonious music. Nor, although in his youth he had
learned the grammar of music and become acquainted with clefs, keys,
and notes at the rehearsals of church music, which were in his day a
practical part of the education of the Scottish peasantry, did he ever
arrive at composition, except in the case of one melody which he
composed for a song of his own at the age of about twenty-three, and
this melody displeased him so much that he destroyed it and never
attempted another. In the same way, although he practised the violin,
he did not attain to excellence in execution, his playing being
confined to strathspeys and other slow airs of the pathetic kind. On
the other hand, his perception and his love of music are undeniable.
For example, he possessed copies of the principal collections of
Scottish vocal and instrumental music of the eighteenth century, and
repeatedly refers to them in the Museum and in his letters. His copy
of the _Caledonian Pocket Companion_ (the largest collection of
Scottish music), which copy still exists with pencil notes in his
handwriting, proves that he was familiar with the whole contents. At
intervals in his writings he names at least a dozen different
collections to which he refers and from which he quotes with personal
knowledge. Also he knew several hundred different airs, not vaguely
and in a misty way, but accurately as regards tune, time, and rhythm,
so that he could distinguish one from another, and describe minute
variations in the several copies of any tune which passed through his
hands.... Many of the airs he studied and selected for his verses were
either pure instrumental tunes, never before set to words, or the airs
(from dance books) of lost songs, with the first lines as
titles."--(James C. Dick, _The Songs of Robert Burns_, 1903, Preface,
pp. viii, ix.)
Again, once when Thomson had sent him a tune to be fitted with words,
he replied:
"_Laddie lie near me_ must _lie by me_ for some time. I do not
know the air; and until I am complete master of a tune in my own
singing (such as it is), I never can compose for it. My way is: I
consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the
musical expression; then choose my theme; begin one stanza; when
that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of
the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for
subjects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with
the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming
every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. When I
feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside
of my study, and then commit my effusion to paper; swinging at
intervals on the hindlegs of my elbow chair, by way of calling
forth my own critical strictures as my pen goes on. Seriously,
this at home is almost invariably my way." [September, 1793.]
His wife, who had a good voice and a wide knowledge of folk-song,
seems often to have been of assistance, and a further interesting
detail is given by Sir James Stuart-Menteath from the evidence of a
Mrs. Christina Flint.
"When Burns dwelt at Ellisland, he was accustomed, after composing
any of his beautiful songs, to pay Kirsty a visit, that he might
hear them sung by her. He often stopped her in the course of the
singing when he found any word harsh and grating to his ear, and
substituted one more melodious and pleasing. From Kirsty's
extensive acquaintance with the old Scottish airs, she was
frequently able to suggest to the poet music more suitable to the
song she was singing than that to which he had set it."
Kirsty and Jean were not his only aids in the criticism of the musical
quality of his songs. From the time of the Edinburgh visit, at least,
he was in the habit of seizing the opportunity afforded by the
possession of a harpsichord or a good voice by the daughters of his
friends, and in several cases he rewarded his accompanist by making
her the heroine of the song. Without drawing on the evidence of
parallel phenomena in other ages and literatures, we can be sure
enough that this persistent consciousness of the airs to which his
songs were to be sung, and this critical observation of their fitness,
had much to do with the extraordinary melodiousness of so many of
them.
We have seen that Burns received an important impulse to
productiveness through his cooperation in the compiling of two
national song collections. James Johnson, the editor of the first of
these, was an all but illiterate engraver, ill-equipped for such an
undertaking; and as the work grew in scale until it reached six
volumes, Burns became virtually the editor--even writing the prefaces
to several of the volumes. George Thomson, the editor of the other, _A
Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs_, was a government clerk,
an amateur in music, of indifferent taste and with a preference for
English to the vernacular. In his collection the airs were harmonized
by Pleyel, Kozeluch, Haydn, and Beethoven; and he had the impudence to
meddle with the contributions both of Burns and of the eminent
composers who arranged the melodies. Nothing is more striking than the
patience and modesty of Burns in tolerating the criticism and
alterations of Thomson. The main purpose in both _The Scots Musical
Museum_ and the _Select Collection_ was the preservation of the
national melodies, but when the editors came to seek words to go with
them they found themselves confronted with a difficult problem. To
understand its nature, it will be necessary to extend our historical
survey.
In addition to the effects of the Reformation in Scotland already
indicated, there was another even more serious for arts and letters.
The reaction against Catholicism in Scotland was peculiarly violent,
and the form of Protestantism which replaced it was extremely
puritanical. In the matter of intellectual education, it is true,
Knox's ideas and institutions were enlightened, and have borne
important fruit in making prevail in his country an uncommonly high
level of general education and a reverence for learning. But on the
artistic side the reformed ministers were the enemies not only of
everything that suggested the ornateness of the old religion, but of
beauty in every form. Under their influence, an influence
extraordinarily pervasive and despotic, art and song were suppressed,
and Scotland was left a very mirthless country, absorbed in
theological and political discussion, and having little outlet for the
instinct of sport except heresy-hunting.
Such at least seemed to be the case on the surface. But human nature
is not to be totally changed even by such a force as the Reformation.
Especially among the peasantry occasions recurred--weddings, funerals,
harvest-homes, New-Year's Eves, and the like--when, the minister being
at a safe distance and whisky having relaxed the awe of the kirk
session, the "wee sinfu' fiddle" was produced, and song and the dance
broke forth. It was under such clandestine conditions that the
traditional songs of Scotland had been handed down for some
generations before Burns's day, and the conditions had gravely
affected their character. The melodies could not be stained, but the
words had degenerated until they had lost most of whatever imaginative
quality they had possessed, and had acquired instead only grossness.
Such words, it was clear, Johnson could not use in his _Museum_, and
the discovery of Burns was to him the most extraordinary good fortune.
For Burns not only knew, as we have seen, the old songs--words and
airs--by the score, but was able to purify, complete, or replace the
words according to the degree of their corruption. Various poets have
caught up scraps of folk-song and woven them into their verse; but
nowhere else has a poet of the people appeared with such a rare
combination of original genius and sympathetic feeling for the tone
and accent of the popular muse, as enabled Burns to recreate Scottish
song. If patriotic Scots wish to justify the achievement of Burns on
moral grounds, it is here that their argument lies: for whatever of
coarseness and license there may have been in his life and wri