Eternity cannot efface Those records dear of transports past; Ah! little thought we 'twas our last! Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore, Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, Where is thy place of blissful rest ? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? We are now getting to perceive that the Muse will admit no vile companions in the heart where she fixes her seat. Poetry, depend upon it, is a purifying power in spite of its occasional waywardness; and if Burns forgot these noble influences sometimes, we are to look for his excuse to the peculiarities of his position. There he was the idol for a time of the highest circles in his native land, recognised as an honour to his country, his words sounding in all dwell - ings, whether hut or palace-his name a common possession among all classes-his speeches repeated, his features painted,—and his pockets as empty, and his prospects as dark as ever! Nay, emptier and darker; for the farm of Mossgiel was a failure; the subscriptions to his poems came slowly and inadequately in; and if, in the first glow of his success, he hoped that his honourable, his right honourable, his learned and reverend patrons would do anything more for him, he added one other name to the long list of disappointed men of genius who find the difference between praise and help-who are admired, as Horace said long ago, and neglected. So his mind got embittered by the contemplation of his friends' words and actions. He broke out into epigram and satire, instead of booing and biding his time; he sneered at scholars who had nothing but scholarship to boast of, as at Elphinstone's translation of Martial, a Latin poet Oh thou whom Poesy abhors, Whom Prose has turned out of doors, Heard'st thou that groan ? proceed no further, at nobles whose literary taste was limited to Through and through the inspirèd leaves, at meanness, wherever he found it, as in the case of a proud lady, whom he calls, from the name of her estate, Queen Netherplace One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell, When deprived of the husband she loved so well, at wickedness and want of charity, as in the case of a wretched being whom he calls "Wat": Sic a reptile was Wat, sic a miscreant slave, That the worms were disgusted when laid in his grave; "In his flesh there's a famine," a starv'd reptile cries, "And his heart is rank poison," another replies. Now, as the world contains a very considerable number of mean men, and unkind men, and pretentious men, it is not to be wondered at that Burns, by declaring such war on meanness, and unkindness, and pretension, made a great many enemies. People were astonished to find that the person they thought they were patronizing had not only an opinion of his own, but a tremendous trumpet through which to make it known. It chanced one day, during this memorable visit to Edinburgh, that Burns was in the house of Professor Fergusson, where several of the literary dons of the day were assembled, and among them, sitting bashful in a corner, a tall young lad, who laboured under a slight lameness of one of his feet, and attracted the poet's notice by the extraordinary sagacity of his look. There was a print on the wall of a soldier lying dead on the snow, with his faithful dog beside him, together with his wife and child. Burns was affected by the desolation of the scene even to tears. Some lines were written under the print which he did not know, and asked where they came from. Nobody could tell; but the boy timidly whispered to a friend that they were from a neglected poem of Langhorne's, called the "Justice of Peace." Burns rewarded him with a look and a word which he never forgot. This boy of the amazing memory was Walter Scott. The man of twenty-seven could of course have nothing in common with the boy of fifteen, but it is pleasant to know that there was even this slight link of connexion between the bard of the people and the minstrel of the aristocracy. This is the description he gives of Burns' appearance at the climax of his fame: His person was strong and robust, his manners rustic, not clownish-a sort of dignified plainness and sim plicity, which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys an idea that they are diminished, as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of its portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known who he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school; i.e.,, none of your modern agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the douce gudeman who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, and glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men in my time. His conversation expressed the most perfect self-confidence without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again except in the street, when he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but (considering what literary emoluments have been since his day), the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling. Trifling! They were so trifling that the patronage ostentatiously died off into unmeaning pro D |