and our poet's eldest son, (a lad of nine years of age, whose early dispositions already prove him to be the inheritor of his father's talents as well as indigence,) has been destined by his family to the humble employments of the loom.* 66 That Burns had received no classical education, and was acquainted with the Greek and Roman authors only through the medium of translations, is a fact that can be indisputably proven. I have seldom seen him at a loss in conversation, unless where the dead languages and their writers were the subjects of discussion. When I have pressed him to tell me why he never took pains to acquire the Latin, in particular, a language which his happy memory had so soon enabled him to be master of, he used only to reply with a smile, that he already knew all the Latin he desired to learn, and that was, omnia vincit amor; a phrase, that from his writings and most favourite pursuits, it should undoubtedly seem he was most thoroughly versed in; but I really believe his classical erudition extended little, if any, further. 66 The penchant Mr Burns had uniformly acknowledged for the festive pleasures of the table, and towards the fairer and softer objects of nature's creation, has been the rallying point where the attacks of his censors, both pious and moral, have been directed; and to these, it must be confessed, he showed himself no stoic, His poetical pieces blend with alternate happiness of description, the frolic spirit of the joy-inspiring bowl, or melt the heart to the tender and impassioned sentiments in which beauty always taught him to pour forth his own. But who would wish to reprove the failings he has consecrated with such lively touches of nature? And where is the rugged moralist who will persuade us so far to chill the genial current of the soul,' as to regret that Ovid ever celebrated his Corinna, or that Anacreon sung beneath his vine? "I will not, however, undertake to be the apologist of the irregularities, even of a man of genius, though I believe it is certainly understood that genius never was free of irregularities, as that their absolution may in a great measure be justly claimed, since it is certain that the world had continued very stationary in its intellectual acquirements, had it never given birth to any but men of plain sense. Evenness of conduct, and a due regard to the decorums of the world, have been so rarely seen to move hand in hand with genius, that some have gone as far as to say, though there I cannot acquiesce, that they are even incompatible; besides, the frailties that cast their shade over superior merit, are more conspicuously glaring, than where they are the attendants of mere mediocrity; it is only on the gem we are disturbed to see the dust; the pebble estate of Closeburn, and is a tenant of the venerable Dr Monteith. This destination is now altered. may be soiled, and we never mind it. The eccentric intuitions of genius, too often yield the soul to the wild effervescence of desires, always unbounded, and sometimes equally dangerous to the repose of others as fatal to its own. No wonder then if virtue herself be sometimes lost in the blaze of kindling animation, or that the calm monitions of reason were not found sufficient to fetter an imagination, which scorned the narrow limits and restrictions that would chain it to the level of ordinary minds. The child of nature, the child of sensibility, unbroke to the refrigerative precepts of philosophy, untaught always to vanquish the passions which were the only source of his frequent errors, Burns makes his own artless apology in terms more foreible, than all the argumentatory vindications in the world could do, in one of his poems, where he delineates, with his usual simplicity, the progress of his mind, and its first expansion to the lessons of the tutelary muse. 'I saw thy pulse's maddening play, But yet the light that led astray, Was light from Heav'n.'* "I have already transgressed far beyond the bounds I had proposed to myself, on first committing to paper these sketches, which comprehend what at least I have been led to deem the leading features of Burns's mind and character. A critique, either literary or moral, I do not aim at; mine is wholly fulfilled, if in these paragraphs I have been able to delineate any of those strong traits that distinguished him, of those talents which raised him from the plough, where he passed the bleak morning of his life, weaving his rude wreaths of poesy with the wild field-flowers that sprung round his cottager to that enviable eminence of literary fame, where Scotland will long cherish his memory with delight and gratitude; and proudly remember, that beneath her cold sky, a genius was ripened without care or culture, that would have done honour to the genial temperature of climes better adapted to cherishing its germs; to the perfecting of those luxuriances, that warmth of fancy and colouring, in which he so eminently excelled. "From several paragraphs I have noticed in the public prints, even since the idea of sending these thither was formed, I find private animosities are not yet subsided, and envy has not yet done her part. I still trust that honest fame will be affixed to Burns's reputation, which he will be found to have merited by the candid of his countrymen; and where a kin dred bosom is found that has been taught to glow with the fires that animated Burns, should a recollection of the imprudences that * Page, 110. sullied his brighter qualifications interpose, let him remember at the same time the imperfection of all human excellence; and leave those inconsistencies which alternately exalted his nature to the seraph, and sunk it again into the man, to the tribunal which alone can investigate the labyrinths of the human heart Where they alike in trembling hope repose ;The bosom of his father, and his God.' GRAY'S ELEGY. "ANNANDALE, Aug. 7, 1796." AFTER this account of the life and personal character of Burns, it may be expected that some inquiry should be made into his literary merits. It will not however be necessary to enter very minutely into this investigation. If fiction be, as some suppose, the soul of poetry, no one had ever less pretensions to the name of poet than Burns. Though he has displayed great powers of imagination, yet the subjects on which he has written, are seldom, if ever, imaginary; his poems, as well as his letters, may be considered as the effusions of his sensibility, and the transcript of his own musings on the real incidents of his humble life. If we add, that they also contain most happy delineations of the characters, manners, and scenery that presented themselves to his observation, we shall include almost all the subjects of his muse. His writings may therefore be regarded as affording a great part of the data on which our account of his personal character has been founded; and most of the observations we have applied to the man, are applicable, with little variation, to the poet. The impression of his birth, and of his original station in life, was not more evident on his form and manners, than on his poetical productions. The incidents which form the subjects of his poems, though some of them highly interesting, and susceptible of poetical imagery, are incidents in the life of a peasant who takes no pains to disguise the lowliness of his condition, or to throw into shade the circumstances attending it, which more feeble or more artificial minds would have endeavoured to conceal. The same rudeness and inattention appears in the formation of his rhymes, which are frequently incorrect, while the measure in which many of the poems are written has little of the pomp or harmony of modern versification, and is indeed, to an English ear, strange and uncouth. The greater part of his earlier poems are written in the dialect of his country, which is obscure, if not unintelligible to Englishmen, and which, though it still adheres more or less to the speech of almost every Scotchman, all the polite and the ambitious are now endeavouring to banish from their tongues as well as their writings. The use of it in composition na turally therefore calls up ideas of vulgarity in the mind. These singularities are increased by the character of the poet, who delights to express himself with a simplicity that approaches to nakedness, and with an unmeasured energy that often alarms delicacy, and sometimes offends taste. Hence, in approaching him, the first impression is perhaps repulsive: there is an air of coarseness about him, which is difficultly reconciled with our established notions of poetical excellence. As the reader, however, becomes better acquainted with the poet, the effects of his peculiarities lessen. He perceives in his poems, even on the lowest subjects, expressions of sentiment, and delineations of manners, which are highly interesting. The scenery he describes is evidently taken from real life; the characters he introduces, and the incidents he relates, have the impression of nature and truth. His humour, though wild and un bridled, is irresistibly amusing, and is sometimes heightened in its effects by the introduction of emotions of tenderness, with which genuine humour so happily unites. Nor is this the extent of his power. The reader, as he examines farther, discovers that the poet is not confined to the descriptive, the humorous, or the pathetic; he is found, as occasion offers, to rise with ease into the terrible and the sublime. Every where he appears devoid of artifice, performing what he attempts with little apparent effort; and impressing on the offspring of his fancy the stamp of his understanding. The reader, capable of forming a just estimate of poetical talents, discovers in these circumstances marks of uncommon genius, and is willing to investigate more minutely its nature and its claim to originality. This last point we shall examine first. That Burns had not the advantages of a classical education, or of any degree of acquaintance with the Greek or Roman writers in their original dress, has appeared in the history of his life. He acquired, indeed, some knowledge of the French language, but it does not appear that he was ever much conversant in French literature, nor is there any evidence of his having derived any of his poetical stories from that source. With the English classics he became well acquainted in the course of his life, and the effects of this acquaintance are observable in his latter productions; but the character and style of his poetry were formed very early, and the model which he followed, in as far as he can be said to have had one, is to be sought for in the works of the poets who have written in the Scottish dialect-in the works of such of them more especially, as are familiar to the peasantry of Scotland. Some observations on these may form a pro. per introduction to a more particular examina tion of the poetry of Burns. The studies of the editor in this direction are indeed very recent and very imperfect. It would have been imprudent for him to have entered on this subject at all, but for the kindness of Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre, whose assistance he is roud to acknowledge, and to whom the reader must ascribe whatever is of any value in the following imperfect sketch of literary compositions in the Scottish idiom. It is a circumstance not a little curious, and which does not seem to be satisfactorily explained, that in the thirteenth century, the language of the two British nations, if at all different, differed only in dialect, the Gaelic in the one, like the Welch and Armoric in the other, being confined to the mountainous districts. The English under the Edwards, and the Scots under Wallace and Bruce, spoke the same language. We may observe also, that in Scotland the history ascends to a period nearly as remote as in England. Barbour and Blind Harry, James the First, Dunbar, Douglas, and Lindsay, who lived in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, were coeval with the fathers of poetry in England; and in the opinion of Mr Wharton, not inferior to them in genius or in composition. Though the language of the two countries gradually deviated from each other during this period, yet the difference on the whole was not considerable; nor perhaps greater than between the different dialects of the different parts of Eng land in our own time. prevailed to a great degree, they disdained to study the niceties of the English tongue, though of so much easier acquisition than a dead language. Lord Stirling and Drummond of Hawthornden, the only Scotsmen who wrote poetry in those times, were exceptions. They studied the language of England, and composed in it with precision and elegance. They were however the last of their countrymen who deserved to be considered as poets in that century. The muses of Scotland sunk into silence, and did not again raise their voices for a period of eighty years. To what causes are we to attribute this extreme depression among a people comparatively learned, enterprising, and ingenious? Shail we impute it to the fanaticism of the covenanters, or to the tyranny of the house of Stuart after their restoration to the throne? Doubtless these causes operated, but they seem unequal to account for the effect. In England, similar distractions and oppressions took place, yet poetry_flourished there in a remarkable degree. During this period, Cowley, and Waller, and Dryden sung, and Milton_raised his strain of unparalleled grandeur. To the causes already mentioned, another must be added, in accounting for the torpor of Scottish literature-the want of a proper vehicle for men of genius to employ. The civil wars had frightened away the Latin muses, and no standard had been established of the Scottish tongue, which was deviating still farther from the pure English idiom. The revival of literature in Scotland may be dated from the establishment of the union, or rather from the extinction of the rebellion in 1715. The nations being finally incorporated, it was clearly seen that their tongues must in the end incorporate also; or rather indeed that the Scottish language must degenerate into a provincial idiom, to be avoided by those who would aim at distinction in letters, or rise to eminence in the united legislature. At the death of James the Fifth, in 1542, the language of Scotland was in a flourishing condition, wanting only writers in prose equal to those in verse. Two circumstances, propitious on the whole, operated to prevent this. The first was the passion of the Scots for composition in Latin; and the second, the accession of James the Sixth to the English throne. It may easily be imagined, that if Buchanan had devoted his admirable talents, even in part, to the cultivation of his native tongue, as was done by the revivers of letters in Italy, he would have left compositions in that language which might have excited other men of genius to have followed his example,† Soon after this, a band of men of genius apand given duration to the language itself. The peared, who studied the English classics, and union of the two crowns in the person of imitated their beauties, in the same manner James, overthrew all reasonable expectation of as they studied the classics of Greece and this kind. That monarch, seated on the Rome. They had admirable models of comEnglish throne, would no longer be addressed position lately presented to them by the in the rude dialect in which the Scottish writers of the reign of Queen Anne; particuclergy had so often insulted his dignity. He larly in the periodical papers published by encouraged Latin or English only, both of Steele, Addison, and their associated friends, which he prided himself on writing with purity, which circulated widely through Scotland, and though he himself never could acquire the diffused every where a taste for purity of style English pronunciation, but spoke with a Scot- and sentiment, and for critical disquisition. tish idiom and intonation to the last. Scots-At length, the Scottish writers succeeded in men of talents declined writing in their native language, which they knew was not acceptable to their learned and pedantic monarch; and at a time when national prejudice and enmity * Historical Essays on Scottish Song, p. 20, by Mr Ritson. e. g. The Authors of the Delicia Poetarum Scotorum, &c. English composition, and a union was formed of the literary talents, as well as of the legisla tures of the two nations. On this occasion the poets took the lead. While Henry Home,* Dr Wallace, and their learned associates, were only laying in their intellectual stores, and studying to clear themselves of their Scot Lord Kaima. tish idioms, Thomson, Mallet, and Hamilton of Bangour, had made their appearance before the public, and been enrolled on the list of English poets. The writers in prose follow ed a numerous and powerful band, and poured their ample stores into the general stream of British literature. Scotland possessed her four universities before the accession of James to the English throne. Immediately before the union, she acquired her parochial schools. These establishments combining happily together, made the elements of knowledge of easy acquisition, and presented a direct path, by which the ardent student might be carried along into the recesses of science or learning. As civil broils ceased, and faction and prejudice gradually died away, a wider field was opened to literary ambition, and the influence of the Scottish institutions for instruction, on the productions of the press, became more and more apparent. It seems indeed probable, that the establishment of the parochial schools produced effects on the rural muse of Scotland also, which have not hitherto been suspected, and which, though less splendid in their nature, are not however to be regarded as trivial, whether we consider the happiness or the morals of the people. There is some reason to believe, that the original inhabitants of the British isles possessed a peculiar and interesting species of music, which being banished from the plains by the successive invasions of the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, was preserved with the native race, in the wilds of Ireland and in the mountains of Scotland and Wales. The Irish, the Scottish, and the Welsh music, differ indeed from each other, but the difference may be considered as in dialect only, and probably produced by the influence of time, like the different dialects of their common language. If this conjecture be true, the Scottish music must be more immediately of a Highland origin, and the Lowland tunes, though now of a character somewhat distinct, must have descended from the mountains in remote ages. Whatever credit may be given to conjectures, evidently involved in great uncertainty, there can be no doubt that the Scottish peasantry have been long in possession of a number of songs and ballads composed in their native dialect, and sung to their native music. The subjects of these compositions were such as most interested the simple inhabitants, and in the succession of time varied probably as the condition of society varied. During the separation and the hostility of the two nations, these songs and ballads, as far as our imperfect documents enable us to judge, were chiefly warlike; such as the Huntis of Cheviot, and the Battle of Harlaw. After the union of the two crowns, when a certain degree of peace and tranquillity took place, the rural muse of Scotland breathed in softer accents. "In the want of real evidence respecting the history of our songs," says Ramsay of Ochtertyre," recourse may be had to conjecture. One would be disposed to think, that the most beautiful of the Scottish tunes were clothed with new words after the union of the crowns. The inhabitants of the borders, who had formerly been warriors from choice, and husbandmen from necessity, either quitted the country, or were transformed into real shepherds, easy in their circumstances, and satisfied with their lot. Some sparks of that spirit of chivalry for which they are celebrated by Froissart, remained sufficient to inspire elevation of sentiment and gallantry towards the fair sex. The familiarity and kindness which had long subsisted between the geutry and the peasantry, could not all at once be,obliterated, and this connexion tended to sweeten rural life. In this state of innocence, ease, and tranquillity of mind, the love of poetry and music would still maintain its ground, though it would naturally assume a form congenial to the more peaceful state of society. The minstrels, whose metrical tales used once to rouse the borderers like the trumpet's sound, had been, by an order of the Legislature (1579), classed with rogues and vagabonds, and attempted to be suppressed. Knox and his disciples influenced the Scottish parliament, but contended in vain with her rural muse. Amidst our Arcadiau vales, probably on the banks of the Tweed, or some of its tributary streams, one or more original geniuses may have arisen who were destined to give a new turn to the taste of their countrymen. They would see that the events and pursuits which chequer private life were the proper subjects for popular poetry. Love, which had formerly held a divided sway with glory and ambition, became now the master-passion of the soul. To portray in lively and delicate colours, though with a hasty hand, the hopes and fears that agitate the breast of the love-sick swain, or forlorn maiden, afford ample scope to the rural poet. Love-songs, of which Tibullus himself would not have been ashamed, might be composed by an uneducated rustic with a slight tincture of letters; or if in these songs the character of the rustic be sometimes assumed, the truth of character, and the language of nature, are preserved. With unaffected simplicity and tenderness, topics are urged, most likely to soften the heart of a cruel and coy mistress, or to regain a fickle lover. Even in such as are of a melancholy cast, a ray of hope breaks through, and dispels the deep and settled gloom which characterizes the sweetest of the Highland luinags, or vocal airs. Nor are these songs all plaintive; many of them are lively and humorous, and some appear to us coarse and indelicate. They seem, however, genuine descriptions of the manners of an energetic and sequestered people in their hours of mirth and festivity, though in their portraits some objects are brought into open view, which more fastidious painters would have thrown into shade.". "As those rural poets sung for amusement, not for gain, their effusions seldom exceeded a | shown to the inquiring traveller. He was the love-song, or a ballad of satire or humour, son of a peasant, and probably received such which, like the words of the elder minstrels, instruction as his parish-school bestowed, and were seldom committed to writing, but trea- the poverty of his parents admitted. Ramsay sured up in the memory of their friends and made his appearance in Edinburgh, in the be neighbours. Neither known to the learned ginning of the present century, in the humble nor patronized by the great, these rustic bards character of an apprentice to a barber; he was lived and died in obscurity; and by a strange then fourteen or fifteen years of age. By defatality, their story, and even their very names grees he acquired notice for his social disposihave been forgotten When proper models tion, and his talent for the composition of for pastoral songs were produced, there would verses in the Scottish idiom; and, changing be no want of imitators. To succeed in this his profession for that of a bookseller, he bespecies of composition, soundness of under-came intimate with many of the literary, as standing and sensibility of heart were more re-well as the gay and fashionable characters of quisite than flights of imagination or pomp of his time. Having published a volume of numbers. Great changes have certainly taken poems of his own in 1721, which was favourplace in Scottish song-writing, though we can-ably received, he undertook to make a collecnot trace the steps of this change; and few of the pieces admired in Queen Mary's time are now to be discovered in modern collections. It is possible, though not probable, that the music may have remained nearly the same, though the words to the tunes were entirely new-modelled."t The tion of ancient Scottish poems, under the title of the Ever- Green, and was afterwards encouraged to present to the world a collection of Scottish songs. "From what sources he procured them," says Ramsay of Ochtertyre, "whether from tradition or manuscript, is uncertain. As in the Ever-Green he made some These conjectures are highly ingenious. It rash attempts to improve on the originals of cannot, however, be presumed, that the state his ancient poems, he probably used still greatof ease and tranquillity described by Mr Ram-er freedom with the songs and ballads. say took place among the Scottish peasantry immediately on the union of the crowns, or indeed during the greater part of the seventeenth century. The Scottish nation, through all ranks, was deeply agitated by the civil wars, and the religious persecutions which succeeded each other in that disastrous period; it was not till after the revolution in 1688, and the subsequent establishment of their beloved form of church government, that the peasantry of the Lowlands enjoyed comparative repose; and it is since that period that a great number of the most admired Scottish songs have been produced, though the tunes to which they are sung, are in general of much greater antiquity. It is not unreasonable to suppose, that the peace and security derived from the Revolution, and the Union, produced a favourable change on the rustic poetry of Scotland; and it can scarcely be doubted, that the institution of parish schools in 1696, by which a certain degree of instruction was diffused universally among the peasantry, contributed to this happy effect. Soon after this appeared Allan Ramsay, the Scottish Theocritus. He was born on the high mountains that divide Clydesdale and Annandale, in a small hamlet by the banks of Glengonar, a stream which descends into the Clyde. The ruins of this hamlet are still In the Pepys collection, there are a few Scottish songs of the last century, but the names of the authors are not preserved. + Extract of a letter from Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre to the Editor, Sept 11, 1799. In the Bee, Vol. II. p. 201, is a communication of Mr Ramsay, under the signature of J. Runcole, which enters into this subject somewhat more at large. In that paper he gives his reasons for questioning the antiquity of many of the celebrated Scottish Songs. truth cannot, however, be known on this point, till manuscripts of the songs printed by him, more ancient than the present century, shall be produced, or access be obtained to his own papers, if they are still in existence. To several tunes which either wanted words, or had words that were improper or imperfect, he or his friends adapted verses worthy of the melodies they accompanied, worthy indeed of the golden age. These verses were perfectly intelligible to every rustic, yet justly admired by persons of taste, who regarded them as the genuine offspring of the pastoral muse. In some respects Ramsay had advantages not possessed by poets writing in the Scottish dialect in our days. Songs in the dialect of Cumberland or Lancashire, could never be popular, because these dialects have never been spoken by persons of fashion. But till the middle of the present century, every Scotsman, from the peer to the peasant, spoke a truly Doric language. It is true the English moralists and poets were by this time read by every person of condition, and considered as the standards for polite composition. But, as national prejudices were still *See Campbell's History of Poetry in Scotland, p. 185. + The father of Mr Ramsay was, it is said, a workman in the lead-mines of the Earl of Hopetoun, at Lead-hills. The workmen at those mines at present are of a very superior character to miners in general. They have only six hours of labour in the day, and have time for reading. They have a common library supported by contribution, containing several thousand volumes. When this was instituted I have not learned. These miners are said to be of a very sober and moral charac ter. Allan Ramsay, when very young, is supposed to have been a washer of ore in these mines, "He was coeval with Joseph Mitchell, and his club of small wits, who, about 1719, published a very poor miscellany, to which Dr Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, prefixed a copy of verses." Extract of a letter from Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre to the Editor. |