UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 
 THE 
 
 GENIUS AND CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 ROBEPtT BURNS. 
 
 AN ESUAY AS n CRITICISM (J .V HI S 
 
 LIFE AND WRITINGS, 
 
 WITH QUOTATIONS FROM THE BEST PASSAGES. 
 
 JOHN WILSON. 
 
 LATE PKOFE880R OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UXIVEB3ITY OF EDINBVRGH. 
 
 " Nevertheless, wc are far from thinking that the probleia of Bums's Biojp-aphy has yet been ade- 
 ! qiialely solved. We do not allude eo much lo deficiency of facts or documents, — though of these we 
 \ are still every day receiving some fiesti accession ; as to the limited and icaperfect application of iheni 
 , to the great end of Biography. Our notions upon this suUject may perhaps appear extravagant ; but 
 if an individual is really of consequeuce enough lo have his life and character recorded for puMic 
 retnetnbrance, we have always been of opinion, that the public ought to be made acquaintetJ wiih all 
 (he inward springe and relations of his character. How did the world and man's life, from his particu- 
 lar position, represent themselves lo his mind? How did co-existing circumstances modify him fr<un 
 ! without ; how did he modify these froni within ? With what endeavours and what etficacy rule over 
 \ them ; with what resistance and wliai sulTering sink under them? In one word, what and how pro- 
 \ duced was the effect on society 7 He who should answer these quealions, in regard lo any individual, 
 . would, as we believe, furnish a model of perfection in biography.'* T. CARLYLE, 
 
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 NEW YORK: 
 
 WILLIAM GO WANS 
 
 O 1 3 2 !^1861, 
 
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 ON THE 
 
 GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR WILSON. 
 «^ 
 
 Burns 13 by far the greatest poet that ever sprung from the 
 
 bosom of the people, and lived and died in an humble condition. 
 
 Indeed, no country in the world but Scotland could have pro- 
 
 '! duced such a man; and he will be for ever regarded as the 
 
 ■s^' glorious representative of the genius of his country. He was 
 
 born a poet, if ever man was, and to' his native genius alone is 
 
 owing the perpetuity of his fame. For he manifestly had never 
 
 very deeply studied poetry as an art, nor reasoned much about 
 
 \ its principles, nor looked abroad with the wide ken of intellect 
 
 ^ for objects and subjects on which to pour out his inspiration. 
 
 i^'iie condition of the peasantry of Scotland, the ■ happiest, per- 
 
 ^ haps, that providence ever^llowed to the children of labor, was 
 
 |s? not surveyed and speculated on by him as the field of poetry, 
 
 but as the field of his own existence ; and he clironicled the 
 
 events that passed there, not merely as food for his imagination 
 
 as a poet, but as food for his heart as a man. Hence, when 
 
 inspired to compose poetry, poetry came gushing up from the 
 
 well of his human affections, and he had nothing more to do, 
 
 tlian to pour it.'like streams irrigating a meadow, in many a 
 
 cheerful tide over the drooping flowers and fading verdure of 
 
 life. Imbued with vivid perceptions, warm feelings, and strong
 
 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 passions, he sent his own existence into that of all things, 
 animate and inanimate, around iiiin ; and not an occurrence in 
 liamlet, village, or town, affecting in any way the happiness of 
 the human heart, but roused as keen an interest in the soul of 
 Burns, and as genial a sympathy, as if it had immediately con- 
 cerned himself and his own individual w^elfarc. Most other 
 poets of rural life have lookuu on it through the aerial veil of 
 imagination — often beautified, no doubt, by such partial conceal- 
 ment, and beaming with a misty softness more delicate than the 
 truth. But Burns would not thus indulge his fancy where he 
 had felt — felt so poignantly, all the agonies and all the trans- 
 ports of life. He looked around him, and when he saw the 
 smoke of the cottage rising up quietly and unbroken to heaven, 
 he knew, for he had seen and blessed it, the quiet joy and un- 
 broken contentment tliat slept below ; and •when he saw it 
 driven and dispersed by the winds, he knew also but too well, 
 for too sorely had he felt th(3m, those agitations and disturbances 
 which had shook him till he wept on his chaff bed. In reading 
 his poetry, therefore, we know what unsubslantial dreams are 
 all those of the golden age. But bliss beams upon us with a 
 more subduing brightness through the dim melancholy that 
 shrouds lowly life ; and when the peasant Burns rises up in his 
 might as Burns the poet, and is seen to derive all that might 
 from the life which at this hour the peasantry of Scotland are 
 leading, our hearts leap within us, because tliat such is our 
 country, and such the nobility of her children. There is no 
 delusion, no affectation, no exaggeration, no falsehood in the 
 spirit of Bunfs's poetry. He rejoices like an untamed enthu- 
 siast, and he weeps like a prostra^ penitent. In joy and in 
 grief the whole man appears : some of his finest effusions were 
 poured out before he left the fields of his childhood, and when 
 he scarcely hoped for other auditors than his own heart, and the 
 simple dwellers of the hamlet. lie wrote not to please or sur- 
 prise others — we speak of those first effusions — but in his own 
 creative delight ; and even after he had discovered his power to 
 kindle the sparks of nature wherever they sluiffl)ercd, the effect 
 to be produced seldom seems to have been considered by him, 
 assured that his poetry could not fail to produce the same pas-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. . 3 
 
 ■ '—I '■ ■ 
 
 sion in the hearts of other men from which it boiled over in his 
 
 own. Out of liimself, and beyond his own nearest and dearest 
 concerns, he well could, but lie did not much love often or long 
 to go. His imagination wanted not wings broad and strong for 
 higliest flights. But he was ruost al home when waliting on this 
 earth, through this world, even along the banks and braes of tne 
 streams of Coila. It seems as if his muse were loth to admit 
 almost any thought, feeling, image, drawn from any other region 
 than his native district — the hearth-stone of his father's hut — 
 the still or troubled chamber of his'own generous and passionate 
 bosom. Dear to him the jocund laughter of the reapers on the 
 corn-field, the tears and sighs whicli iiis own strains had won 
 from the children of nature enjoying the mid-day hour of rest 
 beneath the shadow of the hedgerow tree. With what pathetic 
 personal power, from all the circumstances of his character and 
 condition, do many of his humblest lines aff(OCt us! Often, too 
 often, as we hear him singing, we think that we see him suffer, 
 ing ! " Most musical, most melancholy" he often is, even in his 
 merriment ! In him, alas ! the transports of inspiration are but 
 too closely allied with reality's kindred agonies! The strings 
 of his lyre sometimes yield their finest music to the sighs of 
 remorse or repentance: Whatever, therefore, be tiie faults or 
 defects of the poetry of Burns — and no doubt it has many — it 
 has, beyond all that ever was written, this greatest of all merits, 
 intense, life-pervading, and life-breatliing trutii. 
 
 There is probably not a human being come to the years of 
 understanding in all Scotland, who has not heard of the name 
 of Robert Burns. It is, indeed, a household word. His poems 
 are found lying in almost every cottage in the country, on the 
 " window sole " of the kitchen, spence, or parlor ; and in the 
 town-dwellings of the industrious poor, if books belong to tiie 
 family at all, you are pretty sure to see there the dear Ayrshire 
 Ploughman. Tlie father or mother, born and long bred, per- 
 haps, among banks and braes, possesses, in that small volume, 
 a talisman that awakens in a moment all the sweet visions of 
 the past, and that can crowd the dim abode of liard-working 
 poverty, witli a world of dear rural remembrances that awaken 
 not repining but contentment. 
 
 1*
 
 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 No poet ever lived more constantly and more intimately in 
 the hearts of a people. Wiih their mirth, or with their melan- 
 choly, how often do his " native wood-notes wild " affect the 
 sitters by the ingles of low-roofed homes, till their hearts over- 
 flow with feelings that place them on a level, as moral creatures, 
 with the most enlightened in the land, and more tlian reconcile 
 them with, make them proud of, the condition assigned them by 
 Providence ! There they see with pride the reflection of the 
 character and condition of their own order. That pride is one 
 of the best natural props of poverty ; for, supported by it, the 
 poor envy not the rich. They exult to know and to feel that 
 they have had treasures bequeathed to them by one of them-, 
 selves — treasures of the heart, the intellect, the fancy, and the 
 imagination, of which the possession and the enjoyment are one 
 and the same, as long as they preserve their integrity and their 
 independence. The poor man, as he speaks of Robert Burns, 
 always holds up his head and regards you with an elated look. 
 A tender thought of the •' Cottar's Saturday Night," or a bold 
 thought of "Scots-wha hae wi' Wallace bled," may come across 
 him ; and he who in such a spirit loves home and country, by 
 whose side may he not walk an equal in the broad eye of day 
 as it shines over our Scottish hills ? This is true popularity. 
 Thus interpreted, the word sounds well, and recovers its ancient 
 meaning. The land " made blithe with plough and harrow," — 
 the broomy or the heathery braes — the holms by the river's side 
 — the forest where the woodman's ringing axe no more disturbs 
 the cushat — the deep dell where all day long sits solitary plaided 
 boy or girl watching the kine or the siieep — the moorland hut 
 without any garden— the lowland cottage, whose garden glows 
 like a very orchard, when crimsoned with fruit- blossoms most 
 beautiful to behold- — the sylvan homestead sending its reek aloft 
 over the huge sycamore that blackens on the hill-side — the 
 straw-roofed village gathering with small bright crofts its many 
 white gable-ends round and about the niodest manse, and the 
 kirk-spire Covered with the pine-tree tliat shadows its horologe — 
 the small, quiet, half-slated half-thatchfd rural town, — there 
 resides, and will for ever reside, the immortal genius of Burns. 
 Oh, that he, the prevailing Poet, could have seen tl;iis light
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 breaking in upon the darkness that did too long and too deeply 
 overshadow his lot! Some glorious glimpses of it his prophetic 
 soul did see ', witness "The Vision," or tliat somewhat humbler 
 but yet high strain, in which, bethinking him of the undefined 
 asnirations of his boyhood he said to himself — 
 
 " Even then a wish, I mind its power, • 
 
 A wish tliat to my latest hour, 
 
 Shall strongly heave my breast. 
 That I, lor poor auld Scotland's sake, 
 Some useful plan or book would make. 
 
 Or sing a sang at least ! 
 
 " The rough bur-thistle spreading wide 
 Amang the bearded bear, 
 I turned the weeder-clips aside 
 And spared the symbol dear." 
 
 Such hopes were with him in his " bright and shining youth," 
 surrounded as it was with toil and trouble that could not bend 
 his brow from its natural upward inclination to the sky ; and 
 such hopes, let us doubt it not, were also with him in his dark 
 and faded prime, when life's lamp burned low indeed, and he 
 was willing at last, early as it was, to shut his eyes on this 
 dearly beloved but sorely distracting world. 
 
 With what strong and steady enthusiasm is the anniversary of 
 Burns's birth-day celebrated, not only ail over his own native 
 land, but in every country to which an adventurous spirit has 
 carried her sons ! On such occasions, nationality is a virtue. 
 For what else is the " Memory of Burns," but the memory of 
 all that dignifies and adorns the region that gave him birth ? 
 Not till that region is shorn of all its beams — its honesty, its 
 independence, its moral worth, its genius, and its piety, will the 
 name of Burns 
 
 " Die on her ear, a faint unheeded sound." 
 
 But it has an immortal life in the hearts of young and old, 
 whether sitting at gloaming by the ingle-side, or on the stone 
 seat in the open air, as tlie sun is going down, or walking among 
 the summer mists on the mountain, or the blinding winter snows.
 
 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 In the life of the poor there is an unchanging and a preserving 
 spirit. The great elementary feelings of human nature there 
 disdain fluctuating fashions ; there pain and ])leasure are alike 
 permanent in their outward shews as in their inward emotions; 
 there the language of passion never grows obsolete; and at the 
 same passage you hear the child sobbing at the knee of her 
 grandame wliose old eyes are somewhat dimmer thaVi usual 
 with a haze that seems almost to be of tears. Therefore, the. 
 poetry of Burns will continue to charm, as long as Nith 
 flows. Criffel is green, and the bonny blue of the sky of Scot- 
 land meets with that in the eyes of her maidens, as tliey walk 
 up and down her hills silent or singing to kirk or market. 
 
 Let us picture to ourselves the Household in \vhich Burns 
 grew up to manhood, shifting its place without much changing 
 its condition, from first to last always fighting against fortune, 
 experiencing the evil and the good of poverty, and in the sight 
 of men obscure. His father may be said to have been an elderly 
 man when Robert was born, for he was within a few years of 
 forty, and had always led a life of labor; and lalx)r it is that 
 wastes away the stubbornest strength — among the tillers of the 
 earth a stern ally of time. "His lyart haffets wearing thin and 
 bare" at^n age when many a forehead hardly shows a wrinkle, 
 and when thick locks cluster darkly round the temples of easy 
 living men. The sire who "turns o'er wi' patriarchal pride the 
 big Ha-Bible," is indeed well-stricken in years, but he is not an 
 old man, for . . 
 
 " The expectant wee things toddlin', stacher tlirough 
 \ To meet their dad wi' flichterin' noise and glee ; 
 
 His wee bit ingle, blinking boiinily ; 
 His cle:in hearth-stane, his tlniltie wifie's smile, 
 The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
 Docs a' his wcarv carking cares beguile, 
 And makes him iiuitc I'orget liis labor and his toil." 
 
 That picture. Burns, as all the world knows, drew from his 
 fiilhor. Ho was himself, in imagination, again one of the " wee 
 things" that run to meet him; and ".the priest-like father" had 
 long worn that aspect before tiie poet's eyes, though he died be-, 
 fore he was threescore. "I have always considered William
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 BurneSi" sa}s the siniple-rninded, tender-hearted Murdoch, "as 
 by far the best of the human race that ever I liad the pleasure 
 of .being acquahiled with, and many a worthy character I have 
 known. He was a tender and airectionate father; lie took plea- 
 sure in leading his children in the paths of virtue, not in drivirig 
 them, as some people do, to the performance of duties to which 
 they themselves are averse. He .took care to find fault very 
 seldom ; and, therefore, when he did rebuke, he was listened to 
 with a kind of reverential awe. I must not pretend to give you' 
 a description of all the manly qualities, the rational and Chris- 
 tian virtues, of the venerable William Burncs. I shall only 
 add that he practised every known duty, and avoided everything 
 that was criminal ; or, in the apostle's words, ' herein did he 
 exercise himself, in living a life void of offence towards God 
 and towards man.' Although' I cannot do justice to the char- 
 acter of this worthy man, yet you will ])erceive, from these 
 few particulars, what kind of a person had the principal part in 
 the education of the poet." Burns was as happy in a mother, 
 whom, in countenance, it is said he resembled ; and as sons and 
 daughters were born, we think of the " auld clay biggin '"' more 
 and more alive with cheerfulness and peace. 
 /His childhood, then, was a happy one, secured from all evil 
 /influences and open to all good, in the guardianship of religious 
 parental love. Not a boy in Scotland had a better education. 
 For a few months, when in his sixth year, he was at a small 
 school at Alloway Miln, about a mile from the house in which 
 he was born ; and for two years after under the tuition of good 
 Jghn Murdoch, a young scholar whom William Burnes and four 
 or five neighbors engaged to supply the place of the school- 
 master, who had been removed to another situation, lodging him 
 as is still the custom in some country places, by turns in their 
 own houses. •' The earliest composition I recollect taking 
 pleasure in, was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, 
 beginning ^Hoic are thy servants bicss'd, O Lord!' I particu- 
 larly remember one half stanza which was music to my boy'sh 
 car, 
 
 • For tliougli on dreadful wliirls we hang, 
 High on the broken wave '
 
 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my 
 school-books. The two first books 1 ever read in print, and 
 wliich gave me more pleasure than any two books 1 ever read 
 since, were the Life of Hannihal, and the History of Sir WilUam 
 Wallace. Hannibal gave my'young ideas such a turn that 1 
 used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum 
 and bagpipe, and wished myself tall enough to be a soldier; 
 while the story of Wallace poured a tide of Scottish prejudice 
 into my veins; which will boil along there till the floodgates of 
 life shut in eternal rest." And speaking of the same period and 
 books to Mrs. Dunlop, he says, " For several of my earlier years 
 I had few other authors; and many a solitary hour have I stole 
 out, after the laborious vocations of the day, to shed a tear over 
 their glorious but unfortunate stories. In these boyish days, I 
 remember, in particular, being struck with that part of Wal- 
 lace's story, where these lines occur — 
 
 ' Syne to the Leglen wood, when it was late, 
 To make a silent and a safe retreat.' 
 
 I chose a fme summer Sunday, the only day my line of life 
 allowed, and walked half a dozen miles to pay my respects to 
 the Leglen wood, with as much devout entliusiasm as ever pil- 
 grim did to Loretto ; and explored every den and dell where I 
 could suppose my heroic countryman to have lodged."' Murdoch 
 continued his instructions u'htil the family had been about two 
 years at Mount Oliphant, and there being no school near us, 
 says Gilbert Burns, and our services being already useful on the 
 farm, " my father undertook to teach us arithmetic on the winter 
 nights by candle-light; and in th.is way my two elder sisters 
 received all the education they ever had." Robert was then in 
 his ninth year, and had owed much, he tells us, to " an old 
 woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, 
 credulity, and superstition. Sh6 had, 1 suppose, the largest 
 collection in the country of talcs and songs concerning devils, 
 ghosts, fairies, brownies, witchies, warlocks, spunkios, kelpirs, 
 elf-candles, dead lights, wraiths, apparition.s, cantrips, giants 
 and enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cul- 
 tivated the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so strong an eflTect
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 on my imagination, that to this liour, in my nocturnal rambles, 
 I sometimes keep a sharp look-out on suspicious places ; and 
 thou<'li nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, 
 yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle 
 terrors." 
 
 We said, that not a boy in Scotland had a better education 
 than Robert Burns, and we do not doubt that you will agree 
 with us; forj'in addition to all that may be contained in those 
 sources of useful and entertaining knowledge, he had been 
 taught to read, not only in the Spelling Book, and Fisher^s 
 EnsJish Grammar, and The Vision of Mirza, and Addison's 
 Hymns, and Titus Andronicus (though on Lavinia's entrance 
 " with her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out," he threatened 
 to burn the book) ; but in the New Testament and the Bible, 
 and all this in his father's house, or in the houses of the neigh- 
 bors ; happy as the day was long, or the night, and in the midst 
 of happiness ; yet even then, sometimes saddened, no doubt, to 
 see something more than solemnity or aw fulness on his father's 
 face, that was always turned kindly towards the children, but 
 seldom wore a smile. 
 
 Wordsworth had these memorials in his mind when he was 
 conceiving the boyhood of the Pedlar in his great poem, the 
 Excursion. 
 
 " But eagerly he read and read again, 
 Whate'er the minister's old shelf supplied : 
 The life and death of martyrs, who sustained 
 With will inflexible, those fearful pangs 
 Triumphantly displayed in records left 
 Of persecution, and the covenant, times 
 Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour; 
 And there, by lucky hap, had been preserved 
 A straggling volume, torn ai^l incomplete. 
 That left half-told the preternatural tale, 
 Romance of giants, chronicle of fiends, 
 Profuse in garniture oil wooden cuts 
 Strange and uncouth ; dire faces, figures dire, 
 Sharp-knee'd, sliarp-olbowed, and lean-ancled too, 
 With long and ghastly shanks— forms which once seen 
 Could never be forgotten. In his heart 
 Where fear sate thus, a cherished visitant. 
 Was wanting yet the pure delight of love
 
 10 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 By sound diffused, or by the breathing air. 
 
 Or by the sileat looks of happy things. 
 
 Or flowing from the universal face 
 
 Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power 
 
 Of nature, and already was prepared, 
 
 By his intense conceptions, to receive 
 
 Deeply the lesson deep of love, w)iich he 
 
 Whom nature, by whatever means, has taught 
 
 To feel intensely, cannot but receive. . 
 
 Such was the boy. 
 
 Such was the boy ; but his studies had now to be pursued by 
 fits and snatches, and, therefore, the more eagerly and earnestly, 
 during the intervals or at the close of labor, that before his thir- 
 teenth year had become constant and severe. " The cheerless 
 gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave ! " 
 These are his own memorable words, and they spoke the truth. 
 " ^or nothing could be more retired," says Gilbert, " than our 
 general manner of living at Mount Oliphant ; we scarcely saw 
 any but members of our own family. There were no boys of 
 our own age, or near it, in the neighborhood." They all worked 
 hard from morning to night, and Robert hardest of them all. At 
 fifteen he was the principal laborer on the farm, and relieved his 
 fathe.r from holding the.plough. Two years before he had as- 
 sisted in thrashing the crop of corn. The two noble brothers 
 saw with anguish the old man breaking down before their eyes; 
 nevertheless assuredly, though they knew it not, they were the 
 happiest boys "the evening sun went down upon." "True," 
 as Gilbert tells us, "I doubt not but the hard labor and sorrow 
 of this period of his life was in a great measure the cause of 
 that depression -of spirits with which Robert was so often afflicted 
 tiirouo-h his whole life afterwards. At this time he was almost 
 constantly afflicted in the eveiyngs with a dull head-ache, which 
 at a future period of his life was exchanged for a palpitation of 
 the heart, and a threatening of fainting and suffocation in his 
 bed in the night-time." Nevertheless, assuredly both boys 
 were happy, and Robert the happior of the two ; for if he had 
 not been so, why did he not go to sea? Because he loved his 
 parents too well to be able to leave them, arid because, too, it was 
 his duty to stay by them, were he to drop down at midnight in
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. U 
 
 the barn and die with tho flail in iiis hand. Bui if love and duty 
 cannot malie a boy happy, what can ? Passion, genius, a teem- 
 ing brain, a palpitating heart, and a soul of fire. These too 
 were his, and idle would have been her tears, had Pity wept for 
 yourig Robert Burns. 
 
 Was he not hun<frv for knowledge from a child ? During 
 these very years he was devouring it; and soon the dawn grew 
 day. " My father," says Gilbert, " was for some time the only 
 companion we had. He conversed familiarly on all subjects 
 with us, as if we had been men ; and was at ^reat pains, while 
 we accompanied him in the labors of the farm, to lead the con- 
 versation to such subjects as might tend to increase our know, 
 ledge, or confirm us in virtuous habits^. He borrowed Salmon's 
 Geographical Grammar for us, and endeavored to make us* ac- 
 quainted with tiie situation and history of the dillerent countries 
 in the world : while from a book society in Ayr, he procured for 
 us the reading of Durham's Physico and Astro Theology, and 
 Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation. 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 tliis Robert collected a competent knowledge of 
 ancietit history ; for no hook was so voluminous as to slacken his 
 industry, or so antiquated as to damp his researches.^' He kept 
 reading too at the Spectator, Pope and Pope's Homer, some plays 
 of Shakspearc, Boyle's Lectures, Locke on the [luman Under- 
 standing, Hervey's Meditations, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of 
 Original Sin, the works of Allan Ramsay and Smollet, and A 
 Collection of Songs. " That volume was my Vade Mecum. 
 I pored over them, during my work, or walking to labor, song 
 by song, verse by verse, carefully noticing the true tender or 
 sublime from affectation or fustian ; and I am convinced I owe 
 to this practice most of my critic-craft, such as it is." 
 
 So much for book-knowledge ; but what of the kind that is 
 born within every boy's own bosom, and grows there till ofien 
 that bosom feels as if it would burst? To Mr. Murdoch, Gilbert 
 always appeared to possess a more lively imagination, and to be 
 more of a wit than Robert. Yet imagination or wit he had none. 
 His face said, "Mirth, with thee I mean to live;" yet he was 
 
 2
 
 12 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 through life sedate. Robert himself says that in childhood he 
 was by no means a favorite with anybody — but he must have 
 been mistaken ; and "the stubborn sturdy something in his dis- 
 position " hindered him from seeing how much he was loved. 
 The tutor tells us he had no ear for music, and could n«t be 
 taught a psalm tune ! Nobody could have supposed that he 
 was ever to be a poet! But nobody knew anything about him — 
 nor did lie know much about himself; till Nature, who had long 
 kept, chose to reveal, her own secret. 
 
 " You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman 
 together as partners in the labor of harvest. In my fifteenth 
 autumn my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger 
 than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of 
 doin'g her justice in that language ; she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie 
 lass. In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated 
 me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappoint- 
 ment, gin-horse prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I hold to 
 be the first of human joys, our sweetest blessing here below. 
 How she caught the contagion I could not tell : you medical 
 people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the 
 touch, &c., but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed I did 
 not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind wiih her, 
 when returning in the evening from our labors ; why the tones of 
 her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an Eolian harp ; and 
 particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan when I 
 looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out *.he cruel 
 nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiriiig quali- 
 ties, she sang sweetly ; and it was a favorite reel to which I 
 attempted giving an embodied veliicle in rhyme. I was not so 
 presumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed 
 ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin ; but my girl 
 sang a song which was said to be composed by a small country 
 laird's sbn, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in 
 love ; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as 
 he ; for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, 
 his father living on the moorlands, he had no more scholar craft 
 than myself. Thus witu me began Love and Poetry." 
 
 And during those seven years, when his life was "the cheer-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS 13 
 
 less gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley- 
 slave,"' thmk ye not that the boy Poet was happy, merely because 
 he had the blue sky over his head, and the green earth beneath 
 his feet ? He who ere long invested the most common of all 
 the wild-flowers of the earth with immortal beauty to all eyes, 
 far beyond that of the rarest, till a tear as of pity might fall 
 down manly cheeks on the dew-drop nature gathers on its 
 "snawie bosom, sunward spread!" 
 
 " Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
 Thou's met me in an evil houf ; 
 For I maun crush amans: the stoure 
 
 Thy slender stem ; 
 To spare thee now is past my pow'r. 
 
 Thou bonnie gem. 
 
 ' ' Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet. 
 The bonnie Lark, companion meet, 
 Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ! 
 
 Wi' speckled breast, 
 When upward-springing, blythe to greet 
 
 The purpling east." 
 
 Thus far the life of this wonderful being is blameless — thus 
 far it is a life of virtue. Let each season, with him and with 
 all men, have its due meed of love and praise — and, therefore, 
 let us all delight to declare how beautiful was the Spring ! And 
 was there in all those bright and bold blossoms a fallacious 
 promise ? Certainly not of the fruits of genius; for these far 
 surpassed what the most hopeful could have predicted of the 
 full-grown tree. But did the character of tlie man belie that of 
 the boy ? Was it manifested at last, either that the moral being 
 had undergone some fatal change reaching to the core, or that 
 it had been from the first hollow, and that these noble-seeming 
 virtues had been delusions all ? 
 
 The age of puberty has passed with its burning but blameless 
 loves, and Robert Burns is now a man. Other seven years of 
 the same kind of life as at Mount Oliphant, he enjoys and siiflers 
 at Lochlea. It is sad to think that iiis boyhood should have 
 been so heavily burthened ; but we look with no such thoughts 
 on his manhood, for his strength is knit, and the sinews of soul
 
 14 . THE GENIUS AND 
 
 and body are equal to their work. He still lives in his father's 
 house, and he still upholds it; he still reverences his father's 
 eyes that are upon him ; and he is still a dutiful son — certainly 
 not a prodigal. "During the whole of the time we lived at 
 Lochlea with my father, he allowed my brother and me such 
 wages for our labor as he gave to other laborers, as a part of 
 which, every article of our clothing manufactured in the family 
 was regularly accounted for. When my father's affairs were 
 near a crisis, Robert and I took the farm of Mossgiel, consisting 
 of 118 acres, at £90 per annum, as an asylum for the family 
 in case of the worst. It was stocked by the property and indi- 
 vidual savings of the whole family, and was a joint concern 
 among us. Every member of the family was allowed ordinary 
 wages for the labor he performed on the farm. My brother's 
 allowance and mine, was £7 per annum eacii, and during the 
 whole time this family concern lasted, which was four years, as 
 well as during the preceding period at Lochlea, his expenses 
 never in one year exceeded his slender income. As I was in- 
 trusted with the keeping of the family accounts, it is not possible 
 that there can be any fallacy in this statement, in my brother's 
 favor. His temperance and frugality were everything that could 
 he wished.^' Durins his residence for six months in Irvine, in- 
 deed, where he wrought at the business of a flax-dresser, with 
 the view of adopting that trade, that he might get settled in lii'e, 
 paid a shilling a week for his lodging, and fed on meal and 
 water, with some wild boon-companions he occasionally lived 
 rather free. No doubt he sometimes tasted the "Scotch drink,'" 
 of whicfi he ere long sung the praises ; but even then, his inspi- 
 ration was from "a well-head undefded." He was as sober a 
 man as his brother Gilbert Himself, who says, " I do not recol- 
 lect, during th'fese seven years, to have ever seen him intoxi- 
 cated, nor was he at all given fo drinking." We have seen 
 what were his virtues — for his vices, where must we look ? 
 
 During all these seven years, the most dangerous in the life 
 of every one, that of Robert Burns was singularly free from 
 the sin to whicli nature is prone ; nor haJ hn drunk of that 
 guilty cup of the intoxication of the passions, that bewilders the 
 virtue, and changes their wisdom into foolishness, of the discreet-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 15 
 
 est of the children of men. l^ut drink of it at last he did ; and 
 like other sinners seemed sometimes even to glory in his shame. 
 But remor.se puts on looks, and utters words, that being inter- 
 preted, have far other meanings ; there may be reckle.s.sness 
 without obduracy; and though the keenest anguish of self- 
 reproach be no proof of penitence, it is a preparation for it in 
 nature — a change of heart can be effected only by religion. 
 How wisely he addresses his friend ! 
 
 " The sacred lowe o' weel placed love, 
 
 Luxuriously indulge it; 
 But never tempt th' illicit rove 
 
 Though naething should divulge it 
 I wave the quantum of the sin. 
 
 The hazard o' concealing ; 
 But oh .'it hardens a' within. 
 
 And petrifies the feeling ! " 
 
 It was before any such petrifaction of feeling had to be de- 
 plored by Robert Burns that he loved Mary Campbell, his 
 " Highland Mary," with as pure a passion as ever possessed 
 young poet's heart ; nor is there so sweet and sad a passage re- 
 corded in the life of any other one of all the sons of song. 
 Many such partings there have been between us poor beings — 
 blind at all times, and often blindest in our bliss — but all gone to 
 oblivion. But that hour can never die — that scene will live for 
 ever. Immortal the two shadows standing there, holdinjr to- 
 gether the Bible — a little rivulet flowing between — in which, as 
 in consecrated water, they have dipt their hands, water not 
 purer than, at that moment, their united hearts. 
 
 There are few of his songs more beautiful, and none more 
 impassioned than 
 
 " Ye banks, and braes, and streams around, • 
 
 The castle o' Montgomery, 
 Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 
 
 Your waters never druinlie ! 
 There simmer first unfaulds her robes. 
 
 And there the langest tarry ; 
 For there I took the last fareweel 
 
 0' my sweet Highland Mary." 
 
 2«
 
 16 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 But what are lines like these to his " Address to Mary in Hea- 
 ven I" It was the anniversary of the day on which he heard 
 of her death — that to him was the day on which she died. He 
 did not keep it as a day of mourning — for he was happy in as 
 good a wife as ever man had, and cheerfully went about the 
 work of his farm. But towards the darkening " he appeared to 
 grow very' sad about something," and wandered out of doors 
 into the barn-yard, where his Jean found him lying on some 
 straw with his eyes fixed on a shining star " like another 
 moon." 
 
 " Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, 
 
 That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
 Again thou uslier'st in the day 
 
 My Mary from my soul was torn. 
 Mary ! dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest? 
 See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast !" 
 
 He wrote them all down just as they now are, in their immortal 
 beauty, and gave them to Ris wife.. Jealousy may be felt even 
 of the dead. But such sorrow as this the more endeared her 
 husband to her heart — a heart ever faithful — and at tim^s when 
 she needed to practise that hardest of all virtues in a wife — for- 
 giving ; but here all he desired was her sympathy — and lie 
 found it in some natural tears. 
 
 "William Burnes was now — so writes Robert to one of his 
 cousins — " in his own opinion, and indeed in almost everybody's 
 else, in a dying condition," — far gone in a consumption, as it 
 was called ; but. dying, though not sixty, of old age at last. 
 His lot in this life was in many things a hard one, but his bless- 
 ings had been great, and his end was peace. All his children 
 had been dutiful to their parents, and to their care he confided 
 their mother. If he knew of Robert's transgressions in one 
 year, he likewise knew of his obedience through many ; nor 
 feared that he would strive to the utmost to shelter his mother in 
 the storm. Robert writes, " On the 13th current (Fl-I)., 1784) I 
 lost the best of fathers. Though to be sure, we have had long 
 warning of the impending stroke, still the feelings of nature
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 17 
 
 claim their part ; and I cannot recollect the tender endearments 
 and parental lessons of tlie best of friends, and the ablest of 
 instructors, without feeling what perhaps the calmer dictates of 
 j-eason would partly condemn. I hope my father's friends in 
 vour country will not let their connection in this place die wiiii 
 him. For my part t shall ever with pleasure, with pride, 
 acknowledge my connection with those who were allied, by the 
 ties of blood and friendship, to a man whose memory I will ever 
 honor and revere.'"' And now the family remove to Mossgiel, 
 
 " A virtuous household but exceeding poor." 
 
 How fared Burns during the next two years, as a peasant? 
 How fared he as a poet ? As a peasant, poorly and hardly — as 
 a poet, greatly and gloriously. How fared he as a man ? Read 
 his confessions. Mossgiel was the coldest of all the soils on 
 which the family had slaved and stcirved — starved is too strong 
 a word — and, in spite of its ingratitude, its fields are hallowed 
 ground. Thousands and tens of thousands have come afar to 
 look on them ; and Wordsworth's self has " gazed himself 
 away " on the pathetic prospect. 
 
 " ' There,' said a stripling:, pointing with much pride, 
 Towards a low roof, with green trees half-concealed, 
 ' Is Mossgiel farm ; and that's the very field 
 Where Burns plough'd up the Daisy.' Far and wide 
 A plain below stretched seaward, while, descried 
 Above sea-clouds, the peaks of Arran rose ; 
 And, by that simple notice, the repose 
 Of earth, sky, sea, and air, was vivified. 
 Beneath the random bield of clod or stone. 
 Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower 
 Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour 
 Have passed away ; li'ss happy than the one 
 That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove 
 The tender charm of poetry and love." 
 
 Peasant — Poet — Man — is, indeed, an idle distinction. Burns 
 is sitting alone in the Auld Clay-Biggin, for it has its one re- 
 tired room ; and as he says, " half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit " — 
 all he had made by rhyme ! He is tlie picture of a desponding
 
 18 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 man^ steeped to the lips in poverty of his own bringing on, and 
 with a spirit vainly divided between hard realities, and high 
 hopes beyond his reach, resolving at last to forswear all delu- 
 sive dreams, and submit to an ignoble lot. When at once, out 
 of the gloom arises a glory, elFused into form by his own genius 
 creative according to his soul's desire, and conscious of its great- 
 ness, despite of despair. A thousand times before now had he 
 been so disquieted and found no comfort. But the hour had 
 come of self-revelation, and he knew that on earth his name 
 was to live for ever. 
 
 " All hail ! my own inspired bard ! 
 In me thy native muse regard ! 
 Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard, . 
 
 Thus poorly low ! 
 « I come to give thee such reward 
 
 As we bestow. 
 
 " Know, the great genius of this land 
 * Has many a light, aerial band. 
 
 Who, all beneath his high command. 
 
 Harmoniously, 
 As arts or arms they understand. 
 
 Their labors ply 
 
 " Of those am I — Coila my name ; 
 And this district as mine I claim. 
 Where once the Campbells, chief of fame. 
 
 Held ruling power : 
 I mark'd thy embryo tuneful flame, 
 
 Thy natal hour. 
 
 "With future hope, I oft would gaze 
 Fond, on thy little early ways, 
 Thy rudely caroU'd chiming phrase, 
 
 In uncouth rhymes, 
 Fir'd at the simple, artless lays 
 
 Of other times. 
 
 I saw thee seek the sounding shore, 
 Deligl)ted witli tlie dashing roar; 
 Or when the north his fleecy store 
 
 Drove through the sky,
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 19 
 
 I saw grim nature's visage hoar 
 
 Struck thy young eye 
 
 " Or, when the deep green-mantl'd earth 
 Warm cherish'd every flow'ret's birth. 
 And joy and music pouring forth 
 
 In ev'ry grove, 
 I saw thee eye the gen'ral mirth 
 
 With boundless love 
 
 " When ripen'd fields, and azure skies, 
 Call'd forth the reaper's rustling noise, 
 I saw thee leave their evening joys, 
 
 And lonely stalk. 
 To vent thv bosom's swelling rise 
 
 In pensive walk. 
 
 " When youthful love, warm-blushing strong, • 
 Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, . 
 Those accents, grateful to thy tongue 
 
 Th' adored A''aTne, 
 I taught thee how to pour in song, 
 
 To soothe thy flame. 
 
 "I saw thy pulse's maddening play. 
 Wild send thee pleasure's devious way. 
 Misled by fancy's meteor ray. 
 
 By passion driven , 
 But yet the light that led astray 
 
 Was light from heaven. 
 
 " To give my counsels all in one 
 Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ; 
 Preserve the dignity of man. 
 
 With soul erect : 
 And trust the Universal Plan 
 
 "Will all protect. 
 
 " ^nd wear thou this — she solemn said. 
 And bound tlie Holly round my head: 
 The polish'd leaves, and berries red. 
 
 Did rustling play; 
 And, like a passing thought, she fled 
 In light away."
 
 20 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " To reconcile to our imagination the entrance of an aerial 
 being into a mansion of tiiis kind," says the excellent Currie, 
 " required the powers of Burns ; he, however, succeeds." Burns 
 cared not at that time for our imagination — not he, indeed — not 
 • a straw ; nor did he so much as know of our existence. He 
 knew that there was a human race ; and he believed that he was 
 born to be a great power among them, especially all over his 
 biloved and beloving -Scotland. "All hail! my own inspired 
 bard !" Tiiat " all hail !"' he-dared to hear from supernatural 
 lips, but not till his spirit had long been gazing, and long been 
 listening to one commissioned by the "genius of the land,", to 
 stand a Vision before her chosen poet -in his hut. Reconcile her 
 entrance to our imagination ! Into no other mansion but that 
 " Auld Clay Biggin," would Coila have descended from the sky. 
 
 The otitic continues, "To the painting on her mantle, on 
 which is depicted the most striking scenery, as well as the most 
 distinguished characters of his native country, some exception 
 may be made. The mantle of Coila, like the cup of Thyrsis 
 (see the first Idyllium of Theocritus), and the shield of Achilles, 
 is too much crowded with figures, and some of the objects re- 
 presented upon it are scarcely admissible according to the prin- 
 ciples of design." 
 
 We advise you not to see the first Idyllium of Theocritus. 
 Perhaps you have no Greek. Mr. Chapman's translation is as 
 good as a translation can well be, but then you may not have a 
 copy of it at hand. A pretty wooden cup it is, with curled ears 
 and ivy-twined lips — embossed thereon the figure of a woman 
 with flowing robes and a Lydian head-dress, to whom two angry 
 men are making love. Hard by, a stout old fisherman on a rock 
 is in the act of throwing his net into the sea : not far from him 
 is a vineyard, where a boy is sitting below a hedge framing a 
 locust trap with stalks of asphodel, and guarding the grapes 
 from a couple of sly foxes. Thyrsis, we are told by Theocritus, 
 boutfht it from a Calydonian Skipper for a big cheese-cake and 
 a "oat. We must not meddle with the shield of Achilles. 
 
 Turn we then to the " Vision " of Burns, our Scottish Theo- 
 critus, as we have heard him classically called, and judge of 
 Dr. Currie's sense in telling us to see the cup of Thyrsis.
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 21 
 
 " Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen ; 
 Till half her leg was scrimply seen ; 
 And such a leg ! my bonnie Jean 
 
 Could only peer it; 
 Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean, 
 
 Nane else could near it." 
 
 You observe Burns knew not yet who stood before him — woman, 
 or angel, or fairy — but the Vision reminded him of her whom 
 best he loved. 
 
 " Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs 
 Were twisted graccfu' round her brows ; 
 I took her for some Scottish Muse, 
 
 By that same token." 
 
 Some Scottish Muse — but which of them he had not leisure to 
 conjecture, so lost was he in admiration of that mystic robe — 
 " that mantle large, of greenish hue." As he continued to gaze 
 on her, his imagination beheld whatever it chose to behold. The 
 region dearest to the Poet's heart is all emblazoned there — and 
 there too its .sages and its heroes. 
 
 " Here, rivers in the sea were lost ; 
 
 There, mountains to the skies were tost : 
 Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast. 
 
 With surging foam : 
 There, distant shone Art's lofty boast. 
 
 The lordly dome. 
 
 " Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd floods ; 
 There, well-fed Irvine stately thuds : 
 Auld hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods, 
 
 On to the shore ; 
 And many a lesser torrent scuds. 
 
 With seeming roar. 
 
 " Low, in a sandy valley spread. 
 
 An ancient borough rear'd her head ; 
 Still, as in Scottish story read. 
 
 She boasts a race, 
 To ev'ry nobler virtue bred. 
 
 And polish'd grace
 
 22 . THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " By stately tovv'r or palace fair, 
 Or ruins pendent in the air, 
 Bold stems of heroes, here and there, 
 
 I could discern ; 
 Some seemed to muse, some seem'd to dare. 
 
 With feature stern. 
 
 " My heart did glowing transport feel, 
 • To see a race heroic wheel. 
 
 And brandish round the deep-dyed steel 
 
 In sturdy blows ; 
 While back recoiling seem'd to reel 
 Their suthorn foes. 
 
 " His Country's Saviour, mark him well ! 
 Bold Richardton's heroic swell : 
 The chief on Sark who glorious fell, 
 
 In high command ; 
 And he whom ruthless fates expel 
 His native land. 
 
 " There, where a scepter'd Pictish shade, 
 Stalk'd round his ashes lowly laid, 
 I mark'd a martial race, portray'd 
 
 In colors strong ; 
 Bold, ?oldier-featur'd, undismayed 
 
 They strode along." 
 
 What have become of " llie laws of design ?" But would 
 good Dr. Carrie have dried up the sea ! How many yards, will 
 anybody tell us, were in that green mantle ? And what a pat- 
 tern ! Thomas Campbell knew better what liberty is allowed 
 by nature to Imagination in iier inspired dreams. In his noble 
 Stanzas to the memory of Burns, he says, in allusion to " The 
 Vision," 
 
 " Him» in his clay-built cot the Muse 
 Entranced, and showed him all the forms 
 
 Of fairy light and wizard gloom, 
 That only gifted poet views, — 
 
 The genii of the floods and storms. 
 And martial shades from glory's tomb." 
 
 The Fata Morgana are obedient to the laws of perspective,
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 2.3 
 
 and of optics in general ; but they belong to the material ele- 
 ments of nature ; tliis is a spiritual creation, and Burns is its 
 maker. It is far from perfect, either in design or execution ; 
 but perfection is found nowhere here below, except in Shak- 
 speare ; and, if the Vision o,frend you, we fear your happiness 
 will not be all you could desire it even in the Tempest or tlie 
 Midsummer's Night's Dream. 
 
 • How full of fine poetry are one and all of his Epistles to his 
 friends Sillar, Lapraik, Simpson, Smith, — worthy men one and 
 all, and among them much mother-wit almost as good as genius, 
 and thought to be genius by Burns, who in the generous enthu- 
 siasm of his nature exaggerated the mental gifts of everybody 
 he loved, and conceived* their characters to be "accordant to 
 his soul's desire." His " Epistle to Davie " was among the 
 very earliest of his productions, and Gilbert's favorable opinion 
 of it suffifested to him the first idea of becoming an author. 
 "It was, I think, in summer 1784, when in the interval of hard 
 labor, he and I were reading in the garden (kail-yard), that he 
 repeated to me the principal parts of this Epistle." It breathes 
 a noble spirit of independence, and of proud contentment dally- 
 ing with tlie hardships of its lot, and in the power of manhood 
 regarding the riches that are out of its reach, without a particle 
 of envy, and with a haughty scorn. True he says, "I hanker 
 and canker to see their cursed pride ;" but he immediately 
 bursts out into a strain that gives the lie to his own words • 
 
 " What tho', like commoners of air. 
 We wander out, we know not where. 
 
 But either house or hall ? 
 Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods. 
 The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, 
 , Are free alike to all. ' 
 
 In days when daisies deck the ground. 
 
 And blackbirds wljistle clear, 
 With honest joy our hearts will bound. 
 To see the coming year : 
 On braes when we please, then. 
 
 We'll sit an' sowth a tune ; 
 Syne rhyme tilTt, wee'l time till't, 
 • And sing't when we hae done. 
 
 3
 
 24 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " 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; 
 It's no in books, it's no in lear. 
 
 To make us truly blest ; 
 If happiness hae not her seat 
 
 And 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 ay's the part ay. 
 
 That makes us ri";ht or wrana;." 
 
 'o* 
 
 Through all these Epistles we hear Iiim exulting in the con- 
 sciousness of his own genius, and pouring out his anticipations in 
 verses so full offeree and fire, that of themselves they privilege 
 him to declare himself a Poet after Scotland's own lieart. Not 
 even in " The Vision" does he kindle into brighter transports, 
 when foreseeing his fame, and describing the fields of its glory, 
 than in his Epistle to the schoolmaster of Ochiltree ; for all his 
 life he associated with schoolmasters — finding; along with know- 
 ledge, talent, and integrity, originalit}' and strength of character 
 prevalent in that meritorious and ill-rewarded class of men. 
 What can be finer than this ? 
 
 " We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells, 
 Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells. 
 Her banks an' braes, her dens and dells. 
 
 Where glorious Wallace 
 Aft bare the gree, as story tells, 
 
 Frae southern billies. 
 
 •' At Wallace' name what Scottish blood 
 But boils up in a spring-tide flood ! 
 Oft have our fearless fathers strode 
 
 • By Wallace' side. 
 Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod. 
 Or glorious dy'd. 
 
 " 0, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, . 
 
 When lintwhites chaunt amang the byds,
 
 * 
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 25 
 
 And jinkin hares; in amorous whids. 
 
 Their loves enjoy, 
 While thro' the braes the cushat croods 
 
 With wailful cry ! 
 
 " Ev'n winter bleak has charms for mo 
 When winds rave thro' the naked tree ; 
 Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree 
 
 Are hoary grey ; 
 Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, 
 
 Dark'ning the day. 
 
 •' Nature ! a' thy shows an' forms 
 To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms ! 
 Whether the simmer kindly warms 
 
 Wi' life an' light. 
 Or winter howls, in gusty storms. 
 
 The lang, dark night ! 
 
 " The Muse, nae poet ever fand her. 
 Till by himseV herlearn'd to wander, 
 Adown some trotting burn's meander. 
 
 An' no think lang ; 
 Or sweet to stray, an' pensive ponder 
 
 A hcart-fclt sang !" 
 
 It has been thoughtlessly said that Burns had no very deep 
 love of nature, and tliat he lias shown no very great power as a 
 descriptive poet. The few lines quoted suffice to set aside that 
 assertion ; but it is true that his love of nature was always 
 linked with some vehement passion or some sweet affection for 
 living creatures, and that it was-for the sake of the humanity 
 she cherishes in her bosom, that she was dear to him as his own 
 life-blood. His love of nature by being thus restricted was the 
 more intense. Yet there are not wanting passages that show 
 how exquisite was his perception of her beauties even when un- 
 associated with any definite emotion, and inspiring only that 
 pleasure which we imbibe through the senses into our unthink- 
 ing souls. 
 
 " Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays. 
 
 As through the glen it wimpl't ; 
 ' ^Vhyles round a rocky scar it strays ; 
 
 Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
 
 26 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 Whyles glittered to the' nightly rays, 
 
 •Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; 
 Wliyles cookit underneath the braes, » 
 
 Below the spreading hazel, 
 ■ ^ Unseen that night." 
 
 Such pretty passages of pure description are rare, and the 
 charm of tl)is one depends on its sudden sweet intrusion into the 
 very midst of a scene of noisy merriment. But there are 
 many passages in which the descriptive power is put forth under 
 the influence of emotion so gentle that they come within that 
 kind of composition in which it has been thought Burns does not 
 excel. As for example, 
 
 " Nae mair the flower on fold or meadow springs ; 
 Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings, 
 Except perhaps the Robin's whistling glee. 
 Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree ; 
 Th(? hoary morns precede the sunny days. 
 Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noon-tide blaze, 
 While thick the gossamour waves wanton in the rays." 
 
 Seldom setting himself to describe visual objects, but when he 
 is under strong emotion, he seems to have taken considerable 
 pains when he did, to produce something striking ; and though 
 he never fails on such occasions to do so, yet he is sometimes 
 ambitious overmuch, and, though never feeble, becomes bom- 
 bastic, as in his lines on the Fall of Fyers : 
 
 " And viewless echo's ear astoiiislied rends." 
 
 In tlie " Brigs of Ayr" there is one beautiful, and one magnifi- 
 cent passage of this kind. 
 
 " All before their sight, 
 A fairy train appear'd in order briglit : 
 Adown the glittering stream they featly danc'd ; 
 Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc'd : 
 They footed o'er tlie v\-,it'ry glass so neat, 
 The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet : 
 While arts of Minstrelsy among them rung. 
 And soul-ennobling Bards heroic ditties sung."
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. . 27 
 
 He then breaks oft in celebration of " M'Lauchlan, thairm-in- 
 spiring sage," tliat is, " a well-known performer of Scottish 
 music on the violin," and returns, at liis leisure, to the fairies! 
 
 The other passage which we have called magnificent is a de- 
 scription of a spate. But in it, it is true, he personates the Auld 
 Brig, and is inspired by wrath and contempt of the New. 
 
 " Conceited gowk ! pulF'd up wi' windy pride ! 
 This monie a year Pve stood the flood an' tide ; 
 And tho' wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn, 
 ril be a Brig, when ye'rc as hapeless cairn ! 
 As yet ye little ken about the matter, 
 But twa-three winters will inform you better, 
 When heavy, dark, continued, a' -day rains, 
 Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains; 
 When from the hills whore springs the brawling Coil, 
 Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil. 
 Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course, 
 Or haunted Carpal draws his feeble source, 
 Arous'd by blust'ring winds an' spotting thowes. 
 In mony a torrent down his sna-broo rowes ; 
 While crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat, 
 Sweeps dams, an' mills, an' brigs, a' to the gate ; 
 And from Glenbuck, down to the Ratton-key, 
 Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd, tumbling sea ; 
 Then down ye'll hurl, deil nor ye never rise ! 
 And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies." 
 
 Perhaps we have dwelt too long on this point; but the truth 
 is that Burns would have utterly despised most of what is now 
 I dignified with the name of poetry, where harmlessly enough 
 
 " Pure description takes the place of sense ; " 
 
 r 
 
 but far worse, where the agonizing artist intensifies himself into 
 genuine convulsions at the shrine ot nature, or acts the epileptic 
 to extort alms. The world is beginning to lose patience with 
 [■ such idolator.s, and insists on being allowed to see the sun set 
 with her own eyes, and with her own ears to hear the sea. Why, 
 there is often more poetry in five lines of Burns than any fifty 
 volumes of the versifiers who have had the audacity to criticise 
 him — as by way of specimen — 
 
 3»
 
 23 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 ' When biting Boreas, fell and doure, 
 Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bovv'r ; 
 When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r 
 
 Far south the lift, 
 Dim-dark'ning thro' tiie flaky show'r 
 
 Or whirling drift : 
 
 o 
 
 " Ae night the storm the steeples rock'd, 
 Poor labor sweet in sleep was lock'd. 
 While burns, wi' snawy wceeths up-chock'd. 
 
 Wild-eddying swirl, 
 Or thro' the mining outlet bock'd, 
 
 Down headlong hurl." 
 
 "Hallow^n" is now almost an obsolete word — and the live- 
 liest of all festivals, that used to usher in the winter with one 
 long night of mirthful mockery of superstitious fancies; not unat- 
 tended with stirrings of imaginative fears in many a simple 
 breast, is gone with many other customs of the good old fmie, 
 not among town- folks only, but dwellers in rural parishes far 
 withdrawn from the hum of crowds, where all such rites origi- 
 nate and latest fall into desuetude. The present wise generation 
 of youngsters can care little or nothing about a poem which 
 used to drive their grandfathers and grandmothers half-mad with 
 merriment when boys and girls, gathered in a circle round some 
 choice reciter, who, -though perhaps endowed with no great 
 memory for grammar, had half of Burns by heart. Many of 
 them, doubtless, are of opinion that it is a silly allkir. So must 
 think the more aged march-of-mind men who have outgrown the 
 whims and follies of their ill-educated yogth, and become in- 
 structors in all manner of wisdom. In practice e.xtinct to elderly 
 people it survives in poetry ; and there the body of tlio iiarmh ss 
 superstition, in its very form and pressure, is embalmed. " Hal- 
 loween " was thought, surely you all know that, to be a niglit 
 " when witches, devils, and other mischief-making bejngs, 
 are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands ; particularly 
 those aerial people, the fairies, are said on that night to hold a 
 grand anniversary." So writes Burns in a note; but in the 
 poem evil spirits are disarmed of all their terrors, and fear is 
 fun. It might have begun well enough, and nobody would have 
 found fault, with
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 29 
 
 " Some merry, friendly, kintra folks, 
 Together did convene, 
 To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, 
 An' baud their Halloween 
 
 ' Fu' blythe this night;" 
 
 but Burns, by a few beautiful introductory lines, brings the 
 festival at once within tlie world of poe.try. 
 
 "Upnn that ni«ht, when fairies light, 
 On Cassilis Dowuans dance. 
 Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze. 
 
 On sprightly coursers prance ; 
 Or for Colean the route is ta'en. 
 
 Beneath the moon's pale beams ; 
 There, up the cove, to stray an' rove 
 Amang the rocks and streams 
 
 To sport that night. 
 
 " Amang the bonnie winding banks. 
 Where Doon rins, wlmpling clear, 
 Where Bruce ance rul'd the martial ranks 
 And shook his Carrick spear." 
 
 Then instantly he collects the company — the business of tiie 
 evening is set a-going — each stanza has its new actor and *its 
 new charm — the transitions are as quick as it is in the power of 
 winged words to fly ; female characters of all ages and disposi- 
 tions, from tile auld guid-wife " wiia fuft her pipe wi' sic a lunt," 
 to wee Jenny " wi' her little skelpie limmer's face " — Jean, Nell, 
 Merran, Meg, maidens all — and "wanton widow Leezie " — 
 fio-ure each in her own individuality animated into full life, by 
 a fevv touches. Nor less various the males, from hav'rel Will 
 to " auld uncle John wha wedlock's joys sin' Mar's year did 
 d«sire " — Rah and Jock, and " fechtin Jamie Fleck " like all 
 bullies "cooard afore bogles;" the only pause in their fast- 
 following proceedings being caused by garrulous grannie's pious 
 reproof of Jenny {"ov daurin to try sic sportin "as eat the apple 
 at the glass " — a reproof proving that her own wrinkled breast 
 holds many queer memories of lang-syne Malloweens ; — all the 
 carking cares of the work-day world are clean forgotten ; tiio 
 hopes, fears and wishes that most agitate every human breast.
 
 30 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 and ^re by the simplest concealed, here exhibit themselves with, 
 out disguise in the freedom not only permitted but inspired by 
 the passion that rules the night — ^" the passion," says the poet 
 himself, "of prying into futurity, which makes a striking part 
 of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and 
 nations ; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic 
 mind, if any such should honor the author with a perusal, to see 
 the remains of it, among the more unenlightened of our own." 
 
 But how have we been able to refrain from saying a few 
 words about the Cottar's Saturday Night ? How affecting Gil- 
 bert's account of its origin ! 
 
 " Robert had frequently remarked to me that he thought there 
 was somethiftg peculiarly vencraWe in the^lirase, ' Letusjvor- 
 ship God/ used by a decent sober head of a family introducing 
 family worship. To this sentiment of the author the world is 
 indebted for the Cottar's Saturday Night. The hint of tlie 
 plan, and title of the poem, were taken from Ferguson's Farm- 
 er's Ingle. When Robert had not some pleasure in view in 
 which I was not thought fit to participate, we used frequently 
 to walk- together, when the weather was favorable, on the Sunday 
 afternoons (those precious breathing-times to the laboring pari 
 of the community) and enjoyed such Sundays as would, make 
 me regret to see their number abridged. It was on one of those 
 walks that I first had the pleasure of hearing the author repeat 
 the Cottar's Saturday Night. I do not recollect to have read or 
 heard anything by whicii I was more highly electrified." No 
 wonder Gilbert was highly electrified ; for though he had read 
 or heard many things of his brotfier Robert's of equal poetical 
 power, not one among them all was so charged with those 
 sacred influences that connect the human heart with heaven. It 
 must have sounded like a very revelation of all the' holi- 
 ness for ever abiding in that familiar observance, bqj whicli 
 custom, without impairing its efficacy, must often partially hide 
 from the children of labor when it is all the time helping to sus- 
 tain them upon and above this earth. And this from the erring 
 to the steadfast brother ! From the troubled to the quiet .<:pirit ! 
 out of a heart too often steeped in the waters of bitterness, is- 
 suing, as from an unpolluted fountain, fh(> inspiration of pious
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 81 
 
 song ! But its effects on innumerable hearts is not now electrical — 
 it inspires peace. It is felt yet, and sadly chantred will then be 
 Scotland, if ever it be not felt, by every one who peruses it, to 
 be a communication from brother to brother. It is felt by us, 
 all through from beeinninti to end, to be Burns's Cottnr^s Satur- 
 day Night ; at each succeeding sweet or solemn stanza we more 
 and more love the man — at its close we bless him as a benefac- 
 tor ; and if, as the picture fades, thoughts of sin and of sorrow 
 will arise, and will not be put down, let them, as we hope for 
 mercy, be of our own — not his ; let us tremble for ourselves as 
 we hear a voice saying, " Fear God and keep his command- 
 ments." 
 
 There are few more perfect poems. It is the utterance of a 
 heart whose chords were all tuned to gratitude, " making sweet 
 melody " to the Giver, on a night not less sacred in His eye than 
 Tlis own appointed Sabbath. 
 
 " November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 
 
 The short'ning winter day is near a close ; 
 The miry beasts retreating frae the plough ; 
 . The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose; 
 The toil worn Cottar frae his labor goes, 
 
 T/iis 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." 
 
 That one single stanza is in itself a picture, one may say a 
 poejii, of the poor man's life. It is so imagined on the eye that 
 we absolutely see it ; but tlien not an^epithet but shows the. con- 
 dition on which he holds, and the heart with which he endures, 
 and enjoys it. Work he must in the face of November ; but 
 God who made the year shortens and lengthens its days for the 
 sake of his living creatures, and has appointed for them all 
 their hour of rest. The "miry beasts" will soon be at supper 
 ill their clean-strawed stalls — "the black'ning train o' craws" 
 invisibly hushed on their rocking trees ; and he whom God made 
 after his own image, that " toil-worn Cottar," he too may He 
 down and sleep. There is nothing especial in his lot wherefore 
 he should be pitied, nor are we asked to pity liim, as he " col-
 
 32 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 lects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes :" many of us, who 
 have work to do and do it not, may envy his contentment, and 
 the religion that gladdens his release — " hoping the morn in 
 ease and rest to spend," only to such as he, in truth, a Sabbath. 
 " Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days 
 shalt thou labor and do all 'that thou hast to do. But the 
 seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou 
 shalt do no manner of work !" O ! that man should ever find it 
 in his heart to see in that law a stern obligation — not a merciful 
 boon and a blessed privilege ! 
 
 In those times family worship in such dwellings, all over 
 Scotland, was not confined to one week-day. It is to be believed 
 that William Burnes might have been heard by his son Robert 
 duly every night saying, "Let us worship God." "There was 
 something peculiarly venerable in the phrase "every time he 
 heard it; .but on "Saturday night" family worship was sur- 
 rounded, in its solemnity, with a gathering of whatever is most 
 cheerful and unalloyed in the lot of labor ; and the poet's genius 
 in a happy hour hearing those words in his heart, collected 
 many nights into one, and made the whole observance, as it 
 were, a religious establishment, it is to be hoped, for ever. 
 
 " The fifth and sixth stanzas, and the eighteenth," says Gil- 
 bert, "thrilled with peculiar ecstasy through my soul;" and 
 well they might ; for, in homeliest words, they tell at once of 
 home's familiar doings and of the highest thoughts that can 
 ascend in supplication to the throne of God. What is the 
 eighteenth stanza, and why did it too "thrill with peculiar ecs- 
 tasy my soul ?" You may be sure that whatever thrilled 
 Gilbert's soul will thrill yours if it be in holy keeping; for he 
 was a good man, and walked all his days fearing God. 
 
 " Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; 
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest; 
 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 
 
 And proffer <ip to Heaven the warm re;]uest 
 That He wlio stills the raven's clam'rous nest, 
 
 And decks the lily fjir in llow'ry pride, 
 Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best. 
 For them and (or tlieir little ones provide : 
 But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside."
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 33 
 
 Think again of the first stanza of all — for you have forgotten il 
 — of the toil-worn Cottar collecting his spades, his mattocks, and 
 his hoes, and weary o'er the moor bending his course home- 
 wards. In spite of his hope of the morn, you could hardly help 
 looking on him then as if he were disconsolate — now you are 
 prepared to believe, with the poet, that such brethren are among 
 "the best of their country's sons, that 
 
 " From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs. 
 That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad ;" 
 
 and you desire to join in the Invocation that bursts from his 
 pious and patriotic heart : 
 
 " Scotia .' my dear, my native soil ! 
 
 For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
 Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil. 
 
 Be bless'd with health, and peace, and sweet content! 
 And ! may Heaven their simple lives prevent 
 
 From luxury's contagion, weak and vile I 
 Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 
 A virtuous populace may risj the while. 
 And stand a wall ot tire around their much lov'd Isle. 
 
 " Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide 
 
 That stream'd through 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 !) 
 never, never, Scotia's realm desert : 
 
 But still the patriot, and the patriot bard. 
 In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard !" 
 
 We said there are few more perfect poe.ms. The expression 
 is hardly a correct one ; but in two of the stanzas there are 
 lines which we never read without wishing them away, and 
 there is one stanza we could son)etimcs almost wish away alto- 
 gether ; the sentiment, though beautifully worded, being some- 
 what harsh, and such as must be felt to be unjust by many de- 
 vout and pious people :
 
 34 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " 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 beats the heaven-ward flame, 
 
 Tlie sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 
 Com]iared with these Italian trilli< are tame ; 
 The tickrd ears no heart-felt raptures raise ; 
 JVae unison hae they with onr Creator's praise." 
 
 We do not find fault with Burns for having written these lines : 
 for association of feeling with feeling, by contrast, is perhaps most 
 of all powerful in music. Believing that there was no devotional 
 spirit in Italian music, it was natural for him to denounce its 
 employment in religious services ; but we all know that it can- 
 not without most ignorant violation of truth be said of the hymns 
 of that most musical of all people, and superstitious as tliey may 
 be, among the most devout, that 
 
 " Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise." 
 
 Our objection to some lines in another stanza is more serious, 
 for it applies not to a feeling but a judgment. That tliere is 
 more virtue in a cottage than in a palace we are not disposed to 
 deny at any time, least of all when reading the Cottar's Saturday 
 Night: and we entirely go along with 'Burns when he says, 
 
 " And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, 
 The cottage leaves the palace far behind ;" 
 
 but there, we think, he ought to have stopped, or illustrated the 
 truth in a milder manner than 
 
 " What is a lordling's pomp .' a cumbrous load, 
 Disi^uising oft the wretch of human kind. 
 Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined." 
 
 Our moral nature revolts with a sense of injustice from the com- 
 parison of the wickedness of one cla.ss with the goodness of an- 
 other ; and the effect is the very opposite of that intended, the 
 rising up of a miserable conviction that for a while had been
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 laid asleep, tliat vice and crime are not excluded from cots, but 
 often, alas ! are found there in their darkest colors and most 
 portentous forms. 
 
 The whole stanza we had in our mind as somehow or other 
 not entirely delightful, is 
 
 " 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 Pow'r, incens'd, 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." 
 
 "Let us join in the woi'ship of God" is a strong desire of na- 
 ture, and a commanded duty ; and thus are brought together, 
 for praise and prayer, " congregations wide," in all populous 
 places of every Christian land. Superstition is sustained by the 
 same sympathy as religion — enligiitenment of reason beino- es- 
 sential to faith. There sit, every Sabbath, hundreds of hypo- 
 crites, thousands of the sincere, tens of thousands of the inditfer- 
 ent — how many of the devout or how kw who shall say that un- 
 derstands the meaning o'l devotion? U all be false and hollow, a 
 mere semblance onlv, then indeed 
 
 " The Povv'r incens'd, the pageant will desert, 
 The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; " 
 
 but if, even in the midst of "religion's pride," there be humble 
 and contrite hearts — if a place be found for the poor in spirit 
 even "in gay religions full of pomp and gold " — a Christian 
 poet ought to guard his heart against scorn of the ritual of any 
 form of Christian >vorship. Be it performed in Cathedral, Kirk, 
 or Cottage — God regards it only when performed in spirit and in 
 
 ^Jxutli.. 
 
 Remember all this poetry, and a hundred almost as hue things 
 be^des, was composed within little more than t\vo years, ])y a 
 man all the while working for wages — seven pounds from ^May- 
 day to May-day ; and that he never idled at his work, but mowed
 
 36 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 and ploughed as if working by the piece, and could afford there- 
 fore, God bless his heart, to stay the share for a minute, but too 
 late for the " wee, sleekit, cowrin, timorous beastie's " nest. 
 Folk's have said he was a bad farmer, and neglected Mossglel, 
 an idler in the land. 
 
 " How various his employments whom the world 
 Calls idle ! " 
 
 Absent in the body, we doubt not, he frequently was from his 
 fields ; oftenest in the evenings and at night. Was he in Nance 
 Tinnock's ? She knew him by name and head-mark, for once 
 seen he was not to be forgotten ; but she complained that he had 
 never drunk three half-mutchkins in her house, whatever he 
 might say in his lying poems. In Poussie Nannie's — mother of 
 Racer Jess? — He was there once; and out of the scum and 
 refuse of the outcasts of the lowest grade, of possible being, he 
 constructed a Beggar's Opera, in which the singers and dancers, 
 drabs and drunkards all, belong still to humanity ; and though 
 huddling together in the filth of the flesh, must not be classed, 
 in their enjoyments, with the beasts that perish. In the Smiddy ? 
 Ay, you might have found him there, at times when he had no 
 horse to be shoed, no coulter to be sharpened. 
 
 " When Vulcan gies his bellows breath, 
 An' ploughmen gather wi' their graith, 
 O rare ! to see thee fizz an' freath 
 
 r th' luggit caup ! 
 Then Burnewin comes on like death 
 
 At every chaup. 
 
 " Nae mercy, then, for airn or steel ; 
 The brawnie, bainic, ploughman cheel, 
 Brings hand owrehip, wi' sturdy wheel, 
 Tlie strong forehammer. 
 Till block an' studdie ring an' reel 
 
 Wi' dinsome clamor." 
 
 On frozen Muir-loch? Among the curlei-s " a* their rodring 
 play "-^roaring is the right word — but 'tis not the bonspiel only 
 that ruaii, it is the ice, and echo tells it is from her crags that 
 Bubmit not to the snow. There king of his rink was Rabbic 
 
 o
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 37 
 
 Burns to be found; and at night in the Hostelry, in the reek of 
 beef and greens and " Scotch drink," Apollo in the shape of a 
 ploughman at the head of the fir-table that dances witii all its 
 glasbcs to the horny fists clenching with cordial thumpers the 
 sallies of wit and humor volleying from liis lips and eyes, un re- 
 proved by the hale old minister who is happy to meet his parish- 
 ioners out of the pulpit, and by his presence keeps the poet 
 within bounds, if not of absolute decorum, of that decency be- 
 coming men in their most jovial mirth, and not to be violated 
 without reproach by genius in its most wanton mood dallying 
 even with forbidden thino;s. Or at a Rockin' ? An eveninir 
 meeting, as you know, " one of the objects of which," so says 
 the glossary, " is spinning with the rock or distaff; " but which 
 has many other objects, as the dullest may conjecture, when 
 lads and lasses have come flockincr from " behind the hills where 
 Stincliar flows, mang muirs and mosses many o','' to one soli- 
 tary homestead made roomy enough for them all ; and if now 
 and then felt to be too close and crowded for the elderly peopje 
 and the old, not unprovided with secret spots near at hand in the 
 broom and the brackens, where the sleeping lintwhites sit undis- 
 turbed by lovers' whispers, and lovers may look, if they choose 
 it, unashamed to the stars. 
 
 And v.hat was he going to do with all tliis poetry — poetry 
 accumulating fast as his hand, released at night from other im- 
 plements, could put it on paper, in bold, round, upright charac- 
 ters, that tell of fingers more familiar with the plough than the 
 pen ? He himself sometimes must have wondered to find every 
 receptacle in the spence crammed with manuscripts, to say 
 nothing of the many others floating .about all over the country, 
 and setting the smiddies in a roar, and not a few, of which 
 nothing was said, folded in the breast-kerchiefs of maidens, put 
 therein by his own hand on the lea-rig, beneath the milk-white 
 thorn. What brought him out into the face of day as a Poet ? 
 
 Of all the women Burns ever loved, Mary Campbell not ex- 
 cepted, the dearest to hmi by far, from first to last, was Jean 
 Am our. During composition her image rises up from iiis heart 
 before his eyes the instant he touches on any thought oi- feeling 
 with which she could be in any way connected ; and sometimes 
 
 69561
 
 38 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 his allusions to her might even seem out of place, did they not 
 please us, by letting us know that he could not altogether forget 
 her, whatever the subject liis muse had chosen. Others may 
 have inspired more poetical strains, but there is an earnestness 
 in his fervors, at her name, that brings her breathing in warm 
 flesh and blood to his breast. Highland Mary lie would have 
 made his wife, and perhaps broken her heart. He loved her 
 living, as a creature in a dream, dead as a spirit in heaven. 
 But Jean Armour possessed his heart in the stormiest season 
 of his passions, and she possessed it in the lull that preceded 
 their dissolution. She was well worthy of his affection, on ac- 
 count of her excellent qualities ; and tliough never beautiful, 
 had many personal attractions. But Burns felt himself Ijound 
 to lier by that inscrutable mystery in the soul of every man, by 
 which one other being, and one only, is believed, and truly, 
 to be essential to his happiness here, — without whom, life is not 
 life. Her strict and stern father, enraged out of all religion, 
 both natural and revealed, with his daughter for having sinned 
 with a man of sin, tpre from her hands her marriage lines as 
 she besought forgiveness on her knees, and without pity for the 
 life stirring witliin her, terrified her into the surrender and re- 
 nunciation of the title of wife, branding her thereby with an ab- 
 horred name. A father's power is sometimes very terrible, and 
 it was so here ; for she submitted, with less outward show of agony 
 than can be well understood, and Burns almost became a mad- 
 man. His worldly circumstances were wholly desperate, for 
 bad seasons had stricken dead the cold soil of Mossgiel ; but he 
 was willing to work for his vvife in ditches, or to support her for 
 a while at liome, by his wages as a negro-driver in the West 
 
 Indies. 
 
 A more unintelligil)le passage than this never occurred in the 
 life of any other man, certainly never a more trying one ; and 
 Burns must at this time have been tormented by as many violent 
 passions, in instant succession or altogether, as the human hear.t 
 could hold. In verse he had for years given vent to all his 
 moods ; ami his brother tells us that the Lament was composed 
 " after tiie first distraction of his feelings had a little subsided." 
 Had he lost her by death he would have been dumb, but his
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 39 
 
 grief was not mortal, and it grew eloquent, when relieved and 
 sustained tVoin prostration by other passions that lifi up the head, 
 if.it be only to let it sink down again, rage, pride, indignation, 
 jealousy, and scorn. " Never man loved, or rather adored wo- 
 man more than I did her ; and to confess a truth between you 
 and me, I do still love her to distraction after all. My poor 
 dear unfortunate Jean ! It is not the losing her that makes me 
 so unha.ppy ; but for her sake I feel most severely ; 1 grieve she 
 is in the road to, I fear, eternal ruin. May Almighty God for- 
 give her ingratitude and perjury to me, as 1 from my very soul 
 forgive her ; and may his grace be with her, and bless her in 
 all her future life ! I can have no nearer idea of the place of 
 eternal punishment than what I have felt in my own breast on 
 her account. I have tried often to forget her; I have run into 
 all kinds of dissipation and riot, mason-meetings, drinking 
 matches, and other mischiefs, to drive her out of my head, but 
 all in vain. And now for tlie grand cure : the ship is on her 
 way home, that is to take me out to Jamaica ; and then fare- 
 well, dear old Scotland! and farewell, dear ungrateful Jean ! 
 for never, never will I sec you more." In the Lament, there 
 are the same passions, but genius has ennobled them by the ten- 
 derness and elevation of the fmest poetry, guided their transi- 
 tions by hfer solemnizing power, inspired their appeals to con- 
 scious night and nature, and subdued down to the beautiful 
 and pathetic, the expression of what had else been agony and 
 despair. 
 
 Twenty pounds would enable him to leave Scotland, and take 
 him to Jamaica ; and to raise them, it occurred to Robert Burns 
 to publish his poems by subscription! *' I was pretty confident 
 my poems would meet with some applause ; but at the worst, 
 the roar of the Atlantic would deafen thj voice of censure, 
 and the novelty of West Indian scenes make me forget ne- 
 glect. I threw oT six hundred copies, of which I got subscrip- 
 tions for about three hundred and sixty. My vanity was highly 
 gratified by the reception I met with fron) the public; and be- 
 sides, 1 pocketed, all expenses deducted, near twenty pounds. 
 This sum came very seasonably, as I was' thinking ul" inden- 
 turing myself for want of money to procure my passage. As
 
 40 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 soon as I was mastei" of nine guineas, the price of wafiing me 
 to the torrid zone, I took a. steerage passage in the first ship tliat 
 was to sail for the Clyde, ' For hungry ruin had me in the 
 wind.' " The ship sailed ; but Burns was still at Mossgiel, for 
 his strong heart could not tear itself away from Scotland, and 
 some of his friends encouraged him to hope that he might be 
 made a gauger! In a few months he was about to be hailed, 
 by the universal acclamation of his country, a great National 
 Poet. 
 
 But the enjoyment of his fame all round his birth-place, " the 
 heart and the main region of his song," intense as we know it 
 was, though it assuaged, could not still the troubles of his heart ; 
 his life amidst it all was as hopeless as when it was obscure; 
 '^ his chest was on its road to Greenock, where he was to embark 
 in a few days for America," and again he sung 
 
 " 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 decLire, 
 Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr ;" 
 
 when a few words from a blind old man to a country clergy- 
 man kindled witiiin him a new hope, and set his heart on fire ; 
 and while 
 
 " November winds blew loud wi' angry sugh," 
 
 " I posted away to Edinburgh without a single acquaintance, or 
 a single htter of introduction. The baneful star that had so 
 long shed its blasting influence on my zenith, for once made a 
 revolution to the Nadir." 
 
 At first, Burns was stared at with such eyes as people open 
 wide who behold a prodigy ; for though he looked the rustic, 
 and his broad shoulders had the stoop that stalwart men ac- 
 quire at the plough, his swartiiy face was ever and anon illu- 
 mmed with tlie look that genius alone puts off and on, and that
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS 41 
 
 comes and goes with a new interpretation of imagination's 
 winored words. For a week or two he liad lived chiefly with 
 some Ayrsliire acquaintances, and was not personally known 
 to any of the leading men. But as soon as he came forward, 
 and was seen and heard, his name went through the city, and 
 people asked one another, " Have you met Burns?" His de- 
 meanor amonor the Mafjnates, was not onlv unembarrassed but 
 dignified, and it was at once disceuned by the blindest that he 
 belonged to the aristocracy of nature. " The idea which his 
 conversation conveyed of the power of his mind, exceeded, if 
 possible, that which is suggested by his writings. Among the 
 poets whom I have happened to know, I have been struck, in 
 more than one instance, with tlie unaccountable disparity be- 
 tween their general talents, and the occasional aspirations of 
 their more favored moments. But all the faculties of Burns's 
 mind were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous ; and his 
 predilections for poetry were rather the result of his own enthu- 
 siastic and impassioned temper, than of a genius exclusively 
 adapted to tlwt species of composition."' Who those poets were, 
 of occasional inspiration and low general talents, and in conver- 
 sation felt to be of the race of the feeble, Dugald Stewart had 
 too much delicacy to tell us ; but if Edinburgh had been their 
 haunt, and theirs the model of the poetical character in the judg- 
 ment of her sages, no wonder that a new light was thrown on 
 the Philosopiiv of the Human Mind by that of Rob'ert Burns. 
 For his intellectual faculties were of the highest order, and 
 though deferential to superior knowledge, he spoke on all sub- 
 jects he understood, and they were many, with a voice of deter- 
 mination, and when need was, of command. It was not in the. 
 debating club in Tarbolton alone, about which so much non- 
 sense lias been prosed, that he had learned eloquence ; he had 
 been long givmg chosen and deliberate utterance to all his 
 bright ideas and strong emotions; they were all his own, or he 
 had made them his own by transfusion ; and so, therefore, was 
 his speecli. Its fount was in genius, and therefore could not 
 run dry — a flowing spring that needed neitiier to he fanged nor 
 pumped. As he had the power of eloquence, so had he the willj 
 the desire, the ambition to put it forth ; for he rejoiced to carry
 
 42 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 with him the sympathies of his kind, and in his iiighcst moods 
 he was not satisfied with their admiration without their love. 
 There never beat a heart more alive to kindness. To the wise 
 and good, how eloquent his gratitude ! to Glencairn, how imper- 
 ishable ! This exceeding tenderness of heart often gave such 
 pathos to his ordinary talk, that he even melted common-place 
 piople into tears! Without scholarship, without science, with 
 not much of what is called information, he charmed the first 
 men in a society equal in all 'these to any at that time in Eu- 
 rope. The scholar was happy to forget his classic lore, as he 
 listened, for the first time, to the noblest sentiments flowing from 
 the lips of a rustic, sometimes in his own Doric, divested of all 
 otfei^sive vulgarity, but oftener in language which, in our north- 
 ern capital, was thought pure English, and comparatively it was 
 so, for in those days the speech of many of the most distin- 
 guished persons would have been unintelligible out of Scotland," 
 and they were proud of excelling in the use of their mother 
 tongue. The philosopher wondered that the peasant should 
 comprehend intuitively truths that had been established, it was 
 so thought, by reasoning demonstrative or inductive ; as the 
 illustrious Stewart, a year or two afterwards, wondered liow 
 clear an idea Burns the Poet had of Alison's True Theory of 
 Taste. True it is that the great law of association has by no 
 one been so beautifully stated in a single sentence as by Burns: 
 " That thcf martial clangor of a trumpet had something in it 
 vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime than the twingle-twangle 
 of a .lews'-harp ; that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when 
 the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was 
 infinitely more beautiful and elegant than the upright stalk of 
 the burdock ; and that from something innate and independent 
 of all associations of ideas — these I had set down as irrefra- 
 gable orthodox truths, until perusing your book shook my faith." 
 The man of wit — aye even Marry Erskine himself — and a M'it- 
 tier than he never charmed social life — was nothing loth, with 
 his delightful amenity, to cease for a while the endless series of 
 anecdotes so admirably illustrative of tho peculiarities of na- 
 tions, orders, or individuals, and almost all of thoni created or 
 vivified by his own genius, that tho most accomplished compa-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 43 
 
 nies might, experience a new pleasure from the rich and racy 
 humor of a natural converser fresh from the plough. 
 
 And how did Burns bear all this, and much besides even more 
 trying? For you know that a duchess declared that she had 
 never before in all her life met with a man who so fairly carried 
 her off her feet. Hear Professor Stewart: "The attentions he 
 received during his stay in town, from all ranks and descrip- 
 tions of persons, were such as would have turned any head but 
 his own. I cannot say that I could perceive any unfavorable 
 effect which they left on his mind. He retained the same sim- 
 plicity of manners and appearance which had struck me so 
 forcibly when I first saw him in the country ; nor did he seem 
 to feel any additional self-importance from the number and rank 
 of his new acquaintance." In many passages of his letters to 
 friends who had their fears. Burns expressed entire confidence in 
 his owfi self-respect, and in terms the most true and touching; 
 as, for example, to Dr. Moore • " The hope to be admired for 
 ages is, in by far the' greater part of those who even were au- 
 thors of repute, an unsubstantial dream. For my part, my 
 first ambition was, and still is, to please my compeers, the rustic 
 inmates of the hamlet, while ever-changing language and man- 
 ners shall allow me to be relished and understood." And to his 
 venerated friend Mrs. Dunlop, he gives utterance, in the midst 
 f)f his triumphs, to dark forebodings, some of which were but 
 too soon fulfilled ! " You arc afraid that I shall grow .intoxi- 
 cated with my prosperity as a poet. Alas ! Madam, I know 
 myself and the world too well. " 1 assure you. Madam, -l do not 
 dissemble, when I tell you I tremble for the consequences. The 
 novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any of those 
 advantages which are reckoned necc sary for that character, at 
 least at this time of day, has raised a partial tide of public no- 
 tice, which has borne me to a height where I am feeling abso- 
 lutely certain my abilities arc inadequate to support me ], and 
 too surely do I see that time, when the same tide will leave me, 
 and recede, perhaps, as far below the mark of trutii. I do not 
 say this in ridiculous affectation of self-abasement and modesty. 
 1 have studied myself, and know MJiat ground I occupy ; and 
 however a friend or the world may differ from me in that par^-
 
 44 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 ticular, I stand for my own opinion in silent resolve, with all the 
 tenaciousness of property. I mention this to you once for all, to 
 disburthen my mind, and I do not wish to hear or say more about 
 it. But, 
 
 ' When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes,' 
 
 you will bear me witness, that, when my bubble of fame was at 
 the highest, I stood, unintoxicated with the inebriating cup in 
 my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening 
 time when the blow of Calumny should dash it to the ground 
 with all the eagerness of vengeful triumph." 
 
 Such equanimity is magnanimous ; for though it is easy to 
 declaim on the vanity of fame, and the weakness of them who 
 are intoxicated with its bubbles, the noblest have still longed for 
 it, and what a fatal change it has indeed often wrought on the 
 simplicity and sincerity of the most gifted spirits ! There must 
 be a moral grandeur in his character who receives sedately the 
 unexpected, though deserved ratification of his title to that 
 genius whose empire is the inner being of his race, from the 
 voice of his native land uttered aloud through all her I'esions. 
 and harmoniously combined of innumerable tones all expressive 
 of a great people's pride. Make what deductions you will from 
 the worth of that "All hail.! " and still it must have sounded in 
 Burns's ears as a realization of that voice heard by his prophetic 
 soul in the " Vision." 
 
 " All. Hail ! my owjf inspired bard ! 
 I taught tliy manners-painting strains, 
 The loves, tht ways of simple swains. 
 Till, now, o'er all my wide domains 
 
 Thy Fame EXTENDS !" 
 
 Robert Burns was not the man to have degraded himself ever- 
 lastingly, by one moment's seeming slight or neglect of friends, 
 new or old, belonging cither to his own condition, or to a rank 
 in life somewhat higher perhaps than his own, although not ex- 
 actly to that "select society " to which the wonder awakened by 
 his genius had given him a sudden introduction. Persons in 
 that middle or inferior rank were his natural, bis best, and his
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 45 
 
 truest friends ; and many of them, there can be no doubt, were 
 worthy of his happiest companionship eitiier in the festal hour 
 or the hour of closer communion. He had no rigl)t, with all 
 his genius, to stand aloof from them, and with a heart like his 
 lie liad no inclination. Why should he have lived exclusively 
 with lords and ladies — paper or land lords — ladies by descent or 
 courtesy — with aristocratic advocates, philosophical professors, 
 clergymen, wild or moderate, Arminian or Calvinistic ? Some 
 of them were among the first men of their age ; others were 
 doubtless not inerudite, and a few not unwitty in their own es- 
 teem ; and Burns greatly enjoyed their society, in which he met 
 with an admiration that must have been to him the pleasure of 
 a perpetual triumph. But more of them were dull and pom. 
 pous ; incapable of righlly'estimating or feeling the power of 
 his genius ; and when the glitter and the gloss of novelty was 
 worn off before their shallow eyes, from the poet who bore them 
 all down into insignificance, then no doubt they began" to get 
 offended and shocked with his rusticity or rudeness, and sought 
 refuge in the distinctions of rank, and the laws, not to be violat- 
 ed with impunity, of " select society." The patronage he re- 
 ceived was honorable, and he felt it to be so ; but it was still 
 patronage ; and had he, for the sake of it or its givers, forgotten 
 for a day the humblest, lowest, meanest of his friends, or even 
 his acquaintances, how could he have borne to read his own two 
 bold lines — 
 
 " The rank is but the 'guinea stamp. 
 The man's the gowd for a' that ? " 
 
 Besides, we know from Burns's poetry what was then the char- 
 acter of the people of Scotland, for they were its materials, its 
 staple. Her peasantry were a noble race, and their virtues 
 moralized his song. The inhabitants of the towns were of the 
 same family — the same blood — one kindred — and many, most 
 of them, had been born, or in some measure bred, in the coun- 
 try. Their ways of thinking, feeling, and acting were much 
 alike ; and the shopkeepers of Edinburgh and Glasgow were as 
 proud of Robert Burns, as the ploughmen and shepherds of 
 Kyle and the Stewartry. He saw in them friends and brothers.
 
 45 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 Their admiration of him was, perhaps, fully more sincere and 
 heartfelt, nor accompanied with loss understanding of his merits, 
 than that of persons in higher places ; and most assuredly among 
 the respectable citizens of Edinburgh Burns found more lasting 
 friends tlian he ever did among her gentry and noblesse. Nor 
 can we doubt, that then as now, there were in that order crreat 
 numbers of men of well cultivated minds, whom Burns, in iiis 
 best hours, did right to honor, and w.ho were perfectly entitled 
 to seek his society, and to open their hospitable doors to the 
 brilliant stranger. That Burns, whose sympathies were keen 
 and wide, and who never dreamt of lookinc down on others as 
 beneath him, merely because he was conscious of his own vast 
 superiority to the common run of men, should havfe shunned or 
 been shy of such society, would have been something altogether 
 unnatural and incredible ; nor is it at all wonderful or blame- 
 able that he should occasionally even have much preferred such 
 society to that which has been called " more select," and there- 
 fore above his natural and proper condition. Admirably as he 
 in general behaved in the higher circles, in those humbler ones 
 alone could he have felt himself completely at home. His de- 
 meanor among the rich, the great, the learned, or the wise, 'iiiust 
 often have been subject to some little restraint, and all restraint 
 of that sort is ever painful ; or, what is worse still, his talk must 
 sometimes have partaken of display. With companions and 
 friends, who claimed no superiority in anything, the sensitive 
 mind of Burns must have been at its best and happiest, because 
 completely at its ease, and free movement given to the play of 
 all its feelings and faculties; and in such companies we cannot 
 but believe that his wonderful conversational powers shone forth 
 in their most various splendor. He must have given vent there 
 to a thousand familiar fancies, in all their freedom and all their 
 force, which, in the fastidious society of high life, his imagina- 
 tion must have been too much fettered even to conceive ; and 
 which, had they flowed from his lips, would either not have been 
 understood, or would have given offence to that delicacy, of 
 breeding which is often hurt even by the best manners of those 
 whose manners are all of nature's teaching, and unsubjected 
 to the salutary restraints of artificial life. Indeed, we know
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 47 
 
 that Burns sometimes burst suddenly and alarmingly the re- 
 straints of " select society ; " and that on one occasion he called 
 a clergyman an idiot for misquoting Gray's Elegy — a truth that 
 ought not to have been promulgated in presence of the parson, 
 especially at so early a meal as breakfast : and he confesses in 
 his most confidential letters, though indeed he was then writin": 
 with some bitterness, that he never had been truly and entirely 
 happy at rich men's feasts. • Jf so, then never could he have 
 displayed there his genius in full power and lustre. His noble 
 rage must in some measure have been repressed — the genial 
 current' of his soul in some degree frozen. He never was, never 
 could be, the free, fearless, irresistible Robert Burns that nature 
 made him — no, not even although he carried the Duchess of 
 Gordon off her feet, and silenced two Ex-Moderators of the 
 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.' 
 
 Burns, before his visit to Edinburgh, had at all times and 
 places been in the habit of associating with the best men of his 
 order — the best in everything, in station, in manners, in moral 
 and intellectual character. Such men as William Tell and 
 Hofer, for example, associated with in Switzerland and the 
 Tyrol. Even the persons he' got unfortunate4y too well ac- 
 quainted with (but whose company he soon shook otf), at Irvine 
 and Kirk-Oswald — smusijlers and their adherents, were, thouirh 
 a lawless and dangerous set, men of spunk, and spirit, and 
 power, both of mind and body ; nor was there anytliing the least 
 degrading in an ardent, impassioned, and imaginative youth be- 
 coming for a time I'atlier too much attached to such daring, and 
 adventurous, and even interesting characters. They had all a 
 fine strong poetical smell of the sea, mingled to precisely the ■ 
 proper pitch with that of the contraband. As a poet Burns 
 must have been much the better of such temporary associates ; 
 as a man, let us hope, notwithstanding Gilbert's fears, not greatly 
 the worse. The passions that boiled in his blood would have 
 overflowed his life, often to disturb, and finally to help to destroy 
 hifii, had there never been an Irvine and its sea-port. But 
 Burns's friends, up to the time he visited Edinburgh, l:ad been 
 chiefly his admirable brother, a few of the ministers round 
 about, farmers, ploughmen, farm-servants, and workers in the_ 
 
 5
 
 48 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 winds of heaven blowing over moors and mosses, cornfields and 
 meadows beautiful as the blue skies themselves ; and if you call 
 that low company, you had better fling your copy of Burns, 
 Cottar's Saturday Night, Mary in Heaven, and all, into the fire. 
 Me, the noblest peasant that ever trod the greensward of Scot- 
 kind, kept the society of other peasants, whose nature was like 
 his own ; and then, were the silken-snooded maidens whom he 
 wooed on lea-rig and 'mang the rfgs o' barley, were they who 
 inspired at once his love and his genius, his passion and his 
 poetry, till the whole land of Coila overflowed with his immortal 
 song,— ;-so that now to the proud native's ear every stream mur- 
 murs a music not its own, given it by sweet Robin's lays, and 
 the 1-ark more lyrical than ever seems singing his songs at the 
 gates of heaven for the shepherd's sake, as through his half, 
 closed hand he eyes the musical mote in the sunshine, and 
 remembers him who " sung her new-wakened by the daisy's 
 side," — were they, the blooming daughters of Scotia, we de- 
 mand of you on peril of your life, low company and unworthy 
 of Robert Burns ? 
 
 As to the charge of liking to be what is vulgarly called " cock 
 of the company," what does that mean when brougiit against 
 such a man ? In what company, pray, could not Burns, had he 
 chosen it, and he ol'ten did choose it, have easily been the first ? 
 No need had he to crow among dunghills. If you liken iiim to 
 a bird at all, lot it be the eagle, or the nightingale, or the bird 
 of Paradise. James Montgomery has done this in some exqui- 
 site verses, which are clear in our heart, but indistinct in our 
 memory, and therefore we cannot adorn our pages with tiicir 
 beauty. The truth is, that Burns, thougli when his heart 
 huiiH'd within him, one of the most eloquent of men that ever 
 set the table in a roar or a hush, was always a modest, often 
 a .silent man, and he would sit for hours togetlier, even in com- 
 {)any, with his broad forehead on his ha'nd, and his large lamp- 
 ing eyes sobered and tamed, in profound and melancholy thought. 
 'J'hen his .soul would "spring upwards like a pyramid of fire'," 
 and send "illumination into dark deep holds," or brighten the 
 brightest hour in which Feeling and Fancy ever flung their 
 united radiance over the common ongoings of tnis our conmicr-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 49 
 
 place world and every-day life. Was this the man to desire, 
 with low longings and base aspirations, to shine among the ob- 
 scure, or rear his haughty front and giant stature among pig- 
 mies ? He who 
 
 " walked in glory and in joy, 
 Following his plough upon the mountain-side ;" 
 
 he who sat in glory and in joy at the festal board, when mirtl- 
 and wine did most abound, and strangers were strangers lo more 
 within the fascination of his genius, for 
 
 " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin ;" 
 
 or dt the frugal board, surrounded by his wife and children, and 
 servants, lord and master of his own happy and industrious 
 \xome — the frugal meal, preceded and followed by thanksgiving 
 to the Power that spread his table in the barren places ? 
 
 Show us any series of works in prose or verse, in which 
 man's being is so illustrated as to lay it bare and open ^or the 
 benefit of man, and the chief pictures they contain, drawn from 
 "select society." There are none such; and lor this reason, 
 that in such society there is neither power to paint them, nor 
 materials to be painted, nor colors to lay on, till the canvas shal. 
 speak a language which all the worW as it runs may read. 
 What, would Scott have been, had he not loved and known the 
 people ? What would his works have been, had they not shown 
 tiie many-colored character of the people ? What would Shak- 
 speare have been, had he not often turned majestically from kings, 
 and "lords and dukes and mighty earls," to their subjects and 
 vassals and lowly bondsmen, and " counted the beatings of lonely 
 hearts" in the obscure but impassioned life that stirs every nook 
 of this earth where human beings abide ? What would Words- 
 worth have been, had he disdained, with liis high intellect and 
 imagination, " to stoop his anointed head" beneath the wooden 
 lintel of the poor man's door? His Lyrical Ballads, " with all 
 the innocent brightness of the new-born day," liad never 
 charmed tlie meditative heart. Plis " Cliurcli-Yard among the 
 Mountains" had never taught men how to live and how to die.
 
 no THE GENIUS AND 
 
 These are men who have descended from aerial heiglits into the 
 humhlest dwellings; who have shown the angel's wing equally 
 when poised near the earth, and floating over its cottaged vales, 
 fts when seen sailing on high through the clouds and azure 
 depth of heaven, or hanging over the towers and temples of 
 great cities. They shunned not to parley with the blind beggar 
 by the way-side ; they knew how to transmute, by divinest al- 
 chemy, the base metal into the fine gold. Whatever company 
 of human beings they have mingled with, they lend it colors, 
 and did not receive its shades ; and hence their mastery over the 
 " wide soul of the world dreaming of things to come." Burns 
 was born, bred, lived, and died in that condition of this mortal 
 life to which they paid but visits; his heart lay wholly there; 
 and that heart, filled as it was with all the best human feelings, 
 and sometimes with thoughts divine, had no fears about entering 
 into places which timid moralists might have 'lought forbiddt n 
 and unhallowed ground, but which he, wiser far, knew to be 
 inhabited by creatures of conscience, bound there often in thick 
 darkness by the inscrutable decrees of God. 
 
 For a year and more after the publication of the Edinburgh 
 Edition, Burns led a somewhat roving life, till his final settlement 
 with Creech. He had a right to enjoy himself; and it does not 
 appear that there was much to blame in his conduct either in 
 town or country, though lie did not live upon air nor yet upon 
 water. There was much dissipation in those days — much hard 
 drinking — in select as well as in general society, in the best as 
 well as in the worst ; and he had his share of it in many cir- 
 cles — but never in the lowest. His associates were all honor- 
 able men, then, and in after life; and he left the Capital in pos- 
 session .of the respect of its most illustrious citizens. Of his 
 various tours and excursions there is little to be said ; the birth- 
 places of old Scottish Songs he visited in the spirit of a religious pil- 
 grim ; and his poetical fervor was kindhMl by the grandeur of the 
 Highlands. He had said to Mrs. Dunlop, "I have no dearer 
 aim than to have it in my power, unplagued with the routine of 
 business, for which, heaven knows! I am unfit enough, to make 
 leisurely pilgrimages through Caledonia ; to sit on the fields of 
 her battles, to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers, and
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 51 
 
 to muse by the stately towers or venerable ruins, once thi 
 honored abodes of her heroes. But tliese are all Utopian 
 thoughts; I have dallied long enough with life; 'tis time to be 
 in earnest. I have a fond, and aged mother to care for, and 
 some other bosom ties perhaps equally tender. Where the indi- 
 vidual only suffei's by the' consequences of his own thoughtless- 
 less, indolence, or folly, he may be excusable, nay, shining abili 
 ties, and some of the nobler virtues, may half sanctify a heed- 
 less character : but where God and nature have intrusted the 
 welfare of others to iiis care, where the trust is sacred, and the 
 ties ai'e dear, that man must be far gone in selfishness, oi 
 strangely lost to reflection, whom these connections will not rouse 
 to exertion." 
 
 Burns has now got liberated, for ever, from "stately Edin- 
 borough throned on crags," the favored abode of philosophy and 
 fashion, law and literature, reason and refinement, and has re- 
 turned again into his own natural condition, neither essentially 
 the better nor the worse of his city life ; the same man he was 
 when " the poetic genius of his country found him at the plough 
 and threw her inspiring mantle over him." And what was he 
 now to do with himself? Into what occupation for the rest of 
 liis days was he to settle down ? It would puzzle the most saga- 
 cious even now, fifty years after the event, to say what he ought 
 to have done that he did not do at that juncture, on which for 
 weal or wo the future must have been so deeply felt by him to 
 depend. And perhaps it might not have occurred to every one 
 of the many prudent persons who have lamented over his follies, 
 had he stood in Burns's shoes, to make over, unconditionally, to 
 his brother one half of all he was worth. Gilbert was resolved 
 still to struggle on with Mossgiel, and Robert said, " there is my 
 purse." The brothers, diffurent as they were in the constitution 
 of their souls, had one and the same heart. They loved one 
 another — man and boy alike ; and the survivor cleared, with 
 pious hands, the weeds from his brother's grave. There was a 
 blessing in that two hundred pounds — and thirty years after- 
 w-ards Gilbert repaid it witli interest to Robert's widow and chil- 
 dren, by an Edition in which he wiped away stains from the 
 reputation of his benefactor, which hud been stitiered to n^iiain
 
 52 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 too long, and some of wliicli, the most difTicull too to be effaced, 
 had been even let fall from the fintrers of a benevolent bioirra- 
 pher who thought himself in duty bound to speak what he most 
 mistakenly believed to be the truth. " Oh Robert ! " was all 
 his mother could say on his return to Mossgiel from Edinbiirgli. 
 In her simple heart she was astonished at his fame, and cxxijd 
 not understand it well, any more than she could her own happi- 
 ness and her own pride. But his affection she understood better 
 than he did, and far better still his generosity ; and duly night 
 and morning she asked a blessing on his head from Him who 
 had given her such a son. 
 
 " BetM'een the men of rustic life," said Burns — so at least it 
 is reported — " and the polite world I observed little difference, 
 in the former, though unpolished by fashion, and unenlightened 
 by science, I have found much observation and much intelli- 
 gence. But a refined and accomplished woman was a thing 
 altogether new to me, and of which I had formed but a very in- 
 adequate idea." One of his biographers seems to have believed 
 that his love for Jean Armour, tlie daughter of a Mauohline 
 mason, must have died away under these more adequate ideas 
 of the sex along witii their corresponding emotions; and that he 
 now married her with reluctance. Only think of Burns taking 
 an Edinburgh Belle to wife ! lie flew, somewhat too fervently, 
 
 " To love's willing fetters, the arms of his Jean ' 
 
 Her father had aajain to curse her for her infatuated love of her 
 husband — for such if nut by the law of Scotland — which may 
 be doubtful — Burns certainly was by the law of iieaven — and 
 like a good Christian had again turned his daughter out of doors. 
 Had Burns deserted her he had merely been a heartless villain. 
 In making her his lawful wedded wife he did no more than any 
 other man, diserving the name of man, in the same circumstan- 
 ces would have done; and had he not, he would have walked in 
 shame before men, and in fear and trembling before God. But 
 he did so, not only because it was his most sacred duty, but 
 because he loved her better than ever, and without her v.ould 
 liave been miserable. Much had she suffered fur his sake, and
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 53 
 
 he for hers; but all that distraction and despair which had 
 nearly driven him into a sugar plantation, were over and gone, 
 forgotten utterly, or remembered but as a dismal dream endear- 
 ing the placid day that for ever dispelled it. He writes about 
 her to Mrs. Dunlop and others in terms of sobriety and good 
 sense — " The most placid good nature and sweetness of dispo- 
 sition ; a warm heart, gratefully devoted willi all its powers to 
 love me ; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to 
 the best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure" 
 — these he thought in a woman misht, with a knowledire of the 
 scriptures, make a good wife. During the few months he was 
 getting his house ready foi* her at EUisland he frequently trav- 
 elled, with all the fondness of a lover, the long wilderness of 
 moors to Mauchline, where she was in the house of her austere 
 father reconciled to her at last. And thoui^h he has told us that 
 if was his custom, in song-writing, to keep the image of some 
 fair maiden before the eye of his fancy, " some bright particular 
 3tar," and that H3-men was not the divinity he then invoked, yet 
 it was on one of these visits, between EUisland and Mossgiel, 
 that he penned under such homely inspiration as precious a love- 
 offering as genius in the passion of hope ever laid in a virgin's 
 bosom. His wife sung it to him that same evening — and indeed 
 he never knew whether or no he had succeeded in any one of 
 his lyrics, till he heard his words and the air together from her 
 voice. 
 
 " Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, 
 
 I dearly like the west. 
 For there the bonnie lassie lives, 
 
 The lassie I lo'e best : 
 There wild woods grow, and rivers row. 
 
 And mony a hill between ; 
 But day and night my fancy's flight 
 
 Is ever wi' my Jean. 
 
 " I see her in the dewy flowers, 
 I see her sweet and fair : 
 I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 
 
 I hear her charm the air : 
 There's not a bonny flower that springs. 
 By fountain, shaw, or green.
 
 54 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 There's not a bonny bird that shigs, 
 But minds ine o' my Jean. 
 
 " Oh blaw ye westlin winds, blaw saft 
 
 Amang the leafy trees, 
 Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale. 
 
 Bring hame the laden bees ; 
 And bring the lassie back to me 
 
 That's aye sae neat and clean ; 
 Ae smile o' her wad banish care, 
 
 Sae charming is my Jean. 
 
 " What sighs and vows among the knowes 
 
 Hae passed atween us twa ! 
 How fond to meet, how wae to part. 
 
 That night she gaed awa ! 
 The powers aboon can only ken. 
 
 To whom the heart is seen. 
 That nane can be sae dear to me 
 
 As my sweet lovely Jean." 
 
 And here we ask you who may be reading these pages, to pause 
 for a little, and consider with yourselves, what up to this time 
 Burns had done to justify tlie condemnatory judgments that have 
 been passed on his character as a man by so many admirers of his 
 o-enius as a poet! Compared with men of ordinary worth, who 
 have deservedly passed through life with the world's esteem, in 
 wliat was it lamentably wanting? Not m tenderness, warmth, 
 strength of the natural affections; and they are good till turned 
 to evil. Not in the duties for which they were given, and which 
 they make delights. Of which of these duties was he habit- 
 ually neglectful ? To the holiest of them all ne.xt to piety to 
 his Maker, he was faithful beyond most — few better kept the 
 fourth commandment. His youth, tiiough soon too impassioned, 
 had been long pure. If he were temperate by necessity and 
 not nature, yet he was so as contentedly as if it had been by 
 ciioice. He had lived on meal and water witli some milk, be- 
 cause tlic family were too poor for better fare ; and yet he 
 rose to labor as the lark rises to sing. 
 
 In the corruption of our fallen nature he sinned, and, it lias 
 been said, became a libertine. Was he ever guilty of deliber- 
 ate seduction ? It is not so recorded ; and we believe his whole
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 soul would liave recoiled from sucli wickedness : but let us not 
 affect ignorance of what we all know. Among no people on the 
 face of the earth is the moral code so rigid, willi regard to the 
 intercourse of the sexes, as to stamp with ineffaceable disgrace 
 every lapse from virtue ; and certainly not among the Scottish 
 peasantry, austere as the spirit of religion has always been, and 
 terrible ecclesiastical censure. Hateful in all eyes is the re- 
 probate — the hoary sinner loathsome ; but many a grey head is 
 now deservedly reverenced that would not be so, wei-e the mem- 
 ory of all that has been repented by the Elder, and pardoned 
 unto him, to rise up against him among the congregation as he 
 entered the Flouse of God. There has been many a rueful tra- 
 gedy in houses that in after times " seemed asleep." How many 
 good and happy fatiiers of families, who, were all their past lives 
 to be pictured in ghastly revelation to the eyes of their wives 
 and children, could never again dare to look them in the face ! 
 It pleased God to give them a long life ; and they have escaped, 
 not by their own strength, far away from the shadows of their 
 misdeeds that are not now suffered to pursue them,' but are 
 chained down in the past, no more to be let loose. That such 
 things were, is a secret none now live to divulge ; and though 
 once known, they were never emblazoned. But Burns and men 
 like Burns showed the whole world their dark spots by the very 
 light of their genius; and having died in what may almost be 
 called their youth, there the dark spots still are, and men point 
 to them with their fingers, to whose eyes there may seem but 
 small glory in all that effulgence. 
 
 Burns now took possession at Whitsuntide (1788) of the farm 
 of Ellisland, while his wife remained at Mossgiel, completing 
 her education in the dairy, till brought home next term to their 
 new house, which the poet set a-building with alacrity, on a plan 
 of his own, which was as simple a one as could be devised : 
 kitchen and dining room in one, a double-bedded room with a 
 bed-closet, and a garret. Tiie site was pleasant, on the edge of 
 a hiiih bank of the Nith, commanding a wide and beautiful 
 prospect, — holms, plains, woods, and hills, and a long reach of 
 the sweeping river. While the house and offices were growing, 
 he inhabited a liovcl close at hand, and though occasionally giv-
 
 66 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 ing vent to some splenetic humors in letters indited in his sooty 
 cabin, and now and then yielding to fits of despondency about 
 the " ticklish situation of a family of children," he says to his 
 friend Ainslie, " I am decidedly of opinion that .the step I have 
 taken is vastly for my happiness." He had to quali-fy himself 
 for holding his excise commission by six weeks' attendance on 
 the business of that profession at Ayr — and we have seen that 
 he made several visits lo Mossgiel. Currie cannot let him thus 
 pass the summer without moralizing on his mode of life. 
 " Pleased with surveying the grounds he was about to cultivate, 
 and with the rearing of a building that should give shelter to his 
 wife and children, and, as he fondly hoped, to his own grey 
 hairs, sentiments of independence buoyed up his mind, pictures 
 of domestic comfort and peace rose on his imagination ; and a 
 feio days passed away, as he himself informs us, the most tran- 
 quil, if not the happiest, which he had ever experienced." Let 
 us believe that such days were not few, but many, and that we 
 need not join with the good Doctor in grieving to think that 
 Burns led all the summer a wandering and unsettled life. It 
 could not be stationary ; but there is no reason to think that 
 his occasional absence was injurious to his afiairs on the farm. 
 Currie writes as if he thought him incapable of self-guidance, 
 and says, " It is to be lamented that at tiiis critical period of 
 his life, our poet was without the society of his wife and chil- 
 dren. A great change had taken place in his situation ; his old 
 habits were broken ; and the new circumstances in which he 
 was placed, were calculated to give a new direction to hi.: 
 thoughts and conduct. But his application to the cares and la 
 bors of his farm was interrupted by several visits to his family 
 in Ayrshire ; and as the distance was too great for a siiig^e day's 
 journey, he generally slept a night at an inn on the road. On 
 such occasions he sometimes fell into company, and forgot the 
 resolutions he had formed. In a little while temptation assailed 
 him nearer home." This is treating Burns like a child, a per- 
 son of so facile a disposition as not to be trusted without a 
 keeper on the king's high-way. If he was not fit to ride by 
 himself into Ayrshire, and there was no safety for him at San- 
 quhar, his case was hopeless out of an asylum. A trustwor-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 57 
 
 thy friend attended to the farm as overseer, when he was from 
 home ; potatoes, grass, and grain grew, though he was away ; 
 on September 9th, we find liim wiiere he ought to be, " I am 
 busy with my harvest;" and on the 16th, " Tliis hovel that I 
 shelter in, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower 
 that falls, and I am only preserved from being chilled to death by 
 being suffocated with smoke. You will be pleased to hear that 
 I have laid aside idle iclat, and bind every day after my reap- 
 ers." Pity 'twas that there had not been a comfortable house 
 ready furnished for Mrs. Burns to step into at the beginning of 
 summer, therein to be brought to bed of " little Frank, who, by 
 the by, I trust will be no discredit to the honorable name of 
 Wallace, as he has a fine manly countenance, and a figure that 
 might do credit to a little fellow two months older ; and likewise 
 an excellent good temper, though when he pleases, he has a pipe 
 not only quite so loud as the horn that his immortal namesake 
 blew as a signal to take the pm out of Stirling bridge.'' 
 
 Dear good old blind Dr. Blacklock, about this time, was anx- 
 ious to know from Burns himself how he was thriving, and in- 
 dited to him a pleasant epistle. 
 
 " Dear Burns, thou brother of my heart. 
 Both for thy virtues and thy art ; 
 If art it may be call'd in thee. 
 Which Nature's bounty, lartje and free, 
 With pleasure in tliy heart diflltses, 
 And warms thy soul with all the Muses. 
 Whether to lauj;h with easy grace. 
 Thy numbers move the sage's face, 
 Or bid the softer passions rise. 
 And ruthless souls with grief surprise, 
 'Tis Nature's voice distinctly felt 
 Through thee her organ, thus to melt. 
 
 " Most anxiously I wish to know, 
 With thee of late how matters go ; 
 How keeps thy much-loved Jean her health .' 
 What promises thy farm of wealth .' 
 Whether the muse persists to smile, 
 And all tliy anxious cares beguile? 
 Whether bright fancy keeps alive? 
 And how tiiv darling infants thrive?"
 
 58 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 It appears from his reply, that Burns had entrusted Heron 
 with a letter to Blacklock, which the preacher had not delivered, 
 and the poet exclaims 
 
 " The ill-thief blaw the Heron south ! 
 And never drink be near his drouth ! 
 He tald mysel by word o' mouth 
 
 He'd tak my letter ; 
 I lippened to the chiel in trouth 
 
 And bade nae better. 
 
 " But aiblins honest Master Heron, 
 •Had at the time some dainty fair one. 
 To ware his theologic care on, 
 
 And holy study ; 
 And tir'd o' sauls to waste his lear on, 
 E'en tried the body." 
 
 Currie says in a note, " Mr. Heron, author of the History of 
 Scotland lately published, and among various other works, of a 
 respectable life of our poet himself." Burns knew his character 
 well ; the unfortunate fellow had talents of no ordinary kind; 
 and there are many good things and much good writing in his 
 life of Burns; but respectable it is not, basely calumnious, and 
 the orioinal source of many of the worst falsehoods even now 
 
 CD ■> 
 
 believed too widely to be truths, concerning the moral character 
 of a man as far superior to himself in virtue as in genius. 
 Burns then tells his venerated friend, that he has absolutely be- 
 
 come a "-auy-er, 
 
 " Ye glaikit, gleesome, dainty damies, 
 Wha by Castalia's winipling streainics, 
 Loup, sing, and lave your pretty limbics. 
 
 Ye ken, ye ken, 
 That Strang necessity supreme is, 
 
 'Mang sons o' men. 
 
 " I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, 
 Tiiey maun hae brose and brats o' duddies ; 
 Ye ken yoursels my heart rii^ht proud is, 
 
 I need na vaunt. 
 But I'll sned besoms — tiiraw saugh woodies. 
 Before they wan
 
 CHARACTER Of^ BURNS. 59 
 
 V 
 
 " Lord help me thro' Chis warld o' care ! 
 I'm weary sick o't late and air ! 
 Not but I hae a richer share 
 
 Than mony ithers ; 
 But why should i>e man better fare, 
 
 And a' men brithers ? 
 
 " Come, Firm Resolve, take thou the van 
 Thou stalk o' carl-hemp in man ! 
 And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan 
 
 A lady fair ; 
 Wha does the utmost that he can, 
 
 Will whiles do mair. 
 
 " But to conclude my silly rhyme 
 (I'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time), 
 
 To MAKE A HAPPY FIRE-SIDE CLIME 
 
 To WEANS AND WIFE, 
 
 That's the true pathos and sublime, 
 Of human life." 
 
 These noble stanzas were written towards the end of October, 
 and in another month Burns brouf,rht his wife home to Ellisland, 
 and his three children, for slie had twice borne him twins. The 
 happiest period of his life, we have his own words for it, was 
 that winter. 
 
 But why not say that the three years he lived at Ellisland 
 were all happy, as happiness goes in this world ? As happy 
 perhaps as they miglit have been had he been placed in some 
 other condition apparently far better adapted to yield him what 
 all human hearts do most desire. His wife never had an hour's 
 sickness, and was always cheerful as day, one of those 
 
 " Sound healthy children of the God of heaven," 
 
 whose very presence is positive pleasure, and whose contented- 
 ness with her lot inspires comfort into a husband's heart, when 
 at times oppressed with a mortal heaviness that no words could 
 lighten. Burns says with gloomy grandeur, " There is a foggy 
 atmosphere native to my soul in the hour of care which makes 
 the dreary objects seem larger than life." The objects seen by 
 imagination ; and he who suffers thus cannot be relieved by any
 
 60 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 direct applications to that faculty, only by those t/iat touch the 
 heart — the homelier the more sanative, and none so sure as a 
 wife's affectionate ways, quietly moving about the house affair.--, 
 which, insignificant as they are in themselves, are felt to be Ihtlr- 
 truthful realities that banish those monstrous phantoms, showing 
 them to be but glooms and shadows. 
 
 And how fared the Ganger? Why he did his work. Currie 
 says, " his farm no longer occupied the principal part of his 
 care or his thoua;hts. It was not at Ellisland that he was now 
 in general to be found. Mounted on horseback, this high-mind- 
 ed poet was pursuing the defaulters of the revenue among the 
 hills and vales of Nithsdale ; his roving eye wandering over 
 the charms of nature, and muttering his wayward fancies as he 
 moved along." And many a happy day he had when thu"? 
 riding about the country in search of smugglers of all sorts, 
 zealous against all manner of contraband. He delighted in ti\e 
 broad brow of the day, whether glad or gloomy, like his owii 
 forehead ; in the open air whether still or stormy, like his own 
 heart. " While pursuing the defaulters of the revenue," a 
 tjauger has not always to track them by his eyes or his nose. 
 Information has been lodged of their whereabout, and he delibe- 
 rately makes a seizure. Sentimentalists may see in this some- 
 thing very shocking to the delicate pleasures of susceptible 
 minds, but Burns did not ; and some of his sweetest lyrics, re- 
 dolent of the liquid dew of youth, were committed to whitey- 
 brown not scented by the rose's attar. Burns on duty was 
 always as sober as a judge. A man of his sense knew better 
 than to muddle his brains, when it was needful to be quick-witted 
 and ready-handed too ; for he had to do with old women who 
 were not to be sneezed at, and middle-aged men who could use 
 both club and cutlass. 
 
 " He held them with his glittering eye;" 
 
 but his f'.etermined character was not the worse of beino- ex- 
 hibited on broad shoulders. They drooped, as you know, but 
 from the habils of a strong man who had been a laborer from 
 his youth upwards, and a ganger's life was the very one that 
 might have b,ien prescribed to a man like him, subject to low
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. CI 
 
 spirits, by a wise physician. Smugglers themselves are seldom 
 drunkards — ga'jgers not often — though they take their dram ; 
 your drunkards belong to that comprehensive class that cheat 
 the excise. 
 
 Then Burns was not always " mounted on horseback pursu- 
 it)g the defaulters of the revenue among the hills and vales of 
 Nithsdale ;" he sat sometimes by himself in Friar's-Carse Her- 
 mitage. 
 
 " Thou whom chance may hither lead, — 
 Be thou clad in russet weed. 
 Be thou deck't in silken stole. 
 Grave these counsels on thy soul. 
 
 " Life is but a day at most, 
 Sprung from night, in darkness lost; 
 Hope not sunshine ev'ry hour. 
 Fear not clouds will always lower. 
 
 " As the shades of ev'ning close, 
 Beck'ning thee to long repose ; 
 As life itself becomes disease, 
 Seek the chimney-neuk of ease. 
 There ruminate with sober thought. 
 On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought ; 
 And teach the sportive younkers round, 
 Saws of experience, sage and sound. 
 Say, man's true, genuine estimate. 
 The grand criterion of his fate. 
 Is not. Art thou high or low ? 
 Did thy fortune ebb or flow .' 
 Did many talents gild thy span r 
 Or frugal nature grudge thee one .' 
 Tell them, and press it on their mind. 
 As thou thyself must shortly fmd, 
 The smile or frown of awful heav'n. 
 To virtue or to vice is giv'n. 
 Say to be just, and kind, and wise, 
 There solid self-enjoyment lies ; 
 That foolish, selfish, faithless ways. 
 Lead to the wretched, vile and base 
 
 ^' Thus resign'd and quiet, creep 
 To the bed of lasting sleep,
 
 02 THE GENIUS AKD 
 
 Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake, 
 Nifiht, where dawn shall never break, 
 Till future life, future no more, 
 To light and joy tlie good restore, 
 To light and joy unknown before 
 
 " Stranger, go. Heav'n be thy guide ! 
 Quod the beadsman of Xith-side." 
 
 Burns acquired the friendship of many of the best families 
 in the vale of Nith, at Friar's Carse, Terraughty, Blackwood, 
 Closeburn, Dalswinton, Glenae, Kirkconnel,Arbigland, and other 
 scats of the gentry old or new. Such society was far more en- 
 joyable than that of Edinburgh, for here he was not a lion but a 
 man. He had his jovial hours, and sometimes they were exces- 
 sive, as the whole world knows from " the Song of the Whistle." 
 But the Laureate did not enter the lists — if he had, it is possible 
 he might have conquered Craigdarroch. These were formida- 
 ble orgies ; but we have heard " Oh ! Willie brewed a peck o' 
 maut," sung after a presbytery dinner, the bass of the modera- 
 tor sivinjj somewhat of a solemn character to the chorus. . 
 
 But why did Burns allow his genius to lie idle — why did he 
 not construct some great work, such as a Drama? His genius 
 did not lie idle, for over and above the songs alluded to, he wrote 
 ever so many for his friend Johnson's Museum. Nobody would 
 have demanded from him a Drama, had he not divulged his de- 
 termination to compose one about "The- Bruce," with the 
 homely title of " Rob M'Quechan's Elshin." But Burns did 
 not think himself an universal genius, and at this time writes, 
 " No man knows what nature has fitted him for till he try ; and 
 if after a preparatory course of some years' study of men and 
 books I shall find myself unequal to the task, there is no harm 
 done. Virtue and study are their own reward. I have got 
 Shakspeare, and begun with him," &c. He knew that a great 
 National Dz'ama was not to be produced as easily as "The Cot- 
 tar's Saturday Night ;" and says, "though the rough material 
 of fine writing is undoubtedly the gift of genius, the workman- 
 ship is as certainly the united efforts of labor, attention, and 
 pains."
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 63 
 
 And here, one day between breakfast and dinner he composed 
 " Tam o' Slianter." The fact is hardly credible, but we are 
 williuo; to believe it. Dorset only corrected his famous "To 
 all ye ladies now on land, we men at sea indite," the nigiit be- 
 fore an expected engagement, a proof of his self-possession ; but 
 he had been working at it for days. Dryden dashed off his 
 " Alexander's Feast " in no time, but the labor of weeks was 
 bestowed on it before it assumed its present shape. " Tam o' . 
 Shanter" is superior in force and fire to that Ode. Never did 
 genius go at such a gallop — setting off at score, and making 
 play, but without whip or spur, from starting to winning post. 
 All is inspiration. His wife with her weans a little way aside 
 among the broom watched him at work as he was striding up 
 and down the brow of tlie Scaur, and reciting to himself like 
 one demented, 
 
 " Now Tam, Tam ! had they been queans, 
 A' plump and strapping, in their teens ; 
 Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flanneii. 
 Been snaw-white seventeen bunder linen I 
 Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, 
 That ance were plush, o' Ruid blue hair, 
 I wad hae gi'n them afF my hurdles. 
 For ae blink o' the bonnie biu'dies !" 
 
 His bonnie Jean must have been sorely perplexed — but she 
 was familiar with all his moods, and like a good wife left him 
 to his cogitations. It is " all made out of the builder's brain ;" 
 for the story that suggested it is no story after all, the dull lie of 
 a drunkard dotard. From the poet's imagination it came forth 
 a perfect poem, impregnated with the native spirit of Scottish 
 superstition. Few or none of our old traditionary tales of 
 witches are very appalling — they had not their origin in the 
 depths of the people's heart — there is a meanness in their mys- 
 teries — the ludicrous mixes with the horrible — much matter 
 there is for the poetical, and more perhaps for the picturesque — 
 but the pathetic is seldom found there — and never — for Shaks- 
 peare we fear was not a Scotsman — the sublime. Let no man 
 therefore find fault with " Tam o' Shanter," because it strikes not
 
 64 • THE GENIUS AND 
 
 a deeper chord. It strikes a chord that twangs strangely, and we 
 know not well what it means. To vulgar eyes, too, were such 
 unaccountable on-goings most often I'evealed of old : such seers 
 were generally doited or dazed — half born idiots or neerdoweels 
 in drink. Had Milton's Satan shown his face in Scotland, folk 
 either would not have known him, or thought him mad. The 
 devil is much indebted to Burns for having raised his cliaracter 
 without impairing his individuality — . 
 
 " thou ! whatever title suit thee, 
 Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie, 
 Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie. 
 
 Closed under hatches, 
 Spairges about the brurnstane cootie, 
 
 To scaud poor wretches. 
 
 " Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee, 
 An' let poor damned bodies be ; 
 I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie. 
 E'en to a de'tl. 
 To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me. 
 An' hear us squeel ?" 
 
 This is conciliatory ; and we think we see him smile. We 
 can almost believe for a moment, that it does give him no great 
 pleasure, that he is not inaccessible to pity, and at times would 
 fain devolve his duty upon other hands, though we cannot expect 
 him to resign. The poet knows that he is the Prince of the 
 Air. 
 
 " Great is thy pow'r an' great tliy fame ; 
 Far kend and noted is thy name ; 
 An' tho' yon lowiri heugh's thy hame, 
 
 Thou travels far ; 
 An' faith ! thou's neither lag nor lame. 
 
 Nor blate nor scaur. 
 
 " Whyles, ranging like a roarin lion. 
 For prey, a' holes an' corners tryin' ^ 
 Whyles on the strong-wing'd tempest flyin', 
 
 Tirling the kirks; 
 Whyles, in the human bosom prying, 
 
 Unseen thou lurks '
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. M 
 
 That is mairnificcnt — Milton's self would have thoujrht so — 
 and it could have been written by no man w ho iuid not studied 
 scripture. The Address is seen to take ; the Old Intrusionist is 
 jrlorified by " tirling the kirks; " and the poet thinks it rigiit to 
 lower his pride. 
 
 " Tve heard my reverend Graiviic say, 
 In lanely glens ye like to stray : 
 Or where auld-ruin'd castles, grey, 
 
 Nod to the moon, 
 Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way, 
 
 Wi' eldritch croon. 
 
 " When twilight did my Grannie summon 
 To say her prayers, douce, honest woman ! 
 Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin, 
 
 Wi' eerie drone ; 
 Or, rustlin' through the boortrees comia' 
 Wi' heavy groan. 
 
 " Ae dreary, windy, winter night, 
 The stars shot down wi' sklentia' light, 
 Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright, 
 
 Ayont the lough ; 
 Ye, like a rash-bush, stood in sight, 
 
 Wi' waving sugh." 
 
 Throughout the whole Address, the elements are so combined 
 in him, as to give the world " assurancp o' a deil ; " but then it 
 is the Deil of Scotland. 
 
 Just so in " Tarn o' Shantcr." We know not what some jjreat 
 
 German genius like Goethe might have made of him ; but we 
 
 much mistake the matter, if " Tarn o' Shanter" at Alloway 
 
 Kirk be not as exemplary a piece of humanity as Faustus on 
 
 May-day Night upon the Hartz Mountains. Faust does not well 
 
 know what he would be at, but Tam does ; and though his views 
 
 of human life be rather hazy, he has glimpses given him of the 
 
 invisible world. His wife — but her tongue was no scandal — 
 
 calls him 
 
 " A skellum, 
 A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum ; 
 That frae November till October, 
 Ae market-day thou was nae sober. 
 That ilka melder, wi' the miller, 
 Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ;
 
 66 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on, 
 
 The smith and thee gat roaring fou on, 
 
 That at the L — d's house, ev'n on Sunday, 
 
 Thou drank \vi' Kirton Jean till iVIonday. 
 
 She prophesy'd, tliat late or soon. 
 
 Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon ; 
 
 Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, 
 
 By Alloway's auld haunted kirk." 
 
 That is her view of the subject ; but what is Tarn's ? The same 
 as Wordsworth's, — " He sits down to his cups, while the storm 
 is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion ; the night is 
 driven on by song and tumultuous noise; laughter and jests 
 thicken as the beverage improves upon the palate; conjugal 
 fidelity archly bends to the service of general benevolence; sel- 
 fishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of social cordiality ; 
 and while these various elements of humanity are blended into 
 one proud and happy composition of elated spirits, the anger of 
 the tempest vyithout doors only heightens and sets olf the enjoy- 
 ment within. I pity him who cannot perceive that, in all this, 
 though there was no moral purpose, there is a moral effect. 
 
 ' Kings may be blest but Tarn was glorious. 
 O'er a' the ills of life victorious.' 
 
 What a lesson do these words convey of charitable indulgence 
 for the vicious habits of the principal actor in the scene and of 
 those who resemble him ! Men who, to the rigidly virtuous, are 
 objects almost of loathing, and whom therefore they cannot 
 serve. Tlie poet, penetrating the unsightly and disgusting sur- 
 faces of things, has unveiled, with e.xquisite skill, the finer ties 
 of imagination and feeling that often bind those beings to prac- 
 tices productive of much unhappiness to themselves and to those 
 whom it is their duty to cherish ; and as far as he jjuts the reader 
 into possession of this intelligent sympathy, he qualifies him for 
 exercising a salutary infiuence over the minds of those who are 
 thus deplorably deceived." 
 
 We respectfully demur from the opinion of this wise and be- 
 nign judge, that " there was no moral purpose in all this, though 
 there is a moral effect." So strong was his moral purpose and
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 67 
 
 so deep the moral feeling moved within him by the picture he 
 had so vividly imagined, that Burns pauses, in highest moral 
 mood, at the finishing touch, 
 
 " Kings may be blest but Tam was glorious ; " 
 
 and then, by imagery of unequalled loveliness, illustrates an 
 universal and everlastinji truth: 
 
 o 
 
 " But pleasures are like poppies spread. 
 You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed 
 Or like the snovv-lalls in the river, 
 A moment white — then melts for ever; 
 Or like the borealis race. 
 That flit ere you can point tlieir place; 
 Or like the rainbow's lovely form, 
 Evanishing; amid the storm." 
 
 'o 
 
 Next instant he returns to Tarn ; and, humanized by that ex- 
 quisite poetry, we cannot help being sorry for him " mountin' his 
 beast in sic a night." At the first clap of thunder he forgets 
 Souter Johnny — how "conjugal fidelity archly bent to the ser- 
 vice of general benevolence " — such arc the terms in which the 
 philosophical Wordsworth speaks of 
 
 " The landlady and Tarn grew gracious ; 
 Wi' favors, secret, sweet, and precious :" 
 
 and as the haunted Ruin draws nigh, lie remembers not only 
 Kate's advice but her prophecy. He has passed by some fear- 
 ful places ; at the slightest touch of the necromancer, how fast 
 one after another wlieels by, telling at what a rate Tam rode ! 
 And we forget tliat we are not riding behind him, 
 
 "When, iilimmoring tliro' the groaning trees, 
 Kirk-Alloway scem'd in a bleeze !" 
 
 We defy any man of woman born to tell us who these witches 
 and warlocks are, and why the devil brought them liere into 
 AUoway-Kirk. True 
 
 "This ni<;ht a child miy;ht understand. 
 The deil had business on his hand;"
 
 68 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 but that is not the question — the question is what business ? 
 Was it a ball given him on the anniversary of the Fall ? 
 
 "There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast; 
 A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, 
 To gie them music was his charge :" 
 
 and pray wlio is to pay the piper ? We fear that young witch 
 Nannie ! 
 
 "For Satan glow'r'd, and fidged fu' fain, 
 And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main :" 
 
 and this may be the nuptial night of the Prince — for that tyke 
 is he — of the Fallen Angels ! 
 
 How was Tarn able to stand the sight, " glorious and heroic" 
 as he was, of the open presses ? 
 
 " Coffins stood round like open presses, 
 That shaw'd the dead in tlieir last dresses; 
 And by some devilish cantraip slight. 
 Each in its cauld hand held a light." 
 
 Because show a man some sight that is altogether miraculously 
 dreadful, and he either faints or feels no fear. Or say rather, 
 let a man stand the first glower at it, and he will make compar- 
 atively light of the details. There was Auld Nick himself, 
 there was no mistaking him, and there were 
 
 " Wither'd beldams, auld and droll, 
 Riij;woodie ha^s wad spean a foal, 
 Low[)ing an' flinging — " 
 
 to such dancing what cared Tam who held the candle ? He 
 was bedevilled, bewarlocked and bewitched, and therefore 
 
 " Able 
 To note upon the haly table, 
 A murderer's banes in gibbet aims; 
 Twa span-hing, wee, unchristen'd bairns; 
 A tiiief, ncw-cutted frae a rape, 
 Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; 
 Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red rusted , 
 Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 69 
 
 A gavter, which a babe had stransiled ; 
 A knife, a father's throat had mangled. 
 Whom his ain son o' life bereft. 
 The grey hairs yet stack to the heft." 
 
 This collection has all the effect of a selection. The bodies 
 were not placed there ; but following each other's heels, they 
 stretched themselves out of their own accord upon the haly ta- 
 ble. They had received a summons to tlie festival, which mur- 
 derer and murdered must obey. But mind ye, Tarn could not 
 see what you see. Who told him that tkat garter had strangled 
 a babe ? That that was a parricide's knife ? Nobody — and 
 that is a flaw. For Tam looks with his bodily eyes only, and 
 can know only what they show him ; but Burns knew it; and 
 believed Tam knew it too ; and we know it for Burns tells us, 
 and we believe Tam as wise as ourselves ; for we almost turn 
 Tam — the poet himsc^lf being the only real warlock of them all. 
 
 You know why that Haly Table is so pleasant to the apples 
 of all those evil eyes ? They feed upon the dead, not merely be- 
 cause they love wickedness, but because they inspire it into the 
 quick. Who ever murdered his father but at the instigation of 
 tliat "towzie tyke, black, grim, and large ?" Who but for him 
 ever strangled her new-born child ? Scimitars and tomahawks! 
 Why, such weapons never were in use in Scotland. True. 
 But they have long been in use in the wilderness of the western 
 world, and among the orient cities of Mahoun, and his empire 
 extends to the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 
 And here we shall say a few words, which perhaps were ex- 
 pected from us when speaking a little while ago of some of iiis 
 first productions, about Burns's humorous strains, more especially 
 those in which he has sung the praises of joviality and good fel- 
 lowship, as it has been thought by many, that in them are con- 
 spicuously displayed not only some striking qualities of his poet- 
 ical genius, but likewise of his personal character. Among tiie 
 countless number of what are called convivial songs floating in 
 our literature, how kw seem to have been inspired by such a 
 sense and spirit of social enjoyment as men can sympatliizc with 
 in tiieir ordinary moods, wiicn withdrawn from the festive board, 
 and enwafrcd without blame in the common amusements or recre-
 
 70 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 ations of a busy or studious life ! The finest of these few liave 
 been gracefully and gaily thrown off, in some mirthful minute, 
 by Shakspeare and Ben Jonson and "the Rest," inebriating the 
 mind as with "divine gas" into sudden exhilaration that passes 
 away not only without headache, but with heartache for a time 
 allayed by the sweet ajjiatus. In our land, too, as in Greece of 
 old, genius has imbibed inspiration from the wine-cup, and sung 
 of human life in strains befitting poets who desired that their 
 foreheads should perpetually be wreathed witli flowers. But 
 putting aside them and their little lyres, with some exceptions, 
 how nauseous are the bacchanalian sonjrs of Merry England ! 
 
 On this topic we but touch ; and request you to recollect, 
 that there are not half a dozen, if so many, drinking songs in 
 all Burns. " Willie brewed a peck o' maut," is, indeed, the 
 chief; and you cannot even look at it without crying, "O rare 
 Rob Burns !" So far from inducing you to believe that the poet 
 was addicted to drinking, the freshness and fervor of its glee 
 convince you that it came gushing out of a healthful heart, in 
 the exhilaration of a night that needed not the influence of the 
 flowing bowl, which friendship, nevertheless, did so frequently 
 replenish. Wordsworth, who has told the world that he is a 
 water drinker, and in tiie lake country he can never be at a loss 
 for his favorite beverage, regards this song with the complacency 
 of a philosopher, knowing well that it is all a pleasant exagge- 
 ration ; and that had the moon not lost patience and gone to bed, 
 she would have seen "Rob and Allan" on their way back to 
 Ellisland, along the bold banks of the Nith, as steady as a brace 
 of bishops. 
 
 Of the contest immortalized in the " Whistle,"' it may be ob- 
 served, that in the course of events it is likely to be as rare as 
 enormous ; and that as centuries intervened between Sir Robert 
 Laurie's victory over the Dane in tlie reign of James VI., and 
 Craigdarroch's victory over Sir Robert Laurie in that of George 
 III'., so centuries, in all Imman probability, will elapse before 
 another such l)attle will be lost and won. It is not a little 
 amusing to hear good Dr. Currie on tiiis passage in the life of 
 Burns. In the text of liis Memoir he says, speaking of the 
 poet's intimacy with the best families in Nithsdale, " Tiieir s >-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 cial parties too often seduced him from his rustic labors and his 
 rustic fare, overthrew the unsteady fabric of his resolutions, 
 and injlanied those propensities lohich temperance might have 
 weakened, and prudence ultimateli/ suppressed.'^ In a note he 
 adds in illustration, "The poem of tiie WHiistle celebrates a 
 bacchanalian event among the gentlemen of Nithsdale, where 
 Burns appears as umpire. Mr. Riddell died before our bard, 
 and some elegiac verses to his memory will be found in Volume 
 IV. From him and from all the members of his family, Burns 
 received not kindness, but friendship ; a7id the society he met 
 2oilh in general at Friar's Carse was calculated to improve his 
 habits, as well as his manners Mr. Ferjrusson of Crai'^dar- 
 roch, so well known for his eloquence and social habits, died soon 
 after our poet. Sir Robert Laurie, the third person in the 
 drama, survives; and has since been engaged in contests of a 
 bloodier nature — long may he live to fight the battles of his 
 country! (1799)." Three better men lived not in the shire ; 
 but they were gentlemen, and Burns was but an exciseman ; and 
 Currie, unconsciously influenced by an habitual deference to 
 rank, pompously moralizes on the poor poet's '-'propensities, 
 which temperance might have weakened, and prudence ulti- 
 mately suppressed ;" while in the same breath, and with the 
 same ink, he eulogises the rich squire for " his eloquence and 
 social habits," so well calculated to " improve the habits, as well 
 as the manners," of the bard and gauger ! Now suppose that 
 "the heroes" had been not Craigdarroch, Glenriddel, and Max- 
 welton, but Burns, Mitchell, and Findlater, a gauger, a super- 
 visor, and a collector of excise, and that the contest had taken 
 place not at Friar's-Carse, but at Ellisland, not for a time- 
 honored hereditary ebony whistle, but a wooden ladle not a 
 week old, and that Burns the Victorious had acquired an imple- 
 ment more elegantly fashioned, though of the same materials, 
 tban the one taken from. his mouth the moment he was l)orn, 
 what blubbering would there not have been among his biogra- 
 phers ! James Currie, how exhortatory ! Josiah Walker, how 
 lachrymose ! 
 
 " Next uprose our Bard like a prophet in drink : 
 ' Craigdarrocli, thou'lt soar when cnvatiun isliull sink !
 
 72 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyino, 
 Come — one bottle more — and have at the sublime ! 
 
 " Thy line, they have struggled for Freedom with Bruce, 
 Shall heroes and patriots ever produce : 
 So thine be the laurel, and mine be tlie bay ; 
 The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day !" 
 
 How very shocking! Then only hear in what a culpable spirit 
 Burns writes to Riddel, on the forenoon of the day of battle ! — 
 ''Sir, Big with tlie idea of this important day at Friar's-Carse, I 
 have invoked the elements and skies in the fond persuasion that 
 they would announce it to tlie astonished world by some pheno- 
 mena of terrific import. Yester-night, until a very late liour, 
 did I wait with anxious horror for the appearance of some comet 
 firing half the sky ; or aerial armies of conquering Scandina- 
 vians, darting atiiwart the startled heavens, rapid as the ragged 
 ligluning, and horrid as those convulsions of nature that bury 
 nations. The elements, liowever, seem to take the matter very 
 quietly ; they did not even usher in this morning with triple suns 
 and a shower of blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes, 
 and the mighty claret-shed of the day. For me, as Thomson in 
 his Winter says of the storm, I shall ' Hear astonished, and as- 
 tonished sin"-.' To leave the heights of Parnassus and come to 
 the humble vale of prose, I have some misgivings that I take too 
 much upon me, when I request you to get your guest, Sir Robert 
 Laurie, to post the two inclosed covers for me, the one of them to 
 Sir William Cumiinghame, of Robertland, Bart., Kilmarnock — 
 the other to Mr. Allen Masterton, writing-master, Edinburgh. 
 The first has a kindred claim on Sir Robert, as being a brother 
 baronet, and likewise a keen Foxite ; the other is one of the 
 worthiest men in the world, and a man of real genius; so allow 
 nie to say, he lias a fraternal claim on you. I want them franked 
 for to-morrow, as I cannot get them to the post to-night. I shall 
 send a servant again for them in tlie evening. Wishinji; that 
 your head may be crowned with laurels to-night, and free from 
 aches to-morrow, I have the honor to be, sir, your deeply-indebted 
 and obedient servant, R. B." ^V'hy, you sec that this " Letter," 
 and " The Whistle " — perhaps an improper poem in priggish
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 73 
 
 eyes, but. in the -eyes of Bacchus the best of triumphal odes — 
 make up the whole of Burns's share in this transaction. He 
 was not at the Carse. The "three potent heroes" were too 
 thoroughly gentlemen to liave asked a fourth to sit by with an 
 empty bottle before him as umpire of that debate. Burns that 
 evening was sitting with his eldest child on his knee, teaching it 
 to say Dad — that night he was lying in his own bed, with bonnie 
 Jean by his side — and " yon bright god of day " saluted him at 
 morning on the Scaur above the glittering Nith. 
 
 Turn to the passages in his youfhful poetry, where he speaks 
 of himself or others " wl' just a drappie in their ee." Would 
 you that he- had never written Death and Dr. Hornbook? 
 
 " The clachan yill had made me canty, 
 I was na fou, but just had plenty ; 
 I staclier'd whyles, but yet took tent ay , 
 To free the ditches ; 
 " An' hillocks, stanes, an' bushes, kenn'd ay 
 
 Frae ghaists an' witches. • 
 
 " The rising moon began to glow'r 
 The distant Cumnock hills out-owre : 
 To count her horns, wi' a' my pow'r, 
 
 I set mysel ; 
 But whether she had three or four, 
 I cou'd na tell. 
 
 ' I was come round about the hill. 
 And toddlin down on Willie's mill. 
 Setting my staff wi' a' my skill. 
 
 To keep rae sicker : 
 Thb' leeward whyles, against my will, 
 
 I took a bicker. 
 
 " I there wi' SoaiEXHiNG did forgather," &c. 
 
 Then and there, as you learn, ensued that " celestial colloquy 
 divine," which being reported drove the doctor out of the coun- 
 try, by une.xtinguishable laughter, into Glasgow, where half a 
 century afterwards he died universally respected. Something 
 had more to say, and long -Ueiore that time Burns liad been 
 sobered.
 
 74 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " But just as he began to tell, 
 The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell 
 Some wee short hour ayont the twal. 
 
 Which rais'd us baith : 
 I took the way that pleas'd myser. 
 
 And sue did Death." 
 
 In those pregnant Epistles to his friends, in which his generous 
 and noble character is revealed so sincerely, he now and then 
 alludes to the socialities customary in Kyle ; and the good peo- 
 ple of Scotland have always enjoyed such genial pictures. 
 When promising himself the purest pleasures society can afford, 
 in company with " Auld Lapraik," whom he warmly praises for 
 the tenderness and truthfulness of his " sangs " — 
 
 " There was ae sang, amang the rest, 
 Aboon them a' it pleased me best, 
 That some kind husband had addrest 
 
 To some sweet wife : 
 It thirl'd the heart-strings thro' the breast, 
 A' to the life ; " 
 
 and wheft luxuriating in the joy of conscious genius holding 
 communion with the native muse, he exclaims-^— 
 
 " Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire. 
 That's a' the learning I desire ; 
 Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire 
 At pleugh or cart, 
 My muse, though hamely in attire, 
 
 . May touch the heart ; " 
 
 where does Burns express a desire fo meet his brother-bard ? 
 Where but in the resorts of their fellow. laborers, when released 
 from toil, and flinging weariness to the wind, they flock into the 
 heart of some holiday, attired in -sunshine, and feeling that life 
 is life ? 
 
 " But Mauchline face, or Mauchline fair, 
 I should be proud to meet you there ; 
 We'se gie ae night's discharge to care, 
 
 If we forgather,' 
 An' hae a swap o' rhymin-ware * 
 
 Wi' ane anither.
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 "The four-gill chap, we'se gar him clatter, 
 An' kirsen him \vi' reekin water; 
 Syne we'll sit down an' tak onr whitter, 
 
 To cheer our heart ; 
 An' faith we'se be acquainted better 
 
 Before we part. 
 
 " Awa, ye selfish warly race, 
 Wha think that havins, s jnse, an' grace, 
 Ev'n love an'_ friendship, shduld give place 
 
 To catch the plack .' 
 I dinna like to see your face. 
 
 Nor hear your crack 
 
 " But ye whom social pleasure charms. 
 Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms, 
 Who hold your being on the termsj 
 
 ' Each aid the others,' 
 Come to my bowl, come to my arms. 
 
 My friends, my brothers ! " 
 
 Yet after all, "the four-gill chap " clattered but on paper. 
 Lapraik was an elderly man of sober life, impoverished by a 
 false friend in whom he had confided ; and Burns, who wore 
 good clothes, and paid his tailor as punctually as the men he 
 dealt with, had -not much money out of seven pounds a year, to 
 spend in "the change-house." He allowed no man to pay 
 his " lawin," but neither was he given to treating — save the sex ; 
 and in his " Epistle to James Smith," he gives a more correct 
 account of his habits, when he goes thus off careeringly — 
 
 "My pen I here fling to the door. 
 And kneel : ' Ye Powers I' and warm implore, 
 Tho' I should wander terra o'er 
 
 In all her climes : 
 Grant me but this — I ask no more— ^ 
 
 Ay.rowth o' rhymes. 
 
 " While ye are plcas'd to keep me hale, 
 I'll sit down o!er my scanty meal, 
 Be't water-brose, or Tiuslin-kail, 
 
 Wi' cheerfu? face. 
 As lang's the Muses dinra fail 
 
 To say the grace." 
 7*
 
 76 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 Read the " Auld Farmer's New-Year Morning Salutation to 
 his Auld Mare Maggie." Not a soul but them-two-selves is in 
 the stable — in the farm-yard — nor as far as we tliink of, in the 
 house. Yes — there is one in the house — but she is somewhat in- 
 firm, and not yet out«of bed. Sons and daughters have long 
 since been married, and have houses of their own — such of them 
 as may not have been buried. The servants are employed some- 
 where else out of doors — and so are the " four gallant brutes as 
 e'er did draw " a moiety of Maggie's " balrn-time." The Ad- 
 dress is an Autobiography. The master remembers himself, 
 along with his mare — in days \vhen slia was " dappl't, sleek, and 
 glaizie, a bonnie grey ;" and he " the pride o' a' the parishen." 
 
 "That day W(^pranc'd wi muckle pride. 
 When ye bure hame my bonnie bride ; 
 An' sweet an' gracefu' she did ride, 
 
 Wi' maiden air ! • 
 
 Kyle Stewart I could bragged wide, 
 
 For-sic a pair." 
 
 What passages in their common life docs he next select to 
 " roose " mare and maimer ? " In tug or tow ?" In cart, plough, 
 or harrow ? These all- rise before him at the right time, and in 
 a cheerful spirit ; towards the close of his address he grows se- 
 rious, but not sad — as well he may ; and at the close, as well he 
 may, tender and grateful. But the image he sees galloping, 
 next to that of the Broose, comes second, because it is "second 
 best : 
 
 " When thou an' I were young an' skeigh, 
 An' stable-meals at fairs were dreigh, • 
 
 How thou wad prance, an' snore, an' skrcigh. 
 
 An' tak the road ! 
 Town's bodies ran, and stood abeigh, 
 
 * An' ca't thee mad. - 
 
 " When thou wast corri't, an' I was mellow, 
 We took the roacj ay like a swallow ?" 
 
 • 
 
 We do not blame the old farmer for having got occasionally, 
 mellow some thirty years ago — we do not blame Burns for mak-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 77 
 
 iiig him pride himself on his shame ; nay, we bless them both as 
 we hear these words whispered close to the old Ma're's lug: 
 
 " Monie a sair daurk we twa hao wrouglit. 
 An' wi' the weary warl' fought ! 
 An' monie an anxiojs day I thought 
 
 We ts'ad be beat ! 
 Yet here to crazy age we're brought, • 
 
 Wi' something yet. 
 
 • 
 
 " And think na, my auld trusty servan', 
 . • That now perliaps thou's less descrvin, 
 
 An' thy auld days may end in starvin. 
 
 For my last fou, 
 A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane 
 
 Laid by for you. 
 
 " We've worn to crazy years thegither : 
 We'll toytc about wi' ane anither ; 
 Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether, 
 
 To some hain*5 rig, 
 Wharc ye may nobly rax your leather, 
 
 Wi' sma' fatigue." 
 
 A 
 
 Or will you turn to " The T.wa Dogs," and hear Luath, in 
 hom the hest humanities mingle with the canine — the Poet's 
 own colley, whom some cruel wretch murdered ; and gibbeted 
 to everlasting infamy would have been tii^ murderer, had Burns 
 but known his name ? 
 
 " Th^ dearest comfort o' their lives. 
 Their grushie weans an' faithfu' wives; 
 The prattling things are just their pride. 
 That sweetens a' their fireside 
 
 " An' whiles twalpenny worth o' nappy 
 Can mak the bodies unco happy; 
 They lay aside their private cares, 
 To mend the Kirk and State affairs : 
 They'll talk o' patronage and priests, 
 Wi' kindling fury in their breasts, • 
 
 Or tell what new taxation's comin, 
 An' ferlie at the folk in. Loi\'on.
 
 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " As bleak-fac'd Hallowmass returns, 
 'They get the jovial, rantin kirns. 
 
 When rural life, o' every station, 
 
 Unite in common recreation; 
 
 Love blinks, Wit slaps, an' social Mirth 
 
 Forgets there's Care upo' the earth. 
 • 
 " That merry day the year begins. 
 
 They bar the door on frosty winds ; 
 
 The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream ; 
 
 An' sheds a heart-in^iring steam ; 
 
 The luntin pipe, and sneeshin mill. 
 
 Are handed round wi' richt guid will ; 
 
 The cantie auld folks crackin crouse, 
 
 The young anes rantin thro' the house. 
 
 My heart has been sae fain to see them, 
 
 That I for joy hae barkit wi' them." 
 
 Yet how happens it that in the " Halloween" no mention is 
 made of this source of enjoyment, and that the parties concerned 
 pursue the ploy with unflagging passion through all its charms 
 and spells ? Because the festival is kept alive by the poetic 
 power of superstition that night awakened from its slumber in all 
 those simple souls; and that serves instead of strong drink. 
 They .fly from freak to freak, without a thought but of the witch- 
 eries — the means and appliances needful to make them potent ; 
 this Burns knew to b» nature, and therefore he delays all " crea- 
 . ture comforts" till the end, when the curtain has dropped on that 
 visionary stage, and the actors return to the floor of their every- 
 day world. Then — 
 
 " Wi' merry sangs, an' friendly cracks, 
 I wat they didna weary; 
 An' unco' tales, an' funny jokes. 
 
 Their sports were cheap an' cheery. 
 Till buttir'd so'ns, wi fragrant lunt, 
 
 Set a' their gabs a-steerin ; 
 Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt. 
 They parted art' careerin 
 • " Fu' bly the. that night." 
 
 VVe see no reason why, in the spirit of these observations, 
 moralists may not read with pleasure and approbation. " The
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch Representatives 
 in the House of Commons." Its political economy is as sound 
 as its patriotism is stirring ; and he must be indeed a dunce who 
 believes that Burns uttered it either as a defence or an encou- 
 racement of a national vice, or that it is calculated to stimulate 
 poor people into pernicious habits. It is an address that Cob- 
 bett, had he been a Scotsman and one of the Forty-Five, would 
 have rejoiced to lay on the table of the House of Commons ; for 
 Cobbett, in all that was best of him, was a kind of Burns in his 
 way, and loved the men who work. He maintained the cause 
 of malt, and it was a leading article in the creed of his faith 
 that the element distilled therefrom is like the air they breathe, 
 if the people have it not, they die. Beer may be best; and 
 Burns was the champion of beer, as \vell as of what bears a 
 brisker name. He spoke of it in " The Earnest Cry," and like- 
 wise in the " Scotch Drink," as one of the staffs of life which 
 had been struck from the poor man's hand by fiscal oppression. 
 Tea was then little practised in Ayrshire cottages ; and we do not 
 at this moment remember the word in Burns's Poems. He threat- 
 ens a risins if Ministers will not obey the voice of the People : 
 
 " Auld Scotland has a.raucle tongue ; 
 She's just a devil \vi' a rung; ' 
 An' if she promise auld or young 
 
 To tak their part, 
 *Tho' by the neck she should be strung, 
 Slie'll no desert." 
 
 In the Postscript, the patriotism and poetry of "The Earnest 
 Cry" wax stronger and brighter — and no drunkard would dare 
 to read aloud in the presence of men — by heart he never could 
 aet it — such a strain as this — ■familiar to many million ears : 
 
 " Let half-starv'd slaves, in warmer skies, 
 See future wines, rich clust'ring, rise ; 
 Their lot auld Scotland ne'er envies. 
 
 But blythe and frisky, 
 She eyes her freeborn, martial boys, 
 
 Tak air their whisky."
 
 80 " THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " What tho' their Phoebus kinder warms. 
 While fragrance blooms, and beauty charms ; 
 When wretches range, in famfsh'd swarms. 
 
 The scented groves. 
 Or hounded forth, dislionor arms. 
 
 In hungry droves. 
 
 " Their gun's a burden on their shouther ; 
 They downa bide the stink o' powther ; 
 Their bauldes^ thought's a hank'ring swither 
 
 To stan' or rin, 
 Till skelp — a shot — they're aff, a' throwther. 
 
 To save their skin. 
 
 " But bring a Scotsman frae his hill. 
 Clap in his cheek a Highland gill. 
 Say, such is Royal George's will, ^ 
 
 An' there's the foe. 
 He has nae thought but how to kill 
 
 Twa at a blow. 
 
 " Nae cauld, faint-hearted doublings tease him ; 
 Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him ; 
 Wi' bluidy hand a welcome gies him : 
 An" when he fa's, 
 His latest draught o' breathin lea'es him 
 In faint huzzas." 
 
 These are not the sentiments of a man who " takes an enemy 
 into his mouth to steal away his brains." Nor is there anytliiiig 
 to condemn, when looked at in the liaht with which jjenius in- 
 vests them, in the pictures presented to us in " Scotch Drink," 
 of some of the familiar scenes of humble life, whether of busy 
 work, or as busy recreation, and some of home-felt incidents in- 
 terestinij to all that live — such as " when skirlin weanies see the 
 light" — animated and invigorated to the utmost pitch of tension, 
 beyond tiie reach of the jaded spirits of the laboring poor — so 
 at least the poet makes us for the time willing to believe — when 
 unaided by that elixir he so fervidly sings. ■ Who would wish 
 tlie following lines ex[)unged ? Wlio may not, if he ciiooses, so 
 qualify their meaning as to make them true? Who will not 
 pardon the first two, if they need pardon, for sake of the last 
 two that need none ? For surely you, who though guilty of no
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. SI 
 
 excess, fare sumptuously every day, will not, find it in your 
 hearts to grudge the " poor man's wine " to the Cottar after tliat 
 " Saturday Night " of his, painted for you to the life by his own 
 son. Robert Burns ! 
 
 " Thou clears tlie head o' doited lear ; 
 Thou cheers the heart o' drooping care ; 
 Tho\i strings the nerves o' labor sair, 
 
 At's weary toil ; 
 Thou brightens even dark despair 
 
 Wi' gloomy smile. 
 
 " Aft, clad in massy siller weed, 
 Wi' gentles thou erects thy head ; 
 Yet humbly kind in time o' need, 
 
 . The poor man's wine ; 
 His wee drap parritch, or his bread. 
 
 Thou kitchens fine." 
 
 Gilbert, in h 5 excellent vindication of his brother's character, 
 tells us that at the time when many of those " Rhapsodies respect- 
 ing drinking" were composed and first published, few people 
 were less addicted to drinking than he ; and that he assumed a 
 poetical character, very different from that of the man at the 
 lime. It has been said that Scotsmen have no humor — no per- 
 ception of humor — that we are all plain matter-of-fact people — 
 not without some strength of understanding — but grave to a 
 degree on occasions when races more favor'd by nature are 
 gladsome to an excess : and — 
 
 " In gay delirium rob them of themselves." 
 
 This judgment on our national characteristics implies a familiar 
 acquaintance with Scottish poetry from Dunbar to Burns. It 
 would be nearer the truth — though still wide of it — to affirm, 
 that we have more humor than all the rest of the inhabitants of 
 this earth besides; but this at least is true, tliat unfortunately 
 for ourselves, we have too much humor, and that it lias sometimes 
 been allowed to flow out of its proper province, and mingle itself 
 M'ith thoughts and things that ought for ever to be kept sacred in 
 the minds of the people. A few words by and by on this sub-
 
 82 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 ject ; meanwhile, with respect to his " Rhapsodies about Drink- 
 ing," Burns knew tliat not only had all the stated, stages, and 
 phases of inebriety been humorously illustrated by the comic 
 genius of his country's most popular poets, but that the people 
 themselves, in spite of their deep moral and religious conviction 
 of the sinfulness of intemperance, were prone to look on its 
 indulgenges in every droll and ludicrous aspect they could as- 
 sume, according to the infinite variety of the modifications of 
 individual character. As a poet dealing with life as it lay be- 
 fore and around him, so far from seeking to avoid, he eagerly 
 seized on these ; and havin:j in the constitution of his own being 
 as much humor and as rich as ever mixed with the higher ele- 
 ments of genius, he sometimes gave vent to its perceptions and 
 emotions in strains perfectly irresistible — even to the most seri- 
 ous — who had to force themselves back into their habitual and 
 better state, before they could regard them with due condemna- 
 tion. 
 
 But humor in men of genius is always allied to pathos — its 
 exquisite touches. 
 
 • 
 
 " On the pale cheek of sorrow awaken a smile, 
 And illumine the eye that was dim with a tear. " 
 
 So is it a thousand times with the humor of Burns — and we have 
 seen it so in our quotations from these very " Rhapsodies." He 
 could sit with " rattlinif roarin' Willie" — and when he belonged 
 to the Croehallan Fencibles, " he was the king of a' the core." 
 But whi're he usually sat up late at night, during those glorious 
 hard-working years, was a low loft above a stable — so low that 
 he had to stoop even when he was silting at a deal table three 
 feet by two — with his " heart inditing a good matter" to a 
 plough-boy, who read it up to the poet before they lay down on 
 the same truckle-bed. 
 
 Burns had as deep an insight as ever man had into the moral 
 evils of the poor man's character, condition, and life. From 
 n^any of them he remained free to the last ; some he suffered 
 late and early. What were his struggles wo know, yet we know 
 l)ut in part, before he was overcome. But it does not appear 
 that he thought intemperance the worst moral evil of the people,
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS, 83 
 
 or that to the habits it forms had chiefly to be imputed their 
 ' falling short or away from that character enjoined by the law 
 written and unwritten, and without which, preserved in its great 
 lineaments, there cannot be to the poor man, any more than tlie 
 rich, either power or peace. He believed that but for " Man's 
 inhumanity to man," this might be a much better earth ; that 
 they who live by the sweat of their brows would wipe them with 
 pride, so that the blood did but freely circulate from their hearts ; 
 that creatures endowed w ith a moral sense and discourse of rea- 
 son would follow their dictates, in preference to all solicitations 
 to enjoyment from those sources that flow to them in common 
 with all things that have life, so that they were but allowed the 
 rights and privileges of nature, and not made to bow down to a 
 servitude inexorable as necessity, but imposed, as he thought, on 
 their necks as a yoke by the very hands which Providence had 
 kept free ; — -believing all this, and nevertheless knowing and 
 feeling, often in bitterness of heart and prostration of spirit, that 
 there is far worse evil, because self-originating- and self-inhabit- 
 ing within the invisible world of every human soul. Burns had 
 no reprobation to inflict on the lighter sins of the oppressed, in 
 sight of the heavier ones of the oppressor ; and when he did 
 look into his own heart and the hearts of his brethren in toil 
 and in trouble, for those springs of misery which are for ever well- 
 ing there, and need no external blasts or torrents to lift them 
 from their beds till they overflow their banks, and inundate 
 ruinously life's securest pastures, he saw the Passions to which 
 are given power and dominion for bliss or for bale — of them in 
 his sweetest, loftiest inspirations, he sung as a poet all he felt as 
 a man ; willing to let his fancy in lighter moods dally with infe- 
 rior things and merry measures — even with the very meat and 
 drink that sustains man who is but grass, and like the flower of 
 the field flourisheth and is cut down, and raked away outof the 
 sunshine into the shadow of the grave. 
 
 That Burns did not only not set himself to dissuade poor people 
 from drinking, but that he indited " Rhapsodies" about "Scotch 
 Drink," and " Earnest Cries," will not, then, seem at all sur- 
 prising to poor people themselves, nor very culpable even in the 
 eyes of the most sober among them ; whatever may be the light 
 
 8
 
 84 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 in which some people regard such delinquencies, your more-in- 
 sorrow. than-anger moralists, who are their own butlers, and 
 sleep with the key of the wine-cellar under their pillow ; his 
 poetry is very- dear to the people, and we "venture to say that 
 they understand its spirit as well as the best of those for whom 
 it was not written ; for written it was for his own Order — the 
 enlightened majority of Christian men. -No fear of their being 
 blind to its venial faults, its more serious imperfections, and if 
 there they be, its sins. There are austere eyes in work-shops, 
 and in the fields, intolerant of pollution ; stern judges of them- 
 selves and others preside in those courts of conscience that are 
 not open to the public ; nevertheless, they have tender hearts, 
 and they yearn with exceeding love towards those of their breth- 
 ren who have brightened or elevated their common lot. Latent 
 virtues in such poetry as Burns's afe continually revealing them- 
 selves to readers, whose condition is felt to be uncertain, 
 and their happiness to fluctuate With it; adversity puts to the 
 test our opinions and beliefs, equally with our habits and our 
 practices ; and the most moral and religious man that ever 
 worked from morning to night, that his family might have bread 
 — daily from youth upwards till now he is threescore and ten — 
 might approve of the sentiment of that Song, feel it in all its 
 fervor, and express it in all its glee, in which age meeting with 
 age, and again hand and heart linked together, the " trusty 
 feres," bring back the past in a sun-burst on the present, and 
 thoughtless of the future, pour out unblamed libations to the 
 days " o' auld lang syne !" 
 
 It seems to us very doubtful if any poetry could become 
 popular, of which the prevalent spirit is not in accordance with 
 that of the people, as well in those qualities we grieve to call 
 vices, as in those we are happy to pronounce virtues. It is not 
 sufficient that they be moved for a time against their will, by 
 some moral poet desirous, we shall suppose, of purifying and 
 elevating their character, by the circulation of better" sentiments 
 than those with which they have been long familiar ; it is neces- 
 sary that the will shall go along with their sympathies to preserve 
 them perhaps from being turned into antipathies ; and that is not 
 likely to happen, if violence be done to long- established customs
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 85 
 
 and habits, wliich may have acquired not only the force, but 
 sonictliing too of the sanctity, of nature. 
 
 But it is certain that to effect any happy change in the man- 
 ners or the morals of a people — to be in any degree-instrumental 
 to the attainment or preservation of their dearest interests — a 
 Poet must deal with them in the spirit of truth ; and that ho 
 may do so, he must not only be conversant with their condition, 
 but wise in knowledge, tiiat he may understand what he sees, 
 and whence it springs — the evil and the good. Without it, he 
 can never help to remove a curse or establish a blessing ; for a- 
 while his denunciations or his praises may seem to be working 
 wonders — his genius may be extolled to the skies — and himself 
 ranked among the benefactors of his people ; but yet a little 
 while, and it is seen that the mii'acle has not been wrought, the 
 evil spirit has not been exorcised ; the plague-spot is still on the 
 bosom of his unhealed country ; and the physician sinks away 
 unobserved 'among men who have not taken a degree. 
 
 Look, for example, at the fate of that once fashionable, for 
 we can'hardly call it popular, tale — " Scotland's Skaith, or the 
 History of Will and Jean," with its Supplement, " The Waes 
 o' War." Hector Macneil had taste and feeling — even genius 
 — and will be remembered among Scottish poets. 
 
 " Robin Burns, jn mony a ditty, 
 
 Loudly sings in wliisky's. praise ; 
 Sweet his sang ! tho.mair's the pity 
 E'er on it he war'd sic liys. 
 
 " 0' a' the ills poor Caledonia 
 
 E'er yet pree'd, or e'er will taste, 
 Brew'd in hell's black Pandemonia — 
 Whisky's ill will skaith her niaist." 
 
 So said Hector Macneil of Robert Burns, in verse not quite 
 so vigorous as the " Earnest Cry." It would require a deeper 
 voice to frighten the "drouthy" from "Scotch Drink,'' if it i)e 
 " brew^ed in hell." "Impressed with the baneful conse- 
 quences inseparable from an inordinate use of ardent si)rrits 
 among the lower orders of society, and anxious to contribute 
 something that might at least tend to retard the contagion of so
 
 86 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 dangerous an evil, it was conceived, in the ardor of philanthro- 
 py, that a natural, pathetic story, in verse, calculated to enforce 
 moral truths, in the language of simplicity and passion, might 
 probably interest the uncorrupted ; and tiiat a striking picture 
 of the calamities incident to idle debauchery, contrasted with the 
 blessings of industrious prosperity, might (although insuffi(;ient 
 to reclaim abandoned vice) do something to strengthen and en- 
 courage endangered virtue. Visionary as these fond expecta- 
 tions may have been, it is pleasing to cherish the idea; ai\d' if 
 we may be allowed to draw favorable inferences from the sale 
 of ten thousand copies in the short space of jive months, why 
 should we despair of success ?" The success, if we may trust 
 to statistical tables, has, alas ! been small ; nor would it have 
 been greater had a million copies been put into circulation. For 
 the argument illustrated in the " History of Will and Jean " 
 has no foundation in nature — and proceeds on an assumption 
 grossly calumnious of the Scottish character. The following 
 verses used once to ring in every ear : — 
 
 " Wha was ance like Willie Garlace, 
 Wlia in neiboring town or farm ? 
 Beauty's bloom shone in his lair face, 
 Deadly strength was in his arm ? 
 
 " Wha wi' Will could rin, or wrestle, 
 Throw the sledge, or toss the bar ? 
 Hap what would, he stood a castle. 
 Or for safety or for war : 
 
 " Warm his heart, and mild as manfu', 
 Wi' tlie bauld he bauld wad be ; 
 But to friends he had a handfu', 
 Purse and service aft were free." 
 
 He marries Jeanie Millar, a wife worthy of him, and for three 
 years they are good and happy in tiie blessing of God. What 
 in a few months makes drunkards of them both ? He happens 
 to go once for refreshment, after a long walk, into a way-side 
 |)ublic house — and from that night he is a lost man. He is de- 
 scribed as entering it on his way home from a Fair — and we 
 never- heard of a Fair where there was no whisky — drinks
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 87 
 
 — — s — ■ — ■ — 
 
 Meg's ale or porter, and eals her bread and cheese without in- 
 curring much blame from his biographer; but his companion 
 prevails on him to taste " the widow's gill " — a thing this bold 
 peasant seems never before to have heard of — and infatuated 
 with the novel potion, Willie Garlace, after a few feeble strug- 
 gles, in which he derives no support froiVi his previous life ot 
 happiness, industry, sobriety, virtue, and religion, staggers to 
 destruction. Jeanie, in despair, takes to drinking too; they are 
 " rouped out ;" she becomes a beggar, and he " a sodger." The 
 verses run smoothly and rapidly, and there is both skill and 
 power of narration, nor are touches of nature wanting, strokes 
 of pathos that have drawn tears. But by what insidious witch- 
 craft this frightful and fatal transformation was brought about, 
 the uninspired story-teller gives no intimation — a few vulgar 
 common-places constitute the whole of his philosophy — and he 
 no more thinks of tracing the effects of whisky on the moral 
 being — the heart — of poor Willie Garlace, than he would have 
 thought of giving an account of the coats of his stomach, had 
 he been poisoned to death by arsenic. "His hero" is not 
 gradually changed into a beast, like the victims of Circe's en- 
 ohantments ; but rather resembles the Cyclops all at once mad- 
 dened in his cave by the craft of Ulysses. This is an outrage 
 against nature ; not thus is the sting to be taken out of " Scot- 
 land's Scaith " — and a nation of drunkards to be changed into 
 a nation of gentlemen. If no man be for a moment safe who 
 " prees the widow's gill " the case is hopeless, and despair ad- 
 mits the inutility of Excise. In the "■ Waes o' War " — the 
 Sequel of the story — Willie returns to Scotland with a pension 
 and a wooden lejj, and finds Jeanie with the children in a cot- 
 tage given her by " the good Buccleugh." Both have become 
 as sober as church-mice. The loss of a limb, and eight pounds 
 a year for life, had effectually reformed the husband, a cottage 
 and one pound a quarter the wife ; and this was good Hector 
 iMacneil's idea of p Moral Poem! A poem that was not abso- 
 lutely to stay the ])lague, but to fortify the constitution against it ; 
 " and if we may be allowed to draw favorable inferences from 
 the sale often thousand copies in the short space of "five months, 
 why should we despair of success ?" 
 
 83:-
 
 88 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 It is not from such poetry that any hraltliful influence can be 
 exhaled over the vitiated habits of a people ; 
 
 "With other ministrations, thou, Nature ! 
 Healest thy wandering and distempered child ; " 
 
 had Burns written a Tale to exemplif)' a Curse, Nature would 
 have told him of them all ; nor would he have been in aught 
 unfitted by the experiences that prompted many a genial and 
 festive strain, but, on the contrary, the better qualified to give in 
 " thoufjhts that breathe and words that burn," some solution of 
 that appalling mystery, in which the souls of good men are often 
 seen hurrying and hurried along paths they had long abhorred, 
 and stiU abhor, as may be seen from their eyes, even when thfy 
 are rejecting all offered means of salvation, human and divine, 
 and have sold their bibles to buy death. Nor would Burns have 
 adopted the vulgar libel on the British army, that it was a re- 
 ceptacle for drunken husbands who had deserted their wives and 
 children. There have been many such recruits ; but his martial, 
 loyal, and patriotic spirit would ill have brooked the thought of 
 such a disgrace to the service, in an ideal picture, which his 
 genius was at liberty to color at its own will, and could have 
 colored brightly according to truth. " One fine summer evening 
 he was at the Inn at Brownhill with a couple of friends, when 
 a poor way-worn soldier passed tiie window : of a sudden, it 
 struck the poet to call him in, and get the story of his adven- 
 tures ; after listening to which, he all at once fell into one of 
 those fits of abstraction, not unusual with him," and perhaps, 
 with the air of "The mill, mill O" in his heart, he composed 
 " Tlie Soldier's Return." It, too, speaks of the " waes of war ; " 
 and tiiat poor way-worn soldier, we can well believe, had given 
 no very flattering account of himself or his life, cither before or 
 after he had mounted the cockade. Why had he left Scotland 
 and Mill-niannoch on the sweet banks of the Coyle nearCoylion 
 Kirk ? Burns cared not why ; he loved his kind, and above all, 
 his own people ; and his imagination immediately pictured a 
 blissful meeting of long-parted lovers. 
 
 " I left the lines and tented field, 
 Where lang I'd been a Ixxlger,
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. S9 
 
 My humble knapsack a' my wealth, 
 A poor but honest sodger. 
 
 " A right leal heart was in my breast, 
 
 A hand unstained \vi' plunder, 
 And for fair Scotia harrte again^ 
 
 I cheery on did wander. 
 I thought upon the banks o' Coil, 
 
 I thought upon my Nancy, 
 I thought upon the witching smile'. 
 
 That caught my youthful fancy. 
 
 " At length I reached the bonnie glen. 
 
 Where early life I sported ; 
 I passed the mill, and trysting thorn. 
 
 Where Nancy oft I courted : 
 Wha spied I but my ain dear maid, 
 
 Down by my mother's dwelling ! 
 And turned me round to hide the tear 
 
 That in my breast was swelling." 
 
 The ballad is a very beautiful one, and throughout Iiow true 
 to nature ! It'is alive all over Scotland ; that other is dead, or 
 with suspended animation ; not because " The Soldier's Return" 
 is a happj'^ and " Will and Jean" a miserable story; for the 
 people's heart is prone to pity, though their eyes are not much 
 given to tears. But the people %vere told .that " Will- and Jean " 
 had been written for their sakes, by a wise man made melan- 
 choly by the sight of their condition. The upper ranks were 
 sorrowful e.xceedinfflv for the lower — all weepin<r over their 
 wine for them over their wliisky, and would not be comforted ! 
 For Hector Macneil informs them that 
 
 ." Maggie's club, wha could get nae light , 
 
 On some things that should be clear, 
 Fand ere long the lau't, and ae night 
 Cluhb'd and gat the Gazetteer." 
 
 The lower ranks read the Lamentation, for ever so many 
 thousands were thrust into their hands; but though not insensi- 
 ble of iheir own infirmities, and willing to confess tliem. tiiey rose 
 up in indignation against a charge that swept their firesides of 
 all that, was mosf sacredly cherished tiiere, asked '\\\\o wrote
 
 90 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 *' The Cottar's Saturday Night ? " and declared with one voice, 
 and a loud one, that if they were to be bettered by poems, it 
 should be by the poems of their own Robert Burns. 
 
 And here we are brought to speak of those Satirical composi- 
 tions which made Burns famous within the bounds of more than 
 one Presbytery, before the world had heard his name. In boy- 
 hood and early youth he showed no symptoms of humor — he was 
 no droll — dull even*— from constitutional headaches, and heart- 
 quakes, and mysteries not to be understood — no laughing face 
 had he-:-the lovers of mirth saw none of its sparkles in his dark, 
 melancholy looking eyes. In his autobiographical sketch he 
 tells us of no funny or facetious " chap-books ; " his earliest 
 reading was of the " tender and the true," the serious or the 
 sublime. But from the first he had been just as susceptible and 
 as observant of the comic as of the tragic — nature had given 
 him a genius as powerful over smiles as tears — but as the sacred 
 source lies deepest, its first inspirations were drawn thence in 
 abstraction and silence, and not till it felt some assurance of its 
 diviner strength did it delight to disport itself among the ludi- 
 crous images that, in innumerable varieties of form and color — 
 — all representative of realities — may be seen, when we choose 
 to look at them, mingling with the most solemn or pathetic shows 
 that pass along in our dream of life. You remember his words, 
 " Thus with me began" Love and Poetry." True ; they grew 
 together ; but for a long time they were almost silent — seldom 
 broke out into song. His earliest love verses but poorly express his 
 love — nature was then too strong within him for art which then 
 was weak — and young passion, then pure but all-engrossing, 
 was filling his whole soul with poetry that ere long was to find a 
 tonfrue that would charm the world. 
 
 It was in the Humorous, the Comic, the Satirical, that he first 
 tried and proved his strength. Exulting to find that a rush of 
 words was ready at his will — that no sooner (lashed his fancies 
 than on the instant they were embodied, he wanton'd and revelled 
 among the subjects that had always seemed to him the most risi- 
 ble, whatever might be the kind of laughter, simple or com- 
 pound — pure mirth, or a mixture of mirth and contempt, even of ■ 
 indignation and scorn — mirth still being the chief ingredient that
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 91 
 
 qualified the wliole — and these, as you know, were all included 
 within the " Sanctimonious," from which Burns believed the Sa- 
 cred to be excluded; but there lay the danger, and there the 
 blame if he transgressed the holy bounds. 
 
 His satires were unsparingly directed against certain ministers 
 of the gospel, whose Calvinism he thought was not Christianity ; 
 whose characters were to him odious, their persons ridiculous, 
 their manners in the pulpit irreverent, and out of it absurd ; and 
 having frequent opportunities of seeing and hearing them in all 
 their glory, he made studies of them con amore on the spot, and 
 at home from abundant materials with a master's hand elabo- 
 rated finished pictures-»-for some of them are no less — which, 
 when hung out for public inspection in market-places, brought 
 the originals before crowds of gazers transported into applause. 
 Was this wicked ? Wicked we think too strong a word ; but we 
 cannot say that it was not reprehensible, for to all sweeping sa- 
 tire there must be some exception — and exaggeration cannot be 
 truth. Burng by his irregularities had incurred ecclesiastical 
 censure, and it has not unfairly been said that- personal spite 
 barbed the sting of his satire. Yet we fear such censure had 
 been but too lightly regarded by him ; and we are disposed to 
 think that his ridicule, however blameable on other grounds, was 
 free from malignity, and tha^t his genius for the comic rioted in 
 the pleasure of sympathy and the pride of power. To those 
 who regard the persons he thus satirized as truly belonging to 
 the old Covenanters, and Saints of a more ancient time, such sa- 
 tires must seem shameful and sinful ; to us who regard " Rum- 
 ble John " and his brethren in no such light, they appear venial 
 otfences, and not so' horrible as Hudibrastic. A good many years 
 after Burns's death, in our boyhood we sometimes saw and heard 
 more than one of those worthies, and cannot think his descrip- 
 tions greatly overcharged. We remember walking one day — 
 unknown to us as a fast day — in the neighborhood of an ancient 
 fortress, and hearing a noise to be likened to nothing imaginable 
 en this eartii but the bellowing of a buffalo fallen into a trap 
 upon a tiger, which as we came within half a mile of the castle 
 we discerned to be the voice of a pastor engaged in public prayer. 
 His physiognomy was little less alarming than his voice, and his
 
 92 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 sermon corresponded with his looks and his lungs — the whole be- 
 ing indeed an extraordinary exhibition of divine worsliip. We 
 never can think it sinful that Burns should have been humorous 
 on such a pulpiteer; and if we shudder at some of the verses 
 in which he seems yet alive, it is not at the satirist. 
 
 " From this time, I began to be known in the country as a 
 maker of rhymes. Holy Willie's Prayer next made its appear- 
 ance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that tliey held sev.- 
 eral meetings to look oyer their spiritual artillery, and see if any 
 of it might be pointed against profane rhymers;" "and to a 
 place among profane rhymers,^' says Mr. Lockhart, in his mas- 
 terly volume, "the author of this terrible injliclion had unques- 
 tionably establi'shed his right." Sir Walter speaks of it as "a 
 piece of satire more exquisitely severe than any which Burns ever 
 afterwards wrote, hut unfortunately cast in a form too daringly 
 ■profane to be received into Dr. Currie's collection." We have 
 no wish to say one word in opposition to the sentence pronounced 
 by such judges ; but has Burns here dared beyond Milton, 
 Goethe, and Byron ? He puts a Prayer to the Almighty into the 
 mouth of one whom he believes to be one of the lowest of blas- 
 phemers. ■ In that Prayer are impious supplications couched in 
 shocking terms, characteristic of the hypocrite wlio stands on a 
 familiar fpoting with his Maker. Miltcn's blasphemer is a fallen 
 an^el, Goethe's a devil, Bvron's the first murdere-r, and Burns's 
 an elder of the kirk. All the four poets are alike guilty, or not 
 guilty — unless there be in the case of one of tliem something 
 peculiar that lifts iiim up above the rest, in the case of another 
 something peculiar that leaves him alone a sinner. Let Milton 
 then stand aloof, acquitted of the charge, not because of the 
 grandeur and magnificence of his conception of Satan, but be- 
 cause its iiigh significance cannot be misunderstood by the pious, 
 and that out of the mouths of the dwellers in darkness, as well 
 as'of the Sons of the Morning " he vindicates the ways of God 
 toman." Byron's Cain blasphemes ; does Byron? Many have 
 thought so — for they saw, or seemed to see, in the character of 
 the Cursed, as it glooms in soliloquies that are poetically sublime, 
 fiome dark intention in its delincjator to inspire doubts of the jus- 
 tice of the Almighty One who inliabiteth eternity. Goethe in
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. ^93 
 
 the "Prologue in Heaven " brings Mephistopheles face to face 
 with God. But Goetlie devoted many years to " his great poem, 
 Faust," and in it lie too, as many of the wise and good believe, 
 strove to show rising out of the blackness of darkness the attri- 
 butes of Him whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity. Be it 
 even so ; then, why blame Burns ? You cannot justly do so, on 
 account of the " daringly profane form " in which " Holy Wil- 
 lie's Prayer" is cast, without utterly reprobating the "Prologue 
 in Heaven." 
 
 Of the Holy Fair few have spoken with any serious reprehen- 
 sion. Dr, Blair was so much taken with it that he suggested -a 
 well known emendation — and for our own part we have no hesi- 
 tation in saying, that we see no rea.son to lament that it should 
 have been written by the writer of the Cottar's Saturday Night. 
 The title of the poem was no profane thought of his — it had ari- 
 sen long before among the people themselves, and expressed the 
 prevalent opinion respecting the use and wont that profaned the 
 solemnization of the most awful of all religious rites. In many 
 places, and in none more than in Mauchline, the administration 
 of the Sacrament was hedged round about by the self-same prac- 
 tices that mark the character and make the enjoyment of a Ru- 
 ral Fair-day. Nobody doubts that in the midst of them all 
 sat hundreds of pi(9us people whose whole hearts and souls were 
 in the divine service. Nobody doubts that even among those 
 who took part in the open or hardly concealed indecencies \vhich 
 custom could never make harmless, though it made many insen- 
 sible to their grossness, not a few were now and then visited with 
 devout thoughts; nay, that some, in spite of their improprieties, 
 whicii fell olf from them unawares, or were by an act of pious 
 volition dismissed, were privileged to partake of the commnnion 
 elements. Nobody supposes that the heart of such an assem- 
 blace was to be judged from its'outside — that there was no com- 
 .posed depth beneath that restless surface'. But everybody knows 
 that there was fatal desecration of the spirit that should have 
 reigned there, and that the thoughts of this world were para- 
 mount at a time and place set apart, under sanctions and denun- 
 ciations, the most, awful, to the remembrance of Him who pur- 
 cfiased for us the kingdom of Heaven.
 
 * 
 94 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 We believe, then, that Burns was not guilty in this poem of 
 any intentional irreverence toward, the public ordinances of re- 
 lii^ion. It does not, in our opinion, aiTord any reason for sup- 
 posing that he was among the number of those who regard such 
 ordinances as of littje or no avail, because they do not always 
 exemplify the reverence which becomes men in the act of com- 
 muning with their God. Such is the constitution of human na- 
 ture that there are too many moments in the very article of these 
 solemn occasions when the hearts of men are a prey to all their 
 wonted cares and follies; and this short-coming in ihe whole 
 solemnity robs it to many a delicate and well-disposed, but not 
 thoroughly instructed imagination, of all attraction. But there 
 must be a worship by communities as well as by individuals ; 
 for in the regards of Providence, communities appear to have a 
 personality as well as individuals; and how shall the worship 
 of communities be conducted, but by forms and ceremonies, 
 which as they occur at stated times, whatever be the present 
 frame of men's minds, must be often gone through with cold- 
 ness. If those persons would duly consider the necessity of such 
 ordinances, and their use in the conservation of religion, they 
 would'hold them sacred, in spite of the levity and hypocrisy that 
 too often accompany their observance, nor would they wondey 
 to see among the worshippers an unsuspected attention to ihe 
 things of this world. But there was far more than this in the 
 desecration whioi) called for " the Holy Fair" from Burns. A 
 divine ordinance had through unhallowed custom been overlaid 
 by abuses, if not to the extinction, assuredly to the suppression, 
 in n\imert5us communicants, of the religious spirit essential to 
 its efficacy ; and in that fact we liave to look* for a defence of 
 the audacity of his sarcasm; we are, to believe tiiat the Poet 
 felt strong in tlic possession of a reverence far greater than that 
 which he beheld, and in the conviction that notiiing which he 
 treated with levity could be otherwise than displeasing in the 
 eye of God. We are far from seeking to place him, on this 
 occasion, by the side of those men who, " strong, in hatred of 
 idolatry," become religious reformers, and while purifying Faith, 
 unsparingly shattered Forms, not without violence to the cherished 
 emotions of many pious hearts. Yet their wit too was oUen
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 aimed at faulty things standing in close connection with soleinni- 
 ties which wit cannot approach without danger. Could such 
 scenes as those against which Burns directed the battery of" his 
 ridicule be endured now? Would they not be felt to be most 
 profane ? And may we not attribute the change in some measure 
 to the Comic Muse 1 
 
 Burns did not need to have subjects for poetry pointed out and 
 enumerated to him, latent or patent in Scottish Life, as was con- 
 siderately done in a series of dullish verses by that excellent 
 person, Mr. Telford, Civil Engineer. Why, it has been asked, 
 did he not compose a Sacred Poem on the administration of the 
 Sacrament of our Lord's Last Supper? The answer is — how 
 could he with such scenes before his eyes ? Was he to shut 
 them, and to desoribe it as if such scenes were not ? Was he 
 to introduce them, and give us a poem of a mixed kind, faithful 
 to the truth ? From such profanation his genius was guarded 
 by his sense of religion, whichthough defective was fervent, and 
 not unaccompanied with awe. Observe in what he has written, 
 how he keeps aloof from the Communion Table. Not for one 
 moment does he in thought enter the doors of the House of God. 
 There is a total separation between the outer scene and the 
 inner sanctuary — the administration of the sacrament is removed 
 out of all those desecrating circumstances, and left to the imasri- 
 nation of the religious mind — by his silence. Would a great 
 painter have dared to give us ti picture of it ? Harvey has 
 painted, simply and sublimely, a " Hill Sacrament." But tiiere 
 all is solemn in the light of expiring day ; the peace that passeth 
 all understanding reposes on the heads of all the communi- 
 cants; and in a spot sheltered from the persecutor by the soli- 
 tuiie of sympathizing nature, the humble and the contrite, in a 
 ritual hallowed by their pious forefathers, draw near at his 
 bidding to their Redeemer. 
 
 We must now return to Burns himself, but cannot allow him 
 to leave Ellisland without dwellinor for a little while longer on 
 the happy life he led for tliree years and more on that pleasant 
 farm. Now and then you hear him low-spirited in his letters, 
 but generally cheerful J" and though his affairs were not verv 
 prosperous, there was comfort in his household. There w;vs 
 
 9
 
 <j6 the genius and 
 
 peace and plenty ; for Mrs. Burns was a good manager, and he 
 was not a bad one ; and one way and another the family enjoyed 
 an honest livelihood. The house had been decently furnished, 
 the farm well stocked ; and they wanted nothing to satisfy their 
 sober wishes. Three years after marriage, Burns, with his Jean 
 at his side, writes to Mrs. Dunlap, " as fine a figure and face 
 we can produce as any rank of life whatever ; rustic, native 
 grace ; unaffected modesty, and unsullied purity ; nature's 
 niother-wit. and the rudiments of taste ; a simplicity of soul, 
 unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with, the ways of a selfish, 
 interested, disingenuous world ; and the dearest charm of all 
 the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous 
 warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently 
 glowing with a more than equal return ; these, with a healthy 
 frame, a sound, vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks 
 can scarcely ever hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman 
 in mv humble walk of life." Josiah Walker, however, writinor 
 many years after, expresses his belief that Burns did not love 
 his wife. " A discerning reader will perceive," says he, " that 
 the letters in which he announces his marriage are written in 
 that state, when Uie mind is pained by reflecting on an unwel- 
 come step; -and finds relief to itself in seeking arguments to 
 justify the deed, and lessen its disadvantages in the opinion of 
 others. But the greater the change which the taste of Burns 
 had undergone, and the more his hopes of pleasure must in con- 
 sequence have been diminished, from rendering Miss Armour 
 his only female companion, the more credit does he deserve for 
 that rectitude of resolution, which prompted him to fulfil what 
 he considered as an engagement, and to act as a necessary duty 
 prescribed We may be at the same time permitted to lament 
 the necessity which he had thus incurred. A marriage, from 
 a sentiment of duty, may by circumstances be rendered indis- 
 pensable ; but as it is undeniably a duty, not to be accomplished 
 by any temporary exertion, however great, but calling for a re- 
 newal of effort every year, every day, and every hour, it is 
 putting the strength and constancy of our principles to the most 
 severe and hazardous trial. Had Burns completed his rharriage, 
 before perceiving the interest which he had the power of cre- 
 ating in females, whose accomplishments of mind and manners
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 97 
 
 Jean could never liope to equal ; or liad liis duty and liis pride 
 p( rinitted his alliance witii one of that superior class, many of 
 his subsequent deviations from sobriety and happiness might 
 probably have been prevented. It was no fault of Mrs. Burns, 
 that she was unable, from her education, to furnish what had 
 fjrown, since the period of their first acquaintance, one of the 
 poet's most exquisite enjoyments ; and if a daily vacuity of 
 interest at home e.xhausted his patience, and led him abroad in 
 quest of exercise for the activity of his mind, those who can 
 place themselves in a similar situation will not be inclined to 
 judge too severely of his error." Mrs. Burns, you know, was 
 alive when this philosophical stuff was published, and she lived 
 for more than twenty years after it, as exemplary a widow as 
 she had been a wife. Its gross indelicacy — say rather wanton 
 insult to all the feelings of a woman, is abhorrent to all 
 t.ie feelings of a man and shows the monk. And we have 
 quoted it now that you may see what vile liberties respect- 
 able libellers were lonff wont to take with Burns and all that 
 belonged to him — because he was a Ganger. Who would 
 have dared to write thus of the wife and widow of a — Gentleman 
 — of one who was a Lady 1 Not Josiah Walker. Yet it passed 
 for years unreproved — the " Life " which contains it still circu- 
 lates, and seems to be in some repute — and Josiah Walker on 
 another occasion is cited to the rescue by George Thomson as a 
 champion and vindicator of the truth. The insolent eulogist 
 dared to say that Robert Burns in marrying Jean Armour, " re- 
 paired seduction by the most precious sacrifice, short of life, 
 which one human being can make to another ! " To her, in e;c- 
 press terms, he attributes her husband's misfortunes and mis- 
 doings — to her who soothed his sorrows, forgave his sins, inspired 
 his songs, cheered his hearth, blest his bed, educated his chil- 
 dren, revered his memory, and held sacred his dust. 
 
 What do you think was, according to his biographer, the cliief 
 cause of the blameable life Burns led at Ellisland ? He knew 
 not what to do loilh himself! " When not occupied in the fields, 
 his time must have hung heavy on his hands!" Just picture to 
 yourself Burns peevishly pacing the "half-parlor half-kitchen " 
 floor, with his hands in his breeches pockets, tormenting his dull
 
 D8 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 brain to invent some emnlovment bv which he nnight be en- 
 abled to resist the temptation of going to bed in the fore- 
 noon in his clothes! But how is this ? " When not occupied in 
 the fields, his time must have hung heavy on his hands; for we 
 are not to infer, from the literary eminence of Burns, that, like 
 a person regularly trained to studious habits, he could render 
 himself by study independent of society. He could read and 
 write when occasion prompted ; but he could not, like a profes- 
 sional scholar, become so interested in a daily course of lettered 
 industry, as to find company an interruption rather than a relief.'''' 
 ^V'e cheerfully admit that Burns was not engaged at Ellisland on 
 a History of the World. He had not sufficient books. Besides, 
 he had to ride, in good smuggling weather, two hundred miles 
 a- week. But we cannot admit that "to banish dejection, and to 
 fill his vacant hours, it is not surprising that he should have re- 
 sorted to such associates as his new neigiiborhood, or the inns 
 upon the road to Ayrshire, could aflord ; and if these happened 
 to be of a low description, that his constant ambition to render 
 himself an Important and interesting figure in every society, made 
 him suit his conduct and conversation to their taste." When 
 not on duty, the Exciseman was to be found at home like other 
 farmers, and when " not occupied in the fields " with farm-work, 
 lie might be seen playing with Sir William Wallace and other 
 Scottish heroes in miniature, two or three pet sheep of the qua- 
 druped breed sharmg in the vagaries of the bipeds; or striding 
 along the Scaur with his Whangee rod in his fist, with w!iich, 
 had time hung heavy on his hands, he would have cracked the 
 skull of old Chronos ; or sitting on a divot-dyke with the ghost 
 of Tam O' Shanter, Captain Henderson, and the Earl of Glen- 
 cairn ; or, so it is recorded, "on a rock projecting into the Nith 
 (which we have looked for in vain) employed in angling, with a 
 cap made of a fox's skin on his head, a loose great-coat fixed 
 round him by a belt, from which depended an enormous High- 
 land broadsword ;" or with his legs under the fir, with the fa- 
 mous Black Bowl sending up a Scotch mist in which were visi- 
 ble the wigs of two orthodox English clergymen, " to whose 
 tastes his constant ambition to render himself an important and 
 interesting figure in every society, made him suit his conduct
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 99 
 
 and conversation ;" — in such situations might Josiah Walker 
 have stumbled upon Burns, and perhaps met with his own friend, 
 "a clergyman from the south of England, who, on his return, 
 talked with rapture of his reception, and of all that he had seen 
 and heard in the cottage of Eilisland," or with Ramsay of 
 Oughtertyre, who was delighted " with Burns's uxor Snbina qualis 
 and the poet's modest mansion, so unlike the habitations of ordi- 
 nary rustics," the very evening the Bard suddenly bounced in 
 upon us, and said as he entered, "1 come, to use the words of 
 Shakspeare, ' stewed in haste,' " and in a little while, such was the 
 f )rce and versatility of his genius, he made the tears run down 
 
 Mr. L 's cheeks, albeit " unused to the poetic strain;" — or 
 
 who knows but the pedestrian might have found the poet engaged 
 in religious exercises under the sylvan shade ? For did he not 
 write to Mrs. Dunlop, " I own myself so little of a presbyterian, 
 that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts 
 of devotion, for breaking in on that habitual routine of life 'and 
 thought which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of in- 
 stinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state ver}- 
 little superior to mere machinery. This day (New-Year-day 
 morning), the first Sunday of May, a breezy blue-skyed noon, 
 some time before the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm 
 sunny day about the end of autumn ; these, time out of mind, 
 have been with me a kind of holiday." Finally, Josiaii might 
 have made his salaam to the Exciseman just as he was folding 
 up that letter in whicii he says, "we know nothing, or next to 
 nothing, of the substance or .structure of our souls, so cannot ac- 
 count for those seeming caprices or whims, that one should be 
 particularly pleased with this thing or struck with that, which, in 
 minds of a difFercnt cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I 
 have some favorite (lowers in spring, among which are the moun- 
 tain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild-brier rose, the 
 budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang 
 over with particular delight. I never hear the loud solitary 
 whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing ca- 
 dence of a troop of grey plovers, in an autumnal morning, with- 
 out feelinij an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion 
 or poetry. Toll mo, my dear fi-ifnd, to what can all this be 
 
 9-
 
 JOO THE GENIUS AND 
 
 owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the ^Eolian 
 iiarp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident ? Oi 
 do these workings argue sometliing witliin us ahove the trodden 
 clod ? I (. wn myself partial to such proofs of those awful and 
 important realities — a God that made all things — man's immate- 
 rial and immortal nature — and a world of weal or wo beyond 
 death and the grave." 
 
 Burns however found that an active gauger, with ten parishes 
 to look alter, could not be a successful farmer; and looking 
 forward to promotion in the Excise, he gave up his lease, and 
 on his appomtment to another district removed into Dumfries. 
 'J'he greater part of his small capital had been sunk or scattered 
 on the somewhat stony soil of Ell island ; but with his library 
 and furniture — his wife and his children — his and their wearing 
 apparel — a trifle in ready money — no debt — youth, health, and 
 hope, and a salary of seventy pounds, he did not think himself 
 poor. Such provision, he said, was luxury to what either he or 
 his better-half had been born to — and the flitting from Ellisland, 
 accompanied as it was with the regrets and respect of the neigh- 
 borhood, displayed on the whole a cheerful cavalcade. 
 
 It is remarked by Mr. Lockhart that Burns's "four principal 
 biographers, Heron, Currie, Walker and Irving, concur in the 
 general statement that his moral course, from the time that he 
 settled in Dumfries, was downwards." Mr. Lockhart has shown 
 that they have one and all committed many serious errors in this 
 " eeneral statement," and we too shall examine it before we 
 concludfi. Meanwhile let us direct our attention, not to his 
 "moral course," but to the course of his genius. It continued 
 to burn bright as ever, and if the character of the man corres- 
 ponded in its main features with tiiat of the poet, which we be- 
 lieve it did, its best vindication will be found in a right under- 
 standing of the spirit that animated his genius to the last, and 
 gave birth to perhaps its finest etfusions — his matchless songs. 
 
 In his earliest Journal, we find this beautiful passage: — 
 
 "There is a noble sublimity, a heart-melting tenderness, in 
 some of our ancient ballads, which show them to be the work of 
 a masterly hand : and it has often given me many a heart-ache 
 to reflect, that such glorious old bards — bards who very proba-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 101 
 
 bly owed all tlieir talents to native genius, yet have described 
 tlie exploits of heroes, tlie pangs of disappoiutnient, and the melt- 
 ings of love, with such fine strokes of nature: — that their very 
 names (O how mortifying to a bard's vanity !) are non' ' buried 
 among the wreck of things which were.' O ye illustrious 
 names unknown! who could feel so stiongly and describe so 
 well ; the last, the meanest of the Muse's train — one who, though 
 far inferior to your flights, yet eyes your path, and with trem- 
 bliiiii wing would sometimes soar after you — a poor rustic bard, 
 unknown, pays this sympathetic pang to your memory! Some 
 of you tell us, with all the charms of verse, that you have been 
 unfortunate in the world — unfortunate in love ; he too has felt 
 the loss of his little fortune, the loss of friends, and, worse than 
 all, the loss of tiie woman he adored. Like you, all his conso- 
 lation was his muse. She taught him in rustic riicasurcs to 
 complain. Happy could he have done it with your strength of 
 imaf^ination and flow of verse ! Mav the turf lie liyhtlv on 
 vour bones! and may you now enjoy that solace and rest which 
 this world rarely gives to the heart tuned to all the feelings of 
 poesy and love." 
 
 The old nameless song-writers, buried centuries ago in the 
 kirk-yards that have themselves perhaps ceased to exist — yet 
 one sees sometimes lonesome burial-places among the hills, 
 where man's dust continues to be deposited after the house of 
 God has been removed elsewhere — the old nameless song-writers 
 took hold out of their stored hearts of some single thouyht or 
 remembrance surpassingly sweet at the moment over all others, 
 and instantly words as sweet had being, and breathed them- 
 selves forth along with some accordant melody of the still more 
 olden time ; — or when musical and poetical genius hap[)ily met 
 together, l)()th alike passion-insjjired, then was born another new 
 tune or air soon treasured within a thousand nmidens' hearts, 
 and soon flowing from lips that "murmured near the living 
 brooks a music sweeter than their own." Had boy or virgin 
 faded awav in untimely death, and the {rreen mound tluit covered 
 them, by the working of some secret power far within the heart, 
 suddenly risen to fancy's eye, and then as suddenly s'.inl> awuy 
 into oblivion with all the wavering burial-place ? Then was
 
 102 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 framed dirge, hymn, ology, that long after the mourned and the 
 mourner were forgotten, continued to wail and lament up and 
 down all the vales of Scotland — for what vale is unvisited by 
 sorrow — in one same monotonous melanciioly air, varied only 
 as each separate singer had her heart touched, and her face 
 saddened, witii a fainter or stronger shade of pity or grief! 
 Ilud some great battle been lost and won, and to the shepherd 
 on tlie braes had a faint and far-off sound seemed on a sudden 
 to touch the horizon like the echo of a trumpet? Then had 
 some ballad its birth, heroic yet with dying falls, for the singer 
 wept, even as his heart burned within him, over the princely 
 head prostrated with all its plumes, haply near the lowly woods- 
 man, whose horn had often startled the deer as together they 
 trode the forest-chase, lying humble in death by his young lord's 
 feet! — O, blue-eyed maidenj even more beloved than beautiful J 
 how couldst thou ever find heart to desert thy minstrel, who for 
 thy sake would have died without one sigh given to the disap- 
 pearing happiness of sky and earth — and, witched by some evil 
 spell, how couldst thou follow an outlaw to foreign lands, to 
 find, alas ! some day a burial in the great deep ? Thus was 
 encnained in sounds the complaint of disappointed, defrauded, 
 and despairing passion, and anotI)er air filled the eyes of our 
 Scottish maidens with a new luxury of tears — a low flat tune, 
 surcharged throughout with one groan-like sigh, and acknow- 
 ledged, even by the gayest heart, to be indeed the language of 
 an incurable grief! — Or flashed the lover's raptured hour across 
 the brain — yet an hour, in all its rapture, calm as the summer 
 sea — or the level summit of a far flushing forest asleep in sun- 
 siiine, when there is not a breath in heaven ? Then thoughts 
 that breathe, and words that burn — and, in that wedded verse 
 and music you feel that "love is heaven, and heaven is love!" 
 But atTi'ction, sober, sedate, and solemn, has its sudden and 
 strong inspirations ; sudden and strong as those of the wildest 
 and most fiery passion. Hence the old grey-haired poet and 
 musician, sitting haply blind in shade or sunsliiiie, and bethink- 
 ing him of the days of his youth, while the leading hand of his 
 aged ^I't^G geniiy touches his arm, and that voice of hers that 
 once linted like the linnet, is now like that of the dove in its
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 103 
 
 lonely tree, mourns not for the past, but gladdens in the present, 
 and sings a holy song — like one of the songs of Zion — for both 
 trust that, ere the sun brings another summer, their feet will be 
 wandering by the waters of eternal life. 
 
 Thus haply might arise verse and air of Scotland's old pathe- 
 tic melodies. And how her light and airy measures? ' 
 
 Streaks of sunshine come dancing down from heaven on the 
 darkest days to bless and beautify the life of poverty dwelling 
 in the wilderness. Labor, as he goes forth at morn from his 
 rustic lodge, feels, to the small bird's twitter, his whole being 
 filled with joy ; and, as he (juickens his pace to field or wood, 
 breaks into a song. Care is noi always his black companion, 
 but oft, at evening hour — while innocence lingers half-afraid be- 
 hind, yet still follows with thoughtful footsteps — Mirth leads him 
 to the circular seat beneath the tree, among whose exterior 
 branches swings, creaking to and fro in the wind, the signboard 
 teaching friendship by the close grasp of two emblematical 
 hands. And thence the catch and troll, while " laughter hold- 
 ing both his sides " sheds tears to song and ballad pathetic on 
 the woes of married life, and all the ills that "our flesh is heir 
 to." — Fair, Rocking, and Harvest-home, and a hundred rural 
 festivals, are for ever giving wings to the flight of the circling 
 year ; or how could this lazy earth ever in so short a time whirl, 
 spinning asleep on her axis, round that most attractive but dis- 
 tant sun ? How loud, broad, deep, soul-and-body-shaking is the 
 ploughman's or the shepherd's mirlh, as a hundred bold sun- 
 burnt visages make the rafters of the old hostel ring ! Overhead 
 the thunder of the time-keeping dance, and all the joyous tene- 
 ment alive with love! The patlietic song, by genius steeped in 
 tears, is forgotten ; roars of boorish laughter reward the fearless 
 singer for the ballad that brings burning blushes on every female 
 face, till the snooded head can scarcely be lificd up again to 
 meet the free kiss of affection bold in the privileges of the festi- 
 val, whore baslifuUiess is out of season, and the chariest maid 
 witliholds not the harmless boon only half grunted b Mu^ath the 
 milk-white thorn. It seems as if all the profounder interests oi 
 life were destroyed, or had never existed. In moods like these, 
 genius plays witii grief, and sports with sorrow. Broad furce
 
 104 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 shakes hands with deep tragedy. Vice seems almost to be vir- 
 tue's sister. The names and the natures of things are chano-ed, 
 and all that is mast holy, and most holily cherished by us strange 
 mortal creatures — for which tliousands of men and women have 
 died at the stake, and would die again rather than forfeit it — 
 virgin love, and nuptial faith, and religion itself that saves us 
 from being but as the beasts that perish, and equalizes us with 
 the ansels that live for ever — all become for a time seeming ob- 
 jects of scoff, derision, and merriment. But it is not so, as God 
 is in heaven it is not so ; there has been a flutter of strange 
 dancing lights on life's surface, but that is all, its depths have 
 remained undisturbed in the poor man's nature ; and how deep 
 these are you may easily know by looking, in an hour or two, 
 through that small shining pane, the only one in the hut, and be- 
 liolding and hearing him, his wife and children, on their knees 
 in prayer — (how beautiful in devotion that same maiden now !) 
 not unseen by the eye of Him who, sitting in the heaven of hea- 
 vens, doth make our earth his footstool. 
 
 And thus the many broad-mirth songs, and tales, and ballads 
 arose, that enliven Scotland's antique minstrelsy. 
 
 To Burns's ear all these lowly lays were familiar, and most 
 dear were they all to his heart : nor less so the airs in which 
 they have as it were been so long embalmed, and will be imper- 
 ishable, unless some fatal cliange should ever be wrought in the 
 manners of our people'. From the first hour, and indeed long 
 before it, that he composed his rudest verse, oficn liad he sung 
 aloud "old songs that are the music of the heart;" and some 
 day or other to be able himself to breathe such strains, had been 
 his dearest, his highest ambition. His "genius and his moral 
 frame" were thi\s imbued with the spirit of our old traditionary 
 ballad poetry ; and as soon as all his manifold passions were 
 ripe, and his whole glorious being in full maturity, the voice of 
 song was on all occasions of deepest and tenderest human inter- 
 est, the voice of his daily, his nightly speech. He wooed each 
 maiden in song that will, as long as our Doric dialect is breathed 
 by love in beauty's ears, be murmured close to the cheek of In- 
 nocence trembling in the arms of Passion. It was in some such 
 dream of delight that, wandering all by himself to seek the
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. • 105 
 
 muse by some "trotting burn's meander," he found his face 
 breathed upon by the wind, as it was turned toward tlie rcfrion 
 of the setting sun ; and in a moment it was as the pure breath 
 of his beloved, and he exclaimed to the conscious stars, 
 
 " Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, 
 
 I dearly like the west; 
 For there the bonny lassie lives, 
 
 The lass that I lo'e best !'= 
 
 How different, yet how congenial to that other strain, which 
 ends like the last sound of a funeral bell, when the age:' have 
 been buried : 
 
 " We'll sleep thegither at the foot, 
 John Anderson, my joe !" 
 
 These old songs were his models, because they were models of 
 certain forms of feeling havinij a necessary and eternal exist- 
 ence. Feel as those who breathed them felt, and if you uUe\ 
 your feelings, the utterance is song. Burns did feel as they) 
 felt, and looked with the same eyes on the same o!)jects. Sc 
 entirely was their language his language, that all the beautiful; 
 lines, and half lines, and single words, that, because of something/ 
 in them more exquisitely true to nature, had survived all the rest 
 /of the compositions to which they had long ago belonged, were 
 ^fiometimes adopted by him, almost unconsciously it might seem, 
 in his finest inspirations ; and oftener still sounded in his ear 
 like a key-note, on which he pitched his own plaintive tune of 
 the heart, till the voice and language of the" old and new days 
 were but as one ; and the maiden who sung to herself the song 
 by her wheel, or on the brae, quite lost in a wavering world of 
 phantasy, could not, as she smiled, choose but ahso weep! 
 
 So far from detracting from the originality of his lyrics, this 
 impulse to composition greatly increased it, while it gave to them 
 a more touching character than perhaps ever could have hc- 
 longe3'!o"them, had they not breathed at all of antiquity. Old 
 but not obsolete, a word familiar to the lips of human beings who 
 lived ages ago, but tinged with a slight shade of strangeness as
 
 ]06 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 it flows from our own, connects the speaker, or the singer, in a 
 way, though " mournful, yet pleasant to the soul," with past 
 generations, and awaktins a love at once more tender and more 
 imaginative towards " auld Scotland." We think, even at 
 limes wiien thus excited, of other Burnses who died without their 
 fame ; and, glorying in him and his name, we love his poetry 
 i!ie more deeply for tiie sake of him whose genius has given our 
 native land a new title of honor among the nations. Assuredly 
 Burns is felt to be a Scotchman inius etin cute in all his poetry; 
 but not more even in his " Tam o'Siianter " and " Cottar's Satur- 
 day night," his two longest and most elaborate composhions, 
 than in one and all of his innumerable and inimitable songs, from 
 " Daintie Davie," to " Thou lingering star." We know too 
 that the composition of songs was to him a perfect happiness 
 that continued to the close of life — an inspiration that shot its 
 light and heat, it may be said, within the very borders of his 
 grave. 
 
 In his " Common-place or Scrap Book, begun in April, 1783," 
 there are many fine reflections on Song-writing, besides that ex- 
 quisite invocation — showing how early Burns had studied it as 
 an arl._ We have often heard some of his popular songs found 
 fault witJi for their imperfect rhymes — so imperfect, indeed, as 
 not to be called rhymes at all ; and we acknowledge that we 
 rLiiiember the time when we used reluctantly to yield a dis- 
 satified assent to such objections. Thus in " Highland Ma'ry " 
 — an impassioned strain of eight quatrains — strictly speaking 
 there are no rhymes — Montgomery, driimlic ; tarry, Mary; 
 blossom, bosom ; dearie, Mary ; tender, asunder ; early, Mary ; 
 fondly, ■kimlly ; dearly, Mary. It is not enough to say that here, 
 and in other instances, Burns was imitatitig tlie manner of some 
 of the old songs — indulirintj in the same license ; lor he would 
 not have done so, had he thought it an imperfection. He felt 
 that there must l)e a reason in nature why this was sometimes so 
 pleasing — why it sometimes gave a grace beyond the reach of 
 art. Tiiose minnesingers had all musical ears, and were right. 
 in believing tlir^m. Their ears told them that such words as 
 these- -meeting on their tympana under tlie modifying influence 
 of *une, were virtually rhymes ; and as such they " slid into
 
 CHARACTER OP^ BURNS. 107 
 
 tlieir souls." " There is," says Burns in a passage unaccounta- 
 bly omitted by Carrie, and ''Irst given by Croniek — " a great 
 irregularity in tlie old Sc<"Lch songs — a redundancy of syllables 
 with respect to that exactness of accent, and measure that the 
 English poetry requires — but wlnnli glides in most melodiously 
 with the respective tunes to which they are set. For instance, 
 the fine old song of The ?nill, mill O — to give it a plain prosaic 
 reading — it halts prodigiously out of measure. On the other 
 hand, the song set to the same tune in Bi'emner's Collection of 
 Scotch songs, which begins, To Fanny fair could I impart, SfC. — 
 it is most exact measure ; and yet, let them both be sung before 
 a real critic, one above the biases of prejudice, but a thorough 
 judgeof nature, how flat and spiritless will the last appear, how trite 
 and lamely methodical, compared with the wild, warbling cadence 
 — the heart-moving melody of the first. This is particularly the 
 case with all those airs which end with a hypermetrical syllable. 
 There is a degree of wild irregularity in many of the composi- 
 tions and fragments which are daily sung to them by my com- 
 peers — the common people — a certain happy arrangement of old 
 Scotch syllables, and yet very frequently nothing — not even like 
 rhyme — or sameness of jingle, at the end of the lines. This has 
 made me sometimes imagine that perhaps it might be possible for 
 a Scotch poet, with a nice judicious ear, to set compositions to 
 many of our most favorite airs — particularly the class of them 
 mentioned above — independent of rhyme altogether." 
 
 It is a common mistake to suppose that the world is indebted . 
 tor most of Burns's songs to George Thomson. He contributed 
 to that gentleman sixty original songs, and a noble contribution it 
 was; besides hints, suggestions, emendations, and restorations 
 innumerable ; but three times as many were written by him, 
 emended or restored, for Johnson's Scots' Musical Museum. 
 He began to send songs to Johnson, with whom he had become 
 intimately acquainted on his first visit to Edinburgh, early in 
 1787, and continued to send them till within a few days of his 
 death. In November, 1789, lie says to Jolinson, "I can easily 
 see, my dear friend, that you will probably have four volumes. 
 Perhaps you may not find your account lucratively in this busi- 
 ness; but you are a patriot for the music of your country, and I 
 
 10
 
 108 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 am certain posterity will look on themselves as highly indebted 
 to your public spirit. Be not in a hurry ; let us go on correctly, 
 and your name will be immortal.''" On the 4th of July, 1790 — 
 he died on the 21st — he writes from Dumfries to the worthy 
 music-seller in Edinburgh : " How are you, my dear friend, and 
 how comes on your fifth volume ? You may probably think that 
 for some time past I have neglected you and your work; but, 
 alas ! the hand of pain, sorrow, and care, has these many 
 months lain heavy on me. Personal and domestic affliction have 
 almost entirely banished that alacrity and life with which I used 
 to woo the rural muse of Scotia. You are a good, worthy, honest 
 fellow, and have a good right to live in this world — because you 
 deserve it. Many a merry meeting the publication has given 
 us, and possibly it may give us more, though, alas ! I fear it. 
 This protracting, slow, consuming illness which hangs over me, 
 will, I doubt much, my ever dear friend, arrest my sun before 
 he has well reached his middle career, and will turn over the 
 poet to far more important concerns than studying the brilliancy of 
 wit, or the pathos of sentiment. However, hope is the cordial of the 
 human heart, and I endeavor to cherish it as well as I can. Let 
 me hear from vou as soon as convenient. Your work is a jireat 
 one, and now that it is finished, I see, if I were to begin again, 
 two or three things that might be mended ; yet I will venture to 
 prophesy, that to future ages your publication will be the text- 
 book and standard of Scottish song and music. I am ashamed 
 to ask another favor of you, because you have been so very good 
 already ; but my wife has a very particular friend of hers — a 
 young lady who sings well — to wiom she wishes to present the 
 Scots' Musical Museum. If you have a spare copy, will you be 
 so obliging as to send it by the first Fly, as I am anxious to have 
 it soon." 
 
 Turn from James Johnson and his Scots' Musical Museum 
 for a moment to George Thomson and his Collection. In Sep- 
 tember, 1792, Mr. Thomson — who never personally knew Burns 
 — tells him " for some years past I have, with a friend or two, 
 employed many leisure hours in selecting and collating the most 
 favorite of our national melodies for publication ; " and says — 
 '' We will este?m your ooetical assistance a particular favor:
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 109 
 
 besides paying any reasonable price you shall please to demaml 
 for it." Burns, spurning the thought of being " paid any rea- 
 sonable price,"' closes at once with the proposal. " as the request 
 you make to me w ill positively add to my enjoyments in comply- 
 ing with it, I shall enter into your undertaking with all the 
 small portion of abilities 1 have — strained to the utmost exertion 
 by the impulse of enthusiasm." That enthusiasm for more than 
 three years seldom languished — it was in his heart when his 
 hand could hardly obey its bidding ; and on tl;e 12th of July, 
 1796 — eight days after he had wrillen, in the terms you have 
 just seen, to James Johnson for a coj)y of his Scots^ Musical 
 Museum — he writes thus to George Thomson for five pounds. 
 " After all my boasted independence, stern necessity compels 
 me to implore you for five pounds. A cruel of a haber- 
 dasher, to whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I 
 am dying, has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me 
 into jail. Do for God's sake send me that sum, and that by re- 
 turn of post. Forgive me this earnestness ; but the horrors of 
 a jail have made me half distracted. / do not ask- a'l this gra- 
 tuitously ; for upon returning health, I hereby promise and en- 
 gage to furnish you with five pounds worth of the neatest song 
 genius you have seen. Forgive me, forgive me !" 
 
 Mr. Johnson, no doubt, sent a copy of the Museum ; but we 
 do not know if the Fly arrived before the Bier. Mr. Thomson 
 was prompt : and Dr. Currie, speaking of Burns's refusal to 
 become a weekly contributor to the Poet's Corner in the Morn- 
 ing Chronicle, at a guinea a week, says, " Yet, he had for seve- 
 ral years furnished, and was at that time furnishing, the Mu- 
 seum of Johnson, with his beautiful lyrics, without fee or re- 
 ward, and was obstinately i-efusing all recompense for his as- 
 sistance to the greater work of Mr. Thomson, which the justice 
 and generosity of that gentleman was pressing upon him." 
 That obstinacy gave way at last, not under the pressure of Mr». 
 Thomson's generosity and justice, but under " the sense of his 
 poverty, and of the approaching distress of his infant family 
 vvhicii pressed," says Dr. Currie truly, " on Burns as he lay on 
 the bed of death." 
 
 But we are anticipating ; and desire at present to see Burns
 
 110 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 *' in glory and in joy." " Whenever I want to be more than 
 ordinary m 507? o^ ; to be in some degree equal to your diviner 
 airs, do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation ? 
 I have a glorious recipe ; the very one that for liis own use v.-as 
 invented by the divinity of healing and poetry, when erst he piped 
 to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself on a regimen of admir- 
 ing a fine woman ; and in proportion to the admirability of her 
 charms, in proportion you are delighted with my verses. The 
 lightning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus; and the 
 witchery of her smile, the divinity of Helicon." We know the 
 weak side of his character — the sin that most easily beset him — 
 that did indeed " stain his name" — and made him for many sea- 
 sons the prey of remorse. But though it is not allowed to genius 
 to redeem — though it is falsely said, that " the light that leads 
 astray is lieht from heaven" — and though Burns's transgres- 
 sions must be judged as those of common men, and visited with 
 the same moral reprobation — yet surely we may dismiss them 
 with a sigh from our knowledge, for a while, as we feel the charm 
 of the exquisite poetry originating in the inspiration of passion, 
 purified by genius, and congenial with the utmost innocency of 
 the virgin breast. 
 
 Injiis_ LovE^ONGSj all that is best in his ovvn being delight? to 
 brintj itself into communion with all that is best in theixs-wlwDm 
 he visions walking before him in beauty. That beauty is 
 made "still more beauteous" in the light of his genius, and the 
 passion it then moves partakes of tiie same etiierial color. If 
 love inspired liis poetry, poetry inspired his love, and not only in- 
 spired but elevated" (lie whole nature of it. If the highest de- 
 lights of his genius were in the conception and celebration of 
 female loveliness, that trained sensibility was sure to produce 
 extraordinary devotion to the ideal of that loveliness of which 
 innocence is the very soul. If music refine the manners, how 
 much more will it have that effect on him who studies its spirit, 
 as Burns did that of the Scottish songs, in order to marry them 
 to verse ? " Until I am complete master of a tune in my own 
 singing, such as it is, I can never compose for it. My way is 
 this: I consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea 
 of the musical expression — then choose my theme — compose
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. Ill 
 
 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 objects in nature round me that are in unison 
 or iiarmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of 
 my b6som, humming every now and then the air, with the verses 
 I have framed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I re- 
 tire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my 
 etTusions to paper; swinging at intervals on the hind legs of my 
 elbow chair, bv way of callinij forth my own critical strictures, 
 as my pen goes. Seriously, this, at home, is almost invariably 
 my way." Then we know that his Bonnie Jean was generally 
 in his presence, engaged in house affairs, while he was thus on 
 his inspiring swing, that she was among the first to hear each 
 new song recited by her husband, and the first to sing it to him, 
 that he might know if it had been produced to live. He has 
 said, tliat " musically speaking, conjugal love is an instrument 
 of which the gamut is scanty and confined, but the tones in- 
 expressibly sweet" — that Love, not so confined, " has powers 
 equal to all the intellectual modulations of the iiuman soul." 
 But did not those " tones inexpressibly sweet" often mingle them- 
 selves unawares to the Poet with those " intellectual modula- 
 tions ?" And had he not once loved Jean Armour to distraction? 
 His first experiences of the passion of love, in its utmost sweet- 
 ness and bitterness, had been for her sake, and the memories of 
 those years came often of themselves unbidden into the very 
 heart of his songs when his fancy was for the hour enamored of 
 other beauties. 
 
 With a versatility, not compatible perhaps with a capacity of 
 profoundest emotion, but in his case with extreme tenderness, 
 he could instantly assume, and often on the slightest apparent 
 impulse, some imagined character as completely as if it were 
 his own, and realize its conditions. Or he could imagine him- 
 self out of all the circumstances by which his individual life 
 was environed, and to all the emotions arising from that trans- 
 migration, give utterance as lively as tiie language inspired by 
 his communion with his own familiar world. Even when lie 
 knew he was dying, he looked in Jessie Lewars' face, \\ii(im 
 he loved as a father loves his daughter, and that he might re- 
 
 10*
 
 112 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 ward her filial tenderness for him who was fast wearing away, 
 by an immortal song, in his affection for her he feigned a hope- 
 less passion, and imagined himself the victim of despair ; — 
 
 •' Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, 
 
 And soft as their parting tear — Jessy ! 
 Although thou maun never be mine, 
 
 Although even hope is denied ; 
 'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, 
 
 Than aught in this world beside !" 
 
 It was said by one who during a long life kept saying weighty 
 things — old Hobbes — that " in great differences of persons, the 
 greater have often fallen in love with the meaner: but not con- 
 trary." What Gilbert tells us of his brother might seem to 
 corroborate that dictum — " His love rarely settled on persons 
 who were higher than himself, or who had more consequence in 
 life." This, however, could only apply to the early part of his 
 life. Then he had few opportunities of fixing his affections on 
 persons above him ; and if he had had, their first risings would 
 have been suppressed by bis pride. But his after destination so 
 far levelled the inequality that it was not unnatural to address 
 his devotion to ladies of high degree. He then felt that he could 
 command their benevolence, if not inspire their love ; and elated 
 by that consciousness, he feared not to use towards them the 
 language of love, of unbounded passion. He believed, and he 
 was not deceived in the belief, that he could exalt them in their 
 own esteem, by hanging round their proud necks the ornaments 
 of his oenius. Therefore, sometimes, lie seemed to turn himself 
 away disdainfully from sunburnt bosoms in homespun covering, 
 to pay his vows and adorations to the Queens of Beauty. The 
 devoirs of a poet, whose genius was at their service, have been 
 acceptable to many a high-born dame and damsel, as the sub- 
 mission of a conqueror. Innate sujieriority made him, in these 
 hours, ai)solutply unable to comprehend the spirit of society as 
 produced l)y artificial distinctions, and at all times unwilling to 
 suljndt to it or pay it homage. " Perfection whispend pa.'>sing 
 by, B( hold the Lass o' Ballochmyle !" and Burns, too pr^.ud to 
 change himself into a lord or squire, imagined whai liappiness
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. lis 
 
 might have been his if all those charms had budded and blown 
 witliin a cottage like " a rose-tree in full bearing." 
 
 " 0, had she been a country maid, 
 And I the happy country swain, 
 Tho' sheltered in the lowest shed 
 
 That ever rose on Scotland's plain I 
 Thro' weary winter's wind and rain, 
 
 With joy, with rapture, I would toil ; 
 And nightly to my bosom strain 
 The bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle." 
 
 He speaks less passionately of the charms of " bonnie Lesley 
 as she gaed owre the border," for they had not taken him by 
 surprise ; he was prepared to behold a queen, and with his own 
 hands he placed upon her head the crown. 
 
 " To see her is to love her. 
 
 And love but her for ever ; 
 For Nature made her what she is. 
 And never made anither. 
 
 " Thou art a queen, fair Lesley, 
 
 Thy subjects we, before thee : 
 Thou art divine, fair Lesley, 
 
 The hearts o' men adore thee." 
 
 Nay, evil spirits look in her face and almost become cjood — 
 while angels love her for her likeness to themselves, and happy 
 she must be on earth in the eye of heaven. We know not much 
 about the "Lovely Davis;" but in his stanzas she is the very 
 Sovereiun of Nature. 
 
 a 
 
 " Eich eye it cheers, when she appears. 
 
 Like Pho.'bus in the morning. 
 When past the shower, and every flower. 
 
 The garden is adorning. 
 As the wretch looks o'er Siberia's shore. 
 
 When winter-bound the wave is ; 
 Sae droops our heart when we must part 
 
 Frae charming, lovely Davis.
 
 114 THE GENIUS AXD 
 
 " Her smile's a gift frae boon the lift 
 
 That makes us mair than princes, 
 A scepter'd hand, a king's command. 
 
 Is in her parting glances. 
 The man in arms 'gainst female charms. 
 
 Even he her willing slave is ; 
 He hugs his chain, and owns the reign 
 
 Of conquering, lovely Davis." 
 
 The loveliest of one of the loveliest families in Scotland he 
 changed into a lowly lassie, aye " working her mammie's work," 
 and her lover into Young Robie — " who gaed wi ' Jeanie to the 
 tryste, and danced wi ' Jeanie on the down." In imagination 
 he is still himself the happy man — his loves are short and rap- 
 turous as his lyrics — and while liis constancy may be complained 
 of, it is impossible to help admiring the richness of his genius 
 that keeps for ever bringing fresh tribute to her whom he hap- 
 pens to adore. 
 
 " Her voice is the voice of the morning. 
 
 That wakes through the green-spreading grove 
 When Phoebus peeps over the mountains, 
 On music, and pleasure, and love." 
 
 That was the voice of one altogether lovely — a lady elegant and 
 accomplished — and adorning a higher condition than his own ; 
 but though finer lines were never written, they are not finer 
 than these four inspired by the passing by of a young woman, 
 on the High Street of Dumfries, with iier shoes and stockings in 
 her hand, and her petticoats frugally yet liberally kilted to her 
 knee. 
 
 " Her yellow hair, beyond compare, 
 
 Comes trinkling down her swan-white neck. 
 And her two eyes, like stars in skies. 
 Would keep a sinking ship frae wreck." 
 
 It may be thought that such poetry is too high for the people 
 — the common pcc)j)le — "beyond the reaches of their souls;" 
 but Burns knew better — and he knew that he who would be 
 their poet must put forth all his powers. There is not a single
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. • ll5 
 
 thougl)t, feeling, or image in all he ever wrote, that has not been 
 comprehended in its full force by thousands and tens of thousands 
 in the very humblest condition. They could not of themselves 
 liave conceived them — nor given utterance to anything resem- 
 bling them to our ears. How dull of apprehension ! how unlike 
 gods ! But let them be spoken to, and they hear. Their hearts 
 delighted with a strange sweet music »±ich. by recognition they 
 understand, are not satisfied with listening, but yearn to respond ; 
 ancrtlie whole land that for many years had seemed, but was not, 
 silent, in a few months is overflowing with songs that had issued 
 from highest genius it is true, but from the same source that is 
 daily welling out its waters in every human breast. Xlie_songs 
 tliat establish themselves among a people must indeed be simple 
 — but the simplest feelings are the deepest, and once that they 
 have received adequate expression, then they die not — but live 
 for ever. 
 
 Many of his Love-songs are, as they ought to be, untinged 
 witli earthly desire, and some of these are^bout the most beau- 
 tiful of any — as 
 
 " Wilt thou be my dearie ? 
 
 When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart. 
 Wilt thou let nie cheer thee ! 
 
 By the treasure of my soul. 
 That's the love I bear thee ! 
 
 I swear and vow, that only thou 
 Shalt ever be my dearie. 
 
 " Lassie, say thou lo'es me ; 
 
 Or if thou wilt na be my ain, 
 Say na tliou'lt refuse me : 
 
 Let me, lassie, quickly die. 
 Trusting that thou lo'es me. 
 Lassie, lot me quickly die. 
 Trusting that thou lo'es me." 
 
 Nothing can be more exquisitely tender — passionless from the 
 excess of passion — .pure from very despair — love yet hopes for 
 love's contc'ssion, though it feels it can be but a word of pity to 
 sweeten death. 
 
 In the most exquisite of his Songs, he connects and blends the
 
 116 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 tenderest and most passionate emotions with all appearances — 
 animate and inanimate ; in them all — and in some by a single 
 touch — we are made to feel that we are in the midst of nature. 
 A bird glints by, and we know we are in the woods — a primrose 
 grows up, and we are among the braes — the mere name of a 
 stream brings its banks before us — or two or three words leave 
 us our own choice of many waters. 
 
 " Far dearer to me the lone glen of g;rcen bracken. 
 Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom." 
 
 It has been thought that the eyes of " the laboring poor" are 
 not very sensible — nay, that they are insensible to scenery — and 
 that the pleasures thence derived are confined to persons of cul- 
 tivated taste. True, that the country girl, as she " lifts her 
 leglin, and hies her away," is thinking more of her lover's face 
 and figure — whom she hopes to meet in the evening — than of 
 the trysting tree, or of the holm where the grey hawthorn has 
 been standing for hundreds of years. Yet she knows right well 
 that they are beautiful ; and she feels their beauty in the old 
 song she is singing to herself, tliat at dead of winter recalls the 
 spring time and all the loveliness of the season of leaves. The 
 people know little about painting — how should they ? for unac- 
 quainted with the laws of perspective, they cannot see the land- 
 scape-picture on which instructed eyes gaze till the imagination 
 beholds a paradise. But the landscapes themselves they do see 
 — and they love to look on them. The ploughman does so, as 
 he " homeward plods his weary way ;" the reaper as he looks 
 at what Burns calls his own light — "the reaper's nightly beam, 
 mild chequering through the trees." If it were not so, why 
 should they call it " Bonnie Scotland " — why should they call 
 him " Sweet Roljbie Burns ? " 
 
 Irj his Songs they think of the flowers as alive, and with 
 hearts: " IIow blest the flowers that round thee bloom!" In 
 his Songs, the birds they hear singing in common hours with 
 common pleasure, or give them not a thought, without losing their 
 own nature partake of theirs, and shun, share, or mock human 
 passion. He is at once the most accurate and the most poetical
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS li: 
 
 of ornithologists. By a felicitous epithet he characterizes each 
 tribe according to song, plumage, habits, or haunts; often intro- 
 duces them for the sake of their own happy selves; oftener as 
 responsive to ours, in the expression of their own joys and griefs. 
 
 " Oh, stay, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay. 
 Nor quit for me the trembling spray; 
 A hapless lover courts thy lay — 
 Thy soothing, fond complaining. 
 
 " Again, again, that tender part. 
 That I may catch thy melting art; 
 For surely that wad touch her heart, 
 Wlia kills me wi' disdaining. 
 
 " Say, was thy little mate unkind. 
 And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
 Oh, nocbt but love and sorrow join'd, 
 Sic notes o' love could wauken. 
 
 " Thou tells o' never ending care : 
 0' speechless grief, and dark despair ; 
 For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair, 
 Or my poor heart is broken !" 
 
 Who was Jenny Cruikshank ? Only child "of my worthy 
 friend, Mr. William Cruikshank of the High School, Edin- 
 burgh." Where did she live ? On a floor at the top of a com- 
 mon stair, now marked No. 30, in James' Square. Burns lived 
 for some time with her father — his room being one which has a 
 window looking out from the gable of the house upon the green 
 behind the Register Office. There was little on that green to 
 look at — perhaps "a washing" laid out to dry. But the poet 
 saw a vision — and many a maiden now often sees it too — whose 
 face may be of the coarsest, and her hair not of the finest — but 
 who in spite of all that, strange to say, has an imagination and 
 a heart. 
 
 " A rose-bud by my early walk 
 Adown a corn-enclosed bawk, 
 Sae gently bent its thorny stalk 
 
 All on a dewy morning;
 
 lis THE GENIUS AND 
 
 Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, 
 In a' its crimson glory spread ; 
 And drooping rich the dewy head, 
 
 It scents the early morning. 
 
 "Within the bush, her covert nest 
 A little linnet fondly prest ; 
 The dew sat chilly on her breast 
 
 Sae early in the morning. 
 The morn shall see her tender brood 
 The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, 
 Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd. 
 
 Awake the early morning. 
 
 " So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair ! 
 On trembling string, or vocal air, 
 Shall sweetly j)ay the tender care. 
 
 That tends thy early morning. 
 So thou, sweet rosebud, young and gay, 
 Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day. 
 And bless the parent's evening ray, 
 
 That watch'd thy early morning." 
 
 Indeed, in all his poeiry, what an overflowing of tenderness, 
 pity, and affection towards all living creatures that inhabit the 
 earth, the water, and the air ! Of all men that ever lived, 
 Burns was the least of a sentimentalist ; he was your true Man 
 of Feelinw. He did not preach to Christian people the duty of 
 humanity to animals; he spoke of them in winning words warm 
 from a manliest breast, as his fellow-creatures, and made us feel 
 what we owe. What child could well be cruel to a helpless 
 animal who had read " The Death and Dying Words of Poor 
 
 Maillie" or "The Twa Dogs?" "The Auld Farmer's New- 
 
 year's-day Address to his Auld Mare Maggie" has — we know — 
 humanized the heart of a Gilmerton carter. " Not a mouse 
 stirriiiff," are gentle words at that hour from Shakspeare — when 
 thinkint^ of the ghost of a king; and he would iiave loved bro- 
 iher Burns for saying — " What makes thee startle, at me thy 
 poor earth-born companion and fellow mortal!" Safe-housed at 
 fall of a stormy winter night, of whom does the poet think, along 
 with the unfortunate, the erring, and the guilty of his own race I
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. iifl 
 
 " Lisfning the doors an' winnocks rattle, 
 I thoutcht me on the ourie cattle, 
 Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 
 
 0' winter war. 
 An' thro' the drift, deep-lairing sprattle, 
 
 Beneath a scar. 
 
 " Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, 
 That in the merry months o' spring 
 Delighted me to hear thee sing, 
 
 What comes o' thee ? 
 Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, 
 
 An' close thy e'e ?" 
 
 The poet loved the sportsman ; but lamenting in fancy " Tom 
 Samson's Deatli " — he could not help thinking, that "on his 
 nnouldering breast, some spitefu' muirfowl bigs her nest." When 
 at Kirkoswald studying trigonometry, plane and spherical, he 
 sometimes associated with smugglers, but never with poachers. 
 You cannot figure to yourself young Robert Burns stealing 
 stoopingly along under cover of a hedge, with a long gun and a 
 lurcher, to get a shot at a hare sitting, and perhaps washing her 
 face with her paws. No tramper ever " coft fur" at Mossgiel 
 or Ellisland. He could have joined, had he liked, in the pas- 
 sionate ardor of the rod and the gun the net and the leister; hut 
 he liked rather to tnink of all those creatures alive and well, 
 ''in their native element." In his love-sontj to "the channinir 
 filette who overset his trigonometry," and incapacitated him for 
 the taking of the sun's altitude, he says to her, on proposing to 
 take a walk — 
 
 " Now westlin winds, and slaught'ring guns, 
 Bring autumn's pleasant weather ; 
 The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, 
 Amang the blooming hcatlier. 
 
 " The partridge loves the fruitful fells ; 
 The plover loves the mountains ; 
 The woodcock haunts the lonely dells ; 
 
 The soaring hern the fountains : 
 Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves, 
 The path of man to shun it ; 
 11
 
 120 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, 
 The spreading thorn the linnet. 
 
 " Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find 
 
 The savage and the tender; 
 Some social join, and leagues combine ; 
 
 Some solitary wander : 
 Avaunt, away ! the cruel sway, 
 
 Tyrannic man's dominion ; 
 The sportsman's joy, the muid'ringcry. 
 
 The flutt'ring, gory pinion !" 
 
 Bruar Water, in his Hun)ble Petition to the Noble Duke of 
 Athole, prays that liis banks maybe made sylvan, that sheplierd, 
 lover, and bard may enjoy the shades j but chiefly for sake of 
 the inferior creatures. 
 
 " Delighted doubly then, my Lord, 
 You'll wander on my banks. 
 And listen many a gratefu' bird 
 Return you tuncfu' thanks." 
 
 The sober laverock — the gowdspink gay — the strong blackbird — 
 the clear lintwhite — the mavis mild and mellow — they will all 
 sing " God bless the Duke." And one mute creature will be more 
 thankful than all the rest — " coward maukin sleep secure, low in 
 her grassy form." You know that he threatened to throw Jem 
 Thomson, a farmer's son near Ellisland, into the Nith, for shoot- 
 ing at a hare — and in several of his morning landscapes a hare 
 is hirpling by. What human and poetical sympathy is there in 
 his address to the startled wild fowl on Loch Turit ! He speaks 
 of "parent, filial, kindred ties;" and in the closing lines who 
 does not feel that it is Burns that speaks ? 
 
 " Or, if man's superior might. 
 Dare invade your native right, 
 On the lofty ether borne 
 Man with all his powers you scorn; 
 Swiftly seek, on clanging wings, 
 Other lakes and other springs; 
 And the foe you cannot brave. 
 Scorn, at least, to be his slave."
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 121 
 
 Whatever be his mood, grav^ or gladsome, mirthful or melan- 
 choly — or when sorrow smiles back to joy, or care joins hands 
 with folly — he has always a liiought to give to them who many 
 think have no thought, but who all seemed to him, /rom highest 
 to lowest in that scale of being, to possess each its appropriate 
 degree of intelligence and love. In the " Sonnet written on his 
 birth-day, January 25lh, 1793, on hearing a thrush sing in a 
 morning-walk," it is truly affecting to hear how he connects, on 
 the sudden, his own condition with all its cares and an.xieties, 
 with that of the cheerful bird upon tiie leafless bough — 
 
 " Yet come, thou child of poverty and care, 
 The mite high Heaven bestows, that mite with thee I'll share." 
 
 We had intended to speak only of his Songs ; and to them we 
 return for a few minutes more, askirig_yQu to nctice how cheer- 
 ing such of them as deal gladsomely with the concerns of this 
 world must be to the hearts of them who of their own accord sinsr 
 them to themselves, at easier work, or intervals of labor, or at 
 gloaming when the day's darg is done. All partings are not sad — 
 most are the reverse ; lovers do not fear that they shall surely 
 die the day after they have kissed farewell ; on the contrary they 
 trust, with the blessing of Qod, to be married at the term. 
 
 •' Jockey's ta'en the parting kiss. 
 O'er the mountains he is gane ; 
 And with him is a' my bliss, 
 
 Naught but griefs with me remain. 
 
 " Spare my luve, ye winds that blaw, 
 Plashy sleets and beating rain ! 
 Spare my luve, thou feathery snaw, 
 Drifting o'er the frozen plain. 
 
 " When the shades of evening creep 
 O'er the day's fair, gladsome e'e, 
 Sound and s:ift-ly may he sleep. 
 Sweetly blythe his vvaukcning be \ 
 
 " He will think on her he loves, 
 Fondly he'll repeat her name ;
 
 i22 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 For where'er he distant roves. 
 Jockey's heart is still at hame." 
 
 There is no great matter or merit, some one may say, in such 
 lines as these — nor is there ; but they express sweetly enough 
 some natural sentiments, and what more would you have in a 
 song ? You have had far more in some songs to which we have 
 given the go-by ; but we are speaking now of the class of the 
 simply pleasant; and on us their effect is like that of a gentle 
 light falling on a pensive place, when there are no absolute clouds 
 in the sky, and no sun visible either, but when that soft effusion, 
 we know not whence, makes the whole day that had been some- 
 what sad, serene, and reminds us that it is summer. Believing 
 you feel as we do, we do not fear to displease you by quoting 
 " The Tither Morn." 
 
 "The tither morn, when I forlorn, 
 
 Aneath an aik sat moaning, 
 I didna trow, I'd see my jo, 
 
 Beside me, gain the gloaming. 
 But he sae trig, lap o'er the rig, 
 
 And dautingly did cheer me, 
 When I, what reck, did least expec'. 
 
 To see my lad so near me. 
 
 " His bonnet he, a thought ajee, 
 
 Cocked sprush when first he clasp'd me ; 
 And I, I wat, wi' fairness grat. 
 
 While in his grips he pressed me. 
 Deil take the war ! I late and air, 
 
 Hae wished syne Jock departed; 
 But now as glad I'm wi' my lad. 
 
 As short syne broken-hearted. 
 
 *' I'm aft at e'en wi' dancing keen, 
 
 When a' were blithe and merry, 
 I car'd na by, sae sad was I, 
 
 In absence o' my dearie. 
 But praise be blest, my mind's at rest, 
 
 I'm happy wi' my Johnny: 
 At kirk and fair, I'll aye be there. 
 
 And be as canty's ony."
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. r23 
 
 We believe that the most beautiful of his S ongs are dearest to 
 the people, and these are the passionate and the pathetic; but 
 tliere are some connected in one way or other vvjtli the tender 
 passion, great favorites too, from the light and lively, up to the 
 humorous and comic — yet among the broadest of that class there 
 is seldom any coarseness? — indecency never — vulgar you may 
 call some of them, if you please ; they were not intended to be 
 gentPcL Flirts and coquettes of both sexes are of every rank ; 
 in humble life the saucy and scornful toss their heads full liigh, 
 or "go by like stoure ;" "for sake o' gowd she left me" is a 
 complaint heard in all circles ; " although the night be neer sae 
 wet, and he be neer sae weary O," a gentleman of a certain age 
 will make himself ridiculous by dropping on the knees of his 
 corduroy breeches; Auntie would fain become a mother, and in 
 order thereunto a wife, and waylays a hobbletehoy ; daughters 
 the most filial think nothing of breaking their mothers' hearts as 
 their grandmothers' were broken before them ; innocents, with 
 no other teaching but that of nature, in the conduct of intrigues 
 in which verily there is neither shame nor sorrow, become system- 
 atic and consummate hypocrites, not worthy to live — single; 
 despairing swains are saved from suicide by peals of laughter 
 from those for whom they fain would die, and so get noosed ; — 
 and surely here is a field — indicated and no more — wide enough 
 for the Scottish Comic Muse, and would you know how produc- 
 tive to the hand of genius you have but to read Burns. 
 
 In one of his letters he says, " If_I_csiiIdv and I believe I do 
 itas far ja.s_ Lear), I would wipe away all tears from all eyes." 
 His nature was indeed humane ; and the tendernesses and kind- 
 linesses apparent in every page of his poetry, and most of all in 
 his Songs — cannot but have a humanizing influence on all those 
 classes exposed by the necessities of their condition to many 
 causes for ever at work to harden or shut up the heart. Burns 
 does not keep continually holding up to them the evils of their 
 lot, continually calling on them to endure or to redress ; but 
 while he stands up for his Order, its virtues, and Us rights, and 
 has bolts to hurl at the oppressor, his delight is to inspire con- 
 tentment. In that solemn — " Dirge," — a spiritual being, suddenly 
 spied in the gloom, seems an Apparition, made sage by sutl'erings 
 
 11*
 
 124 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 in the flesh, sent to instruct us and all who breathe that " Man 
 was made to mourn." 
 
 " Many and sharp the numerous ills 
 
 Inwoven with our frame ! 
 More pointed still we make ourselves. 
 
 Regret, remorse, and shame ! 
 And man, whose heaven-erected face 
 
 The smiles of love adorn, 
 Man's inhumanity to man, 
 
 Makes countless thousands mourn ' 
 
 " See yonder poor, o'er-labor'd wight, 
 
 So abject, mean, and vile. 
 Who begs a brother of the earth 
 
 To give him leave to toil ; 
 And see his lordly fellow-worm 
 
 The poor petition spurn, 
 Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife 
 
 And helpless offspring mourn." 
 
 But we shall suppose that " brother of the earth " rotten, and 
 forgotten by the " bold peasantry, their country's pride," who 
 work without leave from worms. At his work we think we hear 
 a stalwart tiller of the soil humming what must be a verse of 
 IJurns. 
 
 " Is there for honest poverty. 
 
 That hangs his head, and a' that .' 
 The coward slave, we pass him by, 
 
 We dare be poor for a' that ! 
 What tho' on hamely fare we dine. 
 
 Wear hoddin grey, and a' that ; 
 Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 
 
 A man's a man for a' that. 
 
 " Then let us pray, that come it may. 
 
 As come it will for a' that,' 
 That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth. 
 
 May bear the gree, and a' that. 
 For a' that, and a' tfiat, 
 
 It's coming yet for a' that. 
 That man to man, the world o'er. 
 
 Shall brothers be for a' that."
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 125 
 
 A spirit of Independence reigne<] alike in the Genius and the 
 Character of Burns. And what is it but a strong sense of what 
 is due to Wortii, apart altogetlier from the distinctions of society 
 — the vindication of that Worth br-ing what he ftlt to be the most 
 honored call upon himself in life ? That sense once violated is 
 destroyed, and therefore he guarded it as a sacred thing — -only 
 lesg sacred than Conscience. Yet it belongs to Conscience, 
 and is. the prerogative of Man as Man. Sometimes it may seem 
 as if he watched it with jealousy, and in jealousy there is always 
 weakness, because, there is fear. But it was not ^o ; he felt as- 
 sured that his footing was firm and that his hack wSs on a rock. 
 No blast could blow, no air could beguile him from the position 
 he had taken up with his whole soul in " its pride of place." 
 His words were justified by his actions, and his actions truly 
 told his thoughts ; his were a bold heart, a bold hand, and a bold 
 tongue, for in the nobility of his nature he knew that though born 
 and bred in a hovel, he was the equal of the highest in the land ; as 
 he was — and no more — of tlie lowest, so that they too were men. 
 For hear him speak — " VVl>at signify the silly, idle gew-gaws 
 of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness ! When fellow, 
 partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same 
 benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same de- 
 testation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at every- 
 thing unworthy — if they are not in the dependence of absolute 
 beggary, in the name of common sense are they not equals ? 
 And if the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls were the same 
 way, why may they not be friends ? He was indeed privileged 
 to write that "Inscription for an Altar to Independence." 
 
 " Thou of an independent mind. 
 
 With sold resolved, witli soul resifijned ; 
 
 Prepared Power's jjroudcst frown to brave, 
 
 Who wilt not be, nor have a slave ; 
 
 Virtue alone who dost revere. 
 
 Thy own reproach alone dost fear. 
 
 Approach this shrine, and worship here." 
 
 Scotland's adventurous sons are now as proud of this moral (ca 
 tare of his poetry as of all the pictures it contains of their native
 
 126 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 country. Bound up in one volume it is the Manual of Inde- 
 pendence. Were they not possessed of the same spirit, they 
 would be ashamed to open it ; but what they wear they win, 
 what they eat they earn, and if frugal they be — and that is the 
 right word — it is that on their return they may build a house on 
 the site of tiieir father's hut, and proud to remember that he was 
 poor, live so as to deserve the blessings of the children of them 
 w ho walked with him to daily labor on what was then no better 
 than a wilderness, but has now been made to blossom like the 
 rose. Ebenezer Elliot is no flatterer — and he said to a hundred 
 and twenty Scotsmen in Sheffield met to celebrate the birth-day 
 of Burns — 
 
 " Stern Mother of the deathless dead ! 
 
 Where stands a Scot, a freeman stands ; 
 Self-stayed, if poor — self-clothed — self-fed; 
 Mind-mighty in all lands. 
 
 " No wicked plunder need thy sons. 
 
 To save the wretch whom mercy spurns. 
 No classic lore tliy little ones, 
 Who find a Bard in Burns. 
 
 " Their path tho' dark, they may not miss; 
 Secure they tread on danger's brink ; 
 They say ' this shall be ' and it is : 
 For ere they act, they think." 
 
 There are, it is true, some passages in his poetry, and more 
 in his letters, in which this Spirit of Independence partakes too 
 much of pride, and expresses itself in anger and scorn. These, 
 however, were but passing moods, and he did not love to cherish 
 them ; no great blame had they been more frequent and perma- 
 nent — for his noble nature was exposed to many causes of such 
 irritalion, but it triun)phed over them all. A few indignant 
 flashes broke out against the littleness of the great ; but nothing 
 so paltry as personal pique inspired him with feelings of hostility 
 touards the hi"hest orders. His was an imajiination that clothed 
 high rank with that rlignity which some of the degenerate de- 
 scendants of old houses had forgotten ; and whenever true 
 noblemen " reverenced the lyre " and grasped the hand of the
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 127 
 
 peasant who had received it from nature as his patrimony, Burns 
 felt it to be nowise inconsistent with the stubbornest indepen- 
 dence that ever, supported a son of the soil in his struggles with 
 necessity, reverently to dolF his bonnet, and bow his head in 
 their presence with proud humility. Jcfirey did himself honor 
 by acknowledging that he had been at first misled by occasional 
 splenetic passages, in his estimation of Burns's character, and by 
 afterwards joining, in eloquent terms, in the praise bestowed by 
 other kindred spirits on the dignity of its independence. " It is 
 observed," says Campbell with his usual felicity, " that he boasts 
 too much of his independence ; but in reality this boast is neither 
 frequent nor obtrusive ; and it is in itself the expression of a 
 noble and laudable feeling. So far from calling up disagreeable 
 recollections of rusticity, his sentiments triumph, by their natu- 
 ral energy, over those false and artificial distinctions which the 
 mind is but too apt to form in allotting its sympathies to the sen- 
 sibilities of the rich and poor. He carries us into the humble 
 scenes of life, not to make us dole out our tribute of charitable 
 compassion to paupers and cottagers, but to make us feel with 
 them on equal terms, to make us enter into their passions and 
 interests, and share our hearts with them as brothers and sisters 
 of the human species." 
 
 In nothing else is the sincerity of his soul more apparent than 
 in his Friendship. All who had ever been kind to him he loved 
 till the last. It mattered not to him what was their rank or con- 
 dition — he returned, and more than returned their afTcction — he 
 was, with regard to such lies, indeed of the family of the faith- 
 ful. The consciousness of his infinite superiority to the common 
 race of men, and of his own fame and glory as a Poet, never for 
 a moment made him forget the humble companions of his obscure 
 life, or regard with a haughty eye any face that had ever worn 
 towards him an expression of benevolence, 'i'he Smiths, the 
 Muirs, tlie Browns, and the Parkers, were to him as the Aikens, 
 the Ballantynes, the Hamiltons, the Cunninghams, and the Ains- 
 lies — these as the Stewarts, the Gregorys, the Blairs and the 
 Mackenzies — these again as the Grahams and the Erskines — 
 and these as the Daers, the Glencairns, and the other men of 
 rank who were kind to him — all were his friends — his benefac-
 
 128 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 tors. His heart expanded towards them all, and throbbed with 
 gratitude. His eldest son — and he has much of his father's in- 
 tellectual power — bears his own Christian name — t!ie others are 
 James Ghncairn, and William Nicol — so called respectively 
 after a nobleman to whom he thought he owed all — and a school- 
 master to whom he owed nothing — yet equally entitled to bestow 
 — or receive that honor. 
 
 There is a beautiful passage in his Second Common Place 
 Book, showing how deeply he felt, and how truly he valued, the 
 patronage wiiich the worthy alone can bestow. " What pleasure 
 is in the power of the fortunate and happy, by their notice and 
 patronage, to brighten the countenance and glad the heart of 
 depressed worth ! I am not so angry with mankind for their 
 'deaf economy of the purse. The goods of this world cannot be 
 divided without being lessened ; but why bs a niggard of that 
 which bestows bliss on a fellow creature, yet takes nothing from 
 our own means of enjoyment ? . Why wrap ourselves in the 
 cloak of our own better fortune, and turn away our eyes lest 
 the wants and cares of our brother mortals should disturb the 
 selfish apathy of our souls ?" What was the amount of all the 
 kindness shown him by the Earl of Glencairn ? That excellent 
 nobleman at once saw that he was a great genius, — gave him 
 the hand of friendship — and in conjunction with Sir John White- 
 ford cot the members of the Caledonian Hunt to subscribe for 
 guinea instead of six shilling copies of his volume. That was 
 all — and it was well. For that Burns was as grateful as for 
 the preservation of life. 
 
 " The bridegroom may forget the bride 
 
 Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; 
 The monarch may forget the crown 
 
 That on his head an hour hath been ; 
 The mother may forget the child 
 
 That smik-s sae sweetly on her knee ; 
 But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, 
 
 And a' that thou hast done for me." 
 
 He went into mourning on the death of his benefactor, and 
 desired to know where he was to be buried, that he might attend 
 the funeral, and drop a tear into his grave. 
 
 The " Lament for Glencairn " is one of the finest of Ele-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 129 
 
 gies. We cannot agree with those critics — some of them of 
 deserved reputation — who have objected to the form in which the 
 poet chose to give expression to his grief. Imagination, touched 
 by human sorrow, loves to idealize ; because thereby it purifu's, 
 elevates, and ennobles realities, without impairing the pathos 
 belonging to them in nature. Many great poets — nor do we fear 
 now to mention Milton among the number — have in such strains 
 celebrated the beloved dead. They have gone out, along witli 
 the object of their desire, from the real living world in which 
 they had b^en united, and shadowed forth in imagery that bears 
 a high similitude to it, all that was most spiritual in the com- 
 munion now broken in upon by the mystery of death. So it is 
 in the Lycidas — and so it is in this "Lament." Burns imagines 
 an aaed Bard ffivins vent to his sorrow for his noble master's 
 untimely death,, among the " fading yellow woods, that wav'd 
 o'er Lugar's winding stream." That name at once awakens in 
 US the thought of his own dawning genius; and though his head 
 was yet dark as the raven's wing, and " the locks were bleached 
 white with time " of the Apparition evoked with his wailing harp 
 among the " winds lamenting thro' the caves," yet we feel on 
 the instant that the imaginary mourner is one and the same 
 with the real — that the old and the young are inspired with the 
 same passion, and have but one heart. We are taken out of 
 the present time, and placed in one far remote — yet by such re- 
 moval the personality of the poet, so far from being weakened, 
 is enveloped in a melancholy light that shows it more endear- 
 ingly to our eyes — the harp of other years sounds with the sor- 
 row that never dies — the words heard are the everlasting Ian- 
 guage of affection — and is not the object of such lamentation 
 aggrandized by thus being lifted into the domain of poetry ? 
 
 " I've seen sae mony changefu' years, 
 
 On earth I am a stranger grown ; 
 I wander in the ways of men. 
 
 Alike unknowing and unknown ; 
 Unheard, uiipitied, unrelicv'd : 
 
 I bear alane my lade o' care. 
 For silent, low, on beds of dust. 
 
 Lie a' that would my sorrows share.
 
 130 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " And last (the sum of a' my griefs !) 
 My noble master lies in clay ; 
 The Flow'r amang our Barons bold. 
 
 His country's pride, his country's stay " 
 
 We go along with such a mourner in his exaltation of the cha- 
 racter of the mourned — jjreat must have been the goodness to 
 generate such gratitude — that which would have been felt to 
 be exaggeration, if expressed in a form not thus imaginative, is 
 here brought within our unquestioning sympathy — and we are 
 prepared to return to the event in its reality, with undiminished 
 fervor, when Burns re-appears in his own character without 
 any disguise, and exclaims — 
 
 " Awake thy last sad voice, my harp, 
 
 The voice of wo and wild despair; 
 Awake, resound thy latest lay. 
 
 Then sleep in silence evermair ! 
 And thou, my last, best, only friend, 
 
 That fiUest an untimely tomb. 
 Accept this tribute from the bard 
 
 Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom. 
 
 " In poverty's low, barren vale, 
 
 Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round ; 
 Though oft I turned the wistful eye, 
 
 Nae ray of fame was to be found : 
 Thou found'st me, like the morning sun, 
 
 That melts the fogs in limpid air, 
 The friendless bard and rustic song 
 
 Became alike tliy fostering care." 
 
 The Elegy on " Captain Matthew Henderson " — of whom 
 little or nothing is now known — is a wonderfully fine flight of 
 imagination, but it wants, we think, the deep feeling of the " La- 
 ment." It may be called a Rapture. Burns says, " It is a tri- 
 bute to a man I loved much ;" and in "The Epitaph" which 
 follows if, he draws his character — and a noble one it is — in 
 many points resemijling his own. With the exception of the 
 opening and concluding stanzas, the Elegy consists entirely of a 
 6uj)plication to Nature to join with him in lamenting the death 
 of the " ae best fellow e'er was born ;" and though to our ears
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 131. 
 
 there is something grating in that term, yet the disagreeable- 
 ness of it is done away by the words immediately following: 
 
 " Thee, Mattl^ew, Nature's sel' shall mourn. 
 
 By wood and wild. 
 Where, haply, pity strays forlorn, 
 
 By man exil'd." 
 
 The poet is no .sooner on the wing, than he rejoices in his 
 strength of pinion, and with equal ease soars and stoops. We 
 know not where to look, in the whole range of poetry, for an In- 
 vocation to the great and fair objects of the e.vternal world, so 
 rich and various in imagery, and throughout so sustained ; and 
 here again we do not fear to refer to the Lycidas — and to say 
 that Robert Burns will stand a comparison with John Milton. 
 
 •' But oh, the heavy change, now thou art gone, 
 * Now thou art gone, and never must return ! 
 
 Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves, 
 With wild thyme, and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 
 And all their echoes mourn : 
 The willows and the hazel copses green 
 Shall now no more be seen. 
 Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 
 As killing as the canker to the rose. 
 Or taint- worm to the weanling herds that graze. 
 Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear. 
 When first the white-thorn blows; 
 Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. 
 • * * * • 
 
 * * * Return, Sicilian Muse, 
 
 And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
 Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. 
 Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
 Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 
 On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks. 
 Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes. 
 That on the green turf suck the honied showers, 
 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 
 Bring the ruth primrose that forsaken dies. 
 The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine. 
 The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet, * 
 
 The growing violet. 
 
 The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, 
 12
 
 132 THE GENIUS 'AND 
 
 With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head. 
 And every flower that sad embroidery wears : 
 Bid arnaranthus all his beauty shed, 
 And daflbditlies fill their cups with tears, 
 To strew the Laureat herse where Lycid lies." 
 
 All who know the " Lycidas," know how impossible it is to 
 idetach any one single passage from the rest, without marring its 
 beauty of relationship — without depriving it (tf the charm con- 
 sisting in the rise and fall — the undulation — in which the whole 
 divine poem now gently and now magnificently fluctuates. But 
 even when thus detached, the poetry of these passages is exqui- 
 site — the expression is perfept — consummate art has crowned 
 the conceptions of inspired genius — and shall we dare set by 
 their side stanzas written by a ploughman ? We shall. But 
 first hear Wordsworth. In the Excursion, the Pedlar says — 
 and the Exciseman corroborates its truth — 
 
 " The poets in their elegies and hymns 
 Lamenting the departed, call the groves ; 
 They call upon the hills and streams to mourn ; 
 And senseless rocks ; nor idly : for they speak 
 In these their invocations with a voice 
 Of human passion." 
 
 You have heard Milton — hear Burns — 
 
 " Ye hills, near neebors o' the starns, 
 That proudly cock your crested cairns ! 
 Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns, 
 
 Where echo slumbers ! 
 Come join ye. Nature's sturdiest bairns. 
 My wailing numbers ! 
 
 " Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! 
 Ye haz'lly shavvs and briery dens ! 
 Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens, 
 
 Wi' toddlin' din. 
 Or foaming Strang, wi' hasty stcns, 
 Frae linn to linn ! 
 
 " Mourn, little harebells o'er the lea, 
 Ye stately fox^doves fair to see,
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 133 
 
 Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie, 
 
 In scented bow'rs; 
 Ye roses on your thorny tree, 
 
 The first o' flow'rs. 
 
 " At dawn, when ev'ry grassy blade 
 Droops with a diamond at its head ; 
 At ev'n, when beans their fragrance shed, 
 
 r th' rustling gale ; 
 Ye maukins whiddin thro' the glade, 
 
 Come join my wail 
 
 " Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 
 Ye grouse that crap the heather bud ; 
 Ye kurlews calling thro' a clud ; 
 
 Ye whistling plover ; 
 And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood ! 
 
 He's gane for ever I 
 
 *' Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals ; 
 Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; 
 Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels 
 
 Circling the lake 
 "V e bitterns, till the quagmire reels, 
 
 Rair for his sake. 
 
 " Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o' day, 
 'Mang fields o' flowing clover cay ; 
 And when ye wing your annual way 
 
 Frae our cauld shore. 
 Tell thae far worlds, wha lies in clay. 
 
 Wham ye deplore. 
 
 •' Ye houlets, frae your ivy bow'r. 
 In some auld tree, or eldritch tow'r. 
 What time the moon, wi' silent glow'r 
 
 Sets up her horn, 
 Wail thro' the dreary midnight hour 
 * Till waukrife morn ! 
 
 "Oh, rivers, forests, hills, and plains ! 
 Oft have ye heard my canty strains : 
 But now, what else for me remains 
 But tales of wo ? 
 And frae my een the drapping rains 
 Maun ever (low.
 
 134 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " Mourn, spring, thou darling of the year ! 
 Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear : 
 Thou, simmer, while each corny spear 
 Shoots up its head, 
 Thy gay, green, flow'ry tresses shear 
 
 For him that's dead. 
 
 " Thou, autumn, vvi' thy yellow hair, 
 In grief thy sallow mantle tear ! 
 Thou, winter, hurling thro' the air 
 
 The roaring blast, 
 Wide o'er the naked world declare 
 
 The worth we've lost ! 
 
 •*' Mourn him, thou sun, great source of light ! 
 Mourn, empress of the silent night ! 
 And you, ye twinkling starnies bright, 
 
 My JVIatthew mourn ! 
 For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight, 
 
 Ne'er to return." 
 
 Of all Burns's friends, the most efficient was Graham of Fin- 
 try. To him he owed E.xciseman's diploma — settlement as a 
 ganger in the District of Ten Parishes, when he was gudeman 
 at EUisland — translation as gauger to Dumfries — support against 
 insidious foes despicable yet not to be despised with rumor at 
 their head — vindication at the Excise Board — pro loco et tempore 
 supervisorship — and though he knew not of it, security from 
 dreaded degradation on his deathbed. "His First Epistle to 
 Mr. Graham of Fintry " is in the style, shall we say it, of Dry- 
 den and Pope ? It is a noble composition ; and these fine, vigo- 
 rous, rough, and racy lines truly and duly express at once his 
 independence and his gratitude : 
 
 " Come thou who giv'st with all a courtier's grace ; 
 Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes ! 
 Prop of my dearest hopes for future times. 
 Why shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid, 
 Backward, abasli'd, to ask thy friendly aid .> 
 I know my need, 1 kn^w thy giving hand, 
 I crave thy friendship at tiiy kitid command , 
 But there are such who court the tuneful nine — 
 Heavens ! should the branded character be mine !
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 13S 
 
 Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows, 
 Yet vilest reptiles in their be'^i^iiiji; prose. 
 Marie, how their lofty independent spirit 
 Soars on the spnrnin'j; wing of injur'd merit! 
 Seek not the proofs in private life to find ; 
 Pity the best of words should be but wind ! 
 So to heaven's gates the lark's shrill song ascends, 
 But groveling on the earth the carol ends. 
 In all the clam'rous cry of starving want. 
 They dun benevolence with shameless front 
 pblige them, patronise th^ir tinsel lays. 
 They persecute you all their future days ! 
 Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain. 
 My horny fist assume the plough again ; 
 ■ The pie-bald jacket let me patch once more ; 
 On eighteen-pence a-week I've liv'd before. 
 Tho' thanks to heaven, I dare even that last shitl 
 I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift : 
 That, ]ilac'd by thee upon the wish'd-for height. 
 Where, man and nature fairer in her sight. 
 My muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight." 
 
 Read over again the last three lines ! The favor requested was 
 removal from the laborious and e.xtensive district which he sur- 
 veyed for the E.Kcise at EUisland to one of smaller dimensions 
 at Dumfries! In another Epi.stle, he renews the request, and 
 says most affectingly — 
 
 " I dread thee, fate, relentless and severe. 
 With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear ! 
 Already one strong hold of hope is lost, 
 Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in du^t 
 (Fled, like the sun eclips'd at noon appears. 
 And left us darkling in a world of tears) ; 
 Oh ! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish prayer !— 
 Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare ! 
 Thro'' a long life his hopes and wishes crown ; 
 And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down ! 
 May bliss domestic smoothe his private path. 
 Give energy to life, and sorithe his latest breath. 
 With many a filial tear circling the bed of death .'" 
 
 The favor was granted — and in another Epistle was reciiiitcd 
 
 with immortal thanks. 
 
 12»
 
 1S6 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " I call no goddess to inspire my strains, 
 A fabled muse may suit a bard that feigns; 
 Friend of my life ! my ardent spirit burns, 
 And all the tribute of my heart returns. 
 For boons accorded, goodness ever new, 
 The gift still dearer, as Ihe giver, you. 
 
 " Thou orb of day ! thy olher paler light ! 
 And all ye many sparkling stars of night ; 
 If aught that giver from my mind ettace, 
 If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace ; « 
 
 Then roll to me, along your wandering spheres. 
 Only to number out a villain's years !" 
 
 Love, Friendship, Independence, Patriotism — these were the 
 'perpetual inspirers of his genius, even when they did not form 
 the theme of his effusions. His religious feelings, his resent- 
 ment against hypocrisy, and other occasional inspirations, availed 
 only to the occasion on which they appear. But these influence 
 him at all times, even while there is not a whisper abo'ut them, 
 and when himself is unconscious of their operation. Every- 
 thing most distinctive of his character will be found to apper- 
 tain to them, whether we regard him as a poet*or a man. Hjs 
 Patriotism was of the true poetic kind — intense — exclusive ; 
 Scotland and the climate of Scotland were in his eyes the dear- 
 est to nature — Scotland and tiie people of Scotland the mother 
 and the children of liberty. In his exultation, when a thought 
 of foreign lands crossed his fancy, he asked, " Wliat are they ? 
 the haunts of the tyrant and slave." This was neither philoso- 
 phical nor philanthropical ; in this Burns was a bigot. And 
 the cosmopolite may well laugh to hear the cottager proclaiming 
 that " the brave Caledonian views with disdain " spicy forests 
 and gold-bubbling fountains with their ore and their nutmegs — 
 and blessing himself in scant apparel on " cauld Caledonia's 
 blast on the wave." The doctrine will not stand the scrutiny of 
 ludgment ; but with what concentraied power of poetry does 
 the prejudice burst forth ? Lot all lands have each its own pre- 
 judiced, bigoted, patriotic poets, blind and deaf to what lies 
 beyond their own horizon, and thus shall the whole habitable 
 world in due time be glorified. Shakspeare himself was never
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 137 
 
 so happy as when setting up England in power, in beauty, and 
 in majesty above all the kingdoms of the earth. 
 
 In times of national security the feelinc: of Patriotism among 
 the masses is so quiescent that it seems hardly to exist — in their 
 case national glory or national danger awakens it, and it leaps 
 up armed cap-a-pie. But the sacred fire is never extinct in a 
 nation, and in tranquil times it is kept alive in the hearts of 
 those who are called to high functions in the public service — by 
 none is it heeled so surely as by the poets. It is the identifica- 
 tion of individual feeling and interest vvi-th those of a commu- 
 nity ; and so natural to the human soul is thi^ enlarged act of 
 sympathy, that when not called forth by some, great pursuit, 
 peril, or success, it applies itself intensely to internal policy ; and 
 hence the animosities and rancor of parties, which are evidences, 
 nay forms, though degenerate ones, of the Patriotic Fqeling ; and 
 this is proved by the fact that on the approach of, common dan- 
 ger, party differences in a great measure cease, and are trans- 
 muted into the one harmonious elemental Love of our Native 
 Land. Burns was said at one time to have been a .Jacobin as 
 well as a Jacobite ; and it must have required even all his 
 genius to effect such a jimction. He certainly wrote some so-so 
 verses to the Tree of Liberty, and like Cowper, Wordsworth, 
 and other great and good men, rejoiced when down fell the Bas- 
 tille. But when there was a talk of taking our Island, he soon 
 evinced the nature of his affection for the French. 
 
 " Does hau2thty Gaul invasion threat ? 
 Then let the loons beware, Sir, 
 There's wooden walls upon our seas, 
 
 And volunteers on shore, Sir. 
 The Nith shall run to Corsincon, . 
 
 And Criird sink in Sohvay, 
 Ere we permit a foreign foe 
 On British ground to rally. 
 
 Fall de rail, &,c. 
 
 " let us not like snarlin'^ tykes 
 
 In wranj^ling be divided ; 
 
 Till slap come in an unco loon 
 
 And wi' a rung decide it.
 
 13S THE GENIUS AND 
 
 Be Britain still to Britain true, 
 
 Amang oursels united ; 
 For never but by British hands 
 
 Maun British wrangs be righted. 
 
 Fall de rail, &.C. 
 
 " The kettle o' the kirk and state, 
 Perhaps a claut may fail in 't ; 
 But deil a foreign tinker loun 
 
 Shall ever ca' a nail in 't. 
 Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought, 
 
 And wha wad dare to spoil it ; 
 By heaven the sacrilegious dog 
 Shall fuel be to boil it. 
 
 Fall de rail, &c. 
 
 " The wretch that wad a tyrant own. 
 
 And the wretch his true-born brother, 
 Who would set the mob aboon the throne. 
 
 May 'they be damn'd together ! 
 Who will not sing, ' God save the King,' 
 
 Shall hang as high 's the steeple; 
 But while we sing, ' God save the King,' 
 
 We'll ne'er forget the People." 
 
 These are far from being •' elegant " stanzas — there is even a 
 rudeness about them — but 't is the rudeness of the Scottisfi Thistle 
 — a paraphrase of '■'■nemo me impune lacesset." The staple of 
 the war-song is homo-grown and home-spun. It flouts the air 
 like a banner 710/ idly spread, whereon "the ruddy Lion ramps 
 in "old." Not all the orators of the day, in Parliament or out 
 of it, in all their speeches put together embodied more political 
 wisdom, or appealed with more effective power to the noblest 
 principles of pat.rioti.sm in the British heart. 
 
 "A gentleman of birth and talents" thus writes, in 1835, to 
 Allan Cunniiighame : " I was at the play in Dumfries, October, 
 1792, the Caledonian Hunt being then in town — the play was 
 ' As you like it ' — Miss Fontenelle, Rosalind — when ' God save 
 the king ' was called for and sung ; we all stood up uncovered, 
 but Burns sat still in the middle of the pit, with, his hat on his 
 head. There was a great tumult, witli shouts of ' turn him out' 
 and ' shame Burns !' which continued a good while ; at last he
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS ' 13'J 
 
 was either expelled or forced to take off his hat — I forget which. ' 
 And a lady with whom Robert Chambers once conversed, " re- 
 menibered being present in the theatre of Dumfries, durin" the 
 lieat of the Revolution, when Burns entered the pit somewhat 
 affected by liquor. On God save the king being struck up, the 
 audience rose as usual, all except the intemperate poet, who 
 cried for Ca ira. A tumult was the consequence, and Burns 
 was compelled to leave the house." We cannot believe that 
 Burns ever was guilty of such vulgar insolence — such brutality ; 
 nothing else at all like it is recorded of him — and the worthy 
 story-tellers are not at one as to the facts. The gentleman's 
 memory is defective ; but had he himself been the offender, 
 surely he would not have forgot whether he had been compelled to 
 take off his hat, or had been jostled,* perhaps only kicked out of 
 the play-house. The lady's eyes and ears were sharper — for 
 she saw " Burns enter the pit somewhat affected by liquor," and 
 then heard him " cry for Ca ira." By w hat means he was 
 " compelled to leave the house," she does not say ; but as he 
 was " sitting in the middle of the pit," he must have been walked 
 out very gently, so as not to have attracted the attention of the 
 male narrator. If this public outrage of all decorum, decency, 
 and loyalty, had been -perpetrated by Burns, in October, one is 
 at a loss to comprehend how, in December, he could have been 
 " surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr. Mitchell, the Col- 
 lector, telling me that he has received an order for your Board 
 to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person 
 disaffected to government." The fact we believe to be this — 
 that Burns, whose loyalty was suspected, had been rudely com- 
 manded to take off his hat by some vociferous time-servers — 
 just as he was going to do so — that the row arose from his de- 
 clining to uncover on compulsion, and subsided on his disdain- 
 fully doffing his beaver of his own accord. Had he cried for 
 Ca ira, he would have deserved dismissal from the Excise ; and 
 in his own opinion, translation to another post — " VVHia will not 
 sing God save the King, shall hang as high 's the steeple." The 
 year before, "during the heat of the French Revolution," Burns 
 composed his grand war-song — "Farewell, thou fair dav, thou 
 green earth, and. ye skies," and sent it to Mrs. Dunlop with these
 
 140 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 words : *• I have just finished the following song, whicii to a 
 lady, the descendant of Wallace, and many heroes of his truly 
 illustrious line — and herself the mother of several soldiers — 
 needs neither preface nor apology." And the year after, he 
 composed " The Poor and Honest Sodger," " >vhich was sung,'' 
 says Allan Cuninghan)e, " in every cottage, village, and town. 
 Yet the man who wrote it was supposed by the mean and tiie 
 spiteful to be no well-wisher to his country !" Why, as men 
 who have any hearts at all, love their parents in any circum- 
 stances, so they love their country, be it great or small, poor 
 or wealthy, learned or ignorant, free or enslaved ; and even 
 disgrace and degradation will not quench their filial affection 
 to it. But Scotsmen have good reason to be proud of their coun- 
 try ; not so much for any -particular event, as for her whole 
 historical progress. Particular events, however, are thought of 
 by them as the landnlarks of that progress ; and these are the 
 great points of history " conspicuous in the nation's eye." 
 Fiarlier times present " the unconquered Caledonian spear ;" 
 later, tiie unetjual but generally victorious struggles vvitl) the 
 sister country, issuing in national independence ; and later still, 
 tiie lioly devotion of the soul of 'he people to their own profound 
 religious Faith, and its sim|)le Forms. VV'ould that Burns had 
 pondered more on tliat warfare ! That he had sung its final 
 triumph ! But we must be contented witli his " Scots wha hae' 
 wi' Wallace bled ;" and with repeating after it with him, " So 
 may God defend the cause of truth and liberty, as he did that 
 day ! Amen !" 
 
 Mr. Syme tells us that Burns composed this ode on the 31st 
 of July, 1798, on the moor road between Kenmure and Gate- 
 house. " The sky was sympathetic with the wretchedness of the 
 soil ; it became lowering and dark — tlie winds sigm^J hollow-;- 
 the lightning gleamed — tlie thunders rolled. The poet enjoyed 
 the awful scene — he spoke not a word — but seemed rapt in me- 
 ditation. In a little while the rain began to fall — it poured in 
 floods upon us. For three hours did the wild elements runible 
 their bellyful u[)on our defenceless heads." That is very fine 
 indeed ; and " what do you think," asks Mr. Syme, " Burns was 
 about ? He was charging the Englisli Army along with Bruce
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 141 
 
 at Bannockbuni." On the second of August — when the weatlier 
 was more sedate — on their return from St. Mary's Isle to Dum- 
 fries, "he was engaged in the same manner;" and it appears 
 from one of his own letters, that he returned to the charge one 
 evening in September. The thoughts, and feelings, and Images, 
 came rushing upon him during tha storm — they formed them- 
 selves into stanzas, like so many awkward squads of raw levies, 
 during the serene state of the atmosphere — and under the har- 
 vest moon, firm as the measured tread of marching men, with 
 admirable precision they wheeled into line. This account of 
 the composition of the Ode would seem to clear Mr. Syme from 
 a charge nothing short of falsehood brought against him by 
 Allan Cuninghame. Mr. Syme's words are, " I said that in the 
 midst of the storm, on the wilds of Kenmure, Burns was rapt in 
 meditation. What do you think he was about ? He was charg- 
 ing the English army along with Bruce at Bannockburn. He 
 was eufifajred in the same manner in our ride home from St. 
 Mary's Isle, and I did not disturb him. Next day he produced 
 me the address of Bruce to his troops, and gave me a copy to DaJ- 
 zcll.'^ Nothing can be more circumstantial ; and if not true, it 
 is a thumper. Allan says, " Two or three plain words, and a 
 stubborn date or two, will go far I fear to raise this pleasing le- 
 gend into the regions of romance. The Galloway adventure, 
 according to Syme, hapi)ened in July; but in the succeeding 
 September, the poet amiounccd the song to Thomson in these 
 words : ' There is a tradition which I have met with in many 
 places in Scotland that the air of " Hey ttittie taittie " was Robert 
 Bruee's march at the Battle of Bannockburn. This thought in 
 my yesternights evening walk warmed me to a pitch of enthu- 
 siasm on the theme of liberty and independence, whicl\, I threw 
 into a kind of Scottish ode — that one might suppose to be the 
 royal Scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful 
 morning. 1 showed tlie air to Urbani, who was greatly pleased 
 with it, and begged me to make soft verses for it ; but I had no 
 idea of giving myself any trouble on the subject till the acci- 
 dental recollection of tiial glorious struggle for freedom, asso- 
 ciated with the glowins: idea of some other strurjcles of the same 
 nature, not quite so ansient, roused up my rhyming mania?'
 
 142 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 Currie, to make the letter agree with the legend, altered yester- 
 night's evening ivalk into solitary wanderings. Burns was in- 
 deed a remarkable man, and yielded no doubt to strange im- 
 pulses; but to compose a song ' in thunder, lightning, and in 
 rain,' intimates such self-possession as few possess." We can 
 more readily believe that Burns wrote " yesteniiglit's evening 
 icalk," to save himself the trouble of entering iiito any detail of 
 his previous study of the subject, than that Syme told a down- 
 right lie. As to composing a song in a thunder-storm, Cuning- 
 hame — who is himself " a remarkable man," and has composed 
 some songs worthy of being classed with those of Burns, would 
 find it one of the easiest and pleasantest of feats ; for lightning 
 is among the most harmless vagaries of the electric fluid, and in 
 a" hilly country, seldom singes but worsted stockings and sheep. 
 Burns sent the Address in its perfection to George Thomson — 
 recommending it to be set to th^ old air — " Hey tuitie taittie " — 
 according to Tradition, who cannot, however, be. reasonably ex- 
 pected "to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
 truth " — Robert Bruce's march at the Battle of Bannockburn. 
 A committee of taste sat on " Hey tuttie taittie," and pronounced 
 it execrable. " I happened to dine yesterday," says Mr. Thom- 
 son, " with a party of your friends, to whom I read it. They were 
 all charmed with it ; entreated me to find out a suitable air for 
 it, and reprobated the idea of giving it a tune so totally devoid 
 of interest or grandeur as 'Hey tuttie taittie.^ Assuredly your 
 partiality for this tune must arise from the ideas associated in 
 your mind by the tradition concerning it, for I never heard any 
 person — and I have conversed again and again with the greatest 
 enthusiasts for Scottish airs — I say, I never heard any one speak 
 of it as worthy of notice. I have been running over the whole 
 hundred aifs — of which I have lately sent you the list — and I 
 think Lewie Gordon is most happily adapted to your ode, at K ast 
 with a very slight alteration of the fourth line, which I shall 
 presently submit to you. Now the variation I have to suggest 
 upon the last line of each verse, the only line too short for the 
 air, is as follows: Verse 1st, Or to glorious victory. 2d, Chains 
 — chains and slavery. 3d, Let him, let him turn and flee. 4th, 
 Let him bravely follow me. 5lh, But they shall, they shall be
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 113 
 
 free. 6th, Let us, let us do or die." " Glorious " and " brave- 
 ly," bad as they are, especially " bravely," which is indeed 
 most bitter bad, might have been borne ; but just suppose for a 
 moment, that Robert Bruce had, in addressing his army "on the 
 morning of that eventful day," come over again in that odd way 
 every word he uttered, "chains — chains;" "let him — let him;" 
 "they shall — they shall;" "let us — let us;" why the army 
 would have thought him a Bauldy ! Action, unquestionably, is 
 the main point in oratory, and Bruce might have imposed on 
 many by the peculiar style in which it is known he handled his 
 battle-axe, but we do not hesitate to assert that had he stuttered 
 in that style, the English would have won the day. Burns 
 winced sorely, but did what he could to accommodate Lewie 
 Gordon. 
 
 "The only line," said Mr. T., "which I dislike in the whole 
 of the song is ' Welcome to your gory bed.' Would not another 
 word be preferable to ' welcome V " Mr. T. proposed " hon- 
 or's bed ;" but Burns replied, " Your idea of 'honor's bed ' is, 
 though a beautiful, a hackneyed idea ; so if you please we will 
 let the line stand as it is." But Mr. T. was tenacious — " One 
 word more with regard to your heroic ode. I tiiink, with great 
 deference to the poet, that a prudent general would avoid saying 
 anything to his soldiers which might tend to make death more 
 frightful than it is. ' Gory ' presents a disagreeable image to the 
 mind; and to tell them, ' Welcome to your gory btd,' seems 
 rather a discouraging address, notwithstanding the alternative 
 which follows. I ha.ve shown ihc song to three friends of crcel/ent 
 taste, and each of them objected to this line, which emboldens 
 me to use the freedom of bringing it again under your notice. 
 I would suggest 'Now prepare for honor's bed, or for glorious 
 victory.'" Quoth Burns grimly — " My ode pleases nie so much 
 that I cannot alter it. Your proposed alteration would, in my 
 opinion, make it tame. I have scrutinized it over and over 
 again, and to the world some way or other it shall go, as it is." 
 That four Scotsmen, taken seriatim et separatim — in the martial ar- 
 dor of their patriotic souls should object to " Welcome to your gory 
 bed," from an uncommunicated apprehension comnjon to the na- 
 ture of them all and operating like an instinct, that it was tilted 
 
 13
 
 144 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 lo frighten Robert Bruce's army, and make it take to its heels, 
 leaving the cause of Liberty and Independence to shift for itself, 
 is a coincidence that sets at defiance trie doctrine of chances, 
 proves history to be indeed an old almanack, and national cha- 
 racter an empty name. 
 
 " Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
 Scots wham Bruce has aften led, 
 Welcome to your gory bed. 
 Or to victory. 
 
 " Now's the day, and now's the hour ; 
 See the front o' battle lower ; 
 See approach proud Edward's power — 
 Chains and slavery ! 
 
 " Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
 Wha can fill a coward's gra_ve ? 
 Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
 Let him turn and flee ! 
 
 " Wha for Scotland's king and law 
 Freedom's sword will strongly draw. 
 Free-man stand, or free-man fa'. 
 Let him on wi' me ! 
 
 " By oppression's woes and pains ! 
 By your sons in servile chains ! 
 We will drain our dearest veins, 
 But they shall be free ! 
 
 " Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
 T) rants fall in every foe ! 
 Liberty's in every blow ! 
 Let us do, or die !" 
 
 All Scotsmen at home and abroad swear this is the Grandest Ode 
 out of the Bible. What ;f it be not an Ode at all ? An Ode, 
 however, let it be; then, wherein lies the power it possesses of 
 stirring up into a devouri-ng fire ihc perfervidum ingenium Scoto- 
 rum? The two armies suddenly stand before us in order of bat- 
 tle — and in the grim repose preceding the tempest we hear but 
 the voice of Bruce. The whole Scottish army hears it — now 
 standing on their feet — risen from their knees as the abbot
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 145 
 
 of Inchchaffray had blessed them and the Banner of Scotland 
 with its roots of Stone. At the first six words a hollow murmur 
 is in that wood of spears. " Welcome to your gory bed !" a 
 shout that shakes the sky. Hush ! hear the King. At Edward's 
 name what a yell ! " Wha will be a traitor knave ?" Mutter- 
 ing tiiunder growls reply. The inspired Host in each appeal 
 anticipates the Leader — yet shudders with fresh wrath, as if 
 each reminded it of some intolerable wTono;. " Let us do or 
 die " — the English are overthrown — and Scotland is free. 
 
 1 hat is a very ScoUish critique indeed — but none the worse 
 for that ; so our English friends must forgive it, and be consoled 
 by Flodden. The Ode is sublime. Death and Life at that 
 hour ai-e one and the same to the heroes. So that Scotland but 
 survive, what is breath or blood to them ? Their beinsr is in 
 their country's liberty, and with it secured they will live for 
 ever. 
 
 Our critique is getting more and more Scottish still ; so to rid 
 ourselves of nationality, we request such of you as think we over- 
 laud the Ode to point out one w-ord in it that would be better 
 away. You cannot. Then pray have the goodness to point out 
 one word missing that ought to have been there — please to insert a 
 desiderated stanza. You cannot. Then let the bands of all the 
 Scottish regiments play " Hey tuittie taitie ;" and the two Dun- 
 Edins salute one another with a salvo that shall startle the 
 echoes from Berwick-Law to Benniore. 
 
 Of the delight with which Burns labored for Mr. Thomson's 
 Collection, his letters contain some lively description. "You 
 cannot imagine," says he, 7th April, 1793, '• how much this 
 business has added to my enjoyment. What with my early 
 attachment to ballads, your hook and ballad-making are now as 
 completely my hobby as ever fortification was my uncle Toby's ; 
 so I'll e'en canter it away till I come to the limit of my race (God 
 grant I mav take tiie right side of the winning post), and then, 
 cheerfully looking back on the honest folks with whom I have 
 been happv, I shall say or sing, ' Sae merry as we a' iiae been,' 
 and raising my last looks to the whole human race, the last 
 words of the voice of Coila shall be, 'Good night and joy be 
 with you a'!' " James Gray was the first, who indepcndenlly
 
 lie THE GENIUS AND 
 
 of every other argument, proved the impossibility of the charges 
 that had too long been suffered to circulate without refutation 
 against Burns's character and conduct during his later years, 
 by pointing to these almost daily effusions of his clear and un- 
 clouded genius. His innumerable Letters furnish the same 
 best proof; and when we consider how much of his time was 
 occupied by his professional duties, how much by perpetual 
 interruption of visitors from all lands, how much by blameless 
 social intercourse with all classes in Dumfries and its neighbor- 
 hood, and how frequently he suffered under constitutional ail- 
 ments affecting the very seat and source of life, we cannot help 
 despising the unreflecting credulity of his biographers who with 
 such products before their eyes, such a display of feeling, fancy, 
 imagination and intellect continually alive and on the alert, 
 could keep one after another for twenty years in doleful disser- 
 tations deploring over his habits — most of them at the close of 
 their wearisome moralizing anxious to huddle all up, that his 
 countrymen might not be obliged to turn away their faces in 
 shame from the last scene in the Tragedy of tlie Life of Robert 
 Burns. 
 
 During the four years Burns lived in Dumfries he was never 
 known for one hour to be negligent of his professional duties. 
 AVe are but imperfectly acquainted with the details of the bu- 
 siness of a sjauger, but the calling must be irksome ; and he was 
 an active, steady, correct, courageous officer — to be relied on 
 equally in his conduct and his accounts. Josiah Walker, who 
 was himself, if we mistake not, for a good many years in the 
 Customs or Excise at Perth, will not allow him to have been a 
 good gauger. In descanting on the unfortunate circumstances 
 of his situation, he savs with a voice of authority, " his superi- 
 ors were bound to attend to no qualification, i)ut such as was 
 conducive to the benefit of the revenue ; and it would i^ave been 
 equally criminal in them to pardon any incorrectness on account 
 of his literary genius, as on account of his dexterity in plough- 
 ing. The merchant or attorney who acts for himself alone, is 
 free to overlook some errors of his clerk, for the sake of merits 
 totally unconnected with business ; i)ut the Board of Excise had 
 no power to indulge their poetical taste, or their tenderness for
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 147 
 
 liim by whom it had been gratified, at the expense of the public. 
 Burns was therefore in a place where he could turn his peculiar 
 eiidowiiionts to little advantage ; and wliere he could not, with- 
 out injustice, be preferred to the most obtuse and uninteresting 
 of his brethren, wlio surpassed him in the humble recommenda- 
 tion of exactness, vigilance, and sobriety. Attention to these 
 circumstances might have prevented insinuations against the 
 liberality of his superior officers, for showing so little desire to 
 advance him, and so little indulgence to tiiosfc eccentricities for 
 which the natural temperament of genius could be pleaded. 
 For two years, however, Burns stood sufficiently high in tlic 
 opinion of the Board, and it is surely by no means improper, 
 that where professional |)retensions are nearly balanced, the ad- 
 ditional claims of literary talent should be permitted to turn the 
 scale. Such was the reasoning of a particul-ar member of the 
 Board, whose taste and munificence were of corresponding ex- 
 tent, and who saw no injustice in giving some preference to an 
 officer who could write permits as well as any other, and poems 
 much better." Not for worlds would we say a single syllable 
 derogatory from tiie merits of the Board of Excise. We respect 
 the character of the defunct ; and did we not, still we should 
 have tlie most delicate regard to the feelintrs of its descendants, 
 many of whom are probably now prosperous gentlemen. It was 
 a Board that richly deserved, in all its dealings, the utmost eulo- 
 gies with which the genius and c-ratitude of Josiah VV^ilkcr could 
 brifrjiten its (rreen cloth. Most criminal indeed would it have 
 l)een in such a Hoard — most wicked and most sinful — "to ])ar- 
 don any incorrectness on account of Burns's literary genius, as 
 on account of his dexterity in ploughing." Deeply impressed 
 with a sense — approaciiing to that of awe — of the responsiI)ility 
 of the Board to its conscience and ils country, we fed that it 
 is better hitn than never, thus to declare bef )rc tlie whole world, 
 A. D. 1«4(), that from winter 1791 to summer ITiXi.tlie " Board 
 had no power to indulge their poetical taste, or their tenli-r- 
 ness for him l)y whom it had been gratified, at the expense 
 of the public." The Board, we doubt not, had a true innate 
 poetical taste, and must have derived a far higher and deepei 
 delight from the poems than the permits of" Burns ; nay, we are 
 
 13»
 
 148 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 willing to believe that it was itself llio author of a volume of 
 poetry, and editor of a literary journal. 
 
 But surpassing even Josiah Walker in our veneration of the 
 Board, we ask, what has all this to do with the character of 
 Burns? Its desire and its impotency to promote him are 
 granted ; but of what incorrectness had Burns been guilty, 
 which it would have been criminal in the Board to pardon ? 
 By whom, among the " most obtuse and uninteresting of his 
 brethren," had he been surpassed " in the humble reconmien- 
 dation of exactness, vigilance, and sobriety ?" Not by a single 
 one. Mr. Findlater, who was Burns's supervisor from his ad- 
 mission into the Excise, and sat hy him the night before he died, 
 says, " In all that time, the superintendence of his behavior, 
 as an officer of the revenue, was a part of my official pro- 
 vince, and it may he supposed I would not be an inattentive 
 observer of the general conduct of a man and a poet so cele- 
 brated by his countrymen. In the former capacity he was ex- 
 emplary in his attention, and was even jealous of the least 
 imputation on his vigilance. * * * jj ^^^g jjyf ^]\\ near 
 the latter end of his days, that there was any falling off in 
 this respect, and this was amply accounted for in the pressure 
 of disease and accumulating infirmities. I will farther avow, 
 that I never saw him — which was very frequently while he 
 lived at Ellisland — and still more so, almost every day, after he 
 removed to Dumfries, but in hours of business he was quite him- 
 self, and capable of discharging the duties of his- office ; nor 
 was he ever known o drink by himself, or ever to indulge in 
 the use of liquor on a forenoon. 1 have seen Burns in all his 
 various phases — in liis convivial moments, in his sober moods, 
 and in the bosom of his family ; indeed, I believe that 1 saw 
 more of him than any other individual had occasion to see, 
 after he became an excise officer, and I never beheld any- 
 thing like the gross enormities with which he is now charged. 
 That when set down on an evening with a few friends whom he 
 liked, lie was apt to prolong the social hour beyond the bounds 
 which prudc'ice would dictate, is unquestionable ; but in his 
 family I vvill venture to say he was never otherwise than as 
 attentive and alfcctionate to a hi<i;h degree." Such is tiie testi-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 149 
 
 mony of the supervisor respecting the gauger ; and in that ca- 
 pacity Burns stands up one of its very best servants before the 
 Board. There was no call, therefore, for Josiah's Jeremiad, 
 But our words have not been wasted ; for Burns's character has 
 suifered far more from such aspersions as these, whicii, easily 
 as they can be wiped away, were too long left as admitted stains 
 on his memory, than from definite and direct charges of specific 
 facts ; and it is still the duty of every man who writes about 
 him, to apply the sponge. Nothing, we repeat, siiall tempt us 
 to blame or abuse the Board. But we venture humbly to con- 
 fess that we do not clearly see that the Board would have been 
 "gratifying its tenderness at the expense of the public," had it, 
 when told by Burns that he was dying, and disabled by the hand 
 of God from performing actively the duties of his temporary su- 
 pervisorship, requested its maker to continue to him for a few 
 months his full salary — seventy pounds a year — instead of re- 
 ducing it in the proportion of one-half — not because he was a 
 genius, a poet, and the author of many immortal productions — 
 but merely because he was a man and an exciseman, and 
 moreover the father of a few mortal children, who with their 
 mother were in want of bread. 
 
 Gray, whom we knew well and highly esteemed, was a very 
 superior man to honest Findlater — a man of poetical taste and 
 feeling, and a scholar — on all accounts well entitled to speak of 
 the character of Burns; and though there were no bounds to his 
 enthusiasm when poets and poetry ^w^e the themes of his dis- 
 course, he was a worshipper of truth, and rightly believed that 
 it was best seen in the light of love and admiration. Compare 
 his bold, generous, and impassioned eulogy on the noble quali- 
 ties and dispositions of his illustrious friend, with the timid, 
 guarded, and repressed praise for ever bordering on censure, of 
 biographers who never saw the poet's face, and yet have dared 
 to draw his character with the same assurance of certainty in 
 their delineations as if they had been of the number of his 
 familiars, and had looked a thousand times, by niirht and day, 
 into tiie saddest secrets of his heart. Far better, surely, in a 
 world like this, to do more rather tliau less than justice to the 
 goodness of great men. No fear that the world, in its final
 
 150 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 judgment, will not make sufficient deduction from the laud, if 
 it be exaggerated, which love, inspired by admiration and pit)', 
 delights to bestow, as the sole tribute now in its power, on the 
 virtues of departed genius. Calumny may last for ages — we 
 had almost said for ever; lies have life even in their graves, and 
 centuries after they have been interred they will burst their 
 cerements, and walk up and down, in the face of day, undistin- 
 guishable to the weak eyes ot mortals from truths — till they 
 touch ; and then the truths expand, and the lies shrivel up, but 
 after a season to reappear, and to be welcomed back again by 
 the dwellers in tliis delusive world. 
 
 " He was courted," says Gray, " by all classes of men for the 
 fascinating powers of his conversation, but over his social scene 
 uncontrolled passion never presided. Over the social bowl, his 
 wit flashed for hours together, penetrating whatever it struck, 
 like the fire from heaven ; but even in the hour of thouglitless 
 gaiety and merriment I never knew it tainted by indecency. It 
 was playful or caustic by turns, following an allusion through 
 all its windings; astonishing by its rapidity, or anmsing by its 
 wild originality and grotesque yet natural combinations, bi^ 
 never, within my observation, disgusting by its grossncss. In 
 his morning hours, I never saw him like one suft'ering from the 
 cflects of last night's intemperance. He appeared then clear 
 and unclouded. He was the eloquent advocate of humanity, jus- 
 tice, and political freedom. From his paintings, virtue appeared 
 more lovely, and piety assumed a more celestial mien. Wliile 
 iiis keen eye was pregnant with fancy and feeling, and his voice 
 attuned to the very passion whicli he wished to communicate, it 
 would hardly have been possible to conceive any l)eing more 
 interestinj; and delijihtful. * * * The men with whom he gene- 
 rally associated, were not of the lowest order. He numbered 
 among his intimate friends, many of the most respectable inhab- 
 itants of Dumfries and the vicinity. Several of those v/ere 
 attached to him by ties that the hand of calumny, busy as it 
 was, could never snap asunder. They admired the po(!t for his 
 genius, and loved the man for the candor, generosity, and kind- 
 ness of his nature. His early friends clung to him tlirough 
 good and bad report, with a zeal and fidelity that prove their
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 151 
 
 disbelief of the malicious stories circulated to liis disadvantage. 
 Amoii"- tiiem were some of the most distiii<ruislicd characters in 
 this country and not a few females, eminent for delicacy, taste, 
 and genius. They were proud of his friendship, and cherished 
 him to the last moment of his existence. He was endeared 
 to them even by his misfortunes, and they still retain for his 
 memory that affectionate veneration which virtue alone inspires." 
 Gray tells us too that it came under his own view profession- 
 ally, that Burns superintended the education of his children — 
 and promising children they were, nor has that promise been 
 disappointed — with a degree of care that he had never known sur- 
 passed by any parent whatever ; that to see him in the happie&t 
 light you had to see him, as he often did, in his own house, and 
 that nothing could exceed the mutual alFection between husband 
 and wife in that lowly tenement. Yet of this man, Josiah 
 Walker, who claims to have been his friend as well as James 
 Gray, writes, " soured by disappointment, and stung with oc- 
 casional remorse, impatient of finding little to interest him at home, 
 and rendered inconstant from returns of his hypochondriacal 
 ailment, multiplied by his irregular life, he saw the difficulty of 
 keeping terms with the world ; and abandoned the attempt in a 
 rash and regardless despair!''^ 
 
 It may be thought by some that we have referred too fre- 
 quently to Walker's Memoir, perhaps that we have spoken of it 
 with too much asperity, and that so respectable a person merited 
 tenderer treatment at our hands. He was a respectable person, 
 and for that very reason, we hope by our strictures to set him 
 aside for ever as a biographer of Burns. He had been occasion- 
 ally in company with the Poet in Edinburgh, in 1787, and had 
 seen him during hissiiort visit at Athol house. " Circumstances 
 led him to Scotland in November, 1795, after an absence of eight 
 years, and he felt strongly prompted " to visit his old friend ; 
 for your common-place man immediately becomes hand in glove 
 with your man of genius, to whom he has introduced himself, 
 and ever after the first interview designates him by that flatter- 
 ing appellation " my friend." " For this purpose I went to 
 Dumfries, and called upon him early in the forenoon. I found 
 him in a small house of one storv. He was sitting' in a win-
 
 152 THE GENIUS AIS'D 
 
 dow-seat reading with the doors open, and the family arrange- 
 ments going on in his presence, and ahogether without that snu"-- 
 ness and seclusion which a student requires. After conversintr 
 with him for some time, he proposed a walk, and promised to 
 conduct me through some of his favorite haunts. We accord- 
 ingly quitted the town, and wandered a considerable way up the 
 beautiful banks of the Nith. Here he gave me an account of 
 his latest productions, and repeated some satirical ballads which 
 he had composed, to favor one of the Candidates at last elec- 
 tion. These I thought inferior to his other pieces, though they 
 had some lines in which dignity compensated for coarseness. 
 He repeated also his fragment of an Ode to Liberty, with marked 
 and peculiar energy, and showed a disposition which, however, 
 was easily repressed, to throw out political remarks, of the same 
 nature with those for which he had been reprehended. On 
 finishing our walk, he passed some time with me at the inn, and 
 I left him early in the evening, to make another visit at some 
 distance from Dumfries. On the second morning after I returned 
 with a friend — who was acquainted with the poet — and we found 
 him ready to pass a part of the day with us at the inn. On tliis 
 occasion I did not think hiin quite so interesting as he had ap- 
 peared at the outset. His conversation was too elaborate, and 
 his expression weakened by a frequent endeavor to give it arti- 
 ficial strength. He had been accustomed to speak for applause 
 in the circles which he frequented, and seemed to think it ne- 
 cessary, in making the most conmion remark, to depart a little 
 from the ordinary simplicity of language, and to couch it in 
 something of epigrammatic point. In his praise and censure he 
 was so decisive, as to render a dissent from his judgment diffi- 
 cult to be reconciled with the laws of good breeding. His wit 
 was not more licentious than is unhappily too venial in higher 
 circles, though I thought him rather unnecessarily free in the 
 avowal of his excesses. Such were the clouds by which the 
 pleasures of the evening were partially shaded, but coruscations 
 of genius were visible between them. When it began to grow 
 late, he showed no disposition to retire, but called for fresh sup- 
 ])lies of iiauor with a freedom which might be excusable, as we 
 were in an inn, and no condition had been distinctly made,
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 153 
 
 though it might easily have been inferred, had the inference 
 been welcome, that he was to consider himself as our guest; 
 nor was it till he saw us worn out, that he departed about three 
 in the morning with a reluctance, which probal)ly proceeded 
 less from being deprived of our company, than from being con- 
 fined to his own. Upon the whole, I found this last interview 
 not quite so gratifying as 1 had expected ; although I discovered 
 in his conduct no errors which I had not seen in men who stand 
 high in the favor of society, or sufficient to account for the mys- 
 terious insinuations which I heard against his character. He on 
 this occasion drank freely without being intoxicated — a circum- 
 stance from which T concluded, not only that his constitution 
 was still unbroken, but that he was not addicted to solitary cor- 
 dials ; for if he had tasted liquor in the morning, he must have 
 easily yielded to the excess of the evening. He did not, how- 
 ever, always escape so well. About two months after, return- 
 ing at the same unseasonable hour from a similar revel, in which 
 he was probably better supported by his companions, he was so 
 much disordered as to occasion a considerable delay in ecttinji 
 home, where he arrived witii the chill of cold without, and ine- 
 briety within," &;c. 
 
 And for this the devotee had made what is called " a 
 pilgrimage to the shrine of genius " as far as Dumfries ! 
 Is this the spirit in which people with strong propensities 
 for poetry are privileged to write of poets, long after they 
 have been gatliered to their rest ? No tenderness — no pity — 
 no respect — no admiration — no gratitude — no softening of heart 
 — no kindling of sj)irit — on recollection of his final farewell to 
 Robert Burns ! If the interview had not been satisfactory, he 
 was bound in friendship to have left no record of it. Silence in 
 that case was a duty especially incumbent on him who had 
 known Burns in happier timeS; when " Dukes, and Lords, and 
 mighty Earls " were proud to receive the ploughman. He 
 might not know it then, but he knew it soon afterwards, that 
 Burns was much broken down in body and spirit. 
 
 Those two days should have worn to him in rrtrospeet a 
 mournful complexion ; and the more so, that he believed Burns 
 to have been then a ruined man in character, which he had once
 
 151 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 prized above life. He calls upon him early in the forenoon, and 
 finds him " in a small house of one story (it happened to have 
 two), on a window-seal reading, with the doors open, and the 
 family arrangements going on in his presence." After eight 
 years' absence from Scotland, did not his heart leap at the sight 
 of her greatest son sitting thus happy in his own humble house- 
 hold ? Twenty years after, did not his heart melt at the rising 
 up of the sanctified image ? No — for the room was " altogether 
 wilhout thai appearance of snugness and seclusion which a stu- 
 dent requires !" The poet conducted him through some of his 
 beautiful haunts, and for his amusement let off" son)e of his 
 electioneering squibs, which are among the very best ever 
 composed, and Whiggish as they are, might have tickled a 
 Tory as they jogged along ; but Jos thought them " inferior 
 to his other pieces," and so no doubt they were to the " Cot- 
 tar's Saturday Night," and " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.^' 
 Perhaps they walked as far as Lincluden — and the bard re- 
 peated his famous fragment of an " Ode to Liberty " — with 
 " marked and peculiar energy." The listener ought to have 
 lost his wits, and to have leapt sky-high. But he who was 
 destined to " The Defence of Order," felt himself called by the 
 voice that sent him on that mission, to rebuke the bard on 
 the banks of h's own river — for " he showed a disposition which, 
 however, was easily repressed, to throw out political remarks, 
 of the same nature witii those for which he had been repre- 
 hended," three years before by tlie Board of Excise ! Mr. 
 Walker was not a Commissioner. Burns, it is true, liad been 
 told " not to think ;" but here was a favorable opportunity for vio- 
 lating with safety that imperial mandate. Woods have ears, 
 but in their whispers they betray no secrets — had Burns talked 
 treason, 'twould have been pity to stop his tongue. Tliis world 
 is yet rather in the dark as to " the political remarks for which 
 he had been reprehended," and as he " threw out some of the 
 same nature," why was the world allowed to remain unenlight- 
 ened ? What right had Josiah Walker to repress any remarks 
 made, in tlie confidence of friendship, by Robert Burns? And 
 what power ? Had Burns chosen it, lie could as easily have 
 squahashcd .Tosiah as thrown him into the Nitii. He was not to
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. l')5 
 
 be put down by fifty such ; he may have refrained, but he was 
 not repressed, and in courtesy to liis companion, treated him 
 with an old wife's song. 
 
 The record of the second day is shameful. To ask any per- 
 son, however insignificant, to your inn, and tiien fiiul fault witli 
 him in a private letter for keeping you out of bed, would not be 
 gentlemanly; but of such an offence twenty years after his death 
 publicly to accuse Burns! No mention is made of dinner — and 
 we shrewdly suspect Burns dined at home. However, he gave 
 up two days to the service of his friend, and his friend's friend, 
 and such was his reward. Why did not this dignified personage 
 "repress" Burns's licentious wit as well as his political opi- 
 nions? If it was "not more licentious than is unhappily too ve- 
 nial in higher circles," why mention it at all ? What were " the 
 excesses "of which he was unnecessarily free in the avowal? 
 They cauld not have regarded unlawful intercourse with the 
 sex — for " they were not sufficient to account for the mysterious 
 insinuations against his character," all of which related to wo. 
 men. Yet this wretched mixture of meanness, worldliness, and 
 morality, interlarded with some liberal sentiment, and spiced witii 
 spite, absolutely seems intended for a vindication ! 
 
 There are generally two ways at least of telling the same 
 story; and 'tis pity wc have not Burns's own account of tluit long 
 sederunt. It is clear that before midnight he had made the dis- 
 covery that his right and his left hand assessor were a couple of 
 solemn blockheads, and that to relieve the tedium, he kept ply- 
 ing them with all manner oihams. Both gentlemen were proba- 
 bly in black, and thougli laymen, decorous as deacons on reli- 
 gion and morality — and defendirsof the faith — sententious cham- 
 pions of Cliurch and State. It must have been amusing to see 
 them gape. Nobody ever denied that Burns always conducted 
 himself with the utmost propriety in presence of those whom he 
 respected for their genius, their learning, or their worth. With- 
 out sacrificing an atom of Ids independence, how deferential, 
 nav, how reverential was he in his behavior to Dugald Stewart ! 
 ITad lie and Dr. Blair entertained Burns as tiieir guest in that 
 inn, how deliarhtful had been the evening's record ! No such 
 " licentious wit as is unhappily too venial in higher circles," 
 
 li
 
 156 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 would have flowed from his lips — no " unnecessarily free avowal 
 of his excesses." He would have delighted the philosopher and 
 the divine with his noble sentiments as he had done of old — the 
 illustrious Professor would have remembered and heard aajain 
 the beautiful eloquence that charmed him on the Braid-hills. 
 There can be nothing unfair surely in the conjecture, that these 
 gentlemen occasionally contributed a sentence or two to the stock 
 of conversation. Tliey were entertaining Burns, and good man- 
 ners must have induced them now and then " here to interpose " 
 with a small smart remark — sentiment facete^-or unctuous an- 
 ecdote. Having lived in " higher circles," and heard much of 
 the " licentious wit unhappily too venial there," we do not well 
 see how they could have avoided giving their guest a few speci- 
 mens of it. Grave men are often gross — and they were both 
 grave as ever was earthenware. Such wit is the most conta- 
 gious of any ; and " budge doctors of the Stoic fur " then ex- 
 press " Fancies " that are anything but " Chaste and Noble." 
 Who knows but that they were driven into indecency by the des- 
 peration of self-defence — took refuge in repartee — and fought 
 the gauger with his own rod ? That Burns, in the dead silence 
 that ever and anon occurred, should have called for " fresh sup- 
 plies of liquor," is nothing extraordinary. For there is not in 
 nature or in art a sadder spectacle than an empty "bottle 
 standing in the centre of a circle, equidistant from three 
 friends, one of whom had returned to his native land after a 
 yearning absence of eight years, another anonymous, and the 
 third the author of Scotch Drink and the Earnest Cry. Josiah 
 more than insinuates that he himself shy'd the bottle. We more 
 than doubt it — we believe that for some hours he turned up his 
 little finger as frequently as Burns. He did right to desist as 
 soon as he had got iiis dose, and of that he was not only the best 
 but the only judge ; he appears to have been sewn up " when it 
 began to grow late ;" Burns was sober as a lark " about three 
 in tlie morning." It is likely enough that " about two months 
 af'ti-r. Burns was better supported by his companions at a similar 
 reveV^ — so much better indeed in every way that the revel was 
 dissimilar; but still we cling to our first belief, that the two 
 g^'ntlemcn in black drank as much as could have been rea-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 157 
 
 sonably expected of them — that is, as much as they could hold — 
 had they attempted more, there is no saying what might have 
 been the consequences. And we still continue to think, too, that 
 none but a heartless man, or a man whose heart had been putled 
 up like a bladder with vanity, would have tagged to the tail of 
 his pitiful tale of that night, that cruel statement of " cold with- 
 out, and inebriety "within," w^hich was but the tittle-tattle ofgos- 
 sipping tradition, and most probably a lie. 
 
 This is the proper way to treat all such memorabilia — with the 
 ridicule of contempt and scorn. Refute falsehood first, and then 
 lash the fools that utter it. Much of the obloquy that so long 
 rested on the memory of our great National Poet originated in 
 frivolous hearsays of his life and conversation, wiiich in every 
 telling lost some portion of whatever truth might have belonged 
 to them, and acquired at least an equal portion of falsehood, till 
 they became unmixed calumnies — many of them of the blackest 
 kind — got into print, which is implicitly believed by the million — 
 till the simple story, which, as first told, had illustrated some in- 
 teresting trait of liis character or genius, as last told, redounded 
 to his disgrace, and was listened to by the totally abstinent with 
 uplifted eyes, hands, and shoulders, as an anecdote of the dread- 
 ful debaucheries of Robert Burns. 
 
 That he did sometimes associate, while in Edinburgh, with 
 persons not altogether worthy of him, need not be denied, nor 
 wondered at, for it was inevitable. He was not for ever beset 
 with tlie consciousness of his own supereminence. Prudence 
 he did not despise, and he has said some strong things in her 
 praise ; but she was not, in his system of moralitv, the Queen 
 of Virtues. His genius, so far from separating him from any 
 portion of his kind, impelled him towards humanity, without 
 fear and without suspicion. No saint or prude was he to shun 
 the society of "Jolly companions every one." Though never 
 addicted to drinking, he had often set the table in a roar at 
 Tarbolton, Mauchline, Kirkoswald, Irvine and Ayr, and was lie 
 all at once to a])pear in the character of dry Quaker in Edin- 
 burgh ? Were the joys that circle round the flowing bowl to 
 be interdicted to him alone, the wittiest, the brightest, the mosi 
 original, and the most eloquent of all the men of his day ? At
 
 l.-i8 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 Ellisland we know for certain, that his domestic life was tem- 
 perate and sober ; and that beyond liis own doors, his conviviali- 
 ties among ''gentle and semple," though not lm frequent were 
 not excessive, and left his character without any of those deeper 
 stains with which it has been since said to have been sullied. It 
 is for ever to be lamented that he was more dissipated at Dum- 
 fries — how much more — and under what stronger temptations, 
 can be told in not many words. But every glass of wine '• or 
 stouter cheer" he drank — like mere ordinary men too fond ot 
 the festive hour — seems to have been set down against him as a 
 separate sin ; and the world of fashion, and of philosophy too, 
 we fear, both of which used him rather scurvily at last, would 
 not be satisfied unless Burns could be made out — a drunkard ! 
 Had he not been such a wonderful man in conversation, he 
 might have enjoyed unhurt the fame of his poetry. But what 
 was reading his poetry, full as it is of mirth and pathos, to 
 hearing the Poet ! When all were desirous of the company of 
 a man of such genius and such dispositions, was it in human 
 nature to be always judicious in the selection or rejection of 
 associates? His deepest and best feelings he for the most part 
 kept sacred for communion with those who were held by him in 
 honor as well as love. But kw were utterly excluded from the 
 cordiality of one who, in the largeness of his heart, could sym- 
 pathize with all, provided he could but bring out by the stroke 
 of tiie keen-tempered steel of his own nature, some latent spark 
 of humanity from the flint of theirs ; and it is easy to see with 
 what dangers he thus must have been surrounded, when his 
 genius and humor, his mirth and glee, his fun and frolic, and all 
 the outrageous merriment of his exhilarated or maddened imagi- 
 nation came to be considered almost as common property bv all 
 who chose to introduce themselves to Robert Burns, and tijouf^ht 
 themselves entitled to do so because they could prove they had 
 his poems by heart. They sent for the ganger, and the ganger 
 came. A prouder man breathed not, but he had never been 
 subjected to the ceremonial of manners, the rule of artificial 
 life ; and he was ready, at all times, to grasp the hand held out 
 in friendship, to go when a message said come, for he knew
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 159 
 
 that his " low-roof'd house" was honored because by his genius 
 he had greatly glorified his people. 
 
 We iiave seen, from one characteristic instance, how shame- 
 fully his condescension must often have been abused ; and no 
 doubt but that sometimes he behaved imprudently in such par- 
 ties, and incurred the blame of intemperance. Frequently 
 must he liave joined them with a heavy heart ! How little did 
 many not among the worst of those who stupidly stared at the 
 "wondrous guest" understand of his real character! How 
 often must they have required mirth from him in his melan- 
 choly, delight in his despair ! The coarse buffoon ambitious to 
 show off before the author of " Tarn o' Shunter" and ^' The 
 Holy Friar "' — how could it enter into his fat heart to conceive, 
 in the rnidst of his own roaring ribaldry, that the fire-eyed son 
 of genius was a Iiypochondriac, sick of life ! Why such a 
 fellow would think nothing next morning of impudently telling 
 his cronies that on the whole he had been disappointed in the 
 Poet. Or in another key, forgetting that the Poet v\ ho continued 
 to sit late at a tavern table, need own no relationship but that 
 of time and place with the proser who was lying resignedly 
 under it, the drunkard boasts all over the city of the glorious 
 night he had had with Burxs. 
 
 But of the multitudes wiio thus sought the society of Burns, 
 there must have been many in every way qualified to enjoy it. 
 His fame had crossed the Tweed; and though a knowledsre of 
 his poetry could not then have been prevalent over England, he 
 had ardent admirers among the most cultivated classes, before 
 whose eyes, shadowed in a language but imperfectly under- 
 stood, had dawned a new and beautiful world of rustic life. 
 Young men of generous birth, and among such lovers of genius 
 some doubtless themselves endowed with the precious gift, 
 acquainted with the clod-hoppers of their own country, longed 
 to beiiold the prodigy who had stalked between the stilts of tlie 
 plough in moods of tenderest or loftiest inspiration ; and it is 
 pleasing to think that the poet was not seldom made happy by 
 such visitors — tliut they cari'icd back with them to tinir own 
 noblest land a still deeper imjjrcssion of the exalted worth of the 
 genius of Caledonia. Nor did the gold coin of the genius of
 
 IfiO THE GENIUS AN D 
 
 Burns sustain any depreciation during his lifetime in liis own 
 country. He had that to comfort him — that to glory in till the 
 last; and in his sorest poverty, it must have been his exceeding 
 great reward. Ebenezer Elliot has nobly expressed that belief 
 — and coupled with it — as we have often done — the best vindi- 
 cation of Scotland — 
 
 " But shall, it of our sires be told 
 
 That they their brother poor forsook? 
 No! FOR they gave him more than gold; 
 They read the Brave Man's Book." 
 
 What happens during their life, more or less, to all eminent 
 men, happened to Burns. Thinking on such things, one some- 
 times cannot help believing that man hates to honor man, till 
 the power in which miracles have been wrought is extinguished 
 or withdrawn ; and then, when jealousy, envy, and all unchari- 
 tableness of necessity cease, we confess its grandeur, bow down 
 to it, and worship it. But who were they who in his own 
 country continued most steadfastly to honor his genius and liim- 
 self, all through what have been called, truly in some respects, 
 falsely in others, his dark days in Dumfries, and on to his 
 death ? Not Lords and Earls, not lawyers and wits, not philo- 
 sophers and doctors, though among the nobility and gentry, 
 amonji the classes of leisure and of learnins:, he had friends 
 who wished him well, and were not indisposed to serve him ; 
 not the male generation of critics, not the literary prigs epicene, 
 not of decided sex the blues celestial, thougli many periods 
 were rounded among them upon the Ayrshire ploughman ; but 
 the ISIen of his own Order, with their wives and daughters — 
 shepherds, and herdsmen, and ploughmen, delvers and ditchers, 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water, soldiers and sailors, 
 whether regulars, militia, fencibles, volunteers, on board kinji's 
 or merchant's ship " far, far at sea" or dirt gabbert — within a 
 few yards of the land on either side of the Clyde or the Cart — 
 the Working Peoi-le, whatever the instruments of their toil, 
 tliey patronized Burns then, they patronize him now, they would 
 not have hurt a hair of his liead, they will not hear of any 
 dishonor to his dust, they know well what it is to endure, to
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 161 
 
 yield, to enjoy, and to suffer, and the memory of their own bard 
 will he hallowed for ever amoni; the brotiierhood like a relisjion. 
 In Dumfries — as in every other considerable town in Scotland 
 — and we miglit add England — it was then customary, you know, 
 with the respectable inhabitants, to pass a convivial hour or two 
 of an evening in some decent tavern or other — and Burns's liowf 
 was the Globe, kept by honest Mrs. Hyslop, who had a sonsie 
 sister, " Anna wi' the gowden locks," the heroine of what in his 
 fond deceit he thought was the best of all his songs. The 
 worthy towns-folk did not frequent bar, or parlor, or club-room — 
 at least they did not think they did — from a desire for drink; 
 though doubtless they often took a glass more than they intend- 
 ed, nay, sometimes even two ; and the prevalence of sucii a 
 system of social life, for it was no less, must have given rise, 
 witli others besides the predisposed, to very hurtful habits. 
 They met to expatiate and confer on state affairs — to read the 
 newspapers — to talk a little scandal — and so forth — and the 
 result was, we have been told, considerable dissipation. The 
 system was not excellent ; dangerous to a man whose face was 
 always more than welcome ; without whom there w-as wanting 
 the evening or the morning star. Burns latterly indulged too 
 much in such compotations, and sometimes drank more than was 
 good for him ; hut not a man noiv alive in Dumfries ever saw him 
 intoxicated ; and the survivors all unite in declaring that he 
 cared not whether the stoup were full or empty, so that there 
 were conversation — argumentative or declamatory, narrative or 
 anecdotal, grave or gay, satirical or sermonic ; nor would any 
 of them have hoped to see the sun rise again in tliis world, had 
 Burns portentously fallen asleep. They had nmch better been, 
 one and all of tbem, even on the soberest nights, at their own 
 firesides, or in their beds, and orgies that seemed moderation 
 itself in a howf, would have been felt outrageous in a home. But 
 the blame, whatever be its amount, must not be heaped on the head 
 of Burns, while not a syllable has ever been said of the same 
 enormities steadily practised for a series of years by the digni- 
 taries of the borough, who by iliemselves and friends were 
 opined to have been from youth upwards among the most sober 
 of the childron of Adam, Does anybody suppose tliat Burns
 
 162 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 would have addicted himself to anv meetings considered dis- 
 reputable — or that, had he lived now, lie would have frequented 
 any tavern, except, perhaps, some not unfavored one in the airy 
 realms of imagination, and built among the clouds? 
 
 Malicious people would not have ventured during his lifetime, 
 in underhand and undertoned insinuations, to whisper away 
 Burns's moral character, nor would certain memorialists have 
 been so lavish of their lamentations and regrets over his evil 
 habits, had not his political principles during his later years been 
 such as to render him with many an object of suspicion equiva- 
 lent, in troubled times, to fear and hatred. A revolution tiiat 
 shook the foundations on which so many old evils and abuses 
 rested, and promised to restore to millions their natural liberties, 
 and by that restoration to benefit all mankind, must have agitat- 
 ed his imagination to a pitch of enthusiasm far beyond the reach 
 of ordinary minds to conceive, who nevertheless thouffht it no 
 presumption on their part to decide dogmatically on the highest 
 questions in political science, the solution of which, issuing in 
 terrible practice, had upset one of the most ancient, and as it 
 had been tliought, one of the firmest of thrones. No wonder that 
 with his eager and earnest spirit for ever on his lips, he came to 
 be reputed a Democrat. Dumfries was a Tory Town, and 
 could not tolerate a revolutionary — the term was not in use then 
 — a Radical Exciseman. And to say the truth, the idea must 
 have been not a little alarming to weak nerves, of Burns as a 
 demagogue. With such eyes and such a tongue he would have 
 proved a formidable Man of the People. It is certain that he 
 spoke and wrote rashly and reprehensibly — and deserved a cau- 
 tion from the Board. But not such tyrannical reproof; and 
 periiaps it was about as absurd in the Board to order Burns not 
 to think, as it would have been in him to order it to think, for 
 thinking comes of nature, and not of institution, and 'tis about 
 as difficult to control as to create it. He defended himself bold- 
 ly, and like a man conscious of harboring in his bosom no evil 
 wish to the State. " In my defence to their accusations 1 said, 
 that whatever might be my sentiments of republics, ancient or 
 modern, as to Britain I abjured the idea; timt a constitution, 
 which in its original principles, experience had proved to be in
 
 CI^ARACTER OF BURNS. IC3 
 
 every way fitted for our happiness in society, it would be insanity 
 to sacrifice to an untried visionary tlieory ; — that in considera- 
 tion of my being situated in a department, however humble, im- 
 mediately in the hands of people in power, I had forborne taking 
 an active part, eitiier personally, or as an author, in the pre- 
 sent business of reform ; but that when I must declare my sen- 
 timents, I would say there existed a system of corruption be- 
 tween the executive power and the representative part of the 
 legislature which boded no good to our glorious constitution, 
 and which every patriotic Briton must wish to see amended." 
 His biographers have had difficulty in forming their opinion as 
 to the effect on Burns's mind of the expression of the Board's 
 sovereign will and displeasure. Scott, without due considera- 
 tion, thought it so preyed on his peace as to render him desperate 
 — and has said " that from the moment his hopes of promotion 
 were utterly blasted, his tendency to dissipation hurried him pre- 
 cipitately into those excesses which shortened his life." Lock- 
 hart, on the authority of Mr. Findlater, dissents from that state- 
 ment ; Allan Cuninghame thinks it in essentials true, and that 
 Burns's letter to Erskine of Mar, "covers tiie Board of Excise 
 and the British Government of that day with eternal shame." 
 Whatever may have been the effect of those proceedings on 
 Burns's mind, it is certain that the freedom with which he 
 gave utterance to his political opinions and sentiments seriously 
 injured him in the estimation of multitudes of excellent people 
 who tiiought them akin to doctrines subversive of all government 
 but that of the mob. Nor till lie joined the Dumfries Volunteers, 
 and as their Laureate issued his popular song, that flew over the 
 land like wild-fire, "Does haughty Gaul invasion threat?" was 
 he generally regarded as a loyal subject. For two or three 
 years he had been looked on with evil eyes, and spoken of in 
 evil whispers by too many of the good, and he had himself. in 
 no small measure to blame for their false judgment of his charac- 
 ter. Here are a i^cw of his lines to " Tlie Tree of Liberty :" 
 
 " But vicious folk aye hate to see 
 
 The works of virtue thrive, man ; 
 The courtly vermin bann'd the tree. 
 And grat to see it thrive, man.
 
 164 THE GLNIUS AND 
 
 King Louis thought to cut it down, 
 
 When it was unco sma', man ; 
 For this the watchman crack'd his crown. 
 
 Cut aff his head and a', man. 
 
 " Let Britain boast her hardy oak. 
 
 Her poplar and her pine, man, 
 Auld Britain ance could crack her joke. 
 
 And o'er her neighbor sliine, man. 
 But seek the forest round and round, 
 
 And soon 'twill be agreed, man. 
 That sic a tree cannot be found 
 
 'Tvvixt London and the Tweed, man. 
 
 " Wae worth the loon wha woudna eat 
 
 Sic wholesome dainty cheer, man ; 
 I'd sell my shoon frae aflT my feet 
 
 To taste sic fruit I swear, man. 
 Syne let us pray, auld England may 
 
 Soon plant this far-fam'd tree, man ; 
 And blithe we'll sing, and hail the day 
 
 That gave us liberty, man." 
 
 Sf) sunk in slavery at this time was Scotland, that England could 
 not sleep in her bed till slie had set her sister free — and sent 
 down some liberators who narrowly escaped getting banged by 
 this most ungrateful country. Such " perilous stufT" as the 
 above might have been indited by Palmer, Gerald, or Marga- 
 rot — bow all unworthy of the noble Burns? Of all men then 
 in the world, the author of " The Cottar's Saturday Night " was 
 by nature the least of a Jacobin. We cannot help thinking that, 
 like Byron, he loved at times to astonish dull people by daring 
 thmgs, to see how they looked witii their hair on end ; and dull 
 people — who are not seldom malignant — taking him at his word, 
 had their revenge in charging him with all manner of profligacy, 
 and fabricating vile stories to bis disgrace : there being notbinir 
 too gross for the swallow of political rancor. 
 
 It is proved by many very strong expressions in his corre- 
 spondence — that the reproof he received from the Board of E.\- 
 cise sori'ly troubled him ; and no doubt it had an evil influence 
 on public opinion that did not subside till it was feared be was 
 dying, and that ceased for a time only with his death. We have
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 165 
 
 expressed our indignation — our contempt of that tyrannical 
 treatment ; and have not withheld our respect — our admiration 
 from the characteristic manliness with which he repelled the ac- 
 cusations some insidious enemies had secretly sent in to the 
 quarter where they knew fatal injury might be done to all his 
 prospects in life. But was it possible that his most unguarded, 
 rash, and we do not for a moment hesitate to say, blameable ex- 
 pression of political opinions adverse to those maintained by all 
 men friendly to the government, could be permitted to pass 
 without notice ? He had no right to encourage what the gov- 
 ernment sought to put down, while he was " their servant in 
 a very humble department ;" and though he successfully repelled 
 the slanders of the despicable creatures who strove to destroy 
 him, even in his high-spirited letter to Erskine there is enough 
 to show that he had entered into such an expostulation with the 
 Board as must have excited strong displeasure and disapproval, 
 which no person of sense, looking back on those most dangerous 
 times, can either wonder at or blame. He says in his defence 
 before the Board, " I stated that, where I must declare my sen- 
 timents, 1 would say there existed a system of corruption be- 
 tween the executive power and the representative part of the 
 legislature, which boded no good to our glorious constitution, 
 and which every patriotic Briton must wish to see amended." 
 From a person in his situation even such a declaration was not 
 prudent, and prudence was a duty ; but it is manifest from what 
 lie adds for Erskine's own ear, that something more lay con- 
 cealed in those generalities than the mere words seem to imply. 
 "I have three sons, who I see already have brought into tiie 
 world souls ill qualified to inhabit the bodies of Slaves. Can 
 I look tamely on, and see any machinations to wrest from them 
 the birthright of my boys — the little independent Britons, in 
 whose veins runs my blood ? No ; I will not, should my heart's 
 blood stream around my attempt to defend it. Does any man 
 tell me, tiiat my poor efforts can be of no service, and that it 
 does not belong to my humble station to meddle with tlie con- 
 cerns of a nation ?" Riixiit or w rons; — and we think tiiey were 
 riirht — the government of the country had resolved to uphold 
 principles, to which the man w lio could not refrain from thus
 
 166 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 fiercely declaring himself, at the very time all that was dearest 
 to liim was in peril, could not but be held hostile ; and so far 
 from its being their duty to overlook such opinions, because tliey 
 were the opinions of Burns, it was just because they were the 
 opinions of Burns that it was their duty to restrain and reprove 
 them. He continued too long after this to be by far too out- 
 spoken — as we have seen ; but tiiat his Scottish soul had in 
 augiit become Frenchified, we never shall believe, but vvhile we 
 live shall attribute the obstinacy with which he persisted to 
 sing and say the praises of that people, after they had murdered 
 their King and their Queen, and had been guilty of all enormi- 
 ties, in a great measure to a haughtiness that could not brook 
 to retract opinions he had offensively declared before the faces 
 of many whom not without reason he despised — to a horror of 
 the idea of any sacrifice of that independent spirit which was 
 the very life of his life. Burns had been insulted by those who 
 were at once his superiors and his inferiors, and shall Burns 
 truckle to " tlie powers that be ?" At any bidding but that of 
 his own conviction swerve a hair's-breadth from his political 
 creed ? No : not even though his reason had told him that some 
 of its articles were based in delusion, and if carried into prac- 
 tice among his own countrymen, pursuant to the plots of traitors, 
 who were indeed aliens in soul to the land he loved, would have 
 led to the destruction of tliat liberty for whicli he, by the side 
 or at the head of his cottage compatriots, would have gladly 
 died. 
 
 The evil consequences of all this to Burns were worse than 
 you may have imagined, for over and above the lies springing up 
 like puddock-stools from doincsiic iniddcns, an ephemeral brood 
 indeed, but by succession perennial, and tiiat even now when vou 
 grasp them in your hand, spatter vileness in your eyes, like so 
 many devil's snuff-boxes — think how injurious to the happiness 
 of such a soul as his, to all its natural habitudes, must have l)een 
 the feuds carried on all around iiiin, and in which he with his 
 commanding powers too largely mingled, between political pai'- 
 ties in a provincial town, contending as they thought, the one for 
 hearths and altars, the other for regeneration of those principles, 
 decayed or deaJ, which alone make hearths and altars sacred,
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. If>7 
 
 and their defence worth the tears and the blood of brave men 
 u ho would fain be free. His sympathy was " wide and general 
 as the casing air;" and not without violence could it be con- 
 tracted "within the circle none dared tread but they," who 
 thought William Pitt the reproach, and Charles Fox the Paragon 
 of Animals. Within that circle he met with many good men, 
 the Herons, Millers, Riddells, Maxwells, Symes, and so forth; 
 within it too he forgathered with many "a fool and something 
 more." Now up to "the golden exhalation of the dawn " of his 
 gaugership. Burns had been a Tory, and he heard in " the whis- 
 per of a faction " a word unpleasing to a WMiiggish ear, turncoat. 
 The charge was false, and he disdained it ; but disdain in eyes 
 that when kindled up burned like carriage lamps in a dark night, 
 frightened the whispering faction into such animosit)-, that a more 
 than usual sumph produced an avenging epigram upon him and 
 two other traitors, in which the artist committed a mistake of 
 workmanship no subsequent care could rectify : instead of hit- 
 ting the riglit nail on the head, why he hit the wrong nail on the 
 point, so no wooden mallet could drive it home. From how 
 much social pleasure must not Burns have thus been wilfully 
 self-debarred ! From how many happy friendships ! By nature 
 he was not vindictive, yet occasionally he seemed to be so, visit- 
 ing slight offence with severe punishment, sometimes imagining 
 offence when there was none, and in a kw instances, we fear, 
 satirizing in savage verses not only the innocent, but the virtu- 
 ous ; the very beings whom, had he but known them as he might, 
 he would have loved and revered — celebrated them livin<T or 
 dead in odes, elegies, and hymns — thereby doing holy service to 
 goodness in holding up shining examples to jill who longed to do 
 well. Most of his intolerant scorn of high rank had the same 
 origin — not ir liis own nature, which was noble, but in prejudi- 
 ces mus superinduced upon it which in their virulence were 
 mean — though his genius could clothe them in magnificent dic- 
 tion, and so justify them to the proud poet's heart. 
 
 It is seldom indeed that Lockhart misses the murk ; but in one 
 instance — an anecdote — where it is intended to prescnr the pa- 
 thetic, or.r eyes perceive but the picturesque — we allude to the 
 tale told him by Davie Maccidloch, son of the Laird of Ardwall. 
 
 15
 
 16S THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " Pie told me that he was seldom more grieved than when, 
 riding into Dumfries one fine summer's even ng to attend a 
 county ball, he saw Burns walking alone on the shady side of 
 the principal street of the town, while the opposite part was gay 
 with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn to- 
 getlier for the festivities of the night, not one of whom appeared 
 willing to recognize him. The horseman dismounted and join- 
 ed Burns, who on his proposing to him to cross the street, said, 
 ' Nay, my young friend, that is all ove'' now,' and quoted, after 
 a pause, some verses of Lady Grizell Baillie's pathetic ballad 
 beginning, ' The bonnet stood ance sae fair on his brow,' and 
 ending ' And were na my heart light I icad die.'' It was little in 
 Burns's character to let his feelings on certain subjects escape in 
 this fashion. He, immediately after citing these verses, assumed 
 the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner; and taking his 
 young friend home with him, entertained him very agreeably 
 until the hour of the ball arrived, with a bowl of his usual pota- 
 tion, and bonnie Jean's singing of some verses which he had 
 recently composed." 'Tis a pretty picture in the style of Wat- 
 teau. " The opposite part gay with successive groups of gen- 
 tlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the 
 night." What were they about, and where were they going? 
 Were they as yet in their ordinary clothes, colts and fillies 
 alike, taking their exercise preparatory to the country-dances of 
 some thirty or forty couple, that in those days used to try the 
 wind of both sexes? If so, they might have chosen better 
 training-ground along the banks of the Nith. Were they all in 
 full fig, the females with feathers on their heads, the males with 
 chapoaux has — " stepping westward " arm in arm, in successive 
 groups, to the Assembly-room ? In whichever of these two 
 pleasant predicaments they were placed, it showed rare perspi- 
 cacity in Daintie Davie to discern that not one of them appeared 
 willing to recognize Burns — more especially as he was walking 
 on the other and shady side of the street, and Davie on horse- 
 back. By what secret signs did the fair free-masons — for such 
 there be — express to tlicir mounted brother their unwillingness 
 to recognize from the sunshine of their i)romenade, the ganger 
 walking alone in thi- shade of his? Was flirtation at so low an
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 169 
 
 ebb in Dumfriesshire, that the flower of her beaux and belles, 
 " in successive groups, drawn together for the festivities of the 
 night," could find eyes for a disagreeable object so many yards 
 of causeway remote ? And if Burns observed that they gave 
 him the cold shoulder — cut him across ihe street — on what re- 
 condite principle of conduct did he continue to walk there, in 
 place of stalking off with a frown to his Howf? And is it high 
 Galloway to propose to a friend to cross the street to do the civil 
 " to successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, not one of whom 
 had appeared willing to recognize him?" However it was gal- 
 lant under such discouragement to patronize the ganger ; and 
 we trust that the " wicked wee bowl," while it detained from, 
 and disinclined to, did not incapacitate for the Ball. 
 
 But whence all those expressions so frequent in his corres- 
 pondence, and not rare in his poetry, of self-reproach and rueful 
 remorse ? From a source that lay deeper than our eyes can 
 reach. We know his worst sins, but cannot know his sorrows. 
 The war between the spirit and the flesh often raged in his 
 nature — as in that of the best of beings who are made — and no 
 Christian, without humblest self-abasement, will ever read his 
 Confessions. 
 
 " Is there a whim-inspired fool, 
 Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, 
 Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool. 
 
 Lei him draw near ; 
 And owre this grassy heap sing dool, 
 And drap a tear. 
 
 " Is there a bard of rustic song, 
 Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, 
 That weekly this area throng, 
 
 0, pass not by ! 
 But with a frater-feeling strong, 
 
 Here, heave a sigh 
 
 " Is there a man, whose judgment clear, 
 Can others teach the course to steer. 
 Yet runs himself life's mad career, 
 Wild as the wave ;
 
 170 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 Here pause — and, thro' the starting tear, 
 . Survey this grave. 
 
 "The poor inhabitant below 
 Was quick to learn, and wise to kno-y. 
 And keenly felt the friendly glow, 
 
 And softer flame ; 
 But thoughtless follies laid him low, 
 
 And stain'd his name ! 
 
 " Reader, attend — whether thy soul 
 Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole. 
 Or darkling grubs this earthly hole. 
 
 In low pursuit ; 
 Know, prudent, cautious, self-control. 
 
 Is wisdom's root." 
 
 A Bard's Epitaph ! Such his character drawn by himself in 
 deepest despondency — in distraction — in despair cahned while 
 he was composing it by the tranquillizing power that ever 
 accompanies the action of genius. And shall we judge him as 
 severely as he judged himself, and think worse of him than of 
 common men, because he has immortalized his frailties in his 
 contrition ? The sins of common men are not remembered in 
 their epitaphs. Silence is a privilege of the grave few seek to 
 disturb. If there must be no euloorium, our name and aije suf- 
 fice for that stone — and whatever may have been thought of us, 
 there are some to drop a tear on our " forlorn hie jacet."' Burns 
 wrote those lines in the very prime of youthful manhood. You 
 know what produced them — his miserable attachment to her 
 who became his wife. He was then indeed most miserable — 
 afterwards most happy ; he cared not then though he should die 
 — all his other offences rose against him in that agony; and 
 how humbly he speaks of his high endowments, under a sense 
 of the sins by which they had been debased ! He repented, and 
 sinned again and again ; for his repentance — though sincere — 
 was not permanent ; yet who shall say that it was not accepted 
 at last ? '• Ovvre this grassy heap sing dool, and drap a tear," 
 is an injunction that has been obeyed by many a pitying heart. 
 Yet a little while, and his Jean buried him in such a grave. A 
 few years more, and a mausoleum was erected by the nation for
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 171 
 
 his honored dust. Now husband and wife lie side by side — 
 "in hopes of a joyful resurrection." 
 
 Burns belonged to that order of prevailing poets, with whom 
 " all thoughts, all passions, all delights " possess not that entire 
 satisfaction nature intends, till they effuse themselves abroad, 
 for sake of the sympathy that binds them, even in uttermost 
 solitude, to the brotherhood of man. No secrets have they that 
 words can reveal. They desire that the whole race shall see 
 their very souls — shall hear the very beatings of their hearts. 
 Thus they hope to live for ever in kindred bosoms. They feel 
 that a greater power is given them in their miseries — lor what 
 miseries has any man ever harbored in the recesses of his spirit, 
 that he has not shared, and will share, with "numbers without 
 number numberless" till the Judgment Day ! 
 
 Who reads unmoved such sentences as these ? " The fates 
 and characters of the rhyming tribe often employ my thoughts 
 when I am disposed to be melancholy. There is not, among all 
 the martyrologies that ever were penned, so woeful a narrative 
 as the lives of the Poets. In the comparative view of wretches, 
 the question is not what they are doomed to sutler, but how 
 thev are formed to bear !" Long before the light of heaven 
 had ever been darkened or obscured in his conscience by evil 
 thoughts or evil deeds, wiien the bold bright boy, with his thick 
 black clustering hair ennobling his ample forehead, was slaving 
 for his parents' sakes — Robert used often to lie by Gilbert's 
 side all night long witliout ever closing an eye in sleep ; for tiiat 
 large heart of his, that loved all his eyes looked upon of na- 
 ture's works living or dead, perfect as was its mechanism for 
 the play of all lofty passions, would get suddenly disarranged, 
 as if approached the very hour of death. Who will say that 
 many more years were likely to have fallen to the lot of one so 
 framed, had he all life long drunk, as in youtii, but of the 
 well-water — " laid down with the dove, and risen with the 
 lark !" If excesses in which there was vice and therefore 
 blame, did injure his health, how far more those other excesses 
 in which there was so much virtue, and on which there should 
 be praise for ever! Over-anxious, over-working hours beneath 
 the mid-day sun, and sometimes to save a scanty crop beneath 
 
 l.v»
 
 172 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 the midnight moon, to which he looked up without knowing it 
 with a poet's eyes, as he kept forking the saeaves on the high 
 laden cart tiiat " Hesperus, who led the starry host " behold 
 crashing into the barn-yard among shouts of " Harvest Home." 
 It has been thought that there are not a few prominent points 
 of character common to Burns and Byron ; and though no 
 fornial comparison between them has been drawn that we know 
 of, nor would it be worth while attempting it, as not much would 
 come of it, we suspect, without violent stretching and bending 
 of materials, and that free play of fancy which makes no bones 
 of facts, still there is this resemblance, that they both give unre- 
 served exj)ositions of their most secret feelings, undeterred by 
 any fear of offending others, or of bringing censure on them- 
 selves by such revelations of the inner man. Byron as a moral 
 being was below Burns ; and there is loo often much atfecta- 
 tion and insincerity in his Confessions. " Fare thee well, and 
 if for ever, still for ever fare thee well," is not elegiac, but 
 satirical ; a complaint in which the bitlerness is not of grief, 
 but of gall ; how unlike " The Lament on the unfortunate issue 
 of a Friend's Amour" overflowing with the expression of every 
 passion cognate with love's despair ! Do not be startled by our 
 asking you to think for a little while of Robert Burns along 
 with — Samuel Johnson. Listen to him, and you hoar as wise 
 and good a man as earth ever saw for ever reproaching him.self 
 with his wickedness ; " from almost the earliest time he could 
 remember he had been forming schemes for a better life." Se- 
 lect from his notes, prayers, and diaries, and from the authentic 
 records of his oral discourse, all acknowledgments of his evil 
 thouglits, practices, and habits ; all charges brought against 
 him by conscience, of sins of omission and commission ; all 
 declarations, exclamations, and interjections of agonizing re- 
 morse and gloomy despair — from them write his character in his 
 epitaph — and look there on the Christian Sage ! God forbid ! 
 that saving truths should be so changed into destroying false- 
 hoods. Slotiiful, selfish, sensual, envious, uncharitable, undu- 
 tiful to his parents, thoughtless of Him who died to save sinners, 
 and living without God in the world ; — That is the wretched 
 being named Samuel Johnson — in the eyes of his idolatrous
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 173 
 
 countrymen only a little lower than the angels — in his own a 
 worm ! Slothful ! yet how various his knowledge ! acquired 
 bv fits and snatches — book in hand, and poring as if nearly 
 sand-blind — yel with eyes in their own range of vision, keen as 
 the lynx's or the eagle's — on pages no better than blanks to 
 common minds, to his hieroglypfiical of wisest secrets — or in 
 long assiduity of continuous studies, of which a month to him 
 availed more than to you or us a year — or all we have had of 
 life. Selfish ! with obscure people, about whom nobody cared, 
 provided for out of his slender means within doors, paupers 
 though they thought it- not, and though meanly endowed by 
 nature as by fortune, admitted into the friendship of a Sage 
 simple as a child — out of doors, pensioners waiting for him at 
 the corners of streets, of whom he knew little, but that they 
 were hungry and wanted bread, and probably had been brought 
 by sin to sorrow. Sensual ! Because his big body, getting old, 
 " needed repairs," and because though " Rasselas Prince of 
 Abyssinia" had been written on an empty stomach, which 
 happened when he was comparatively young and could not help 
 it, now that lie had reached his grand climacteric, he was deter- 
 mined to show not to the whole world, but to large parties, that 
 all the fat of the earth was not meant for the mouths of block- 
 heads. Envious ! of David Garrick ? Poh ! poh ! Pshaw ! 
 pshaw ! Uncharitable ? We have disposed of that clause of 
 the verse in our commentary on "selfish." Undutiful to his 
 parents! He did all man could to support his mother ; and 
 having once disobliged liis father by sulkily refusing to assist at 
 l)is book-stall, half a century afterwards, more or less, when at 
 the head of English literature, and the friend of Burke and 
 Beauclerk, he stood bareheaded for an hour in the rain on the 
 site of said book-stall, in the market place of LitciifieM, in 
 penance for that great sin. As to the last two charges in the 
 indictment — if he was not a Christian, who can hope for salva- 
 tion in the Cross? If his life was that of an atheist, who of 
 woman bom ever walked with God ? Yet it is true lie was a 
 great sinner. " If we say we have no sin, we deceive our. 
 selves, and the truth is not in us ; but if we confess our sins,
 
 174 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us 
 from all unrighteousness." 
 
 Burns died in his thirty-eighth year. At that age what had 
 Johnson done to be for ever remembered ? He had written Irene, 
 London, and the Life of Savage. Of Irene the world makes 
 little account — it contains many just and noble sentiments —but 
 it is a Tragedy without tears. The Life is an eloquent lie, told 
 in the delusion of a friendship sealed by participated sorrows. 
 London is a satire of the true moral vein — more sincerely indig- 
 nant with the vices it withers tiian its prototype in Juvenal — 
 with all the vigor, without any of the coarseness of Dryden — 
 with "tlie pointed propriety of Pope," and versification almost 
 as musical as his, while not so monotonous — an immortal strain. 
 But had he died in 1747, how slight had been our knowledge — - 
 our interest how dull — in the "Life and Writings of Samuel 
 Johnson !" How slight our knowledge ! We should never have 
 known that in cliildhood he showed symptoms "of that jealous 
 independence of spirit and impetuosity of temper which never 
 forsook him " — as Burns in the same season had showed that 
 "stubborn sturdy something in his disposition" which was there 
 to the last ; — That he displayed then " that power of memory for 
 which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredi- 
 ble " — as Burns possessed that faculty — so thought Murdoch — 
 in more strength than imagination ; — That he never joined the 
 other boys in their ordinary diversions " but would wander away 
 into the fields talking to iiimself " — like Burns walking miles 
 "to pay his respects to the Leglen wood ;" — That when a boy 
 he was immoderately fond of reading romances of chivalry — 
 as Burns was of Blind Harry ; — That he fell into "an inatten- 
 tion to religion or an indifference about it in his ninth year," and 
 after his fourteenth " became a sort of lax talker against re- 
 ligion, for he did not mucii think about it, and this lasted till he 
 went to Oxford, where it would not be suffered " — ^just as tiie 
 child Burns was remarkable fur an " enthusiastic idiot piety," 
 and had pleasure during some years of his youth in puzzling his 
 companions on points in divinity, till he saw his folly, and with- 
 out getting his mouth shut, was mute ; — That on iiis return home 
 from Stourbridge school in his eighteenth year " he had no set-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 173 
 
 tied plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from 
 day to day" — like Burns who, when a year or two older in his 
 perplexity, writes to his father that he knows not wliat to do, and 
 is sick of life ; — That his love of literature was excited by acci- 
 dentally finding a folio of Petrarch — as Burns's love of poetry 
 was by an octavo Shenstone ; — That he thereon became a glut- 
 tonous book-devourer — as Burns did — " no book being so volu- 
 minous as to slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to damp 
 his researches;" — That in his twentieth year he felt himself 
 "overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, wiih perpetual irri- 
 tation, fretfulness,'and impatience, and with a dejection, gloom, 
 and despair which rendered existence misery '"' — as Burns tells 
 us he was afflicted — even earlier — and to the last — " with a con- 
 stitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly to 
 solitude " — with horrid flutterings and stoppages of the heart that 
 often almost choked him, so that he had to fall out of bed into a 
 tub of water to allay the anguish ; — That he was at Pembroke 
 College '• caressed and loved by all about him as a gay and fro- 
 licsome fellow" — while "ah! Sir, I was mad and violent — it 
 was bitterness which they mistook for frolic " — ^just as Burns 
 was thought to be " with liis strong appetite for sociality as well 
 from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark," 
 thoufh when left alone desponding and distracted ; — That he was 
 generally seen lounging at the College gate, with a circle of stu- 
 dents round him, whom he was entertaining with wit, and keep- 
 in"- from their studies, if not spiriting them up to rebellion 
 against the College discipline, which in his maturer years he so 
 much extolled " — as Burns was sometimes seen at the door of a 
 Public ridiculing the candles of the Auld Light and even spirit- 
 iuCT the callants against the Kirk itself, which we trust he looked 
 on more kindly in future years; — That he had to quit college 
 on his father's bankruptcy soon followed by death, as Burns in 
 similar circumstances had to quit Lochlea; — "That in the forlorn 
 state of his circumsiances, Mtat. 23, he accepted of an offer to be 
 employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth," where he 
 was miserable — just as Burns was at the same ago, not indeed 
 flo<rain<T bovs but llailinc; barns, "a poor insignificant devil, un- 
 noticed and unknown, and stalking up and down fairs and mar-
 
 17G THE GENIUS AND 
 
 kets: — That soon after "he published proposals for printing by 
 subscription the Latin Poems of Politian at two shillings and 
 sixpence, but that there were not subscribers enough to secure a 
 :>uificient sale, so the work never appeared, and probably never 
 was executed " — as Burns soon after issued proposals for print- 
 ing by subscription on terms rather higher " among others the 
 Ordination, Scotch Drink, the Cottar's Saturday Night, and an 
 Address to the Deil," which volume ere long was published ac- 
 cordingly and had a great sale; — That he had, "from early 
 youth, been sensible to the influence of female charms, and when 
 at Stourbridge school was much enamored of Olivia Lloyd, a 
 young Quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses " — just as 
 Burns was — and did — in the case of Margaret Tliomson, in the 
 kale-yard at Kirkoswald, and of many others ; — That his " juve- 
 nile attachments to the fair sex were however very transient, 
 and it is certain that he formed no criminal connection what- 
 ever ; Mr. Hector, who lived with him in the utmost intimacy 
 and social freedom, having assured me that even at that ardent 
 season his conduct was strictly virtuous in that respect" — ^just 
 so with Burns who, fell in love wiiii every lass he saw "come 
 wading barefoot all alane," while his brother Gilbert gives us 
 the same assurance of his continence in all his youthful loves : — 
 That "in a man whom religious education has saved from licen- 
 tious indulgences, the passion of love when once it has seized 
 him is exceeding strong, and this was experienced by Johnson 
 when he became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter after iier 
 first husband's death " — as it was unfortunately too much the 
 case with Burns, though he did not marry a widow double his 
 own asie — but one who was a Maid till she met Rob Mossjfiel — 
 and some six years younger than himself; — That unable to find 
 subsistence in iiis native j)lace, or any where else, he was driven 
 by want to try his fortune in London, " the great field of genius 
 and exertion, where talents of every kind have the fullest scope, 
 and the liighost encouragement," on his way thither, " riding and 
 tying " with Davie Garriek — just as Burns was impelled to 
 make an rxperiment on Edinburgh, journeying thither on foot, 
 but without any companion in his adventure ; — that after getting 
 on there indiffereMtly well, he returned "in the course of the
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 177 
 
 next summer to Lichfield, where he had left Mrs. Johnson," and 
 stayed there three weeks, his mother asking him whether, when in 
 London, '' He was one of those who gave the wall or those who 
 took it" — ^just as Burns returned to Mauchline, where he had 
 left Mrs. Burns, and remained in the neighborhood about the 
 same period of time, his mother having said to him on his return, 
 " O, Robert;" — That he took his wife back with him to London, 
 resolving to support her the best way he could, by the cultiva- 
 tion of the fields of literature, and chiefly through an engage- 
 ment as ganger and supervisor to Cave's Magazine — as Burns, 
 with similar purposes, and not dissimilar means, brought his wife 
 to Ellisland, then to Dumfries ; — That partly from necessity and 
 partly from inclination, he used to perambulate the streets of the 
 city at all hours of the night, and was far from being prim or 
 precise in his company, associating much with one Savage at 
 least who had rubbed shoulders with the gallows — just as Burns 
 on Jenny Geddes and her successor kept skirring the country at 
 all hours, though we do not hear of any of his companions hav- 
 ing been stabbers in brothel-brawls ; — That on the publication of 
 his '"London," that city rang with applause, and Pope pro- 
 nounced the autiior — yet anonymous — a true poet, who would 
 soon be deterre, while General Oglethorpe became his patron, 
 and such a prodigious sensation did his genius make, that in the 
 fulness of his fame. Earl Gower did what he could to set him on 
 the way of being elevated to a schoolmastership in some small 
 village in Shropshire or Statfordshire, " of which the certain sal- 
 ary was sixty pounds a-year, which would make kiin happy for 
 life " — so said English Earl Gower to an Irish Dean called Jona- 
 than Swift — ;just as Burns soon after the publication of " Tam 
 o' Shanter," was in great favor with Captain Grose — though there 
 was then no need for any poet to tell the world he was one, as he 
 had been "deterre a year or two before, and by the unexampled 
 exertions of Grahame of Fintry, the Earl of Glencairn being 
 oblivious or dead, was translated to the diocese of Dumfries, 
 where he die I in the thirty-eighth year of his age; the very 
 year, we believe, of his, in which Johnson issued the prospectu? 
 of his Dictionary ; — and here we leave the Lexicographer lor a,
 
 ns THE GENIUS AND 
 
 moment to himself, and let our mind again be occupied for a mo- 
 ment exclusively by the Exciseman. 
 
 You will not suppose that we seriously insist on this parallel 
 as if the lines throughout ran straight ; or that we are not well 
 aware that there was far from being in reality such complete 
 correspondence of the circumstances — much less the characters 
 of the men. But both had to struggle for their very lives — it was 
 sink or swim — and by their own buoyancy they were borne up. 
 In Johnson's case, there is not one dark stain on the story of all 
 those melancholy and memorable years. Hawkins indeed 
 more than insinuates that there was a separation between him 
 and his wife, at the time he associated with Savage, and used 
 with that profligate to stroll the streets ; and that she was 
 " harbored by a friend near the Tower;" but Croker justly re- 
 marks — " That there never has existed any human being, all the 
 details of whose life, all the motives of whose actions, all the 
 thoughts of whose mind, have been so unreservedly brought 
 before the public ; even his prayers, his most secret meditations, 
 and his most scrupulous self-reproaches, have been laid before 
 the world ; and there is not to be found, in all the unparalleled 
 information thus laid before us, a single trace to justify the 
 accusation which Hawkins so wantonly and so odiously, and it 
 may be assumed, so falsely makes." However, he walked in 
 the midst of evil — he was familiar with the faces of the wicked 
 — the guilty, as they were passing by, he did not always shun, 
 as if they were lepers ; he had a word for them — poor as he 
 was, a small coin — for they were of the unfortunate and forlorn, 
 and his heart was pitiful. So was that of Burns. Very many 
 years Heaven allotted to the Sage, that virtue might be instructed 
 by wisdom — all the good acknowledge that he is great — and his 
 memory is hallowed for evermore in the gratitude of Cliristendom. 
 In his prime it pleased God to cut off the Poet — but his genius 
 loo has left a blessing to his own people — and has diffused noble 
 llioughts, generous sentiments, and tender feelings over many 
 lands, and most of all among them who more especially feel that 
 they are his bretiiren, the Vouv u ho make the Rich, and like him 
 are happy, in spile of its hardships, in their own condition. Let 
 the imperfections of his character then be spared, if it be even
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 17y 
 
 for the sake of his genius ; on higher grounds let it be honored ; 
 for if tliere was much weakness, its strength was mighty, and 
 his religious country is privileged to forget his frailties, in 
 humble trust that they are forgiven. 
 
 We have said but little hitherto of Burns's religion. Some 
 have denied that he had any religion at all — a rash and cruel 
 denial — made in the face of his genius, his character, and his 
 life. What man in his senses ever lived without religion ? "The 
 fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" — was Burns an 
 atheist 1 We do not fear to say that he was religious far be- 
 yond the common run of men, even them who may have had a 
 more consistent and better considered creed. Tiie lessons he 
 received in the " auld clay biggin " were not forgotten through 
 life. He speaks — and we believe him — of his "early ingrained 
 piety " having been long remembered to good purpose — what he 
 called his " idiot piety " — not meaning thereby to disparage it, 
 but merely that it was in childhood an instinct. " Our Father 
 which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name !" is breathed from 
 the lips of infancy with the same feeling at its heart that beats 
 'owards its father on earth, as it kneels in prayer by his side. 
 No one surely will doubt his sincerity when he writes from Irvine 
 to his father — " Honor'd sir — I am quite transported at tlie 
 ihouglit, that e'er long, perhaps soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu 
 to all the pains, and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this vveary 
 life ; fori assure you I am heartily tired of it, and, if I do not very 
 much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. It 
 is for this reason 1 am more pleased with the 15th, IGtli, and 17th 
 verses of the 7th chapter of Revelations, than with any ten 
 times as many verses in the whole Bible, and would not e.xchaniie 
 the noble enthusiasm with whicii they inspire me, for all that tills 
 world has to offer. ' 15. Therefore are they before the throne 
 of God, and serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that 
 sitteth on the throne shall dwell among thum. 16. They shall 
 hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neitiier shall the sun 
 lighten them, nor any heat. 17. For the Lamb thai is in the 
 midst of the throne shall feed them, and siiall lead them unto 
 living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears 
 from their eves.' '■ ^^■hen he cives lessons to a younji man for 
 
 10
 
 180 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 his conduct in life, one of them is, " The great Creator to 
 adore ;" when he consoles a friend on the death of a relative, 
 " he points the brimful grief- worn eyes to scenes beyond the 
 grave ;" when he expresses benevolence to a distressed family, 
 he beseeches the aid of Him " who tempers the wind to the 
 shorn lamb ;" when he feels the need of aid to control his 
 passions, he implores that of the " Great Governor of all below ;" 
 when in sickness, he has a prayer for the pardon of all his errors, 
 and an expression of confidence in the goodness of God ; when 
 suffering from the ills of life, he asks for the grace of resigna- 
 tion, " because they are thy will ;" when he observes the sutl'er- 
 ings of the virtuous, he remembers a rectifying futurity ; — he is 
 religious not only when surprised by occasions such as these, 
 but also on set occasions ; he had regular worship in his family 
 while at Ellisland — we know not how it was at Dumfries, but 
 we do know that there he catechised his children every Sabbath 
 evening ; — Nay, he does not enter a Druidical circle without 
 a prayer to God. 
 
 He viewed the Creator chiefly in his attributes of love, good- 
 ness, and mercy. " In proportion as we are wrung witli grief, 
 or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a superintending Deity, 
 an Almiglity protector, are doubly dear." Him he never lost 
 sight of, or confidence in, even in the depths of his remorse. An 
 avenging God was too seldom in his contemplations — from the 
 little severity in his ov/n character — from a philosophical view 
 of the inscrutable causes of human frailty — and most of all, 
 from a diseased aversion to what was so much the theme of the 
 sour Calvinism around him; but which would have risen up an 
 appalling truth in such a soul as his, had it been habituated to 
 profounder thought on the mysterious corruption of our fallen 
 nature. 
 
 Sceptical thoughts as to revealed religion had assailed his 
 mind, while with expanding powers it " comniuned with the glo- 
 rious universe ;" and in 1787 he writes from Edinburgh to a 
 " Mr. .lames M'Candlish, student in physio. College, Glasgow," 
 who had favored him witii a long argumentative infidel letter, ''I, 
 likewise, since you and I were first acquainted, in the pride of 
 despising old women's stories, ventured on 'the daring patii
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 181 
 
 Spinoza trod ;' but experience of the weakness, not the strenf^th 
 of human powers, made vw glad to grasp at revealed religion.^' 
 When at Ellisland, he writes to Mrs. Dunlop, " My idle reason- 
 ings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but tne necessities of 
 my heart always give the cold philosophizings the lie. Who 
 looks for the heart weaned from earth ; the soul aflianced to her 
 God; the correspondence fixed with heaven; the pious suppli- 
 cation and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissitudes of 
 even and morn ; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the 
 palace, in the glare of public life ! No : to find them in their 
 precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among 
 the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and 
 distress." And again, next year, from the same place to the 
 same correspondent, " That there is an incomprehensibly Great 
 Being, to whom I owe my existence, and that he must be inti- 
 mately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal 
 machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature 
 he has made — these are, I think, self-evident propositions. That 
 there is a real and eternal distinction between vice and virtue, 
 and consequently, that I am an accountable creature ; that from 
 the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the 
 evident imperfection, nay positive injustice, in the administration 
 of affliirs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a 
 retributive sense of existence beyond the grave, must, I think, 
 be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment's re- 
 flection. I will go farther and affirm, that from the sublimity, 
 excellence, and purity of his doctrine and precepts, unparalleled 
 by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of many preceding 
 ages, though to appearance he was himself the obscurest and 
 most illiterate of our species : therefore Jesus was from God." 
 Indeed, all his best letters to Mrs. Dunlop are full of the ex- 
 pression of religious feeling and religious faith ; though it must 
 be confessed with pain, that he speaks with more confidence in 
 the truth of natural than of revealed religion, and too often lets 
 sentiments inadvertently escape him, that, in ken by themselves, 
 would imply that his religious belief was but a Ciiristianized 
 Theism. Of the immortality of the soul, he never expresses 
 any serious doubt, though now and then, his expressions, though
 
 1S2 THE GENILS AND 
 
 beautiful, want their usual force, as if he felt the inadequacy of 
 the human mind to the magnitude of the tlieme. " Ye venerable 
 sages, and holy flamens, is there probability in your conjectures, 
 truth in your stories, of another world beyond death ; or are 
 they all alike baseless visions and fabricated fables ? If there 
 is another life, it must be only for the just, the amiable, and the 
 humane. What a flattering idea this of the world to come ! 
 ^V^ould 10 God I as firmly believed it as I ardently wish it." 
 
 How, tlien, could honored Thomas Carlyle bring himself to 
 affirm, " that Burns had no religion ?" His religion was in much 
 imperfect — but its incompleteness you discern only on a survey 
 of all his effusions, and by inference ; for his particular expres- 
 sions of a religious kind are genuine, and as acknowledgments 
 of the superabundant goodness and greatness of God, they are 
 in unison with the sentiments of the devoutest Christian. But 
 remorse never suggests to him the inevitable corruption of man ; 
 Christian humility he too seldom dwells on, though without it 
 there cannot be Christian faith ; and he is silent on the need of 
 reconcilement between the divine attributes of Justice and 
 Mercy. The absence of all this might pass unnoticed, were not 
 the religious sentiment so prevalent in his confidential commu- 
 nications with his friends in his most serious and solemn moods. 
 Jn them there is frequent, habitual recognition of the Creator ; 
 and who that finds joy and beauty in nature has not the same? 
 It may be well supposed that if common men are more ideal in 
 religion than in other things, so would be Burns. He who has 
 lent the colors of his fancy to common things, would not with- 
 hold them from divine. Something — he knew not what — he 
 would exact of man — more impressively reverential than any- 
 thing he is wont to offer to God, or perhaps can offer in the way 
 of institution — in temples made with hands. The hearlfell. ado- 
 ration always has a grace for him — in the silent bosom — in the 
 lonely cottage — in any place where circumstances are a pledge 
 of its reality ; but the moment it ceases to be heartfelt, and 
 visibly so, it loses his respect, it seems as profanation. 
 " Mine is the religion of the breast ;" and if it be not, what is it 
 worth ? But it must also revive a right spirit within us ; and 
 there may be gratitude for goodness, without such change as is
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 183 
 
 required of us in the gospel. He was too buoyant witli immor- 
 tal spirit within him not to credit its innnortal destination ; he 
 was too tliouiihtful in his liuman love not to feel how dilFurent 
 must be our allections if tliey are towards flowers wiiich the 
 blast of death may wither, or towards spirits which are but be- 
 ginning to live in our sight, and are gathering good and evil here 
 for an eternal life. Burns believed that by his own unassisted 
 understandinir, and his own unassisted heart, he saw and felt 
 those great truths, forgetful of this great truth, that he had been 
 taught them in the Written Word. Had all he learned in the 
 " auld clay biggin" become a blank — all the knowledge inspired 
 into his heart during the evenings, when " the sire turned o'er \vi' 
 patriarchal air, the big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride," how 
 little or how much would he then have known of God and Im 
 mortality? In tiiat delusion he shared more or less witli one and 
 all — whether poets or philosophers — wiiu have put their trust in 
 natural Theology. As to the glooms in which his sceptical rea- 
 son liad been involved, they do not seem to have been so thick — 
 so dense — as in the case of men without number, who have, by 
 the blessing of God, become true Christians. Of his levities on 
 certain celebrations of religious rites, we before ventured an 
 explanation ; and while it is to be lamented that he did not more 
 frequently dedicate tiie genius that shed so holy a lustre over 
 " The. Cottar's Saturday Night," to the service of religion, let it 
 be remembered how few poets have done so — alas ! too few — 
 that he, like his tuneful brethren, must often have been deterred 
 by a sense of liis own unworthiness from approaching its awful 
 mysteries — and above all, that he was called to his account be- 
 fore he had attained his thoughtful prime. 
 
 And now that we are approaching the close of our Memoir, it 
 may be well for a little while clearly to consider Burns's posi- 
 tion in this world of ours, where we humans often find ourselves, 
 we cannot tell how, in strange positions ; and where there are, 
 on all liand.s, .so many unintelligible things going on, that in all 
 languages an active existence is assumed of such powers as 
 Chance, Fortune, and Fate. Was he more unhappy tlian the 
 generality of gifted men? In what did that unhappiness con- 
 sist ? How far was it owing to himself or others ?
 
 1S4 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 We have seen, that up to early manhood Jiis life was virtuous, 
 and therefore must have been happy — that by magnanimously 
 enduring a hard lot, he made it veritably a light one — and that 
 though subject " to a constitutional melancholy or hypochondri- 
 asm that made him fly to solitude," he enjoyed the society of his 
 own humble sphere with proportionate enthusiasm, and even then 
 derived deep delight from his genius. That genius quickly 
 waxed strong, and very suddenly he was in full power as a poet. 
 No sooner was passion indulged than it prevailed — and he w ho 
 had so often felt during his abstinent sore-toiled youth that "a 
 blink of rest's a sweet enjoyment," had now often to rue the 
 self-brought trouble that banishes rest even from the bed of labor, 
 whose sleep would otherwise be without a dream. " I have for 
 some time been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes 
 which you pretty well know — the pang of disappointment, tiie 
 sling of pride, with some wandering stabs of remorse, which 
 never fail to settle on my vitals like vultures, when attention is 
 not called away by the calls of society, or the vagaries of the 
 Muse." These agonies had a well-known particular cause, but 
 his errors were frequent and to his own eyes flagrant — yet he 
 was no irreligious person — and exclaimed — " Oh ! thou great, 
 unknown Power! thou Almighty God ! who hast lighted up rea- 
 son in my breast, and blessed me with immortality ! I have 
 frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary 
 for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor 
 forsaken me." What signified it to him that he was then very 
 poor ? The worst evils of poverty are moral evils, and them he 
 then knew not ; nay, in that school he was trained to many vir- 
 tues, whicb might not have been so conspicuous even in his noble 
 nature, but for that severest nurture. Shall we ask, what signi- 
 fied it to him that he was very poor to tiie last ? Alas ! it 
 signiflod much ; for when a poor man becomes a iiusband and a 
 father, a now heart is created within him, and he often finds 
 himself trembling in fits of unendurable, because unavailing 
 fears. Of such anxieties Burns suffered much ; yet better men 
 than i3urns — better because sobiM* and more religious — have 
 sulFercd far more; nor in their huniility and resignation did they 
 say even unto themselves " that God had given their share."
 
 CHAR.\CTER OF BURNS. 1S5 
 
 His worst sufferings had their source in a region impenetrable 
 to the visitations of mere worldly calamities ; and might have 
 been even more direful, had his life basked in the beams of for- 
 tune, in place of being chilled in its shade. " My mind my 
 kingdom is"' — few men have had better title to make that boast 
 than Burns ; but sometimes raged there plus quam civilia lella — 
 and on the rebellious passions, no longer subjects, at times it 
 scorned as if he cared not to impose peace. 
 
 Wiiy, then, such clamor about his condition — such outcry 
 about his circumstances — such horror of his Excisemansiiip ? 
 Why should Scotland, on whose " brow shame is ashamed to 
 sit," hang down her head when bethinking her of how she treat- 
 ed him? Hers the glory of having produced him; where lies 
 the blame of his penury, his soul's trouble, his living body's 
 emaciation, its untimely death ? 
 
 His country cried, " All hail, mine own inspired Bard ! " and 
 his heart was in heaven. But heaven on earth is a mid-reo-ion 
 not unvisited by storms. Divine indeed must be the descendinty 
 light, but the ascending cloom mav be dismal : in imagination's 
 airy realms the Poet cannot forget he is a Man — his passions 
 pursue him thither — and "that mystical roof fretted with jxoldeti 
 fire, why it appears no other thing to them than a foul and pes- 
 tilent congregation of vapors." The primeval curse is felt 
 through all the regions of being ; and he who in the desire of 
 fame iiaving merged all other desires, finds himself on a sudden 
 in its blaze, is disappointed of his spirit's correspondino- trans- 
 port, without whicii it is but a glare ; and remembering the sweet 
 calm of his obscurity, when it was enlivened not disturbed bv 
 soaring aspirations, would fain fly back to its secluded sliades 
 and be again his own lowly natural self in the privacy of his 
 own humble birth-place. Something of this kind happened to 
 Burns. He was soon sick of the dust and din that attended him 
 on his illumined path ; and ftlt that he had been happier at A[oss- 
 giel than he ever was in the Metropolis — when but to relieve his 
 heart of its pathos, he sung in the solitary field to the mountain 
 daisy, than when to win applause, on the crowded street he 
 chanted in ambitious strains —
 
 IfG THE GENIUS AND 
 
 " Edina ! Scotia's darling seat I 
 
 All hail thy palaces and towers, 
 Where once beneath a monarch's leet 
 Sat legislation's sov'reign powers ! 
 From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs, 
 
 As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
 And singing, lone, the lingering hours, 
 I shelter in thy honor'd shade." 
 
 He returned to his natural condition, when he settled at Ellis- 
 land. Nor can we see what some have seen, any strong desire 
 ill liim after preferment to a higher sphere. Such thouglits 
 sometimes must have entered his mind, but they found no 
 permanent dwelling there ; and he fell back, not only without 
 pain, but with more than pleasure, on all the remembrances of 
 his humble life. He resolved to pursue it in the same scenes, 
 and the same occupations, and to continue to be what he had 
 always been — a Farmer. 
 
 And why should the Caledonian Hunt have wished to divert 
 or prevent him ? Why should Scotland ? What patronage, 
 pray tell us, ought the Million and Two 'J'iiirds to have bestow- 
 ed on their poet ? With five hundred pounds in the pockets of 
 his buckskin breeches, perhaps he was about as rich as yourself 
 — and then he had a mine — which we hope you have too — in his 
 brain. Sometliing no doubt 7)u'ght have been done for him, and 
 if you insist that something should, we are not in the humor of 
 argumentation, and shall merely observe that the opportunities 
 to serve hiin were somewhat narrowed by the want of special 
 preparation for any profession ; but supposing that nobody thougiit 
 of promoting him, it was simply becau.se everybody was think- 
 ing of getting promoted himself; and tliough selfishness is very 
 odious, not more so surely in Scotsmen than in other people, ex- 
 cept indeed that more is expected from them on account of their 
 superior intelligence and virtue. 
 
 Burns's great calling here below was to illustrate the peasant 
 life of Scotland. Ages may pass without anotlier arising fit for 
 that tasK ; meanwliile the whole pageant of Scottish life has 
 passea away without a record. Let him remain, thereforej in 
 the place which best fits him for the task, liiough it may not be
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 187 
 
 the best for his personal comfort. If an individual can serve 
 his country at the expense of his comfort; he must, and otiiers 
 should not hinder him ; if self-sacrifice is required of iiim, they 
 must not be blamed for permitting it. Burns followed his call- 
 ing to the last, with more lets and hindrances than the friends 
 of humanity could have wished ; but with a power tiiat miglit 
 have been weakened by his removal from what he loved and 
 gloried in — by the disruption of his heart from its habits, and 
 the breaking up of that custom whieli with many men becomes 
 second nature, but which with him was corroboration and sanc- 
 tificalion of the first, both being but one agency — its products 
 how beautiful ! Like the flower and fruit of a tree that irrows 
 well only in its own soil, and by its own river. 
 
 But a Ganger ! What do we say to that ? Was it not most 
 unworthy ? We ask, unwortliy what ? You answer, his ge- 
 nius. But who expects the employments by which men live to 
 be entirely worthy of their genius — congenial with their dispo. 
 sitions — suited to the structure of their souls ? It sometimes 
 happens, but far oftener not — rarely in the case of poets, and 
 most rarely of all in the case of such a poet as Burns. It is a 
 law of nature that the things of the world come by honest in- 
 dustry, and that genius is its own reward, in the pleasure of its 
 exei'tions and its applause. But who made Burns a ganger ? 
 Himself. It was his own choice. "I have been feelino' all 
 the various rotations and movements within respecting the ex- 
 cise," he writes to Aiken soon after tlie Kilmarnock edition. 
 '• There are many things plead strongly against it," he adds, 
 but tliese were all connected with his unfortunate private affairs ; 
 to the calling itself he had no repugnance ; what he most feared 
 was "the uncertainty of getting soon into business." To Gra- 
 ham of Fintry he writes, a year after the Edinburgh edition, 
 " Ye know, I dare say, of an a[)plication I lately made to your 
 Board to be admitted an officer of excise. I have, accordinir to 
 form, been examined by a supervisor, and to-day I gave in two 
 certificates, witii a request for an order for instructions. In this 
 affair, if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but too mucli need a pa- 
 tronizing friend. Propriety of conduct as a man, and fidelity 
 and attention as an ofllcer, I dare engage for ; hut with anijthing
 
 188 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 like husiness, except manual labor, I am totally unacquainted. 
 * * I know, Sir, that to need your goodness is to have a claim 
 on it ; may 1 therefore beg your patronage to forward me \n this 
 atfiiir, till 1 be appointed to a division, where, by the help of 
 rigid economy, I will try to support that independence so dear 
 to my soul, but which has been too often distant from my situa- 
 tion." To Miss Chalmers he writes, "You will condemn me 
 for the next step I have taken. I have entered into the excise. 
 I have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature deliberation. 
 The question is not at what door of fortune's palace we shall 
 enter in, but what door does she open for us ? I got this 
 without any hanging on, or mortifying solicitation : it is imme- 
 diate support, and though poor in comparison of the last eighteen 
 months of my existence, it is plenty in comparison of all my 
 preceding life ; besides, the Commissioners are some of them my 
 acquaintance, and all of them my firm friends." To Dr. Moore 
 he writes, " There is still one thing would make me quite easy. 
 I have an excise officer's commission, and I live in the midst of 
 a country division. If I were very sanguine, I might hope that 
 some of my great patrons might procure me a treasury warrant 
 for supervisor, surveyor-general, &c." It is needless to multi- 
 ply quotations to the same effect. Burns with his usual good 
 sense took into account, in his own estimate of such a calling, 
 not his genius, which had really nothing to do with it, but all 
 his early circumstances, and his present prospects ; nor does it 
 seem at any time to have been a source of much discomfort to 
 himself; on the contrary, he looks forward to an increase of its 
 emoluments with hope and satisfaction. We are not now speak- 
 ing of the disappointment of his hopes of rising in the profes- 
 sion, but of the profession itself: " A supervisor's income varies," 
 he says, in a letter to Heron of that ilk, '-from about a hundred 
 and twenty to two hundred a year ; but the business is an inces- 
 sant drudgery, and would be nearly a complete bar to every 
 species of literary pursuit. The moment I a:n ap|)ointed super- 
 visor, I may be nominated on the collector's list ; and this is 
 always a business purely of political patrcnage. A collectorship 
 varies much, from better than two hundred a year to near a 
 thousand. They alsc come forward by precedency on the list ;
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 1S9 
 
 and have, besides a handsome income, a life of complete leisure. 
 A life of literary leisure, with a decent competency, is the sum- 
 mit of my wishes." With such views, Burns became a gauger 
 as well as a farmer; we can see no degradation in his having 
 done so — no reason why whimpering cockneys should continu- 
 ally cry " Shame ! shame ! on Scotland " for havi)ig let 
 "Bunns " — as they pronounce l)im — adopt his own mode of life. 
 Allan Cuninghaine informs us that the officers of excise on the 
 Nith were then a very superior set of men indeed to those who 
 now ply on the Thames. Burns saw nothing to despise in iionest 
 men who did their duty ; he could pick and choose among them ; 
 and you do not imagine that he was obliged to associate exclu- 
 sively or intimately with ushers of the rod. Gaugers are grega- 
 rious, but not so gregarious as barristers and bagmen. The 
 Club is composed of gauger, shop-keeper, schoolmaster, surgeon, 
 retired merchant, minister, assistant-and-successor, cidevant 
 militia captain, one of the heroes of the Peninsula with a 
 wooden-leg, and haply a horse-marine. These are the ordinary 
 members ; but amontr the honorary vou find men of hisih de- 
 gree, squires of some thousands, and baronets of some hundreds 
 a-year. The rise in that department has been sometimes so sud- 
 den as to astonish the unexcised. A gauger, of a very few 
 years' standing, has been known, after a quarter's supervisor- 
 ship, to ascend the collector's — and ere this planet had performed 
 another revolution round the sun — the Comptroller's chair — 
 from which he might well look down on the Chancellor of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Let it not be thought that we are running counter to the com- 
 mon feeling in what we have now been saying, nor blame us for 
 speaking in a tone of levity on a serious subject. We cannot 
 bear to liear people at one hour scorning the distinctions of rank, 
 and acknowledging none but of worth ; and at another whining 
 for the sake of worth without rank, and estimating a man's hap- 
 piness — which is something more than his respectability — by the 
 amount of his income, or according to the calling from which il 
 is derived. Such persons cannot have read Burns. Or do they 
 think that such sentiments as "The rank is but the guinea 
 stamp, the man's the gowd for a' that," are all very fine in verse.
 
 190 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 but have no place in the prose of life, no application among 
 men of sense to its concerns'? But in how many departments 
 have not men to addict themselves almost all their lives to the 
 performance of duties, which, merely as acts or occupations, are 
 in themselves as unintellectual as polishing a pin ? Why, a 
 pin-polisher may be a poet, who rounds its head an orator, who 
 sharpens its point a metaphysician. Wait his time, and you 
 hear the first singing like a nightingale in the autumnal season ; 
 the second roaring like a bull, and no mistake ; the third, in 
 wandering mazes lost, like a prisoner trying to tiiread the Cretan 
 labyrinth without his clue. Let a man but have something that 
 he must do or starve, nor be nice about its nature ; and be ye 
 under no alarm about the degradation of his soul. Let him 
 even be a tailor ; nay, that is carrying the principle too far ; 
 but any other handicraft let him for short hours — ten out of the 
 eighteen (six he may sleep) for three score years and ten — assi- 
 duously cultivate, or if fate have placed him in a ropery, dog- 
 gedly pursue ; and if nature have given him genius, he will 
 find time to instruct or enchant the world ; if but goodness, time 
 to benefit it by his example, " though never heard of half a mile 
 from home." 
 
 Who in this country, if you except an occasional statesman, 
 take their places at once in the highest grade of their calling ? 
 In the learned professions, what obscurest toil must not the 
 brightest go through ! Under what a pressure of mean obser-* 
 vances the proudest stoop their heads ! The color-ensign in a 
 black regiment has risen to be colonel in the Rifle-brigade. 
 The middy in a gun-brig on the African station has commanded 
 a tiiree-decker at Trafalgar. Through successive grades they 
 must all go — the armed and the gowned alike ; the great law of 
 advancement holds among men of noble and of ignoble birth, 
 not without exceptions indeed in favor of family, and of fortune 
 too, more or less frequent, more or less flagrant — but talent, and 
 integrity, and honor, and learning, and genius, are not often 
 heard complaining of foul play ; if you deny it, their triumj)h is 
 the more glorious, for generally they win the day, and when 
 they have won it — that is, risen in their profession, what be- 
 comes of them then ? Soldiers or civilians, they must go where
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 191 
 
 they are ordered, in obedience to the same great law ; they ap. 
 peal to their services when insisting on being sent — and in some 
 pestilential climate swift death benumbs 
 
 " Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd — 
 Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre." 
 
 Tt is drudgery to sit six, or eight, or ten hours a-day as a 
 clerk in the India-house ; but Charles Lamb endured it for forty 
 years, not without much headache and heartache too, we dare 
 say ; but Elia shows us how the unwearied flame of genius 
 can please itself by playing in the thickest gloom ; how fancy 
 can people dreariest vacancy with rarest creatures holding com- 
 munion in quaintest converse with the finest feelings of the 
 thoughtful heart — how eyes dim with poring all day on a ledjjer, 
 can glisten through the evenir^, and far on in-to the night, with 
 those alternate visitings of humor and of pathos that for a while 
 come and go as if from regions in the spirit separate and apart, 
 but ere long by their quiet blending persuade us to believe that 
 their sources are close adjacent, and that the streams, when left 
 to themselves, often love to unite their courses, and to flow on 
 together with merry or melancholy music, just as we choose to 
 think it, as smiles may be the order of the hour, or as we may 
 be commanded by the touch of some unknown power within us 
 to indulge the luxury of tears. 
 
 Why, then, we ask again, such lamentation for the fate of 
 Burns ? Why should not he have been left to make his own 
 way ill life like other men gifted or ungifted ? A man of great 
 genius in the prime of life is poor. But his poverty did not for 
 any long time necessarily affect the welfare or even comfort of 
 the poet, and therefore created no obligation on his country to 
 interfere with his lot. He was born and bred in an humble sta- 
 tion — l)ut such as it was, it did not impede his culture, fame, 
 or service to his people, or rightly considered, his own happi- 
 ness ; let him remain in it, or leave it as he will and can, but 
 tliere was no obligation on others to take him out of it. He had 
 already risen superior to circumstances — and would do so still ; 
 his gloty availed much in having conquered them ; give him 
 
 17
 
 192 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 better, and tlie peculiar species of his glory will depart. Give 
 hiin better, and it may be, that he achieves no more glory of 
 any kind. For nothing is more uncertain than the etlects of 
 circumstances on character. Some men, we know, are specially 
 adapted to adverse circumstances, rising thereby as tiie kite 
 rises to the adverse breeze, and falling when the adversity 
 ceases. Such was probably Burns's nature — his genius being 
 piqued to activity by the contradictions of iiis fortune. 
 
 Suppose that some generous rich man had accidentally be- 
 come acquainted with the lad Robert Burns, and grieving to 
 think that such a mind should continue boorish among boors, 
 had, much to his credit, taken him from the plough, sent him to 
 College, and given him a complete education. Doubtless he 
 would have excelled ; for he was "quick to learn, and wise to 
 know." But he would not have been Scotland's Burns. The 
 prodigy had not been exhibited of a poet of the first order in 
 that rank of life. It is an instructive spectacle for the world, 
 and let the instruction take effect by the continuance of tlie spec- 
 tacle for its natural period. Let the poet \\ork at that calling 
 which is clearly meant for him — he is " native and endued to 
 the element " of his situation — there is no appearance of his be- 
 ing alien or strange to it — he professes proudly that his ambition 
 is to illustrate the very life he exists in — his happiest moments 
 are in doing so — and he is reconciled to it by its being thus 
 blended with the happiest exertions of his genius. We must 
 look at his lot as a whole — from beginning to end — and so looked 
 at it was not unsuitable — but the reverse ; for as to its later af- 
 flictions they were not such as of necessity belonged to it, were 
 partly owing to hiinself, partly to others, partly to evil influences 
 peculiar not to his calling, but to the times. 
 
 If Burns had not been prematurely cut off, it is not to be 
 doubted that he would have got promotion either by favor, or in 
 the ordinary course; and had that happened, he would not have 
 had much cause for complaint, nor would he have complained 
 ttiat like other men he had to wait events, and reach compe- 
 tence or affluence by the usual routine. He would, like other 
 men, have then looked back on his narrow circumstances, and 
 their privations, as conditions which, from the first, he knew
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. lO.'l 
 
 must precede preferment,. and would no more have thought such 
 hurdsliips peculiar to his lot, than the first lieutenant of a frigate, 
 the rough work he had had to perform, on small pay, and no 
 delicate mess between decks, when he was a mate, though then 
 perhaps a better seaman than the Commodore. 
 
 With these sentiments we do not expect that all who honor 
 this lyfemoir with a perusal will entirely sympathize ; but im- 
 perfect as it is, we have no fear of its favorable reception by our 
 friends, on the score of its pervading spirit. As to the poor 
 creatures who purse up their unmeaning mouths, trying too 
 without the necessary feature to sport the supercilious — and in- 
 stead of speaking daggers, pip pins against the " Scotch " — 
 they are just the very vermin who used to bite Burns, and one 
 would pause for a moment in the middle of a sentence to impale 
 a dozen of them on one's pen, if they happened to crawl across 
 one's paper. But our Southern brethren — the noble English — 
 who may not share these sentiments of ours — will think " more 
 in sorrow than iu anger" of Burns's fate, and for his sake will 
 be loth to blame his mother land. They must think with a sigh 
 of their <^wn Bloomfield, and Clare ! Our Burns indeed was a 
 greater far; but they will call to mind the calamities of their 
 men of genius, of discoverers in science, who advanced the 
 wealth of nations, and died of hunger — of musicians who taught 
 the souls of the people in angelic harmonies to commerce with 
 heaven, and dropt unhonored into a hole of earth — of painters 
 who glorified the very sunrise and sunset, and were buried in 
 places for a long time obscure as the shadow of oblivion — and 
 surpassing glory and shame of all — 
 
 " Of mighty Poets in their misery dead." 
 
 We never tiiink of the closing years of Burns's life, without 
 feeling what not many seem to have felt, that much more of 
 tilt ir unhappiness is to be attributed to the most mistaken notion 
 he had unfortunately taken up, of there being something de- 
 grading in genius in writing for money, than perhaps to all other 
 causes put tog( tlier. eertainly far more than to his professional 
 calling, however unsuitable that may have been to a poet. By
 
 104 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 persisting in a line of conduct pursuant to that persuasion, he 
 kept. himself in perpetual poverty; and though it is not possible 
 la blame him severely for such a fault, 'originating as it did in 
 the generous enthusiasm of the poetical character, a most seri- 
 ou.s fault il was, and its consequences were most lamentable. 
 !So far from being an extravagant man, in jhe common conceins 
 of life he observed a proper parsimony ; and they must have 
 been careless readers indeed, both of his prose and verse, wlio 
 have taxed him with lending the colors of his geiiius to set otF 
 with a i'alse lustre that profligate profuseness, habitual only with 
 the selfish, and irreconcileahlc with any steadfast domestic virtue. 
 
 " To catch dame Fortune's golden smile, 
 
 Assiduous wait upon her; 
 And gather gear by every wile 
 
 That's justified by honor ; 
 Not for to hide it in a hedge, 
 
 Nor for a train attendant; 
 But for the glorious privilege 
 
 Of being Independent." 
 
 • 
 Such was. the advice he gave to a young friend in 1786, and in 
 1789, in a letter to Robert Ainslie, he says, " Your poets, spend- 
 thrifts, and other fools of that kidney pretend, forsooth, to crack 
 their jokes on prudence — but 'tis a squalid vagabond gloryino- 
 in his rags. Still, imprudence respecting n)oney matters is 
 much more pardonable tlian imnrudence respecting character. 
 1 have no objections to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few 
 instances: but I appeal to your own observation if you have not 
 often met with the same disingenuousness, the same hollow- 
 hearted insincerity, and disintejrrative depravity of principle, in 
 the hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling child- 
 ren of parsimony." Similar sentiments will recur to every one 
 familiar witii hiy writings — all through them till the very end. 
 His very songs are full of them — many of the best impressively 
 preaching in sweetest numbers industry and thrift. So was he 
 privileged to indulge in poetic transports — to picture, without 
 reproach, the genial hours in the poor man's life, alas ! hut toe 
 unfrequent, and therefore to be enjoyed with a lawful revelry,
 
 CHARACTER OF BUR:*S. 195 
 
 at once obedtent to the iron-tongued knell that commands it to 
 ceaoe. So was he justified in scorning tiie close-fisted nicrgard- 
 liness that forces up one finger after another, as if chirted by 
 a screw, and then shows to the pauper a pahn with a doit. 
 " Take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of 
 themselves," is an excellent maxin ; but we do not look for illus- 
 trations of it in poetry; perhaps it is too importunate in prose. 
 Full-grown moralists and political economists, eager to promote 
 the virtue and the wealth of nations, can study it scientifically 
 in Adam Smith — but the boy must have two buttons lo his fob 
 and a clasp, who would seek for it in Robert Burns. The bias 
 of ^oor human nature seems to lean sufiiciently to self, and to 
 require sometliing to balance it the other way ; what more ef- 
 fectual than the touch of a poet's finger ? We cannot relieve 
 every wretch we meet — yet if we " take care of the pennies," 
 how shall tlie hunger that beseeches us on the street get a bap ? 
 If we let "the pounds take care of themselves," how shall we 
 answer to God at the great day of judgment — remembering 
 how often we had let " unpitied want retire to die — " the white- 
 faced widow pass us unrelieved, in faded weeds that seemed as 
 if they were woven of dust ? 
 
 In his poetry, Burns taught love and pity ; in his life he prac- 
 tised them. Nay, though seldom free from the pressure of 
 poverty, so ignorant was he of tlie science of duty, that to the 
 very last he was a notorious giver of alms. Many an impostor 
 must have preyed on his meal-girnel at Ellisland ; perhaps the 
 old sick sailor was one, who nevertheless repaid several weeks' 
 board and lodging with a cutter one-foot keel, and six pound 
 burthen, wliich young Bobby Burns — such is this uncertain word 
 — gral one Sabbath to see a total wreck far off in the mid-eddies 
 of tlie mighty Nith. Bur the idiot who got his dole from the 
 poet's own hand, as often as he chose to come churming up the 
 Vennel, he was no impostor, and though he had lost his wits, 
 retained a sense of gratitude, and returned a blessing in such 
 phrase as thev can articulate " whose lives are hidilen with 
 God." 
 
 How happened it, then, tliat such a man was so neglectful of 
 his wife and family, as to let their hearts often ache while he 
 
 17*
 
 196 • THE GENIUS AjSD 
 
 was in possession of a productive genius that rrtight so easily 
 have procured for them all tiie necessaries, and conveniences, 
 and some even of the luxuries of life? By the Edinhurgh edi- 
 tion of his poems, and the copyright to Creech, he had made a 
 little fortune, and we know how well he used it. From the day 
 of his final settlement with that money-making, story-telling, 
 magisterial bibliopole, who rejoiced for many years in tlie name 
 of Provost — to the week before his death, his pottry, and that 
 too sorely against his will, brought him in — ten pounds f Had 
 he thereby annually earned fifty — what happy faces al that fire- 
 side ! how difttirent that household ! comparatively how calm 
 that troubled life ! 
 
 All the poetry, by which he was suddenly made so famous, had 
 been written, as you know, without the thought of money having so 
 much as flitted across his mind. The delight of embodying in 
 verse the visions of his inspired fancy — of awakening the sympa- 
 thies of the few rustic auditors in his own narrow circle, whose 
 hearts lie well knew throbbed wiiii tiie same emotions that are dear- 
 est to humanity all over the wide world — that had been at first all 
 in all to him — the young poet exulting in his power and in the 
 proof of his power — till as the assurance of his soul in its divine 
 endowment waxed stronger and stronger he beheld his country's 
 muse with the holly-wreath in her hand, and bowed his head to 
 receive the everlasting halo. " And take thou this she smiling 
 said " — that smile was as a seal set on his fame for ever — 
 and " in the old clay bicgin " he was happy to the full 
 measure of his large heart's desire. His poems grew up like 
 flowers before his tread — they came out like singing- birds 
 from the thickets — they grew like clouds on the sky — there they 
 were in their beauty, and he hardly knew they were his o\\ n — 
 so quiet had been their creation, so like the process of nature 
 among her material loveliness, in the season of spnng when life 
 is M^ain evolved out of death, and the renovation seems as if it 
 would never more need the Almighty hand, in that immortal 
 union of earth and heaven. 
 
 You will not think these words extravagant, if you have well 
 considered the ecstasy in which the spirit of the poet was lifted 
 up above the carking cares of his toils)me life, by the conscious
 
 CHARACTER OF BURX-?. 197 
 
 ness of the genius that had been gi ren him to idealize it. "My 
 heart rejoiced in Nature's joy '' he says, renienibcring the 
 beautiful happiness of a summer day reposing on the woods-; 
 and from that line we know how intimate had been his co.ii- 
 munion with Nature long before he had indited to her a single 
 la\- of love. And still as he wandered among her secret haunts 
 lie thought of her poets — with a fearful hope that he might one 
 day be of the number — and most of all of Ferguson and llam- 
 say, because they belonged to Scotland, were Scottish in all 
 their looks, and all their language, in the very habits of their 
 bodies, and in the very frames of their souls — humble names 
 now indeed compared with his own, but to the en'd sacred in his 
 generous and grateful bosom ; for at " The Farmer's Ingle " his 
 imagination had kindled into the "Cottar's Saturday Night;" 
 in the " Gentle Shepherd " he had seen many a happy sight that 
 had furnished the matter, we had almost -said insj)ired the emo- 
 tion, of some of his sweetest and most gladsome songs. In his 
 own every-day working world he walked as a man contented 
 with the pleasure arising in his mere human heart ; but that 
 world the poet could purify and elevate at will into a celestial 
 sphere, still lightened by Scottish skies, still melodious with 
 Scottish streams, still inhabited by Scottish life — sweet as reality 
 — dear as truth — yet visionary as fiction's dream, and felt to be 
 iu part the work of his own creation. Proudly, therefore, on 
 that poorest soil the peasant poet bade speed the plough — proudly 
 he stooped his shoulders to the sack of corn, itself a cart-load — 
 proudly he swept the scythe that swathed the flowery herbage 
 — proudly he grasped the sickle — but tenderly too he " turned 
 the vveeder clips aside, and spared the svvihol dear." 
 
 Well was he entitled to say 10*1115 friend Aiken, in the dedica- 
 tory stanza of the Cottar's Saturday Night : 
 
 " My Icved, my honored, most respected friend ! 
 No mercenary bard his homajie pays; 
 With honest pride I scorn each selfish end, 
 * My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and prai?fc." 
 
 All that he hoped to make by the Kilmarnock edition was iwerty 
 pounds to carry him to the West Indies, heedless of the velluw
 
 198 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 fever. At Edinburgli fortune hand in hand with fame descended 
 on the bard in a shower of gold ; but he had not courted " the 
 siuiles of the fickle goddess," and she. soon wlieelcd away with 
 scornful laughter out of his sight for ever and a day. His 
 poetry had been composed in the fields, with not a plack in the 
 pocket of the poet ; and we verily believe that he thought no 
 more of the circulating medium than did the poor mouse in 
 whv'sc fate he saw his own — but'more unfortunate ! 
 
 " Still thou art blest compared wi' me ! 
 The jirestnt only toucheth thee : 
 But och ! 1 backward cast my e'e 
 
 On prospects drear ! 
 An' forward, though I caiinq,see, 
 
 I guess and year." 
 
 At Ellfsland his colley bore on his collar, " Robert Burns, 
 poet ;" and on his removal to Dumfries, Ave know that he in- 
 dulged the dream of devoting all his leisure time to poetry — a 
 dream iiow imperfectly realiztd ! Poor Johnson, an old Edin- 
 burgh friend, begged in his poverty help«to iijs " Museum," and 
 Thomson, not even an old Edinburgh acquaintance, in his pride 
 — no ignoble pride — solicited it for his " Collaction ;" and fired 
 by the thought of embellishing the body of Scottish song, he 
 spurned the gentle and guarded proifer of remuneration in 
 money, and set to work as he had done of yore in the spirit of 
 love, assured from sweet experience that inspiration was its own 
 reward. Sell a song ! as well sell a wild-flower plucked from a 
 spring, bank at sun-rise. The one pervading feeling docs indeed 
 expand itself in a song, like a wild flower in the breath and dew 
 of morning, which before was' hut a bud, and we are touched 
 w iih a new sense of beauty at the full disclosure. As a song 
 should always be simple,, the flower we liken it to is tiie lily oi- 
 tlie violet. The leaves of the lily are white, but it is not a 
 monotonous whiteness — the leaves of the violet, sometimes "dim- 
 as the lids of Cvtherea's eves" — for Shakspcare has«aitl so — 
 are, win ii well and liap[iy, blue as her ( yes themselves, while 
 lhi;y looked languishingly on Adonis. Yet the exquisite color 
 seems of dillerent shades in its rarest richness \ and even so a?
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 190 
 
 lily or violet shiftingly the same, should he a song in its simpli- 
 city, variously tinged with fine distinctions of the one color of 
 that pervading feeling — now brighter, now dimmer, as open and 
 shut the valve of that mystery, the heart. Sell a song ! No — 
 no — said Burns — " You shall have hundreds for nothing — and 
 we shall all sail down the stream of time togethea", now to merry, 
 and now to sorrowful music, and the dwellers on its banks, as 
 we glide by, shall bless us by name, and call us of the Immor- 
 tals." 
 
 It was in this way that Burns was beguiled by the remem- 
 brance of the inspirations of his youthful prime, into the belief 
 that it would be absolutely sordid to write songs for money ; and 
 thus he continued for years to enrich others by the choicest pro» 
 ducts of his genius, himself remaining all the while, alas! too 
 poor. The richest man in the town was not more regular in the 
 settlement of his accounts, but sometimes on Saturday nights he 
 iiad not whcrewy,hal to pay the expenses of the week's subsist- 
 ence, and had to borrow a pound note. He was more ready to 
 lend one, and you know he died out of debt. But his fan)ily 
 suffered privations it is sad to think of — though to be sure the 
 children were too young to grieve, and soon fell asleep, and 
 Jean was a cheerful creature, strong at heart, and proud of her 
 famous Robin, the Poet of Scotland, whom the whole world ad- 
 mired, but she alone loved, and so far from ever upbraiding him, 
 welcomed him at all hours to her arms and to her heart. It is 
 all very fine talking about tiie delight he enjoyed in the compo- 
 silion of his matchless lyrics, and the restoration of all those 
 faded and broken songs of other ages, burnished by a few 
 touches of bis hand to surpassing beauty ; but what we lament 
 is, that with the Poet it was not " No song, no supper," but " No 
 supper for any song" — -that with an infatuation singular even 
 in the history of the poetic tribe, he adhered to what he had le- 
 solved, in the f^ce of distress which, had lie chosen it, he could 
 have changed into comfort, and by merely doing so as all others 
 did, have secured a competency to his \\ ife and cliildnn. In- 
 fatuation ! It is too strong a word — therefore substitute some 
 other weaker in expression of blame — nay, let it be — if so you 
 will — some gentle term of praise and of pity ; for in this most
 
 200 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 selfish world, 'tis so rare to be of self utterly regardless, that 
 ihe scorn of pelf may for a moment be thought a virtue, even 
 when indulged to the loss of the tenderly beloved. Yet the 
 ■great natural affections have their duties superior over all 
 others between man and man ; and he who sets them aside, in 
 tlie generosity or the joy of genius, must frequently feel that by 
 such dereliction he has become amenable to conscience, and iit 
 hours when enthusiasm is tamed by reflection, cannot escape tiie 
 tooth of remorse. 
 
 How it would have kindled all his highest powers, to have felt 
 assured that by their exercise in the Poet's own vocation he 
 could not only keep want from his door " with stern alarum ban- 
 ishing sweet sleep," but clothe, lodge, and board " tiie wife and 
 weans,'"' as sumptuously as if he had been an absolute super- 
 visor ! In one article alone was he a man of expensive habits — 
 it was quite a craze with him to have his Jean di^&sed genleelly 
 — for she had a fine figure, and as she stepped along tiie green, 
 you might have taken the matron for a maid, so light her foot, so 
 animated her bearing, as if care had never imposed any burden 
 on her not ungraceful slioulders heavier than the milk-pail she 
 had learned at Mossgiel to bear on her head. 'Tis said that she 
 was the first in her rank at Dumfries to sport a gingham gown, 
 and Burns's taste in ribands had been instructed by the rain- 
 bow. To such a pitch of extravagance had he carried his cnaze 
 that when dressed for church, Mrs. Burns, it was conjectured, 
 could not have had on her person much less than the value of 
 two pounds sterling money, and the boys, from their dress and 
 demeanor, you miglit have mistaken for a gentleman's sons. 
 Then he resolved they should have the best education going ; 
 and the lion, the Provost, the Bailies, and Town Council, he pe- 
 titioned thus:."Tlie literary taste and liberal spirit of your'good 
 town have so ably filled the various departments of your schools, 
 as to make it a very great object for a parent to have his chil- 
 dren educated in them ; still, to me a stranger, with my large 
 family, and very stinted income, to give my young ones tiiat edu- 
 cation I wish, at the high school fees which a stranger pays, 
 will bear hard upon me. Some years ago your good town did 
 me the honor of making me an honorary burgess, will you then
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 201 
 
 allow me to request, that this mark of distinction may extend so 
 far as to put me on a footing of a real freeman in the schools?" 
 Had not " his income been so stinted," we know how he would 
 have spent it. 
 
 Then tlie world — the gracious and grateful world — " wonder- 
 ed and of wondering found no end," how and why it happened 
 that Burns was publishing no more poems. What was he about ? 
 Had his genius deserted him ? Was the vein wrought, out ? of 
 fine ore indeed, but thin, and now there was but rubbish. Hi.< 
 contributions to Johnson were not much known, and but some 
 six of his songs in the first half part of Thomson appeared 
 during his life. But what if he had himself given to the world, 
 through the channel of the regular trade, and for his own be- 
 hoof, in Parts, or all at once, Those Two Hundred and Fifty 
 Songs — new and old — original and restored — with all those dis- 
 quisitions, annotations, and ever so many more, themselves often 
 very poetr.y indeed — what would the world have felt, thought, 
 said, and done then ? She would at least not have believed that 
 the author of the Cottar's Saturday Night was — a drunkard. 
 And what would Burns have felt, thought, said, and done then ? 
 He would have felt that he was turning his divine gift to a sacred 
 purpose — he would have thought well of himself, and in that just 
 apj)reciation there would have been peace — he would have said 
 thousands on thousands of high and noble sentiments in discourses 
 and in letters, with an untroubled voice and a steady pen, the 
 sweet persuasive eloquence of the hap[)y — he would have done 
 greater things than it had before entered into his heart to con- 
 ceive — his drama of the Bruce would have come forth magni- 
 ficent from an imagination elevated l)y the joy that was in his 
 heart — his Scottish Georgics would have written themselves, 
 and would have been pure Virgilian — Tale upon Tale, each a 
 day's work or a week's, would have taken the shine out of Tam 
 o' Shanter. 
 
 And here it is incumbent on us to record our sentiments re- 
 garding Mr. Thomson's conduct towards Burns in his worst e.x- 
 trcmit}', which has not only been assailed by "anonvmous scrib- 
 biers," whom perhaps he may rightly regard with contempt ; 
 but as he says in his letter to our esteemed friend, the ingenious
 
 202 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 and enprgetic Robert Cliumbers, to " his great surprise, by some 
 writers who might have been expected to possess sudicient judg- 
 ment to see tiie matter in its true light." 
 
 Ill tiift " melancholy letter received through 1\Irs Hyslop," as 
 Mr. Thomson well calls it, dated April, Burns writes, " Alas! 
 my dear Thomson, I fear it will be some time before I tune my 
 lyre again. ' By Babel streams I have sat and wept,' almost 
 ever since I wrote you last (in February, when he thanked Mr. 
 
 Thomson for ' a handsome elegant present to Mrs. B ,' we 
 
 believe a worsted shawl). I have only knovvn existence by the 
 pressure of the heavy hand of sickness, and have counted time 
 but by the repercussions of pain. Rheumatism, cold, and fever, 
 have formed to me a terrible combination. I close my eyes in 
 misery, and open them without hope." In his answer to that 
 Utter, dated 4lh May, Mr. Thomson writes, "I need not tell 
 you, my good sir, what concern your last gave me, and how 
 much 1 sympathize in your sufferings. But do not, I beseech 
 you, give yourself up to despondency, nor speak the language of 
 despair. The vigor of your constitution, I trust, will soon set 
 you on your feet again ; and then it is to he. hoped you will see 
 the wisdom of taking due care of a life so vaiuahh to your fami'y, 
 to your friends, and to the world. Trusting that your next will 
 bring agreeable accounts of your convali scence, and good spiiits, 
 I remain with sincere regard, yours." This is kind as it should 
 be ; and the advice given to Burns is good, though perhaps, 
 under the circumstances, it might just as well have been spared. 
 In a subsequent letter without date. Burns writes, " I have great 
 hopes that the genial influence of the approaching summer will 
 set me to rights, but as yet I cannot boast of returning health. 
 1 have now reason to believe that my complaint is a flving gout ; 
 a sad business." Then comes that most heart-rendinjj letter, in 
 which the dying Burns, in terror of a jail, implores the oan of 
 five pounds — and the well-known re[)ly. " Ever since 1 received 
 voiir melaneholv letter by Mrs. Ilvslop, I have been ruminaliuir 
 in what manner 1 ('(Hihi endeavor to alleviate your snfl^crings,'' 
 und so f)ii. Shorter riniiimition than of iJirre months nn'ght, one 
 would think, have sullieed to mature some plan lor the alleviation 
 of such suflerings, and human ingen li'iy has been more scverclv
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 203 
 
 taxed than it would have bee-n in devising means to carry it into 
 effect. The reoollectiun of a letter written three years before, 
 when the Poet \\ as in high healtii and s -irits, needed not to have 
 stayed his hand. " The fear of offending your independent 
 spirit," seems a bugbear indeed. " With great pleasure I 
 enclose a draft for the very sum I luid proposed sending ! ! 
 Would I were Chancellor of the Exchequer but for one day 
 for your sake ! ! ! "^ 
 
 Josiah Walker, however, to whom Mr. Thomson gratefully 
 refers, says, " a iew days before Burns expired, he applied to 
 Mr. Thomson for a loan of £5, in a note which showed the irri- 
 table and distracted state of his mind, and his commendable 
 judgment instantly remitted the precise sum, foreseeing that had 
 he, at that moment, presumed to exceed that request, he would 
 have exasperated the irritation and resentment of the haughty 
 invalid, and done him more injury, by agitating his passions,than 
 could be repaired by administering more largely to his wants." 
 Haughty invalid! x\las ! he was humble enough now. " After 
 all my boasted independence, stern necessity compels me to implore 
 you for jive pounds/" Call not that a pang of pride. It is the 
 outcry of a wounded spirit slirinking from tiie last worst arrow 
 of affliction. In one breath he implores succor and forgiveness 
 from the man to whom he had been a benefactor. " Forgive me 
 this earnestness — but the* horrors of a jail have made me half 
 distracted. Forgive me ! Forgive me ! " He asks no gift — he 
 but begs 10 borrow — and trusts to the genius God iiad given him 
 for ability to repay the loan ; nay, he encloses his last song, 
 " Fairest Maid on Devon's banks," as in part payment! But 
 oh ! save Robert Burns from dying in prison. What hauteur! 
 And with so " haughty an invalid," how shall a musical brother 
 deal, so as not " to" exasperate his irritation and resentment," 
 and do him " more injury by agitating his passions, than could 
 be repaired by administering more largely to his wants ? More 
 largely ! Faugh ! faugh ! Foreseeing that he who was half- 
 mad at the horrors of a jail, would go wholly mad were ten 
 pounds sent to him instead of five, which was all " the haughty 
 invalid " had implored, " with commendable judgment," ac(;ord. 
 ing to Josiah Walker's philosophy of human life, George Thorn- 
 
 18
 
 201 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 son sent " the precise sum !" And supposing it had gone into 
 the poclict of the merciless haberdasher, on what did Josiah 
 Walker think would "the haughty invalid" have subsisted then 
 — how paid for lodging without board by the melancholy Sol- 
 way-side ? 
 
 Mr. Thomson's champion proceeds to say — " Burns had all 
 the unmanageable pride of Samuel Johnson, and if the latler 
 threw away with indignation the new shoes ivhigh had been placed 
 at his chamber door, secretly and collectively by his companions, 
 tiie former would have been still more ready to resent any pecu- 
 niary donation which a single individual, after his peremp- 
 tory prohibition, should avowedly have dai-ed to insult him with." 
 In Boswell we read — " Mr. Bateman's lectures were so excellent 
 that Johnson used to come and get them at socond-hand from 
 Taylor, till his poverty being so extreme, that his shoes were 
 worn but, and his feet appeared through them, he saw that his 
 humiliating condition was perceived by the Christ-Church men, 
 and he came no more. He was too proud to accept of money, 
 and somebody having set a pair of new shoes at his door, he 
 threw them away with indignation." Hall, Master of Pem- 
 broke, in a note on this passage, expresses strong doubts of 
 Johnson's poverty at college having been extreme ; and Croker, 
 with his usual accuracy, says, "authoritatively and circumstan- 
 tially as this story is told, there is good reason for disbelieving it 
 altogether. Taylor was admitted Commoner of Christ-Church, 
 June 27, 1720 ; Johnson left Oxford six months before." Sup- 
 pose it true. Had Johnson found the impudfnt cub in the act of 
 depositing the eleemosynary sliocs, he infallibly would have 
 knocked him down with fist or folio as clean as he afterwards did 
 Osborne. But Mr. Thomson was no such cub, nor did he stand 
 relatively to Burns in the same position as such cub to Johnson. 
 He owed Burns much money — though Burns would not allow 
 himself to think so ; and had he expostulated, with open heart 
 and hand, with the Bard on his obstinate — he misht have kindlv 
 
 said foolish and wor^e than foolish disrecard not only of his own 
 
 r 
 interest, but of the comfort of his wife and family — had he gone 
 
 to Dumfries for the sole purpose — who* can doubt that " his jus- 
 tice and generosity " would have Deen crowned with success ?
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 205 
 
 Who but Josiah Walker could have said, that Burns would 
 have then thought himself insulted ? Resent a "pecuniary 
 donation" indeed! What is a donation? Johnson tells us in 
 the words of South ; " After donation there is an absolute change 
 and alienation made of the property of the thing given ; which, 
 being alienated, a man has no more to do with .it than with a 
 thing bought with another's monev." It was Burns who made a 
 donation to Thomson of a hundred and twenty songs. 
 
 All mankind must agree with Mr. Lockhart when he says — 
 " W'hy Burns, who was of opinion, when he wrote his letter to 
 Mr. Carfrae, that ' no profits were more honorable than those of 
 the labors of a man of genius,' and whose own notions of inde- 
 pendence had sustained no shock in the receipt of hundreds of 
 pounds from Creech, should have spurned the suggestion of pe- 
 cuniary recompense from Mr. Thomson, it is no easy matter to 
 explain ; nor do I profess to understand why Mr. Thomson took 
 so little pains to argue the matter in limine with the poet, and 
 convince him t'.iat the time which he himself considered as fairly 
 entitled to be- paid for by a common bookseller, ought of right to 
 be vSlued and acknowledged by the editor and proprietor of a 
 book containing both songs and music." We are not so much 
 blaming tiie backwardness of Thomson in the matter of the songs, 
 as we are exposing the blather of Walker in the story of the 
 shoes. Yet something there is in the nature of the whole trans- 
 action tiiat nobody can stomach. We think we have in a great 
 m< asure explained how it iiappcned that Burns " spurned tiie- 
 suggestion of pecuniary recompense ;" and bearing our remarks 
 in mind, look for a moment at tlie circumstances of the case. 
 I\Ir. Thomson, in his first letter, September, 1792, says, '^Profit 
 is quite a secondary consideration ivith us, and we are resolved to 
 spare neither pains nor expense on the publication." " We 
 shall esteem your poetical assistance a particular favor, besides 
 paying any reasonable price you shall please demand for it." 
 And would Robert Burns condescend to receive money for his 
 contributions to a work in honor of Scotland, undertaken by men 
 with whom " profit was quite a secondary consideration?" , lin 
 jiossible. In .fuly, 1793, when Burns had been for nine months 
 entliusiastically co-operating in a great national work, and hail
 
 206 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 proved that he would carry it on to a triumphant close, Mr. 
 Thomson writes — " I cannot express how much I am obliged to 
 you fur the exquisite new songs you are sending me ; but thanks, 
 my friend, are a poor return for what you have done. As I 
 shall be benefited by the publication, you must suffer me to in- 
 close a small mariv of my gratitude, and to repeat it afterwards 
 when I find it convanient. Do not return it — for by heaven if 
 you do, our correspondence is at an end.'' A bank-note for five 
 pounds ! " In the name of the prophet — Figs ! Burns, with a 
 proper feeling, retained the trifle, but forbad the repetition of it ; 
 and evej'ybody must see, at a glance, that such a man could not 
 have done otherwise — for it would have been most degrading in- 
 deed had he shown himself ready to accept a five pound note 
 when it might happen to suit the convenience of an Editor. His 
 domicile was not in Grub-street. 
 
 Mr. Walker, still further to soothe Mr. Tiiomson's feelings, 
 sent him an extract from a letter of Lord Woodliouselee's — " I 
 am glad liiat you have embraced the occasion which lay in your 
 way of doing full justice to Mr. George Thomson, who I agree 
 with you in thinking, was most harshly and illiberally treated by 
 an anonymous dull calumniator. I have always regarded Mr. 
 Thomson as a man of great worth and most respectable charac- 
 ter ; ami 1 have every reason to bolieve that poor Burns felt 
 hunself as much indebted, to his good counsels and active friend- 
 skip as a man, as the public is sensible he was to his good taste and 
 judgment as a critic." Mr. Thomson, in now giving, for the first 
 time, this extract to the public, says, " Of the unbiassed opinion 
 of such a highly respectable gentleman and accomplished wri- 
 ter as Lord Woodhousclee, I certainly feel not a little proud. 
 It is of itself naore than sufficient to silence the calumnies by 
 which I have boon assailed, first anonymously, and afterwards, 
 to my great surprise, Ijy some writers who might have been ex- 
 pected to possess suflicicnt judgment to see the matter in its true 
 light." He has reason to feel proud of his .Lordship's good opi- 
 nion, and on the ground of his private character he deserved it. 
 But the assertions contained in the extract have no bearing 
 whatever on the question, and they are entirely untrue. Lord 
 Woodfiouselee could have had no authority lor believing, " that
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 207 
 
 poor Burns felt himself indebted to Mr. Thomson's good counsels 
 and active friendship as a man." Mr. Thomson, a person of no 
 influence or account, had it not in iiis power to exert any " active 
 friendship " for Burns — and as to " good counsels," it is not to be 
 believed for a moment, that a modest man like him, who had 
 never interchanged a word with Burns, would have presumed 
 to become liis Mentor. This is putting hin) forward in the high 
 character of Burns's benefactor, not only in his worldly con- 
 cerns, but in his moral well-being ; a position which of himself 
 he never could have dreamt of claimino;, and from which h^ 
 must, on a moment's consideration, with pain inexpressible re- 
 coil. Neither is " the public sensible " that Burns was " indebt- 
 ed to his good taste and judgment as a critic." The public 
 kindly regard Mr. Thomson, and think that in his correspondence 
 with Burns he makes a respectable figure. But Burns repudi- 
 ated most of his critical strictures; and the worthy Clerk of 
 the Board of Trustees does indeed frequently fall into sad mis- 
 takes, concerning alike poetry, music, and painting. Lord 
 Woodhouselee's "unbiassed opinion," then, so far from being of 
 itself " suflicicnt to silence the calumnies of ignorant assailants, 
 &c.," is not worth a straw. 
 
 'Mr. Thomson, in his five pound letter, asks — "Pray, my good 
 sir, is it not possible for you to muster a volume of poetry ?" Why, 
 with the assistance of Messrs. Johnson and Thomson, it would 
 have been possible ; and then Burns might have called in his 
 "Jolly Beggars." "If too much, trouble to you," continues 
 Mr. Thomson, " in the present state of your health, some literary 
 friend might be found here who would select and arrange your 
 manuscripts, and take upon iiim the task of editor. In the 
 meantime, it could be advertised to be published by subscrip- 
 tion. Do not sliun this mode of obtaining the value of your 
 labor ; remember Pope published the Iliad by subscription." 
 Why, had not Burns published his own poems by subscriplion ! 
 All this seems the* strangest mockery ever hoariiof; yet thert; 
 can be no doubt that it was written not only with a serious face, 
 but with a kind heart. But George Thomson at that time was 
 almost as poor a man as Robert Burns. Allan Cuninghame, a 
 
 man of genius and virtue, in his interesting Life of Burns, has iu 
 
 18*
 
 203 THE GENIUS ^ND 
 
 liis characteristic straight- forward- slyle put the matter — in as 
 Car as regards the money remittance — in its true light, and all 
 Mr. Thomson's friends should he thankful to him — "Thomson 
 instantly complied with the request of Burns; he borrowed a 
 five-pound note from Cunningham (a draft), and sent it saying, 
 he had made up his mind to inclose the identical sum the poet 
 had asked for, when he received his letter. For this he has 
 been sh-arply censured ; and his defence is, that he was afraid o! 
 sending more, lest he should offend the pride of the poet, who 
 was uncommonly sensitive in pecuniary matters. A better de- 
 fence is Thomson's own poverty ; only one volume of his splen- 
 did work was then published ; his outlay had been beyond his 
 means, and very small sums of money had come in to cover his 
 large expenditure. Had he been richer,his defence would have 
 been a difficult matter. When Burns made the stipulation, his 
 hopes were high, and the dread of hunger or of the jail was far 
 from his thoughts ; he imagined that it became genius to refuse 
 money in a work of national importance. But his situation 
 grew gloomier as he wrote ; he had lost nearly his all in Ellis- 
 land, and was obliged to borrow small sums, which he found a 
 difficulty in repaying.* That he was in poor circumstances was 
 well known to the world; and had money been at Thomson's 
 disposal, a way might have been found of doing the poet good by 
 stealth : he sent five pounds, because he could iwt send ten, and 
 it would have saved him from some sarcastic remarks, and some 
 j)ungs of heart, had he said so at once." 
 
 Mr. Thomson has attempted a defence of himself about once 
 every seven years, but has always made the matter worse, by 
 putting it on wrong grounds. In a letter to that other Arcadian, 
 Josiah Walker, he says — many years ago — "Now, the fact is, 
 that notwithstanding the united labors of all the men of genigs 
 who have enriched my Collection, I am not even yd comjjeiisated 
 lor the precious time consumed by me in poring over 7mts1y vo- 
 Itimrs, and in oorrespondivg wilJi every aninleur and poet, by whose 
 means I expected to make any valuable addition to our national 
 music and song ; — -for the exertion and money it coat me to obtain 
 aceonjpaniinonts from the greatest masters of harmony in Vien- 
 uo ; and for the sums paid to engravers, printers, and others.'
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 20<> 
 
 Let us separate the items of this accouift. The money laid out 
 by him must stand by itself — and for that outlay, he had tiien 
 been compensated by the profits of the sale of the Collection. 
 Those profits, we do not doubt, had been much exao;gerated by 
 public opinion, but they had then been considerable and have 
 since' been sreat. Our undivided attention has therefore to be 
 turni-d to " his precious time consumed," and to its inacfequate 
 compensation. And the first question that naturally occurs to 
 every reader to ask himself is — " in what sense are we to take 
 the terms ' time,' ' precious,' and ' consumed V " Inasmuch as 
 " time " is only another word for life, it is equally " precious" to 
 all men. Take it then to mean leisure hours, in which nsen seek 
 for relaxation and enjoyment. Mr. Thomson tells us that he was, 
 from earlv youth, an enthusiast in music and in poetry ; and it 
 puzzles us to c(?hceive what he means by talking of " his precious 
 time being consumed" in such studies. To an entliusiast, a 
 "musty volume" is a treasure beyond the wealth of Ind — to 
 pore over " musty volumes " sweet as to gaze on melting eyes — 
 he hugs them to his heart. They are their own exceedinj; ijreat 
 reward — and we cannot listen to any claim for pecuniary com- 
 pensation. Then who ever heard, before or since, of an enthu- 
 siast in poetry avowing before the world, that he had not been 
 sufficiently compensated in money, " for the precious time con- 
 sumed by him in corresponding with Poets ? " Poets are prover- 
 bially an irritable race ; still there is something about them that 
 makes them very engaging; — and we cannot bring oursetves to 
 think that George Thomson's " precious time consumed" in cor- 
 responding with Sir Walter Scott, 'I'homas Campbell, Joanna 
 Baillie, and the Ettrick Shepherd, deserved " compensatioq." Aa 
 to amateurs, we mournfuU^rgrant they are burthensome ; yet 
 even that burtiien may uncomplainingly be borne by an Editor 
 who " expects by their means to make any valuable addition to 
 our national music and song ;" and it cannot be denied, that the 
 creatures have often good ears, and turn off tolerable verses. 
 F'inally, if by " precious " he means valuable, in a Politico Eco, 
 nomical sense, we do not se^ how !\Ir. Thomson's time could iuivo 
 been consumed more productively to himself ; nor indeed how he 
 could have made any money at all by a ditiercnt employment of
 
 210 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 it, In every sense, therefore, in which the words are construed, 
 they are equally absurd ; and all who read them are forced to 
 think of one whose '' precious time was indeed consumed " — to 
 Lis fatal loss — the too generous, the self-devoted Burns — but for 
 whose " uncompensated exertions," " The Melodies of Scotland " 
 would have been to the Editor a ruinous concern, in place ol'' one 
 which for nearly half a century must have been yielding him a 
 greater annual income than the Poet would have enjoyed had he 
 been even a Supervisor. 
 
 Mr. Thomson has further put forth in his letter to Robert Chal- 
 mers, and not now for the first time, this most injudicious defence. 
 " Had I been a selfish or avaricious man, I had a fair opportuni- 
 ty, upon the death of the poet, to put money in my pocket ; for 
 1 might then have published, for my own behoof, all the beauti- 
 ful lyrics he had written forme, the original manuscripts of which 
 were in my possession. But instead of doing this, I was no 
 sooner informed that the friends of the poet's family had come to 
 a resolution to collect iiis works, and to publish them, for the 
 benefit of the family, and that they thought it of importance to 
 include my MSS. as being likely, from their number, their novel- 
 ty, and their beauty, to prove an attraction to subscribers, than I 
 felt it my duty to put them at once in possession of all the songs, 
 and of the correspondence between the poet and myself; and 
 accordingly, through Mr. John Syme of Ryedale, I transmitted 
 the whole to Dr. Currie, who had been prevailed on, immensely 
 to the (idvantage of Mrs. Burns and her children, to take on him- 
 self the task of editor. For this surrendering the manuscripts, 
 I received both verbally an<l in wi'iiing, the warm thanks of the 
 trustees for the family — Mi Jjhn Svme and Mr. Gilbert Burns 
 — who considered wiiat ] tiad done as a fair return for the poet's 
 generosity of ctfnduct to me." Of course he retained the exclu- 
 sive right of pul)lisliiiig the .songs with the music in his Collec- 
 tion. Now, what if he had refused to surrender the manuscripts? 
 'J'hc whole world would have accused him of robbing the \\ idow 
 and orphan, urid ho would have been hooted out of Scotland. 
 (Jeorge 'I'homson, rather than have (ftne so, would have suflTered 
 himself to be pressed to deatli between two mill-stones ; and yet 
 he not only instances his liaving "surrendered the MSS. as a
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 211 
 
 proof of the calumnious nature of the abuse with which- he had 
 been assailed by anonymous scribblers, but is proud of the thanks 
 of " the trustees-of the family, who considered what I had done 
 as a. fair return for the poet's generosity of conduct to me." 
 Setting aside, then, "the calumnies of anonymous scribblers," 
 with one and all of which we are unacquainted, we have shown 
 that Josiah Walker^ in his foolish remarks on this affair, whereby 
 he outraged the common feelings of humanity, left his friend just 
 where he stood before — that Lord Woodhouselee knew nothing 
 whatever about the matter, and in his good nature has made as- 
 sertions absurdly untrue — that Mr. Thomson's own defence of 
 himself is in all respects an utter failure, and mainly depends on 
 the supposition of a case unexampled in a Christian land — that 
 Lockhart with unerring finger has indicated where the fault lav — 
 and that Cuninghame has accounted for it by a reason that with 
 candid judges must serve to reduce it to one of a very pardona- 
 ble kind ; the avowal of which from the first, would have saved a 
 worthy man from some unjust obloquy, and at least as much unde- 
 served commendation — the truth being now apparent to' all. ihut 
 " his poverty, not his will, consented " to secure on the terms of 
 non-payment, a hundred and twenty songs from the'^reatest 
 lyrical poet of his country, who during the years he was thus lav- 
 ishing away the effusions of his matchless genius, without fee or 
 reward, was in a state bordering on destitution, and as the pen 
 dropt from his hand, did not leave sufficient to defray the e.xpen- 
 ses of a decent funeral. 
 
 We come now to contemplate his dying days ; and mournful 
 as the contemplation is, tiie close of many an illustrious life has 
 been far more distressing, involved in far thicker darkness, and 
 fdv heavier storms. From youth he had been visited — we shall 
 not say haunted — by presentiments of an early d( alh ; he knew 
 well that the profound melanclioly that oficn settled down upon 
 his wiiole being, suddenly changing day into night, arose from 
 his organization ; — and it seems as if the finest still bordered on 
 disease — disease in his case perhaps hereditary — for his fatlier 
 was often sadder than even " the twil- worn cottar " needed to be 
 a-id looked like a man subject to inward trouble. His character 
 was somewhat stern ; and we can believe that in its austerity he
 
 212 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 found a safeguard against passion, that nevertheless may shako 
 the lifu it cannot wreck. But the son wanted the fatlier's firm- 
 ness ; and in his veins there coursed more impetuous bU>od. Tlio 
 very tire of genius consumed him, coming and going in lit- 
 ful flashes ; his genius itself may almost be called a passion, so 
 vilu-mcnt was it, and so turbulent — though it had its scenes of 
 blissful quietude ; his heart too seldom suffered itself to be at 
 rest ; many a fever travelled through his veins ; his calmest 
 nights were liable to be broken in upon by the worst of dreams — 
 wakintT dreams from which there is no deliverance in a sudden 
 start — of which the misery is felt to be no delusion — which are 
 not dispelled by the morning light, but accompany their victim 
 as he walks out into the day, and among the dew, and. surround- 
 ed as he is with the beauty of rejoicing nature, tempt him to 
 curse the day he was born. 
 
 Yet let us not call the life of Burns unhappy — nor at its close 
 shut our eyes to the manifold blessings showered by heaven on 
 the Poet's lot. Many of the mental suflerings that helped most 
 to wear him out, originated in his own restless nature — " by pru- 
 dent, cautious, self-control " he might have subdued some and 
 temper^ others — better regulation was within his power — and, 
 like all men, he paid the penalty of neglect of duty, or of it!& 
 violation. But what loss is hardest to bear? The loss of the 
 beloved. All other wounds are slight to those of the affections. 
 Let Fortune do her worst — so that Death be merciful. Burns 
 went to his own grave without having been commanded to look 
 down into another's whore all was buried. " 1 have latelydrunk 
 deep of the cup of aflliction. The autumn robbed me of my 
 only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and 
 so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to 
 her." The flower withered, and he wept — but his four pretty 
 boys were soon dancing again in their glee — their mother's heart 
 was soon c()m[)osed again to cheerfuhjcss — -and her face without 
 a sliadow. Anxiety for their sakes did indeed keep preying on 
 his heart ; — .hut wliat would that anxiety have seemed to liini, 
 had he been called upon to look back upon it in anguish because 
 thcij iverc not? Happiness too great for this earth! If in a
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 213 
 
 dream for one short hour restored, that would have been like an 
 hour in heaven. 
 
 Burns had not been well for a twelvemonth ; and though no- 
 body seems even then to have thought him dying, on the return 
 of spring, which brought him no strength, he knew that his days 
 were numbered. Intense thought, so it be calm, is salutary to 
 life. It is emotion that shortens our days by hurrying life's pul- 
 sations — till the heart can no more, and runs down like a disor- 
 dered time-piece. We said nobody seems to have thought him 
 jyintr; — yet after the event everybody, on looking back on it, 
 remembered seeing death in his face. It is when thinking of 
 those many months of decline and decay, that we feel pity and 
 sorrow for his fate, and that along with them other emotions will 
 arise, without our well knowing towards whom, or by what name 
 they should be called, but partaking of indignation, and shame, 
 and reproach, as if some great wrong had been done, and might 
 have been rectified before death came to close the account. Not 
 without blame somewhere could such a man have been so neg- 
 lected — so forgotten — so left alone to sicken and die. 
 
 " Oh, 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 !" 
 
 No son of Scotland did ever regard her with more fiilial affec- 
 tion — did ever in strains so sweet sing of thescenes " tiiat make 
 her loved at home, revered abroad " — and yet his mother 
 stretched not out her hand to sustain — when it was too late to 
 save — her own Poet as he was sinking into an untimely grave. 
 But the dying man complained not of her ingratitude — he loved 
 her loo well to the last to suspect her of such sin — there was 
 nothini'' for him to forgive — and he knew that he would have a 
 .place for ever in her memory. Her rulers were occupied with 
 great concerns — in which all. thoughts of self were merged f and 
 therefore well might they forget her Poet, who was but a cottar's 
 son and a ganger. In sifch forgetfulness they were what other 
 rulers have been, and will be, — and Coleridge lived to know that 
 the great ones of his own land could be as heartless in his own
 
 214 THE GENTUS AND 
 
 case as the '"Scotch nobiKty " in tliat of Burns, ior«'hose ferows 
 his voiitliful fjenius wove a wreath of scorn. " The rapt one of 
 tlic orudlike forehead, uie tieaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth" — 
 hut ^^^o airioiig them cared for the long self-seclusion of the 
 vviiite-iieaded sage — for his sick bed, or iiis grave? 
 
 Turn wc tiien froir the Impersonation named Scotland — from 
 luM" rulers — fj'om her nobility and gentry — to tiie personal 
 friends of Burns. Could they have served him in his straits ? 
 And how ? If they could, then were they bound to do so by a 
 •stricter obligation than lay upon any other party ; and if they 
 had tlie will as well as the power, 'twould have been easy to find 
 a way. The duties of friendship are plain, simple, sacred — 
 and to perform them is delightful ; yet, so far as we can see, 
 they were not performed iiere — if they were, let us have the 
 names of the beneficent who visited Burns every other day dur- 
 ing the months disease had deprived him of all power to follow 
 his calling? Who insisted on helping to keep the family in 
 comfort till his strength might be restored ? For exam])le, to 
 pay his house refit for a year? Mr. Syme, of Ryedale, told 
 Dr. Currie, that Burns had " many firm friends in Dumfries," 
 who would not have suffered the haberdasher to put him into 
 jail, and that his were the fears of a man in delirium. Did not 
 those " linn fiiends " know that he was of necessity very poor ? 
 And did any one of them ofTor to lend him, thirty shillings to 
 pay for his three weeks' lodgings at the Brow ? Me was not in 
 delirium — till within two days of his death. Small sums he had 
 occasionally borrowed and repaid ; but from people as poor as 
 himself; such as kind Craig, the schoolmaster, to wliom, at Iiis 
 death, he owed a pound — never from the more opulent townfolk 
 or the gentry in the neighborhood, of not one of whom is it re- 
 corded that' he or she accommodated the dying Poet with a loan 
 suflicient to pay for a week's porridge and milk, l^et us have 
 no more disgusting palaver about his pride. His heart would 
 have melted within him at any act of considerate frieiidship 
 flone to his family ; and so far from feeling that by accepting it 
 he had become a pau[)er, he would have recognized in the doer 
 of it a brother, and taken him into his heart. And had he not 
 in all ijje earth, one single such Friend ? His brother Cilbert
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 215 
 
 was struggling with severe difficulties at Mossgiel, and was tlien 
 unable to assist hitn ; and his excellent cousin at Montrose had 
 enou"h to do to u)aiiitain liis own family ; but as soon as he 
 kniiw how matters stood, he showed tha^ the true Burns' blood 
 was in his heart, and after the Poet's death, was as kind as man 
 could be to his widow and children. 
 
 What had come over Mrs. Dunlop that she should have 
 seemed to have forgotten or forsaken him ? " These many 
 months you have been two packets in my debt — what sin of 
 ignorance I have committed against so highly valued a friend I 
 am utterly at a loss to guess ! Alas ! Madam, ill can I aiTord, 
 at this time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my 
 pleasures. * * .* I had scarcely begun to recover 
 from that shock (the death of his little daughter), when I bo- 
 came myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and 
 long the die spun doubtful ; until, after many weeks of a sick 
 bed, it seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl 
 across my I'oom, and once, indeed, have been before my own 
 door in the street." No answer came ; and three months after 
 he wrote from the Brow, " Madam — I have written vou so often 
 without receiving any answer, that I would not trouble you 
 again but for the circumstances in which I am. An illness 
 which has long hung about me, in all probability will speedily 
 send me be3'ond that hourne xohence no traveller returns. Your 
 friendship, with which for many years you honored me, was a 
 friendship dearest to iny soul. Your conversation, and espe- 
 cially your correspondence, were at once highly entertaining 
 and instructive. With what pleasure did 1 use to break up the 
 seal ! The remembrance yet adds one pulse more to my poor 
 palpitating heart. Farewell. R. B." Currie says, "Burns 
 had the pleasure of receiving a satisfactory explanation of his 
 friend's silence, and an assurance of the continuance of her 
 friendship to his widow and children ; an assurance that has 
 been amply fulfilled. That "satisfactory explanation" should 
 have been given to the world — it should be given yet — for with- 
 out it such incomprehensible silence must continue to seem 
 cruel ; and it is due to the memory of one whom Burns loved 
 
 19
 
 216 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 and honored to the last, to vindicate on her part the faithfulness 
 of the friendship which preserves her name. 
 
 Maria Riddel, a lady of fine talents and accomplishments, and 
 though somewhat capricious in the consciousness of her mental 
 and personal attractions, yet of most amiable disposition, and 
 of an affectionate and tender heart, was so little aware of the 
 condition of the Poet, whose genius she could so well appreciate, 
 that only a few weeks before his death, when he could hardly 
 crawl, he had by letter to decline acceding to her " desire that 
 he would go to the birth-day assembly, on the 4th June, to skoto 
 his loyalty /" Alas ! he was fast " wearin' awa to the land o' 
 the leal ;" and after the lapse of a few weeks, that lady gay, 
 herself in poor health, and ' saddened out of such vanities by 
 since rest sorrow, was struck with his appearance on entering 
 the room. " The stamp of death was imprinted on his features. 
 He seemed already touching the brink of eternity. His first 
 salutation was — ' Well, Madam, have you any commands for 
 the next world V " The best men have indulged in such sallies, 
 on the brink of the grave. Nor has the utterance of words like 
 these, as life's taper was flickering in the socket, been felt to 
 denote a mood of levity unbecoming a creature about to go to 
 his account. On the contrary, there is something very affect- 
 ing in the application of such formulas of speech as had been 
 of familiar use all iiis days, on his passage through the shadow 
 of time, now that his being is about to be liberated into the 
 light of eternity, where our mortal language is heard not, and 
 spirit communicates with spirit through organs not made of clay, 
 having dropped the body like a garment. 
 
 In that interview, the last recorded, and it is recorded well — 
 pity so much should have been suppressed — "he spoke of his 
 death without any of the ostentation of philosophy, but with 
 firmness as well as feeling, as an event likely to happen very 
 soon, and which gave him concern chiefly from leaving his poor 
 chihiren so young and unprotected, and his wife in so interesting 
 a situation, in hourly expectation of lying in of a fifth." Yet, 
 during the whole afternoon, he was cheerful, even gay, and dis- 
 posed for pleasantry ; such is the power of the human voice 
 and the human eye over the human heart, almost to the re-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 217 
 
 suscitation of drowned hope, when they are both suffused with 
 affection, when tones are as tender as tears, yet can better 
 hide the pity that ever and anon will be gushing from the lids 
 of grief. He expressed deep contrition for having been betrayed 
 by his inferior nature and vicious sympathy with the dissolute, 
 into impurities in verse, which he knew were floating about 
 among people of loose lives, and might on his death be collected 
 to the hurt of his moral character. Never had Burns been 
 "hired minstrel of voluptuous blandishment," nor by such un- 
 guarded freedom of speech had he ever sought to corrupt ; but 
 emulating the ribaH wit and coarse humor of some of the worst 
 old ballants current among the lower orders of the people, of 
 whom the moral and religious are often tolerant of indecencies 
 to a strange degree, he felt that he had sinned against his ge- 
 nius. A miscreant, aware of his poverty, had made him an 
 offer of fifty pounds for a collection, which he repelled with the 
 horror of remorse. Such things can hardly be said to have 
 existence ; the polluted perishes, or shovelled aside from the 
 socialities of mirthful men, are nearly obsolete, except among 
 those whose thoughtlessness is so great as to be sinful, amonp- 
 whom the distinction ceases between the weak and the wicked. 
 From such painful thoughts he turned to his poetry, that had 
 every year been becoming dearer and dearer to the people, and 
 he had comfort in the assurance that it was pure and good ; and 
 he wished to live a little longer that he might mend 'his Songs, 
 for through them he felt he would survive in the hearts of the 
 dwellers in cottage-homes all over Scotland ; and in the fond 
 imagination of his heart Scotland to him was all the world. 
 
 " He spoke of his death without any of the ostentation of phi- 
 losophy," and perhaps without any reference to religion ; for 
 dying men often keep their profoundest thoughts to themselves, 
 except in the chamber in which they believe they are about to 
 have the last look of the objects of their earthly love, and there 
 they give them utterance in a few words of hope and trust. 
 While yet walking about in the open air, and visiting their friends, 
 they continue to converse about the things of this life in lan- 
 guage so full of animation, that you might think, but for some- 
 thing about their eyes, that they are unconscious of their doom ;
 
 218 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 and so at times they are ; for the customary pleasure of social 
 intercourse does not desert them ; the sight of others well and 
 happy beguiles them of the mournful knowledge that their own 
 term has nearly expired, and in that oblivion they are cheerful 
 as the persons seem to be who for their sakes assume a smiling 
 aspect in spite of struggling tears. So was it with Burns at tiie 
 Brow. But he had his Bible with him in his lodgings, and he 
 read it almost continually — often when seated on a bank, from 
 which he had difficulty in rising without assistance, for his weal*. 
 ness was extreme, and in his emaciation he was like a ghost. 
 The fire of his eye was. not dimmed — indeed fever had lighted 
 it up beyond even its natural briglitness ; and though his voice, 
 once so various, was now hollow, his discourse was still that of 
 a Poet. To the last he loved the sunshine, the grass, and the 
 flowers; to the last he had a kind look and word for the pass- 
 ers-by, who all knew it was Burns. Laboring men, on their 
 way from work, would step aside to the two or three houses 
 called the Brow, to know if there was any hope of his life ; and 
 it is not to be doubted that devout people remembered him, who 
 had written the Cottar's Saturday Night, in their prayers.. His 
 sceptical doubts no longer troubled him ; they had never been 
 more than shadows; and he had at last the faith of a confiding 
 Christian. We are not even to suppose that his heart was always 
 disquieted within him because of the helpless condition of his 
 widow and orphans. That must' have been indeed with him a 
 dismal day on which he wrote three letters about them so full of 
 anguish ; but to give vent to grief in passionate outcries usually 
 assuages it, and tranquillity sometimes steals upon despair. His 
 belief that he was so sunk in debt was a delusion — not of deli- 
 rium, but of the fear that is in love. And comfort must have 
 come to him in the conviction that his country would not sufler 
 the family of her Poot to be in want. As long as he had health 
 thfy were happy, though poor ; as long as he was alive, they 
 were not utterly dtstitute. That on liis death they would be 
 paupers, was a dread that could have had rio abiding place in a 
 heart that knew how it had beat for Scotland, and in the power 
 of genius had poured out all its love on her fields and her people. 
 His heart was pierced with the same wounds that extort lamen.
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS, 219 
 
 tations from the death-beds of ordinary men, thinking of what 
 will become of wife and children ; but liiie the pouring of oil 
 upon them by some gracious hand, must have been the frequent 
 recurrence of the belief — " On my death people will pity them, 
 and care for them for my name's sake." Some little matter of 
 money he knew he should leave behind him — the two hundred 
 pounds he had lent to his brother ; and it sorely grieved him to 
 think that Gilbert might be ruined by having to return it. What 
 brotherly affection was there ! They had not met for a good 
 many years ; but personal intercourse was not required to sus- 
 tain their friendship. At the Brow often must the dying Poet 
 have remembered Mossgiel. 
 
 On the near approach of death he returned to his own house, 
 in a spring-cart ; and having left it at the foot of the street, he could 
 just totter up to his door. The last words his hand had strength 
 to put on paper were to his wife's father, and were written pro- 
 bably within an hour of his return home. " My dear Sir — Do, 
 for heaven's sake, send Mrs. Armour here immediately. My 
 wife is hourly expected to be put to bed ! Good God ! what 
 a situation for her to be in, poor girl, without a friend ! I 
 returned from sea-bathing quarters to-day; and my medical 
 friends would almost persuade me that I am better ; but I 
 think and feel that my strength is so gone, that tlie disorder 
 will prove fatal to me. Your son-in-law, 11. B." That is not 
 the letter of a man in delirium ; nor was the letter written a 
 few days betbre from the Brow to " my dearest love." But 
 next day he was delirious, and the day after too, though on 
 being spoken to he roused himself into collected and composed 
 thought, and was, ever and anon, for a few minutes himself — 
 Robert Burns. In his delirium there was nothing to distress the 
 listeners and the lookers on ; words were heard that to them had 
 no meaning ; mistakings made by the parting spirit among its 
 language now in confusion breaking up ; and sometimes words 
 of trifling import about trifling things — about incidents and 
 events unnoticed in their happening, but now strangely cared 
 for in their final repassing before the closed eyes just ere the 
 dissolution of the dream of a dream. Nor did his death-bed 
 want for aHectionate and faithful service. The few who were
 
 220 THE GENIUS AND 
 
 privileged to tend it did so tenderly and reverently — how by the 
 side of the sick wife, and now by that of the dying husband. 
 Maxwell, a kind physician, came often to gaze in sadness where 
 no skill could relieve. Fiudlater, supervisor of excise, sat by his 
 bed-side the night before he died ; and Jessie Lewars, daughter 
 and sister of a gauger, was his sick nurse. Had he been her 
 own father, she could not have done her duty with a more per- 
 fect devotion of her whole filial heart — and her name will never 
 die, " here eternized on earth" by the genius of the Poet who, 
 for all her Christian kindness to him and his, had long cherished 
 toward her the tenderest gratitude. His children had been taken 
 care of by friends, and were led in to be near him, now that his 
 hour was come. His wife in her own bed knew it, as soon as 
 her Robert was taken from her ; and the great Poet of the Scot- 
 tish people, who had been born " in the auld clay biggin " on a 
 stormy winter night, died in an humble tenement on a bright 
 summer morning, among humble folk, who composed his body, 
 and according to custom strewed around it flowers brought from 
 their own gardens. 
 
 Great was the grief of the people for their Poet's death. They 
 felt that they had lost their greatest man ; and it is no exagge- 
 ration to say that Scotland was saddened on the day of his fune- 
 ral. It is seldom that tears are shed even close to the grave 
 beyond the inner circle that narrows round it ; but that day 
 there were tears in the eyes of many far oflT at their work, and 
 that night there was silence in thousands of cottages that had 
 so often heard his songs — how sweeter far than any other, 
 whether mournfully or merrily to old accordant melodies they 
 won their way into the heart ! The people had always loved 
 him; they best understood his character, its strength and its 
 weakness. Not among them at any time had it been harshly 
 judged, and they allowed him now the sacred privileges of the 
 grave. The religious have done so ever since, pitying more 
 than condemning, nor afraid to praise ; for they have confessed 
 to themselves, that had there been a window in their breasts as 
 there was in that of Burns, worse sights might have been seen — 
 a darkei revelation. His country charged herself with the 
 care of them he had loved so well, and the spirit in which she-
 
 CHARACTER OF BURiNS. 221 
 
 performed her duty is the best proof that her neglect — if neglect 
 at any time there were — of her Poet's well-being had not been 
 wilful, but is to be numbered with those omissions incident to all 
 human affairs, more to be lamented than blamed, and if not 
 to be forgotten, surely to be forgiven, even by the nations 
 who may have nothing to reproach themselves with in their con- 
 duct towards any of their great poets. England, " the foremost 
 land of all this world," was not slack to join in her sister's sor- 
 row, and proved the sincerity of her own, not by barren words, 
 but fruitful deeds, and best of all by fervent love and admiration 
 of the poetry that had opened up so many delightful views into 
 the character and condition of our " bold peasantry, their coun- 
 try's pride," worthy compatriots with her own, and exhibiting 
 in different Manners the same national Virtues. 
 
 No doubt wonder at a prodigy had mingled in many minds 
 with admiration of the ploughman's poetry ; and when they of 
 their wondering found an end, such persons began to talk with 
 abated enthusiasm of his genius and increased severity of his 
 character, so that during intervals of silence, an under current 
 of detraction was frequently heard brawling with an ugly noise. 
 But the main stream soon ran itself clear ; and Burns has no 
 abusers now out of the superannuated list ; out of it — better still 
 — he has no patrons. In our youth "we have heard him spoken 
 of by the big-wigs with exceeding condescension ; now the 
 tallest men know that to see his features rightly they must look 
 up. Shakspeare, Spencer, and Milton, are unapproachable ; 
 but the present era is the most splendid in the history of our 
 poetry — in England beginning with Cowper, in Scotland with 
 Burns. Original and racy, each in his own land is yet unex- 
 celled ; immovably they both keep their places — their inherit- 
 ance is sure. Changes wide and deep, for better and for worse, 
 have been long going on in town and country. There is now 
 among the people more education — more knowledge than at 
 any former day. Their worldly condition is more prosperous, 
 while there is still among them a deep religious spirit. By that 
 spirit alone can they be secured in the good, and saved from the 
 evil of knowledge; but the spirit of poetry is akin to that of re- 
 ligion, and the union of the two is in no human composition more
 
 222 THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF BURNS. 
 
 powerful than in " the Cottar's Saturday Night." " Let who 
 may have the making of the laws give me tne making of the 
 ballads of a people," is a profound saying ; and the truth it 
 somewhat paradoxically expresses is in much as applicable to a 
 cultivated and intellectual as to a rude and imaginative age. 
 From our old traditional ballads we know what was dearest to 
 the hearts and souls of the people. How much deeper must be 
 the power over them of the poems and songs of such a man as 
 Burns, of himself alone superior in genius to all those nameless 
 minstrels, and of a nobler nature; and yet more endeared to 
 them by pity for the sorrows that clouded the close of his life. 
 
 T H rJ END.
 
 ,\' 
 
 
 CATALOGUE OF BOOKS 
 
 ( I 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 i WILLIAM GOWANS. I 
 
 ^Ignorance it tkt cur« of God \ knoxrledgt the mi*^ whertwitk ice /tf/ to heaven.'^ 
 
 Shakeapeahb. 
 
 " without b-joka God is silent^ justice dormaiit. natural science at a atand, philoaoyhy ^ 
 Uunty UiU't dumb^ and all ih\*.;i invih'ed in CimrMrian darkntaa.'* Baktiiulin. ) 
 
 1! 
 
 Nos. 81, 83, AND 85 CENTRE STREET. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 1861.
 
 CATALOGUE 
 
 OP 
 
 WILLIAM GOWANS' PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Plato's Fluedon ; 
 
 Or, a Discussion on the Immortality of the Soul. Translated 
 from the Greek by Charles S. Stanford. A new edition, enriched 
 ■with Archbishop Fenelon's Life of Plato ; the 0()inions of ancient, 
 medieval, and modern philosophers and divines, on the Soul's 
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 Ancient Fragments. 
 
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 A Catalogue of 
 Denton^ Daniel. 
 
 A Description of New York, formerly called New Netherlands, 
 ■with the places thereunto adjoining. Likewise a Brief Relation 
 of the Customs of the Indians there. By Daniel Denton. A 
 new edition, with an Introduction and copious Historical Notes, 
 by Gabriel Furman. 8vo. pp. 74. $1.00. 1845. 
 
 The Same Work 
 
 I-arge Paper. 4to. Only 100 were printed. $3.00. 1845. 
 
 Cupper, H. A. 
 
 Tho Universal Stair Builder: being a new Treatise on the Con 
 struction of Staircases and Hand-rails, showing plans of the va- 
 rious forms of stairs, method of placing the risers in the cylin- 
 ders, general method of describing the face-moulds for a hand-rail, 
 and an expeditious method of squaring the rail. Useful, also, 
 to stone-masons, constructing stone stairs and hand-rails; with 
 a new method of sawing the twist part of any hand-rail square 
 from the face of the plank, and to a parallel width. Also, a 
 new method of forming the casings of the rail by a gauge. Pre- 
 ceded by some necessary Problems on Practical Geometry, with 
 the sections of Prismatic Solids. Illustrated by 29 Plates. 4to. 
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 *** By competent judges this book is accounted the best that has, at yet, ap- 
 peared on the subject of Stair Building. 
 
 Colton, O. O. — Lacon ^ 
 
 Or, Many Things in Few Words, addressed to These "Who Think, 
 By the Rev. C. C. Colton. Revised edition, with an Index, 
 and Life of Colton. 8vo. pp. 504. $2.00. 1849. 
 
 21ie Same Worh. 
 
 In one vol. 12mo. pp. 504. $1.25. 1849, 
 
 Ally 71, Avery. 
 
 A Ritual of Freemasonry, illustrated by thirty engravings. To 
 which is added, q, Key to the Phi Beta Kappa, the Orange, and 
 Odd Fellows' Societies. "With -Notes and Remarks. By Averi 
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 William Gowani Publications. 
 Jocliiii and Boaz / 
 
 Or, an Authentic Key to the Door oi Freemasonry, both Ancient 
 and Modern, calculated not only for the Instruction of every 
 New-Made Mason, hut also for ihe Information of all who intend 
 to become Brethren. Interspersed with a variety of jSotes and 
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 The Freemason's Winepress, consisting of Toasts, Sentiments, ana 
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 A Catalogue of Books on Freemasonry and Kindreu Subjects. 
 Compiled by W. G. 12mo. pp. 59. $L25. New York, 1858. 
 
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 mehcanic : in short, they are the labor-saving machines, the concordance of litera- 
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 Ra?ji-sa2/^ Allan. The Gentle Slieplierd : 
 
 A Pastoral Comedy, in Five Acts. To which is added the Life 
 of the Author, an authentic Portrait, Criticisms on the Play by 
 various eminent writers, a new and carefully compiled Glossary, 
 and a Catalogue of all the Scottish Poets. 12rao. f 1.00. 1852. 
 
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 Cheap edition, without the introductory Matter, Portrait, and 
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 6 A Catalogue of 
 
 Coleridge^ 8. T. 
 
 liiugraphia Literaiia ; or, Biograpliical Sketches of My Literarj 
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 Taylor^ Isaac. 
 
 Physical Tlieory of Another Life. To which is added a Cata- 
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 A Manual of the Three First Degrees of Masonry. "With an In- 
 troductory Key-Stone to the Royal Arch. 12mo. pp. about 
 350. $2.50. 1860 
 
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 A General View of the Rise, Progress, and Corruptions of Chris- 
 tianity. "With a Sketch of the Life of the Author and a Catalogue 
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 Taylor^ Isaac. 
 
 Logic in Theology and other Essays. With a Sketch of the 
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 $1.25. 1860 
 
 Moon Hoax. 
 
 The Moon Hoax; or, a Discovery that the Moon has a Yast 
 Population of Human Beings. By Richard Adams Locke. 
 Illustrated with a View of the Moon as seen by Lord Rosse's 
 Telescope, and an Appendix sliowing how the Moon is known 
 at the present time. 8vo. pp. 63. 50 cents. 1859. 
 
 Wooley, Charles. 
 
 Journal of a Two Tears' Residence in the City of New Tork 
 (1679-80), and part of its Territories in America. A New 
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 E. B. O'Callaqhan, M.D. 8vo. pp. 97. $2.00. 1860 
 
 The Same Work 
 
 Large paj^er, 4to. Only 60 printed. $6.00. 1860.
 
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 REMAIIN'DERS OF EDITIONS 
 
 BY OTHER PUBLISHERS, 
 
 Gall^ Jolm Joseph. 
 
 The riirenological Works o£ Translated into English by W 
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 Blake, W. J, 
 
 The History of Putnam County, New York, with an enumera- 
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 Louinana. 
 
 Historical Collections, embracing translations from many rare and 
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 History of New Hampshire, from its Discovery in 1614 to th« 
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 cloth, pp. 456. $1.00. New York, 1853. 
 
 Valentine.^ David T. . ' 
 
 History of the City of New York. Maps, Plans, and Illustra- 
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 Rliode Idand JRqmdiation. 
 
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 A Grammar of the New Testament Dialect. Second edition 
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 The Life of. By Cn. Pellarin, M, D. Second edition, with an 
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 An Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and 
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 Treasury of Knowledge., 
 
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 10 A Catalogue of 
 
 Tous-saint V Ouverture^ 
 
 The Life of. The Negro Patriot of Hayti : comprising an Ac- 
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 Nefivton^ Sir Isaac. 
 
 Principia. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 
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 Gouraud., Francis Faurel. 
 
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 Knapp.^ Samuel L. 
 
 Advice in the Pursuits of Literature, containing Histovical, 
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 William Gowans' Piiblicatiojis. 11 
 
 Brodle^ Sir Benjainiii. 
 
 Mind and Matter; or, Physiological Inquiries, in a Series oJ 
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 (rents New York, 1857. 
 
 Boston Massacre. 
 
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 Virginia, Historical Collections of: containing a collection of the 
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 Royal 8vo. nhccp. pp. 544. $2.50. Charleston, S. C, 1850. 
 
 TaijJor., James B. 
 
 Lives of Virginia Baptist Ministers. Second edition, revised 
 
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 The book may be styled the Virginia Baptist I!iogi-ai>liical Dicticnary : II ylves 
 !be lives of one hunditJ and tit'lileen Baptist Ministcfs.
 
 12 Catalogue of Wm. Gowans^ Publicatio7is, 
 Coohe^ George Frederick^ 
 
 Memoirs of the Life of, late of the Tlieatre Roj-al, Cdvent Gar- 
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 Glenn^ Jame-9. . 
 
 The Venereal Disease: its primary cause explained, and the 
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 •♦* A co]iy of an ori>finaI edition of the above three yeara was lately sold in 
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 Peterson^ Rev. Edward. 
 
 History of Rhode Island. Illustrated. 8vo. cloth, pp. .S70 
 fl.50. New York, 186.S
 
 •^182 »
 
 
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