TH

INTRODUCTION

HE following selections were chosen to make a book for fourth-form boys, and were intended to supply matter for about twelve lessons.

The first twenty poems were chosen for actual preparation at night, to be heard in form, read, and commented upon. The table of literary dates was added as affording a series of texts on which the teacher might enlarge orally, and which might help the scholar to see within small compass and in the order of time the literary predecessors, contemporaries, and successors of Burns. By occasionaĺ essays it would be easy to test how far the pupil had profited by such oral remarks and illustrations

The songs were not selected to be learned or commented on in the same way as the poems, which will account for the small number of notes on the text of the songs. They were intended rather for use in the way of reference, to illustrate the life and character of the poet, the versatility of his imagination, the keenness of his vision, the depth of his feeling, and the truth of his thought.

It is possible that true admirers of Burns may look in these selections, and be disappointed not to find poems which they rightly consider to be most characteristic of their author. Nor can it be denied that Tam o' Shanter, Death and Doctor Hornbook, Captain Grose, Halloween, and Holy Fair are essential elements in any adequate conception of the poet's many-sided nature. Nor would the editor deny that a boy may read these poems in private and get much good and no harm from them. But if such a reader should open this book, will he ask himself whether these poems do not possess much which unfits them to be the medium of teaching delivered orally to a number of boys? Few of the more powerful minds of Burns' generation wrote virginibus puerisque, and yet there cannot be better literary training for boys and girls than the vigour

of the elder, the simplicity of the younger minds of that generation. The aim of the editor was to select such pieces as would enable boys to see that Burns, side by side with Cowper, and at some distance from Crabbe, was foremost among the English poets who, after a long period of silence, spoke out a poet's message in a poet's native language. The selections made seem not only sufficient, but best adapted to show that simplicity and truth, generous feeling and a manly independence of character, are the groundwork of poetry, and are natural to all ranks of men.

This is the primary object of these selections: to illustrate by his own work what was most valuable in the life and thought of Burns, and to point out his position as one of the first reformers in English poetry by the introduction of direct and simple thought, which he himself perpetually calls the 'language of the heart.'

A second object was one of moral teaching: to point out the truth of the saying, "On a toujours les défauts de ses qualités." The intellectual application of this proverb is always suggestive, and its moral application can never be more touchingly or more visibly illustrated than by the tragic failure of Burns' life. In listening to the voice of immediate feeling lay his strength and very poetic existence; but by doing more than this, by obeying the voice of immediate feeling, his character turned and changed until he lost the control of his will.

A third object was to make as much use of the dialect as possible. To all who study the dialects of Scotland the massive learning of Dr. Jamieson supplies a mine of information. But Jamieson lived at a time when the rational study of language was little understood. Dr. Johnson had had the sagacity to observe that 'there is no tracing the connection of ancient nations but by language; and therefore I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.' This last sentence might stand as the motto for many of the philological and historical discoveries of this century; but Jamieson had not the power of applying the motto, and frequently draws wrong conclusions from the facts which he amply supplies. Mr. J. A. H. Murray, to whose works the editor wishes to acknowledge his obligations, has pointed out the harm which Jamieson

did in speaking of the 'Scotch language.' He lived at a time when the works of Burns and Scott had quickened the national feeling of Scotland; and it seemed natural to him that the people who had a distinctive history, as well as distinctive laws and customs, should also have a national language. A mistaken principle in a person of such authority spreads far; and his learned writings are to blame for false popular notions on the nature of the Scotch people and the Scotch dialect. It is frequently supposed that the Lowland Scots are akin to the Highlander in race, and that the Lowland dialect is either akin to the Gaelic, or is a vulgar deterioration of the language which educated people speak. The facts are different. The main body of the Scotch people (Scotland from the Cheviots to the Forth, perhaps almost to the Tay) are of Saxon descent as truly as the men of Yorkshire or of Lincoln; and the Scotch dialect is a Saxon dialect more or less akin to the Northumbrian, which, though fallen from its former position and power, still preserves in its decay certain early words and remnants of declension with great tenacity, and retains the strong pronunciation of vowels and of gutturals with a remarkable distinctness. The base and substance is Teutonic or English; but a peculiar interest attaches to the study of the dialect from this circumstance, that it has retained a considerable admixture of words, construction, and pronunciation from the Gaelic, and of words from the French.

Words of Gaelic origin have entered the language in two ways. They have sometimes been introduced bodily from the Highlands, where they flourished in their natural state. Such words are bard, clan, claymore, corrie, sennachie, pibroch, loch, glen, and the like. A more interesting class of words have assimilated themselves with the Lowland dialect from earlier times. The west of Scotland, even in the south, was peopled by Scots and Irish, various tribes of Celtic race. The people of Galloway are of Celtic race, though centuries have now elapsed since a word of native Celtic was spoken in Galloway. But no spoken language ever dies away without leaving behind something of its life; it leaves behind local pronunciation and local idiom. The editor is not a Gaelic scholar; but he would almost be surprised to find that the use of

middle verbs, of which Burns is so fond, is not due to the traditionary influence of Gaelic in the west and southwest of Scotland. Besides such relics, which need an exhaustive learning to discover, we find in the Lowland dialect certain words of Gaelic origin which have not been grafted or artificially sown, but have sprung up naturally upon the Lowland soil. Such words are collie, lyart, sonsy, cranreuch, kebar, and others.

The words of French origin are due to the time when France and Scotland, owing to their common hatred and jealousy of England, were on terms of intimate alliance. Such words frequently, as might be expected, relate to domestic comforts and the service of the table, as awmry (almoire,' cupboard), jistycor (‘juste au corps,' a closefitting coat), ashet ('assiette'), carafe; but many also are of more general meaning, as fashed, dour, douce.

An interesting analysis of the Lowland dialect might be made, apportioning to various words their place, according to their Teutonic, French, Gaelic, or English origin; for with the Reformation the English of the south invaded the 'English of the northern lede,' and has ever since remained as the language of devotion, even among the peasantry whose converse is in 'braid Scots.' The notes and glossary indicate the lines on which such a study should proceed; for the study of words in their historical aspects is peculiarly fitted to the mental state of a boy's growing mind. He cannot grasp character, except under partial and therefore false lights; nor can he analyse the combinations of history and politics. The history of a word affords a narrower sphere; the facts are all seen; the beginning, middle, and end of an argument appear in small but clear lineaments. Such analysis both charms and strengthens the mind, and has an educatory value, because it trains a boy, within the limits of words which are familiar to him, to advance from the known to the unknown, to the surmised, to the discovery.

In conclusion, I should wish to acknowledge the debt which these pages owe to Lockhart's Life of Burns, to Chambers' Life and Works of Burns, to Alexander Smith's Life of Burns, to the lectures and criticism of Mr. Stopford Brooke, and to the advice and inspiring conversation of Principal Shairp, of St. Andrew's University.