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INTRODUCTION 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE AND ROBERT BURNS 
 
 " We have often wondered how he ever found out 
 Burns," remarked Thoreau in commenting on the fact 
 that Carlyle was not a critic of poetry, but that his 
 sympathy was rather with men of endeavor, "and 
 must still refer a good share of his delight in him to 
 neighborhood and early association." 1 
 
 There were common elements in their lives which 
 helped to make Carlyle a sympathetic critic of Burns. 
 Not only did both belong to the great clan of Scotch- 
 men, but both came from the same part of Scotland, 
 the same "neighborhood" — the Lowlands; Burns, 
 from Ayrshire on the Firth of Clyde ; Carlyle, from 
 Dumfriesshire, bounded on the south and east by Sol- 
 way Firth and the English border. Burns was born 
 (January 25, 1759) in a clay-built cottage, reared by 
 his father's own hands, on a farm about two miles 
 
 1 Thoreau, "Thomas Carlyle and His Works," A Yankee 
 in Canada, p. 234. 
 
 I : 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 from the town of Ayr. Carlyle was born (December 
 4, 1795, two years after the death of Burns) in a house 
 also built by his father, who was a carpenter and stone- 
 mason by trade, in the small market town of Eccle- 
 fechan, Annandale, consisting at that time of but a 
 single street. Both came of sturdy Scotch peasant 
 stock ; and both owed much to the rugged simplicity 
 and unaffected piety — in the Roman sense of the word 
 — of their early home influences. The Cotter's Sat- 
 urday Night, which is counted amongst the finest 
 expressions of Burns's poetic genius, and James Car- 
 lyle in Carlyle's Reminiscences, which is different 
 in form and substance, yet as unapproachable in 
 its way, are in a sense tributes — high and lasting 
 tributes, or, if you like the word, monuments — to 
 these early home influences. Burns's and Carlyle's 
 fathers were alike in many respects, though Carlyle's 
 was far the sterner. What Carlyle says of Burns's 
 father on pages 58 and 59 of this Essay on Burns 
 could be applied almost word for word to his own 
 father. In addition to the high and rare qualities of 
 character dwelt upon in this passage, both possessed 
 a native gift of speech ; in the case of Carlyle's father 
 especially, of speech bold, free, and pithy. Said Mr. 
 John Murdock, the teacher of Burns, in describing 
 his father: "He spoke the English language with 
 more propriety (both with respect to diction and pro-ij 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 nunciation) than any man I ever knew with no 
 greater advantages. This had a very good effect on 
 the boys, who began to talk and reason like men 
 much sooner than their neighbors." 1 
 
 The following passage from Carlyle's tribute to his 
 father is often quoted : — 
 
 " In several respects, I consider my Father as one 
 of the most interesting men I have known. He was 
 a man of perhaps the very largest natural endowment 
 of any it has been my lot to converse with : none of 
 as will ever forget that bold glowing style of his, 
 flowing free from the untutored soul; full of meta- 
 phors (though he knew not what a metaphor was), 
 with all manner of potent words (which he appropri- 
 ated and applied with surprising accuracy, you often 
 could not guess whence) ; brief, energetic ; and which 
 I should say conveyed the most perfect picture, defi- 
 nite, clear not in ambitious colors but in full white 
 sunlight, of all the dialects I have ever listened to.. 
 Nothing did I ever hear him undertake to render 
 visible, which did not become almost ocularly so. 
 Never shall we again hear such speech as that was : 
 the whole district knew of it; and laughed joyfully 
 over it, not knowing how otherwise to express the 
 
 1 Currie, The Works of Robert Bums, fifth edition, Vol. I., 
 p. 95. 
 
xil INTRODUCTION 
 
 feeling it gave them. Emphatic T have heard him 
 beyond all men. In anger he had no need of oaths: 
 his words were like sharp arrows that smote into the 
 very heart. The fault was that he exaggerated (which 
 tendency I also inherit) ; yet only in description and 
 for the sake chiefly of humorous effect : he was a man 
 of rigid, even scrupulous veracity ; I have often heard 
 him turn back, when he thought his strong words 
 were misleading, and correct them into measurative 
 accuracy." x 
 
 As to their outward educational opportunities, how- 
 ever, Burns and Carlyle had little in common. The 
 school days of the former were practically over when 
 he was ten years of age, whereas at the same age the 
 latter was beginning his preparation for a university 
 course. 
 
 Robert Burns apparently made the most of the few 
 opportunities for education that were thrown in his 
 way. In the spring of 1765 his father and four of 
 the neighbors clubbed together and engaged a } r oung 
 man by the name of John Murdock to take charge 
 of a little school, which happened to be situated 
 only a few yards from the "mud edifice" of the 
 Burns family. " My pupil, Robert Burns, was then 
 between six and seven years of age ; his precep- 
 
 1 Carlyle, Reminiscences, edited by Norton, i... p. 5. 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 ibout eighteen," wrote Mr. Murdock some years 
 
 . " Robert, and his younger brother Gilbert, had 
 
 grounded a little in English before they were 
 
 under my care. They both made rapid progress 
 
 iading, and a tolerable progress in writing. In 
 
 ing, dividing words into syllables by rule, spell- 
 
 g without book, parsing sentences, etc., Eobert and 
 
 ert were generally at the upper end of the class, 
 
 even when ranged with boys by far their seniors. The 
 
 ots most commonly used in the school were, the 
 
 Spelling Book, the New Testament, the Bible, Mason's 
 
 < 'ction of Prose and Verse, and Fisher's English 
 
 rcntmar. They committed to memory the hymns, 
 
 cl other poems of that collection, with uncommon 
 
 ri'ity. This facility was partly owing to the method 
 
 pursued by their father and me in instructing them, 
 
 •h was, to make them thoroughly acquainted with 
 
 the meaning of every word in each sentence that was 
 
 ■ committed to memory. By the bye, this may be 
 
 M- done, and at an earlier period, than is generally 
 
 ght." l Burns's way of putting the same fact is 
 
 acteristic, " Though it cost the schoolmaster some 
 
 shings, I made an excellent English scholar ; and by 
 
 e time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic 
 
 : Letter to Mr. Walker of Dublin, dated London. Feb. 22, 
 Carrie (op. cit.), pp. 86-90. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 in substantives, verbs, and particles." 1 In 176(> his 
 father moved to another farm, Mount Oliphant, which 
 was so far from the s hool that the boys could nc 
 longer attend regularly ; md on the departure of thei. 
 teacher and friend some months later from that part 
 of the country their attendance ceased altogether. 
 " There being no school near us," wrote his brother 
 Gilbert, "and our little services being useful on the 
 farm, my father undertook to teach us arithmetic in 
 the winter evenings, by candle-light ; and in this way 
 my two eldest sisters got all the education they re- 
 ceived." 2 At the age of thirteen he was sent with 
 his brother Gilbert, "week about" during the summer 
 quarter, to the parish school of Dalrymple, to improve 
 his writing. His brother concludes the narrative of 
 his schooling thus : " The summer after we had been 
 at Dalrymple school, my father sent Kobert to Ayr, to 
 revise his English grammar, with his former teacher 
 [Murdock]. He had been there only one week, when 
 he was obliged to return, to assist at the harvest. 
 When the harvest was over, he went back to school, 
 where he remained two weeks ; and this completes 
 the account of his school education, excepting one 
 summer quarter, some time afterwards [in his nine-- 
 
 1 Autobiographical letter to Dr. Moore, Currie (np. a't), 
 p. 37. 
 
 - Currie {op. cit.), p. 61. 
 
 
INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 teenth fear], that he attended the parish school of 
 
 wald . . . to learn surveying." 1 During the 
 
 weeks that he was with Murdock he made so 
 
 good a stg t in French, that with the aid of a French 
 
 rv and grammar, and the Aventures de Tele- 
 
 )j Fenelon he acquired " in a little while," so 
 
 write.-: lis brother, " such a knowledge of the language, 
 
 read and understand any French author in 
 
 prose." 
 
 ithstanding the good use to which outward 
 
 mities for education had been put whenever 
 
 ' resented themselves, so few and limited had 
 
 jpey >een, although supplemented by considerable 
 
 y, that Burns had to work out single-handed, 
 
 ) most part, the intellectual tools with which to 
 
 his life and shape his art. His poverty was not 
 
 it its rich compensations, but it remorselessly 
 
 him access to the great intellectual storehouses 
 
 lan experience at a time when his genius might 
 
 ntered and claimed its owu. 2 Not so in the case 
 
 lyle. 
 
 yle, if not precocious, at least gave evidence 
 
 when a child that there was something unusual in 
 
 Before entering the village school he had learned 
 
 1 Currie (op. cit), p. 66. 
 
 2 Cf. pp. 8, 9, and 59 of the Essay on Burns. 
 
XVI INTR DUC TIO X 
 
 to read from his mother, and under the h 
 his father had taken his first steps in aril 
 "I remember, perhaps in 1113^ fifth year, his tea* 
 me Arithmetical things: especially how to ri 
 (of my letters taught me by my mother, I h&\ 
 recollection whatever: of reading scarcely any): he 
 said, 'This is the divider (divisor) this' etc., and 
 gave me a quite clear notion how to do. My m< 
 said I would forget it all; to which he ans 
 Not so much as they that never learned it. — 
 years or so after, he said % to me once : ' r J 
 do not grudge thy schooling, now when thy 
 Frank owns thee to be a better Arithmetician than 
 himself.' " l At the age of seven he was reported 
 by the village schoolmaster as "complete in En 
 and soon began the study of Latin under the ] 
 and his son. In 1806 he was sent to the ac; 
 or "Grammar School" at Annan, a small to 
 Solway Firth about five miles south of Ecclefechan, 
 to prepare for the University with a final outlook 
 toward the ministry. Here, in spite of mecha 
 teaching and barbarian associates, 2 he learned to read 
 
 1 Reminiscences, i.. p. 45. 
 
 2 For points of interest in regard to his life at the A 
 Academy see Froucle. Thomas Carlyle, A History of tin 
 Forty Years of his Life, Vol. I., chap. ii. ; lieminisc^itcc. 
 p. 4(5 ; and Sartor Besartus, Book II., chapter on " Fee 
 
 cztwe. \.. 
 
INTRODUCTION XVll 
 
 Latin and French fluently, and made considerable prog- 
 ress in algebra and geometry ; so that he was pre- 
 pared to enter the University of Edinburgh at the age 
 of thirteen — in the fall of 1809. 
 
 His career at the University was not distinguished 
 by brilliant scholarship. The only subject, as taught 
 at the University, which aroused his enthusiasm was 
 mathematics, in which he made marked progress, 
 though winning no prizes; and, conversely, the pro- 
 fessor of mathematics seems to have been the only 
 member of the faculty who discerned in him any gift 
 above the average. His acquaintances among the 
 students were few ; but as for these few intimate 
 acquaintances, " intellectually and morally, he had 
 impressed them as absolutely unique among them all, 
 — such a combination of strength of character, rugged 
 independence of manner, prudence, great literary 
 powers, high aspirations and ambition, habitual de- 
 spondency, and a variety of other humors, ranging 
 from the ferociously sarcastic to the wildly tender, 
 that it was impossible to set limits to what he was 
 likely to become in the world." 1 Perhaps the chief 
 benefit derived from the University was the wide 
 course of reading which he pursued independently 
 
 1 Masson, " Carlyle's Edinburgh Life " in Edinburgh Sketches 
 and Memories, p. 243. 
 
Xvm INTRODUCTION 
 
 throughout the four years of residence there. 1 " Wha 
 the Universities can mainly do for you, — what I hav< 
 found the University did for me," said Carlyle man} 
 years afterward (1866) in his inaugural address t< 
 the students of the same University, "is, That r 
 taught me to read, in various languages, in various 
 sciences ; so that I could go into books which treated 
 of these things, and gradually penetrate into any de- 
 partment I wanted to make myself master of, as 1 
 found it suit me." A passage from the chapter on 
 "Pedagogy" in Sartor Resartus is at least mythically 
 autobiographical on this point : " Nay from the chaos 
 of that Library, I succeeded in fishing-up more books 
 perhaps than had been known to the very keepers 
 thereof. The foundation of a Literary Life was 
 hereby laid. I learned, on my own strength, to read 
 fluently in almc all cultivated languages, on almost 
 all subjects and Sv eiices ; farther, as man is ever the 
 prime object to man, already it was my favorite em- 
 ployment to read character in speculatio and fiom 
 the Writing to construe the Writer. A certain ground- 
 plan of Human Nature and Life began to fashion itself 
 in me ; wondrous enough, now when I look back on 
 
 1 For lists of the books drawn by Carlyle from the University 
 library during the first two years of residence, see Masson 
 {op. cit.), p. 231. 
 
INTRODUCTION XIX 
 
 ; for my whole Universe, physical and spiritual, was 
 \ yet a Machine ! However, such a conscious, recog- 
 : ised groundplan, the truest I had, tvas beginning to 
 be there, and by additional experiments might be cor- 
 seted and indefinitely extended." 
 Carlyle's practical career, if it may be so called, 
 egan with schoolmastering. Soon after the comple- 
 on of his college course, he was appointed mathemat- 
 ;il tutor in the Annan Academy, the school in which 
 pie had formerly been a pupil. Two years later he 
 •ave up the position to accept the mastership of a 
 school at Kirkcaldy, a town in northeastern Scotland 
 by the Fife sea-shore. Meanwhile he had kept up a 
 Naif -hearted connection with the Divinity School at 
 the University, out of regard for the long cherished 
 hopes of his parents. As time went on, however, he 
 pew farther and farther away alike from the idea of 
 ntering the ministry and from the ^cation of teach- 
 ing. "Finding I had objections [to entering the 
 linistry], my father, with a magnanimity which I 
 admired and admire, left me frankly to my own 
 guidance in the matter, as did my mother, perhaps 
 still more lovingly, though not so silently." And 
 i) the connection with the Divinity School and all 
 the connection implied was severed. Schoolmaster- 
 lig, also, after four years of it, became intolerable. 
 In the fall of 1818 he resigned his position at Kirk- 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 caldy and went to Edinburgh with very indefmi' 
 prospects. 
 
 These years at Edinburgh were years of miserabl 
 groping uncertainty, of bitter inward struggles. '. \ 
 was a period " on which he said that he never looke 
 back without a kind of horror." He began the stud 
 of law, which "seemed glorious to him for its ind 
 pendency ; " but presently gave it up in disgust as " 
 shapeless mass of absurdity and chicane." Dyspeps: 
 had begun to torment him — "a rat gnawing at tl 
 pit of his stomach." He managed to eke out his sa 
 ings by giving private lessons in mathematics ; ^ w< 
 not that he had to face actual poverty or < 
 hardships, but that he had not yet found the u^or 
 that he could do with his whole strength. "Hof 
 hardly dwelt in me . . .; only fierce resoh 
 abundance to do my best and utmost in all 
 ways and suffer as silently and stoically as m 
 if it proved (as too likely !) that I could do n< 
 This kind of humor, what I sometimes called 
 1 desperate hope,' has largely attended me al 
 life." 
 
 It would be difficult to over-emphasize the signi' 
 cance, not only for his own intellectual life, bul 
 as it proved, for the intellectual life of England a] 
 America, that at this crisis he began the study of t 
 German language and literature. The years 181' 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 1821 were chiefly devoted to mastering the language 
 reading deep and far into the literature. In 1820 
 mid write to one friend, " I could tell you much 
 b the new Heaven and new Earth which a slight 
 y of German literature has revealed to me." A 
 months later he wrote to another friend, "I have 
 lived riotously with Schiller, Goethe, and the rest : 
 they are the greatest men at present with me." 1 
 le had found a task into which he could put, 
 tor a time at least, his whole strength, — the intro- 
 duction and interpretation to English thought and 
 practice of the unifying and fructifying ideas of 
 u Schiller, Goethe, and the rest." No man was more 
 fit to do this than he of whom Goethe himself subse- 
 ly said, " He knows our literature better than we 
 L'selves." And no man than he felt more keenly 
 lalism into which much of contemporary English 
 lit and literature had fallen, — the dualism of 
 materialism versus sentiment ; of things versus heart, 
 — upon which the unifying and fructifying ideas 
 Schiller, Goethe, and the rest," might exert an 
 ideaHstic influence and do what Burns failed to 
 ( change the whole course of British literature." 2 
 yle's new interest soon found expression. In 
 
 1 Masson (op. cit.), p. 283. 
 
 2 Cf. the Essay on Biwns, p. 59. 
 
xxil INTRODUCTION 
 
 1822 his article on " Goethe's Faust " appeared ii 
 New Edinburgh Review. In 1823 he began his 
 of Schiller and his translation of Goethe's Wi 
 Meister, which were published the year folio 
 During these important years he was fortun i 
 relieved from the necessity of doing hack work of 
 any kind, and was able to devote the be£t part of his 
 time to study and writing, through a private tutor 
 to the sons of Mr. Charles Buller, which came to him" 
 through the recommendations of his friend, Edward 
 Irving. It yielded a salary of two hundred pounds. He 
 found the boys congenial and interesting. His v 
 ings and evenings were his own. Still, after two y 
 the relationship became irksome ; and at his o\\ 
 gestion was terminated. After a visit to London 
 to Paris in 1824, made possible in part by the tutor- 
 ship, he returned to Annandale; and early in 
 settled with his brother on a farm called II 
 Hill. Here his brother farmed while Carlyle 
 nately toiled on his translations of German ro:m. 
 and rode about on horseback. It was a sea: 
 comparative peace, of growth, of renewed heall 
 preparation for more important work. 
 
 " With all its manifold petty troubles, this 
 Hoddam Hill has a rustic beauty and dignity t< 
 and lies now like a not ignoble russet-eoate I 
 in my memory ; one of the quietest on the w 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiil 
 
 and perhaps the most triumphantly important of my 
 life. ... I found that I had conquered all my 
 scepticisms, agonizing doubtings, fearful wrestlings 
 with the foul and vile and soul-murdering Mud-gods 
 of my Epoch ; . . . and was emerging, free in spirit, 
 into the eternal blue of ether. ... I had, in effect, 
 gained an immense victory. . . . Once more, thank 
 Heaven for its highest gift. I felt then, and still 
 feel, endlessly indebted to Goethe in the business ; 
 he, in his fashion, I perceived, had travelled the 
 steep rocky road before me, — the first of the 
 moderns." * 
 
 We are now approaching the time when Carlyle 
 " found out Burns." October 27, 1826, he had married 
 Jane Baillie Welsh. After eighteen months' residence 
 at 21 Comely Bank, Edinburgh, during which time 
 Carlyle formed an important friendship with Francis 
 Jeffrey, editor of the Edinburgh Review, who accepted 
 his articles on "Kichter" and "The State of German 
 Literature " — the beginning of a long series of famous 
 historical and critical essays, — they moved (May, 1828) 
 to Craigenputtock, — the " Craig o' Putta," or Hill of the 
 Hawks, — a lonely moorland farm, belonging to Mrs. 
 Carlyle, more than a mile from the nearest house and 
 fifteen miles from the nearest town. This was to be 
 
 1 Reminiscences, ii., p. 179. 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 their home for the next six years, broken only by ; 
 seven months' visit to London (August, 1831-March 
 1832) and a winter in Edinburgh (1833). Her. 
 some of Carlyle's best work was to be done. O 
 Craigenputtock itself and of Carlyle's reason for goim 
 there the reader may best judge from the folio winj 
 extract from a letter to Goethe : — 
 
 Craigenputtock, Dumfries, 
 
 25th September, 1828. 
 
 You inquire with such affection touching our presen 
 abode and employments, that I must say some word 
 on that subject, while I have still space. Dumfries i 
 a pretty town, of some 15,000 inhabitants ; the Con 
 mercial and Judicial Metropolis of a considerable dii 
 trict on the Scottish border. Our dwelling place i 
 not in it, but fifteen miles (two hours' riding) to th 
 northwest of it, among the Granite Mountains an 
 black moors which stretch westward through Gall< 
 way almost to the Irish Sea. This is, as it were, 
 green oasis in that desert of heath and rock ; a piec 
 of ploughed and partially sheltered and ornamente I 
 ground, where corn ripens and trees yield umbrag 
 though encircled on all hands by moorfowl and on] 
 the hardiest breeds of sheep. Here, by dint of gre; 
 endeavor we have pargetted and garnished for on 
 
INTRODUCTION XXV 
 
 selves a clean substantial dwelling ; and settled down 
 in defect of any Professional or other Official appoint- 
 ment, to cultivate Literature, on our own resources, by 
 way of occupation, and roses and garden shrubs, and 
 if possible health and a peaceable temper of mind to 
 forward it. The roses are indeed still mostly to 
 plant; but they already blossom in Hope; and we 
 have two swift horses, which, with the mountain air, 
 are better than all physicians for sick nerves. That 
 exercise, which I am very fond of, is almost my sole 
 amusement; for this is one of the most solitary spots 
 in Britain, being six miles from any individual of the 
 formally visiting class. It might have suited Rousseau 
 almost as well as his island of St. Pierre; indeed I 
 find that most of my city friends impute to me a 
 motive similar to his in coming hither, and predict 
 no good from it. But I came hither purely for this 
 one reason ; that I might not have to write for bread, 
 might not be tempted to tell lies for money. This 
 space of Earth is our own, and we can live in it and 
 write and think as seems best to us, though Zoilus l 
 himself should become king of letters. And as to its 
 solitude, a mail-coach will any day transport us to 
 Edinburgh, which is our British Weimar. Nay, even 
 
 1 A Greek rhetorician of the fourth century, noted for his 
 adverse criticisms of Homer. — Ed. 
 
xxvi INTROD UCTION 
 
 at this time, I have a whole horse-load of French, 
 German, American, English Reviews and Journals, 
 were they of any worth, encumbering the tables of 
 my little library. Moreover, from any of our heights 
 I can discern a Hill, a day's journey to the eastward, 
 where Agricola with his Romans has left a camp ; at 
 the foot of which I was born, where my Father and 
 Mother are still living to love me. Time, therefore, 
 must be left to try : but if I sink into folly, myself 
 and not my situation will be to blame. Nevertheless 
 I have many doubts about my future literary activity ; 
 on all which, how gladly would I take your counsel ! 
 Surely, you will write to me again, and ere long ; that 
 I may still feel myself united to you. Our best 
 prayers for all good to you and yours are ever with 
 you! Farewell! « T Carltle »i 
 
 A few days before writing this letter — September 
 16 — Carlyle, according to a note in his journal, had 
 "finished a paper on Burns." The same letter con- 
 tains the following paragraph, which, together with 
 the passage quoted above, came to have the distinc- 
 tion, some two years later, of being quoted and com- 
 mented upon by Goethe in his "Dedication and 
 
 1 Correspondence between Goethe and Carlyle, edited by- 
 Norton, pp. 124-126. Cf. interesting letter to De Quincey, 
 dated December 11, 1828, in Life of Carlyle by H. J. Nicholl. 
 
INTRODUCTION XXV11 
 
 Introduction to the Translation of Carlyle's Life of 
 Schiller." 1 "The only thing of any moment I have 
 written since I came hither is an Essay on Bums, for 
 the next number of the Edinburgh Review, which, I 
 suppose, will be published in a few weeks. Perhaps 
 you have never heard of this Burns, and yet he was 
 a man of the most decisive genius ; but born in the 
 rank of a peasant, and miserably wasted away by 
 the complexities of his strange situation ; so that all 
 he effected was comparatively a trifle, and he died 
 before middle age. We English, especially we Scotch, 
 love Burns more than any other Poet we have had for 
 centuries. It has often struck me to remark that he 
 was born a few months only before Schiller, in the 
 year 1759, and that neither of these two men, of 
 whom I reckon Burns perhaps naturally even the 
 greater, ever heard the other's name ; but that they 
 shone as stars in opposite hemispheres, the little Atmos- 
 phere of the Earth intercepting their mutual light." 
 
 Goethe's reply to Carlyle's letter contains these 
 wise and appreciative words : — 
 
 1 Appendix I. to the Correspondence between Goethe and Car- 
 lyle. In the ''Dedication," etc. Goethe quotes also from the 
 Essay on Bums a passage beginning, " Burns was born in an 
 age," etc. (p. 9) to "a hundred years may pass on, before 
 another is given us to waste" (p. 14), with the exception of a 
 few sentences. 
 
XXVlll INTRODUCTION 
 
 "With your countryman Burns, who, if he were 
 still living would be your neighbor, I am. sufficiently 
 acquainted to prize him. The mention of him in 
 your letter leads me to take up his poems again, and 
 especially to read once more the story of his life, 
 which truly, like the history of many a fair genius, is 
 extremely sad. 
 
 " The poetic gift is, indeed, seldom united with the 
 gift of managing life, and making good any adequate 
 position. 
 
 " In his poems I have recognized a free spirit, capa- 
 ble of grasping the moment with vigor, and winning 
 gladness from it." 
 
 We are beginning to understand, at last, how not 
 only "neighborhood and early association" but the 
 very inequalities of their opportunities served to 
 bring Carlyle and Burns closer together. There are 
 few finer examples of the supremacy of character 
 through and over culture than that afforded by Car- 
 lyle, when, after his university training, such as it 
 was, after his prodigious reading in history, poetry, 
 and philosophy, unrivalled by that of any Englishman 
 of his time, and covering the whole range of modern 
 literature, — French, German, and English, — after hav- 
 ing earned from Goethe, the greatest living authority 
 in literature, the high commendation of being one 
 who "rested on an original foundation" and who 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 "had the power to develop in himself the essentials 
 of what is good and beautiful," he met Robert Burns, 
 — literally on his own ground, — and looked into his 
 face with the level, searching, yet sympathetic glance 
 of a reader of men. 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF CARLYLE 
 
 Since the Essay on Burns not only lights the way 
 to a deeper appreciation and enjoyment of the poems 
 of Burns, but also may serve as a natural introduction 
 to the subsequent writings of Carlyle, it remains to 
 speak briefly of the latter. The outward events of 
 Carlyle's life from now on were comparatively few 
 and unimportant. In the spring of 1834 he left 
 Craigenputtock for London, where he settled at No. 5 
 Cheyne (pronounced Chainey) ' Row in the suburb of 
 Chelsea, two miles west of the city on the north bank 
 of the Thames. This was to be his home for nearly 
 half a century, or until the day of his death, February 
 5, 1881 ; here he resided continuously with the excep- 
 tion of annual visits to his old home in Scotland, and 
 a few short trips to Ireland, France, and Germany. In 
 the work done here during the next thirty years is to 
 be found his truest biography, the sincere reflection 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 of his life. Before leaving Craigenptittock, how- 
 ever, he had written what is perhaps still the most 
 famous of his works — Sartor Resartus — which was 
 " mythically autobiographical." 
 
 The following rough classification of Carlyle's most 
 important writings may serve as a guide to further 
 reading. They may be divided into four groups. To the 
 first group belong the translations from the German 
 (1823-1826). To the second belong the biographies and 
 the biographical and critical essays, including the Life of 
 Schiller (1824), Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches 
 (1840-1845), Heroes and Hero Worship (1841), the Life 
 of John Sterling (1850), and most of the Critical and 
 Miscellaneous Essays, among which of special value 
 are the essays on Burns (1828), Voltaire (1829), Goethe's 
 Works (1832), BoswelVs Life of Johnson (1832), and 
 Diderot (1833). In a third group might be placed the 
 historical and ethical writings, — the essay on Signs 
 of the Times (1829), Sartor Resartus (1831), the essay 
 on Characteristics (1831), the French Revolution (1843- 
 1847), the essay on Chartism (1839), Past and Present 
 (1843), Latter Day Pamphlets (1850), and the History 
 of Frederick the Great (1851-1865). Sartor Resartus, 
 the essay on Characteristics, and Past and Present will 
 be found to be the best introduction to Carlyle's 
 political and ethical ideas. 
 
INTRODUCTION XXXI 
 
 THE TEXT OF THE ESSAY ON BURNS 
 
 The way in which the manuscript of the Essay on 
 Burns was received by the editor of the Edinburgh 
 Review is an illustration of the rather too well worn 
 dictum that the contemporary critic is not always the 
 best judge of a creation of genius. Jeffrey thought 
 the article long and diffuse. Though he admitted that 
 " it contained mnch beanty and fitness of diction," he 
 insisted that it must be cut down to perhaps half 
 its dimensions. Consequently when the proof-sheets 
 finally reached the author himself, a good deal of 
 the Essay Avas missing. Carlyle found "the first 
 part cut all into shreds — the body of a quadruped 
 with the head of a bird, a man shortened by cutting 
 out his thighs and fixing the knee-caps on the 
 hips." He refused to let it appear "in such a 
 horrid shape." Replacing the most important pas- 
 sages, he returned the sheets with an intimation that 
 the article might be withheld altogether, but should 
 not be mutilated. Fortunately for the readers of the 
 Review, Jeffrey acquiesced and caused the article to 
 be printed in very nearly its original form. 1 
 
 1 The following passages do not appear in the form the arti- 
 cle finally took in the Edinburgh Beview : pp. 28-31, "Of this 
 last excellence, . . . I'll nae mair trouble them nor thee, O " ; 
 
xxxn INTRODUCTION 
 
 In 1839 Carlyle's most important articles were col- 
 lected and republished in four volumes, entitled Criti- 
 cal and Miscellaneous Essays. Among these was the 
 Essay on Burns. The revisions made by Carlyle 
 in preparing the Essay for republication are of 
 exceptional interest. They afford glimpses into his 
 literary workshop, and permit us to see how he han- 
 dled his tools, — not those, to be sure, which are used 
 in blocking out and executing the main body of the 
 work, but those of finer edge and temper which serve 
 to bring out the more subtle shades of meaning or 
 to point a keener emphasis. A list of some of the 
 revised passages, printed side by side with the origi- 
 nal versions, is given below. After the student has 
 read the Essay, and has seen into its larger organic 
 structure, and has learned to keep step with the 
 swing and onward movement of the style, it will pay 
 him to turn his attention back to some of these finer 
 points of workmanship. Just why was this particular 
 change made by Carlyle ? In just what way was this 
 sentence improved as to its clearness, strength, cohe- 
 rence, or eternal fitness ? In order to answer such 
 questions as these, it will be found necessary in nearly 
 
 pp. 38-39, " But has it not been said, . . . Baited with many a 
 deadly curse ! "; and p. 45, "Apart from the universal sympathy 
 with man . . . not without significance." 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 xxxm 
 
 every case to consider the passage with reference to 
 its context, — sometimes with reference to the whole 
 paragraph or section, — and thus, even in small things, 
 the organic character of the style will be made manifest. 
 
 ORIGINAL AND REVISED VERSIONS 
 
 ORIGINAL VERSIONS IN 
 
 THE EDINBURGH 
 
 REVIEW 
 
 REVISED VERSIONS 
 
 Our own contributions to it, 
 we are aware, can be but 
 scanty and feeble ; but we 
 offer them with good- will, and 
 trust that they may meet with 
 acceptance from those for 
 whom they are intended (p. 
 270). 
 
 Our own contributions to it, 
 we are aware, can be but scanty 
 and feeble ; but we offer them 
 with good-will, and trust that 
 they may meet with acceptance 
 from those they are intended 
 for (p. 7). 
 
 Conquerors are a race with 
 whom the world could well 
 dispense (p. 272). 
 
 It is necessary, however, to 
 mention, that it is to the Poetry 
 of Burns that we now allude, 
 etc. (p. 276). 
 
 Conquerors are a class of 
 men with whom, for the most 
 part, the world could well dis- 
 pense (p. 11). 
 
 Here, however, let us say, it 
 is to the Poetry of Burns that 
 we now allude, etc. (p. 20). 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 it is in some past, distant, 
 conventional world, that poetry- 
 resides for him, etc. (p. 277). 
 
 The poet, we cannot but 
 think, can never have far to 
 seek for a subject, etc. (p. 277). 
 
 Without eyes, indeed, the 
 task might be hard (p. 278). 
 
 We see in him the gentle- 
 ness, the trembling pity of a 
 woman, with the deep earnest- 
 ness, the force and passionate 
 ardor of a hero (p. 279). 
 
 And observe with what a 
 pmmpt and eager force he 
 grasps his subject, be it what 
 it may ! (p. 279.) 
 
 Poetry, except in such cases 
 as that of Keats, where the 
 whole consists in extreme sen- 
 sibility, and a certain vague 
 pervading tunefulness of na- 
 
 it is in some past, distant, 
 conventional heroic world, thai 
 poetry resides, etc. (p. 22). 
 
 The poet, we imagine, can 
 never have far to seek for a 
 subject, etc. (p. 23). 
 
 Without eyesight, indeed 
 the task might be hard. Th 
 blind or the purblind mai 
 4 travels from Dan to Beer 
 sheba, and finds it all barren 
 (p. 25). 
 
 We see that in this mat 
 there was the gentleness, th 
 trembling pity of a woman 
 with the deep earnestness, th 
 force and passionate ardor c 
 a hero (p. 27). 
 
 And observe with what 
 fierce prompt force he grasp 
 his subject, be it what it may '. 
 
 (p. 28.) 
 
 Poetry, except in such cases 
 as that of Keats, where the 
 whole consists in a weak-eyed 
 maudlin sensibility, and a ce - 
 tain vague random tunefulness 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 XXXV 
 
 tare, is no separate faculty, no 
 organ which can be super- 
 added to the rest, or disjoined 
 from them ; but rather the 
 result of their general har- 
 mony and completion (p. 281). 
 
 What Burns's force of under- 
 standing may have been, we 
 have less means of judging ; 
 it had to dwell among the 
 humblest objects ; never saw 
 philosophy ; never rose, except 
 for short intervals, into the 
 region of great ideas. Never- 
 theless, sufficient indication 
 remains for us in his works, 
 etc. (p. 282). 
 
 Under a lighter and thinner 
 disguise, etc. (p. 284). 
 
 and thus the Tragedy of the 
 adventure becomes a mere 
 drunken phantasmagoria, 
 painted on ale-vapors, and the 
 Farce alone has any reality 
 (p. 285). 
 
 The Song has its rules 
 equally with Tragedy (p. 286). 
 
 of nature, is no separate fac- 
 ulty, no organ which can be 
 superadded to the rest, or dis- 
 joined from them ; but rather 
 the result of their general har- 
 mony and completion (p. 33). 
 
 What Burns' s force of under- 
 standing may have been, we 
 have less means of judging: 
 it had to dwell among the 
 humblest objects ; never saw 
 Philosophy ; never rose, except 
 by natural effort and for short 
 intervals, into the region of 
 great ideas. Nevertheless, suf- 
 ficient indication, if no proof 
 sufficient, remains for us in his 
 works, etc. (p. 33). 
 
 Under a lighter disguise, ste. 
 (p. 41). 
 
 and thus the Tragedy of the 
 adventure becomes a mere 
 drunken phantasmagoria, or 
 many colored spectrum paint- 
 ed on ale- vapors, and the Farce 
 alone has any reality (p. 43). 
 
 Yet the Song has its rules 
 equally with Tragedy, etc. 
 (p. 46). 
 
XXXVI 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 In hut and hall, as the heart 
 unfolds itself in the joy and 
 woe of existence, etc. (p. 287). 
 
 In hut and hall, -as the heart 
 unfolds itself in many colored 
 joy and woe of existence, etc. 
 (P- 49). 
 
 In his most toilsome journey- 
 ings, this object never quits 
 him, etc. (p. 289). 
 
 In his toilsome journeyings, 
 this object never quits him, 
 etc. (p. 53). 
 
 But to leave the mere liter- 
 ary character of Burns, which 
 has already detained us too 
 long, we cannot but think that 
 the Life he willed, and was 
 fated to lead among his fellow 
 men, is both more interesting 
 and instructive than any of his 
 written works (p. 290). 
 
 But to leave the mere liter- 
 ary character of Burns, which 
 has already detained us too 
 long. Far more interesting 
 than any of Jiis wntte.n works, 
 as it appears t u*, are his 
 acted ones: the Life he willed 
 and ivas fated to lead among 
 his fellow-men (p. 54). 
 
 Thus, like a young man, he 
 cannot steady himself for any 
 fixed or systematic pursuit, but 
 swerves to and fro, between 
 passionate hope, and remorse- 
 ful disappointment, etc. (p. 
 291). 
 
 Thus, like a young man, he 
 cannot gird himself up for any 
 worthy well-calculated goal, 
 but swerves to and fro, be- 
 tween passionate hope and 
 remorseful disappointment, 
 etc. (p. 56). 
 
 Manhood begins when we 
 have in any way made truce 
 with Necessity ; begins, at all 
 events, even when we have 
 
 Manhood begins when we 
 have in any way made truce 
 with Necessity ; begins even 
 when we have surrendered to 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 XXXVll 
 
 surrendered to Necessity, as 
 the most part only do, etc. 
 (p. 293). 
 
 Some of his admirers, indeed, 
 are scandalized at his ever re- 
 solving to gauge; and would 
 have had him apparently lie 
 still at the pool, till the spirit 
 of Patronage should stir the 
 waters, and then heal with 
 one plunge all his worldly 
 sorrows! We fear that such 
 counsellors km J 7 '< little of 
 Burns; and did »„^ consider 
 that happiness might in all 
 cases be cheaply had by waiting 
 for the fulfilment of golden 
 dreams, were it not that in the 
 interim the dreamer must die 
 of hunger (p. 298). 
 
 And yet he sailed a sea, 
 where without some such guide 
 there was no right steering 
 (p. 300). 
 
 The influences of that age, 
 his open, kind, susceptible na- 
 ture, to say nothing of his 
 highly untoward situation, 
 made it more than usually clif- 
 
 Necessity, as the most part 
 only do, etc. (p. 61). 
 
 Certain of his admirers have 
 felt scandalized at his ever 
 resolving to gauge ; and would 
 have had him lie at the pool, 
 till the spirit of Patronage 
 stirred the waters, that so, with 
 one friendly plunge, all his 
 sorrows might be healed. Un- 
 wise counsellors I Tliey know 
 not the manner of this spirit ; 
 and how, in the lap of most 
 golden dreams, a man might 
 have happiness, were it not 
 that in the interim he must die 
 of hunger ! (p. 73. ) 
 
 And yet he sailed a sea, 
 where without some such load- 
 star there was no right steer- 
 ing (p. 77). 
 
 The influences of that age, 
 his open, kind, susceptible. na- 
 ture, to say nothing of his 
 highly untoward situation, 
 made it more than usually dif- 
 
XXXV111 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ficult for him to repel or resist ; 
 the better spirit that was in 
 him ever sternly demanded its 
 rights, its supremacy : he spent 
 his life in endeavoring to 
 reconcile these two ; and lost 
 it, as he must have lost it, with- 
 out reconciling them here 
 (p. 306). 
 
 Granted, the ship comes into 
 harbor with shrouds and 
 tackle damaged ; and the 
 pilot is therefore blameworthy ; 
 for he has not been all-wise 
 and all-powerful ; but to know 
 how blameworthy, tell us first 
 whether his voyage has been 
 round the Globe, or only to 
 Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs 
 (p. 311). 
 
 ficult for him to cast aside, or 
 rightly subordinate ; the better 
 spirit that was within him ever 
 sternly demanded its rights, 
 its supremacy : he spent his 
 life in endeavoring to recon- 
 cile these two ; and lost it, as 
 he must lose it, without recon- 
 ciling them (p. 90). 
 
 Granted, the ship comes into 
 harbor with shrouds and 
 tackle damaged ; the pilot is 
 blameworthy ; he has not been 
 all- wise and all-powerful : but 
 to know hoio blameworthy, tell 
 us first whether his voyage has 
 been round the Globe, or only 
 to Ramsgate and the Isle of 
 Dogs (p. 101). 
 
 APPRECIATIONS 
 
 It is admirable in Carlyle that, in his judgment of 
 our German authors, he has especially in view the 
 mental and moral core as that which is really influ- 
 ential. Carlyle is a moral force of great importance! 
 There is in him much for the future, and we cannot 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxix 
 
 foresee what he will produce and effect. — Goethe : 
 Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Scott. 
 (July 25, 1827, — a year before the Essay on Burns 
 was written.) Translated by John Oxenford. Lon- 
 don, 1874. p. 276. , 
 
 There is no philosophy here for philosophers, only 
 as every man is said to have his philosophy. No 
 system but such as is the man himself; and, indeed, 
 he stands compactly enough ; no progress beyond the 
 first assertion and challenge, as it were, with trumpet 
 blast. One thing is certain, — that we had best be 
 doing something in good earnest henceforth forever; 
 that's an indispensable philosophy. The before im- 
 possible precept, 'knoiv thyself,' he translates into the 
 partially possible one, ' know what thou canst work at.' 
 — Thokeau : Thomas Carlyle and His Works. A Yan- 
 kee in Canada, p. 240. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 
 
 I did not, however, deem myself a competent judge 
 of Carlyle. I felt that he was a poet, and that I was 
 not ; that he was a man of intuition, which I was not; 
 and that as such, he not only saw many things long 
 before me, which I could only when they were pointed 
 out to me, hobble after and prove, but that it was 
 highly probable he could see many things which were 
 not visible to me even after they were pointed out. I 
 knew that I could not see round him, and could never 
 be certain that I saw over him ; and I never presumed 
 
xl INTRODUCTION 
 
 to judge him with any definiteness, until he was inter- 
 preted to me by one greatly the superior of us both — 
 who was more of a poet than he, and more of a thinker 
 than I — whose own mind and nature included his, and 
 infinitely more. — John Stuart Mill: Autobiography. 
 
 He did not believe in democracy, in popular sover- 
 eignty, in the progress of the species, in the political 
 equality of Jesus and Judas : in fact, he repudiated 
 with mingled wrath and sorrow the whole American 
 idea and theory of politics 5 yet who shall say that his 
 central doctrine of the survival of the fittest, the 
 nobility of labor, the exaltation of justice, valor, pity, 
 the leadership of character, truth, nobility, wisdom, 
 etc., is really and finally inconsistent with, or inimical 
 to, that which is valuable and permanent and forma- 
 tive in the modern movement ? I think it is the best 
 medicine and regimen for it that could be suggested — 
 the best stay and counterweight. For the making of 
 good Democrats, there are no books like Carlyle's, and 
 we in America need especially to cherish him, and to 
 lay his lesson to heart. — John Burroughs : Fresh 
 Fields, p. 281. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 
 
 One of Mr. Carlyle's chief and just glories is, that 
 for more than forty years he has clearly seen, and kept 
 constantly and Conspicuously in his own sight and that 
 of his readers, the profoundly important crisis in the 
 midst of which we are living. The moral and social 
 
INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 dissolution in progress about us, and the enormous 
 peril of sailing blindfold and haphazard, without rud- 
 der or compass or chart, have always been fully visible 
 to him, and it is no fault of his if they have not be- 
 come equally plain to his contemporaries. The policy 
 of drifting has had no countenance from him. — Mor- 
 ley : Garlyle. In Critical Miscellanies, London, 1871. 
 (Chapman and Hall.) 
 
 It is not the intellect alone, or the imagination alone, 
 which can become sensible of the highest virtue in the 
 writings of Mr. Carlyle. He is before all else a power 
 with reference to conduct. He too cannot live without 
 a divine presence. He finds it in the entire material 
 universe, " the living garment of God." Teufelsdrockh 
 among the Alps is first awakened from his stony sleep 
 at the " Centre of Indifference " by the glory of the 
 white mountains, the azure dome, the azure winds, 
 the black tempest marching in anger through the dis- 
 tance. He finds the divine presence in the spirit of 
 man, and in the heroic leaders of our race. — Dowden : 
 Studies in Literature, p. 74. London, 1878. (Kegan 
 Paul, Trench & Co.) 
 
 In Switzerland I live in the immediate presence of 
 a mountain, noble alike in form and mass. A bucket 
 or two of water, whipped into a cloud, can obscure, if 
 not efface, that lordly peak. You would almost say 
 that no peak could be there. But the cloud passes 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION 
 
 away, and the mountain, in its solid grandeur, remains. 
 Thus, when all temporary dust is laid, will stand 
 out, erect and clear, the massive figure of Carlyle. — 
 Tyndall : On Unveiling of the Statue to Thomas Car- 
 lyle. New Fragments of Science, p. 397. (D. Appleton 
 &Co.) 
 
 Though not the safest of guides in politics or practi- 
 cal philosophy, his value as an inspirer and awakener 
 cannot be over-estimated. It is a power which belongs 
 only to the highest order of minds, for it is none but 
 a divine fire that can so kindle and irradiate. The 
 debt due him from those who listened to the teach- 
 ings of his prime for revealing to them what sublime 
 reserves of power even the humblest may find in man- 
 liness, sincerity, and self-reliance, can be paid with 
 nothing short of reverential gratitude. As a purifier 
 of the sources whence our intellectual inspiration is 
 drawn, his influence has been second only to that of 
 Wordsworth, if even to his. Indeed he has been in 
 no fanciful sense the continuator of Wordsworth's 
 moral teaching. — Lowell : Carlyle. Lite, ary Essays, 
 Vol. II., p. 118. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 
 
 Carlyle, therefore, must be judged as a poet, and 
 not as a dealer in philosophic systems ; as a seer or a 
 prophet, not as a theorist or a man of calculations. 
 And, therefore, if I were attempting any criticism of 
 his literary merits, I should dwell upon his surpassing 
 
INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 power in his peculiar province. Admitting that every 
 line he wrote has the stamp of his idiosyncrasies, and 
 consequently requires a certain congeniality of tem- 
 perament in the reader, I should try to describe the 
 strange spell which it exercises over the initiated. 
 If you really hate the grotesque, the gloomy, the 
 exaggerated, you are of course disqualified from en- 
 joying Carlyle. You must take leave of what ordi- 
 narily passes even for common-sense, of all academical 
 canons of taste, and of any weak regard for symmetry or 
 simplicity before you enter the charmed circle. But 
 if you can get rid of your prejudices for the nonce, 
 you will certainly be rewarded by seeing visions 
 such as are evoked by no other magician. The 
 common-sense reappears in the new shape of strange 
 vivid flashes of humor and insight casting undisputed 
 gleams of light into many dark places ; and dashing 
 off graphic portraits with a single touch. And if you 
 miss the serene atmosphere of calmer forms of art, it 
 is something to feel at times, as no one but Carlyle can 
 make you feel, that each instant is the "conflux of 
 two eternities " ; that our little lives, in his favorite 
 Shakespearian phrase, are "rounded with a sleep"; 
 that history is like the short space lighted up by a 
 flickering taper in the midst of infinite glooms and 
 mysteries, and its greatest events brief scenes in a 
 vast drama of conflicting forces, where the actors are 
 
xliv IXTROD UC TION 
 
 passing in rapid succession — rising from and vanish- 
 ing into the all-embracing darkness. — Leslie Stephen : 
 Carlyle? & Ethics. Hours in a Library. 
 
 PREFERENCES ON CARLYLE 
 
 [Xote : The asterisk denotes those which are recommended to be 
 read first.] 
 
 Biography 
 
 Froude, J. A. Thomas Carbjle. A History of the First Forty 
 Years of his Life. 2 vols. London, 1882. Also, Thomas 
 Carlyle. A History of his Life in London. 2 vols. Lon- 
 don, 1885. (Froude was appointed by Carlyle to be his 
 biographer and literary executor. ) 
 
 *Garnett, Richard. Life of Thomas Carlyle. Great Writers 
 Series. Bibliography by John P. Anderson. 
 
 Macpher>ox, H. C. Thomas Carlyle. Famous Scots Series. 
 
 Nichol, John. Thomas Carlyle. English Men of Letters 
 Series. 
 
 *Xicholl, H. J. TJwmas Carlyle. Edinburgh, 1881. 
 
 Criticism and Personal fiemllections 
 
 *Arxold, Matthew. Discourses in America. London, 1885. 
 Emerson [and Carlyle]. pp. 138-207. (Should be read in 
 connection with the Correspondence of Emerson and 
 Carlyle.) Cf. Burroughs (op. cit.). 
 
INTRODUCTION xlv 
 
 Bayne, Peter. Lessons from My Masters, Carbjlc, Tennyson, 
 and Buskin. London, 1879. 
 
 *Birrell, A. Obiter Dicta, First Series. London, 1884. pp. 
 1-54. 
 
 Blunt, Reginald. Hie Carlyles* Chelsea Home. London, 
 1895. (Contains many interesting illustrations.) 
 
 Bolton, Sarah K. Famous English Authors of th e Nineteenth 
 Century. New York, 1890. Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. On Carlyle. Poet Lore, 
 Vol. X., pp. 012-018. (1898.) 
 
 ♦Burroughs, John. Fresh Fields. Boston, 1885. A Sunday 
 in Cheyne Row. (Describes a meeting with Carlyle in 
 1871.) In Carlyle's Country. Indoor Studies. Boston, 
 1889. Arnold's Vieiv of Carlyle and Emerson. (Cf. Ar- 
 nold (op. cit.). For the same articles, see Century, Vol. 26, 
 pp. 530-543, and Vol. 27, pp. 925-932, and Atlantic Monthly, 
 Vol. 51, pp. 320-330. All of the articles are illuminating.) 
 
 Cairo, Edward. Essays on Literature and Philosophy. New 
 York, 1892. The Genius of Carlyle. 
 
 *Conwat, M. D. Thomas Carlyle. New York, 1881. (Rich 
 in reminiscences of the personality of Carlyle. Contains 
 an interesting autobiography of Carlyle, reported from a 
 conversation). 
 
 Dawson, G. Biographical Lectures. London, 1880. The 
 Genius and Works of Thomas Carlyle. pp. 358-437. 
 
 Dowden, Edward. Studies in Literature. London, 1878. 
 The Transcendental Movement. (Develops the idea that 
 what Coleridge was to the intellect of his time ; Words- 
 worth, to the imagination and to the contemplative habit of 
 mind ; Shelley, to the imagination and passions ; Carlyle 
 was to the will.) 
 
 Duefy, Charles G. Conversations with Carlyle. London, 1892, 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 *Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Impressions of Carlyle. Scrib- 
 ner's, May, 1881. English Traits. (Chapter I. contains an 
 interesting account of his visit to Carlyle at Craigenput- 
 tock. ) 
 
 Espinasse, Francis. Literary Becollections and Sketches. 
 New York, 1893. (A considerable portion of the book is 
 devoted to an interesting account of " The Carlyles and a 
 Segment of Their Circle.") For a characterization of 
 Espinasse by Carlyle, see Duffy {op. cit.), p. 131. 
 
 Gilchrist, H. H. Annie Gilchrist : Her Life and Writings. 
 Edited by H. H. C. London, 1887. (Contains reminis- 
 cences of Carlyle at Chelsea.) 
 
 Harrison, Frederic Studies in Early Victorian Literature. 
 London, 1895. Thomas Carlyle. Same essay in Forum, 
 Vol. 17, pp. 537-550. (In this will be found a clearly stated 
 adverse criticism of Carlyle.) 
 
 *Higginson, T. W. The Laugh of Carlyle. Atlantic Monthly, 
 Vol. 48, pp. 463-466. 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward. A Meeting with Carlyle. Critic, Vol. I., 
 p. 89. Reprinted in Reminiscences, 1819-1899. Boston, 
 1899. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh. Autobiography. 3 vols. New York, 1850. Vol. 
 II., chap, xxiv., pp. 266-269. (Reminiscences concerning 
 Carlyle's hatred of shams, habit of fault-finding, and para- 
 mount humanity.) 
 
 Hutton, Laurence. Literary Landmarks of London. Bos- 
 ton, 1885. Thomas Carlyle. pp. 38-40. (Chiefly quota- 
 tions from Froude's biography.) 
 
 Hutton, R. H. Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and 
 Thinkers. London, 1894. By the same author, Essays on 
 Some of the Modern Guides to Thought in Matters of 
 Faith. London, 1887. (Both works contain interesting 
 
INTROD UCTION xl vii 
 
 though somewhat contradictory estimates of Carlyle's 
 work.) 
 
 k.Tames, Henry, Sr. The Literary Remains of the Late Henry 
 James. Some personal recollections of Carlyle. pp. 421- 
 468. Reprinted from Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 47, pp. 593- 
 609. (An exceedingly interesting article.) 
 
 Larkin, Henry. Carlyle and the Open Secret of His Life. 
 London, 1886. (Asserts that Carlyle entertained hopes of 
 being actively employed in public life, of leading great 
 social and political reforms, — hopes that were thwarted by 
 the death of Sir Robert Peel.) 
 
 *Lord, John. Beacon Lights of History. New York, 1896. 
 Thomas Carlyle. Criticisms and Biography. (Contains a 
 brief review of Carlyle's principal writings.) 
 
 *Lowell, J. R. Literary Essays, Vol. II. Carlyle. (1866.) 
 See also Fable for Critics. 
 
 Martineau, James. Essays Philosophical and Theological. 
 2 vols. New York, 1879. Vol. I., pp. 329-405. (A 
 philosophical discussion of the personal influences on our 
 present theology of Newman, Coleridge, and Carlyle.) 
 
 *Masson, David. Carlyle Personally and in His Writings. 
 Two Edinburgh Lectures. London, 1885. (An important 
 criticism of Froude's biography.) By the same author, 
 Edinburgh Sketches and Memories. London, 1892. Car- 
 lyle's Edinburgh Life. 
 
 *Mazzini, Joseph. Essays. London, 1887. On the Genius 
 and Tendency of the Writings of Thomas Carlyle. (First 
 published in the British and Foreign Review, October, 1843. 
 It still remains one of the best statements and criticisms of 
 Carlyle's ethics.) 
 
 Mead, Edwin D. The Philosophy of Carlyle. Boston, 1881. 
 
 *Minto, William. A Manual of English Prose Literature. 
 
xlviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Edinburgh, 1886. Thomas Carlyle. pp. 131-180. (Con- 
 tains a valuable analysis of Carlyle's style.) 
 
 *Morley, John. Critical dliscellanies. London, 1871. Car- 
 lyle. 
 
 Oliphant, Mrs. M. W. MmmillarC s Magazine, Vol. 43, pp. 
 482-496. (Personal recollections of Carlyle in his old age.) 
 
 Parton, James (Ed.) Some Noted Princes, Authors, and States- 
 men of Our Time. New York, 1885. Tea with Carlyle. 
 Anon. Thomas Carlyle, by the editor. Carlyle : His 
 Work and His AVife, by Louise Chandler Moulton. 
 (Written in a popular, entertaining style.) 
 
 Ruskin, John. Fors Clavigera. London, 1871-1884. (Passim.) 
 
 *Saintsbury, George. Literary Work of Carlyle. Century, 
 Vol. 22, pp. 92-106. 
 
 *Scherer, Edmond. Essays on English Literature. Trans- 
 lated by George Saintsbury. New York, 1891. Thomas 
 Carlyle. 
 
 Seeley, J. R. Lectures and Essays. London, 1870. (In the 
 essay on Milton's Political Opinions, Milton as " the 
 prophet of national health" is contrasted with Carlyle as 
 " the prophet of national decay.") 
 
 *Shairp, J. C. Aspects of Poetry . Boston, 1882. Prose Poets: 
 Thomas Carlyle. (See also the essay on Cardinal Newman 
 for a significant contrast between the style and thought of 
 Carlyle and that of Newman.) 
 
 *Stephen, Leslie. Hours in a Library. 3 vols. London, 
 1892. Carlyle's Ethics. (Same essay in the Comhill 
 Magazine, Vol. 44, pp. 664-683.) 
 
 Thayer, W. R. Throne Makers. Boston, 1899. Carlyle. 
 (First printed in the Forum, Vol. 20, pp. 465-479. A 
 eulogy of Carlyle as a moralist and historian.) 
 
 *Thoreau, H. D. A Yankee in Canada. Boston, 1878. 
 
INTRODUCTION xlix 
 
 Thomas Carlyle and His Works. (Reprinted from Gra- 
 ham's Magazine, March, 1847. One of the richest and 
 most suggestive criticisms of Carlyle. ) 
 
 *Tyndall, John. New Fragments. New York, 1892. Per- 
 sonal Recollections of Thomas Carlyle. (Contains an 
 interesting account of Carlyle's Edinburgh Address.) On 
 Unveiling the Statue of Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 Whitman, Walt. Complete Prose Works. Boston, 1898. 
 Death of Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle from an American 
 Point of View. 
 
 Wilson, David. Mr. Fronde and Carlyle. New York, 1898. 
 (Marshals the important criticisms of Froude's biography.) 
 
 Wylie, W. H. Thomas Carlyle. The Man and His Books. 
 London, 1881. 
 
 Correspondence and Reminiscences 
 
 Copeland, C. T. (Ed.) Letters of Thomas Carlyle to his 
 Youngest Sister. Boston, 1899. 
 
 Froude, J. A. (Ed.) Letters and Memorials of Jane Baillie 
 Welsh Carlyle; Prepared for Publication by Thomas Car- 
 lyle. New York, 1883. Reminiscences of my Irish Jour- 
 ney in 1849. New York, 1882. 
 
 Norton, C. E. (Ed.) Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, 
 1834-1872. 2 vols. Boston, 1883. Supplementary 
 Letters. Boston, 1886. Correspondence of Goethe and 
 Carlyle. London, 1887. Reminiscences. 2 vols, in 1. 
 London, 1887. 
 
BURNS 
 
 [Edinburgh Eeview, No. XCVI. December, 1828] 
 
 \ In the modern arrangements of society, it is no 
 uncommon thing that a man of genius must, like 
 Butler, ' ask for bread and receive a stone ' ; -for, in 
 spite of our grand maxim of supply and demand, it 
 is by no means the highest excellence that men are 5 
 most forward to recognize. The inventor of a spin- 
 ning-jenny is pretty sure of his reward in his own 
 day ; but the writer of a true poem, like the apostle 
 of a true religion, is nearly as sure of the contrary. 
 We do not know whether it is not an aggravation of 10 
 the injustice, that there is generally a posthumous 
 retribution. Robert Burns, in the course of Nature, 
 might yet have been living; but his short life was 
 spent in toil and penury ; and he died, in the prime 
 of his manhood, miserable and neglected : and yet 15 
 already a brave mausoleum shines over his dust, and 
 more than one splendid monument has been reared 
 in other places to his fame ; the street where he lan- 
 
 B 1 
 
2 BURNS 
 
 guished in poverty is called by his name ; the highest 
 personages in our literature have been proud to appear 
 as his commentators and admirers; and here is the 
 sixth narrative of his Life that has been given to the 
 5 world ! 
 
 % Mr. Lockhart thinks it necessary to apologize for 
 this new attempt on such a subject: but his readers, 
 we believe, will readily acquit him ; or, at worst, will 
 censure only the performance of his task, not the 
 
 io choice of it. The character of Burns, indeed, is a 
 theme that cannot easily become either trite or ex- 
 hausted ; and will probably gain rather than lose in 
 its dimensions by the distance to which it is removed 
 by Time. No man, it has been said, is a hero to his 
 
 15 valet ; and this is probably true ; but the fault is at 
 least as likely to be the valet's as the hero's. For it 
 is certain that to the vulgar eye few things are wonder- 
 ful that are not distant. It is difficult for men to 
 believe that the man, the mere man whom they- see, 
 
 20 nay, perhaps painfully feel, toiling at their side through 
 the poor jostlings of existence, can be made of finer 
 clay than themselves. Suppose that some dining ac- 
 quaintance of Sir Thomas Lucy's, and neighbor of 
 John a Combe's, had snatched an hour or two from 
 
 25 the preservation of his game, and written us a Life of 
 
BURNS 3 
 
 Shakespeare ! What dissertations should we not have 
 had, — not on Hamlet and The Tempest, but on the 
 wool-trade, and deer-stealing, and the libel and vagrant 
 laws ; and how the Poacher became a Player ; and how 
 Sir Thomas and Mr. John had Christian bowels, and 5 
 did not push him to extremities ! In like manner, we 
 believe, with respect to Burns, that till the companions 
 of his pilgrimage, the Honorable Excise Commission- 
 ers, and the Gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt, and 
 the Dumfries Aristocracy, and all the Squires and Earls, 10 
 equally with the Ayr Writers, and the New and Old 
 Light Clergy, whom he had to do with, shall have 
 become invisible in the darkness of the Past, or visible 
 only by light borrowed from his juxtaposition,/Tt will 
 be difficult to measure him by any true standard or to 15 
 estimate what he really was and did, in the eighteenth 
 century, for his country and the world. It will be dif- 
 ficult, we say ; but still a fair problem for literary his- 
 torians ; and repeated attempts will give us repeated 
 approximations. 20 
 
 3 His former Biographers have done something^ no 
 doubt, but by no means a great deal, to assist us. JjDr. 
 Currie and Mr. Walker, the principal of these writers, 
 have both, we think, mistaken one essentially impor- 
 tant thing : ■ Their own and the world's true relation 25 
 
4 BURNS 
 
 to their author, and the style in which it became such 
 men to think and to speak of such a man./ Dr. Currie 
 loved the poet truly; more perhaps than he avowed 
 to his readers, or even to himself ; yet he everywhere 
 
 5 introduces him with a certain patronizing, apologetic 
 air ; as if the polite public might think it strange and 
 half unwarrantable that he, a man of science, a scholar 
 and gentleman, should do such honor to a rustic. In 
 all this, however, we readily admit that his fault was 
 
 10 not want of love, but weakness of faith ; and regret 
 that the first and kindest of all our poet's biographers 
 should not have seen farther, or believed more boldly 
 what he saw. Mr. Walker offends more deeply in the 
 same kind : and both err alike in presenting us with a 
 
 15 detached catalogue of his several supposed attributes, 
 virtues and vices, instead of a delineation of the result- 
 ing character as a living unity. This, however, is not 
 painting a portrait ; but gauging the length and breadth 
 of the several features, and jotting down their dimen- 
 
 20 sions in arithmetical ciphers. Nay, it is not so much 
 as that : for we are yet to learn by what arts or instru- 
 ments the mind could be so measured and gauged. 
 4 1 Mr. Lockhart, we are happy to say, has avoided both 
 these errors. He uniformly treats Burns as the high 
 
 25 and remarkable man the public voice has now pro- 
 
BURNS 5 
 
 nounced him to be: and in delineating him, he has 
 avoided the method of separate generalities, and rather 
 sought for characteristic incidents, habits, actions, 
 sayings ; in a word, for aspects which exhibit the 
 whole man, as he looked and lived among his fellows. 5 
 The book accordingly, with all its deficiencies, gives 
 more insight, we think, into the true character of 
 Burns, than any prior biography : though, being written 
 on the very popular and condensed scheme of an 
 article for Constable's Miscellany, it has less depth 10 
 than we could have wished and expected from a writer 
 of such power; and contains rather more, and more 
 multifarious quotations than belong of right to an orig- 
 inal production. Indeed, Mr. Lockhart's own writing 
 is generally so good, so clear, direct and nervous, that 15 
 we seldom wish to see it making place for another 
 man's. However, the spirit of the work is throughout 
 candid, tolerant and anxiously conciliating; compli- 
 ments and praises are liberally distributed, on all 
 hands, to great and small ; and, as Mr. Morris Birk- 20 
 beck° observes of the society in the backwoods of 
 America, 'the courtesies of polite life are never lost 
 sight of for a moment.' But there are better things 
 than these in the volume ; and we can safely tes- 
 tify, not only that it is easily and pleasantly read a 25 
 
6 BURNS 
 
 first time, but may even be without difficulty read 
 again. 
 
 S Nevertheless, we are far from thinking that the 
 problem of Burns's Biography has yet been adequately 
 5 solved. We do not allude so much to deficiency of 
 facts or documents, — though of these we are still 
 every day receiving some fresh accession, — as to the 
 limited and imperfect application of them to the great 
 end of Biography. Our notions upon this subject may 
 
 io perhaps appear extravagant; but if an individual is 
 really of consequence enough to have his life and 
 character recorded for public remembrance, we have 
 always been of opinion that the public ought to be 
 made acquainted with all the inward springs and rela- 
 
 15 tions of his character. How did the world and man's 
 life, from his particular position, represent themselves 
 to his mind ? ' How__did coexisting ci rcumstan ces 
 modify him from without; how did he modify these 
 from within ? With what endeavors and what efficacy 
 
 20 rule over them ; with what resistance and what suffer- 
 ing sink under them? 1 Lin one word, what and how 
 produced was the effect of society on him ; what and 
 how produced was his effect on society ? He who 
 should answer these questions, in regard to any indi- 
 
 25 vidual, would, as we believe, furnish a model of per- 
 
 
BURNS 
 
 *J 
 
 fection in Biography. Few individuals, indeed, can 
 deserve such a study ; and many lives will be written, 
 and, for the gratification of innocent curiosity, ought 
 to be written, and read and forgotten, which are not 
 in this sense biographies. But Burns, if we mistake 5 
 not, is one of these few individuals ; and such a study, 
 at least with such a result, he has not yet obtained. 
 Our own contributions to it, we are aware, can be but 
 scanty and feeble ; but we offer them with good-will, 
 and trust they may meet with acceptance from those 10 
 they are intended for. 
 
 • Burns first came upon the world as a prodigy ; and 
 was, in that character, entertained by it, in the usual 
 fashion, with loud, vague, tumultuous wonder, speed- 
 ily subsiding into censure and neglect ; till his early 1 
 and most mournful death again awakened an enthu- 
 siasm for him, which, especially as there was now 
 nothing to be done, and much to be spoken, has pro- 
 longed itself even to our own time. It is true, the 
 'nine days' have long since elapsed; and the very 20 
 continuance of this clamor proves that Burns was no 
 vulgar wonder. Accordingly, even in sober judgments, 
 where, as years passed by, he has come to rest more and 
 more exclusively on his own intrinsic merits, and may 
 
BURNS 
 
 now be well-nigh shorn of that casual radiance, he 
 appears not only as a true British poet, but as one of 
 the most considerable British men of the eighteenth 
 century. ! Let it not be objected that he did little. 
 5 He did much, if we consider where and how. If the 
 work performed was small, we must remember that 
 he had his very materials to discover ; for the metal 
 he worked in lay hid under the desert moor where no 
 eye but his had guessed its existence; and we may 
 
 io almost say, that with his own hand he had to con- 
 struct the tools for fashioning it. For he found 
 himself in deepest obscurity, without help, without 
 instruction, without model ; or with models only of 
 the meanest sort. An' educated man stands, as it 
 
 15 were, in the midst of a boundless arsenal and maga- 
 zine, filled with all the weapons and engines which 
 man's skill has been able to devise from the earliest 
 time ; and he works accordingly, with a strength bor- 
 rowed from all past ages. How different is his state 
 
 20 who stands on the outside of that storehouse, and 
 feels that its gates must be stormed, or remain for- 
 ever shut against him ! His means are the common- 
 est and rudest ; the mere work done is no measure of 
 his strength. A dwarf behind his steam-engine may 
 
 25 remove mountains ; but no dwarf will hew them down 
 
BURNS 9 
 
 with a pickaxe : and he must be a Titan that hurls 
 them abroad with his arms. 
 
 * ' It is in this last shape that Burns presents himself. 
 ,'Born in an age the most prosaic Britain had yet seen, 
 and in a condition the most disadvantageous, where 
 his mind, if it accomplished aught, must accomplish 
 it under the pressure of continual bodily toil, nay, of 
 penury and desponding apprehension of the worst 
 evils, and with no furtherance but such knowledge as 
 dwells in a poor man's hut, and the rhymes of a Fer- [0 
 guson or Eamsay for his standard of beauty, he sinks 
 not under all these impediments: through the fogs 
 and darkness .of that obscure region, his lynx eye dis- 
 cerns the true relations of the world and human life ; 
 he grows into intellectual strength, and trains himself i j 
 into intellectual expertness. Impelled by the expan- 
 sive movement of his own irrepressible soul, he strug- 
 gles forward into the general view ; and with haughty 
 modesty lays down before us, as the fruit of his labor, 
 a gift, which Time has now pronounced imperishable. . 
 Add to all this, that his darksome drudging childhood 
 and youth was by far the kindliest era of his whole 
 life ; and that he died in his thirty-seventh year : and 
 then ask, If it be strange that his poems are imperfect, 
 and of small extent, or that his genius attained no 25 
 
10 BURNS 
 
 mastery in its art ? Alas, his Sun shone as through 
 a tropical tornado ; and the pale Shadow of Death 
 eclipsed it at noon ! Shrouded in such baleful vapors, 
 the genius of Burns was never seen in clear azure 
 
 5 splendor, enlightening the world : but some beams 
 from it did, by fits, pierce through ; and it tinted 
 those clouds with rainbow and orient colors into a 
 glory and stern grandeur, which men silently gazed 
 on with wonder and tears ! 
 
 10 " We are anxious not to exaggerate ; for it is exposi- 
 tion rather than admiration that our readers require 
 of us here ; and yet to avoid some tendency to that 
 side is no easy matter. ' We love Burns, and we pity 
 him ; and love and pity are prone to magnify. Criti- 
 
 15 cism, it is sometimes thought, should be a cold busi- 
 ness ; we are not so sure of this ; but, at all events, our 
 concern with Burns is not exclusively that of critics. 
 True and genial as his poetry must appear, it is not 
 chiefly as a poet, but as a man, that he interests and 
 
 20 affects us. ^ He was often advised to write a tragedy : 
 time and means were not lent him for this ; but through 
 life he enacted a tragedy, and one of the deepest. We 
 question whether the world has since witnessed so 
 utterly sad a scene ; whether Napoleon himself, left 
 
 25 to brawl with Sir Hudson Lowe,° and perish on his 
 
BURNS 11 
 
 rock 'amid the melancholy main,' presented to the 
 reflecting mind such a ' spectacle of pity and fear' 
 as did this intrinsically nobler, gentler and perhaps 
 greater soul, wasting itself away in a hopeless struggle 
 with base entanglements, which coiled closer and closer 5 
 round him, till only death opened him an outlet? Con- 
 querors are a class of men with whom, for most part, the 
 world could well dispense ; nor can the hard intellect, 
 the unsympathizing loftiness and high but selfish enthu- 
 siasm of such persons inspire us in general with any 10 
 affection ; at best it may excite amazement ; and their 
 fall, like that of a pyramid, will be beheld with a certain 
 sadness and awe< But a true Poet, a man in whose heart 
 resides some effluence of Wisdom, some tone of .the 
 'Eternal Melodies,' is the most precious gift that can 15 
 ■be bestowed on a generation : we see in him a freer, 
 purer development of whatever is noblest in ourselves ; 
 (his life is a rich lesson to us ; and we mourn his death 
 'as that of a benefactor who loved and taught us. 
 
 Such a gift had Nature, in her bounty, bestowed on 20 
 us in Eobert Burns ; but with queenlike indifference 
 she cast it from her hand, like a thing of no moment ; 
 and it was defaced and torn asunder, as an idle bauble, 
 before we recognized it. To the ill-starred Burns was 
 given the power of making man's life more venerable, 25 
 
12 BURNS 
 
 but that of wisely guiding his own life was not given. 
 Destiny,'— for so in our ignorance we must speak, — 
 his faults, the faults of others, proved too hard for 
 him ; and that spirit which might have soared could it 
 5 but have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glorious 
 faculties trodden under foot in the blossom ; and died, 
 we may almost say, without ever having lived. And 
 so kind and warm a soul ; so full of inborn, riches, of 
 love to all living and lifeless things ! How his heart 
 io flows out in sympathy over universal Nature ; and in 
 her bleakest provinces discerns a beauty and a mean- 
 ing ! 1/ The ' Daisy ' ° falls not unheeded under his 
 ploughshare ; nor the ruined nest of that ' wee, cower- 
 ing, timorous beastie,' ° cast forth, after all its provi- 
 15 dent pains, to ' thole the sleety dribble and cranreuch 
 cauld.' The ' hoar visage ' of Winter delights him ; 
 he dwells with a sad and oft-returning fondness in 
 these scenes of solemn desolation; but the voice of 
 the tempest becomes an anthem to his ears ; he loves 
 20 to walk in the sounding woods, ' it raises his thoughts ° 
 to Him that walketh on the wings of the wind.' A true 
 Poet-soul, for it needs but to be struck, and the sound 
 it yields will be music ! But observe him chiefly as 
 he mingles with his brother men. What warm, ali- 
 as comprehending fellow-feeling; what trustful, bound- 
 
BURNS 13 
 
 less love; what generous exaggeration of the object 
 loved ! His rustic friend, his nut-brown maiden, are 
 no longer mean and homely, but a hero and a queen, 
 whom he prizes as the paragons of Earth. ' The rough 
 scenes of Scottish life, not seen by him in any Area- 5 
 dian illusion, but in the rude contradiction, in the 
 smoke and soil of a too harsh reality, are still lovely 
 to him : Poverty is indeed his companion, but Love 
 also, and Courage ; the simple feelings, the worth, the 
 nobleness, that dwell under the straw roof, are dear 10 
 and venerable to his heart? and thus over the lowest 
 provinces of man's existence he pours the glory of his 
 own soul ; and they rise, in shadow and sunshine, 
 softened and brightened into a beauty which other 
 eyes discern not in the highest. He has a just self- 15 
 consciousness, which too often degenerates into pride ; 
 yet it is a noble pride, for defence, not for offence ; no . 
 cold suspicious feeling, but a frank and social one. 
 The Peasant Poet bears himself, we might say, like a 
 King in exile: he is cast among the low, and feels 20 
 himself equal to the highest ; yet he claims no rank, 
 that none may be disputed to him. The forward he 
 can repel, the supercilious he can subdue ; pretensions 
 of wealth or ancestry are of no avail with him ; there 
 is a fire in that dark eye, under which the ' insolence 25 
 
14 BURNS 
 
 of condescension' cannot thrive. In his abasement, 
 in his extreme need, he forgets not for a moment the 
 majesty of Poetry and Manhood. And yet, far as 
 he feels himself above common men, he wanders not 
 
 5 apart from them, but mixes warmly in their interests ; 
 nay, throws himself into their arms, and, as it were, 
 entreats them to love him. It is moving to see how, 
 in his darkest despondency, this proud being still 
 seeks relief from friendship ; unbosoms himself, often 
 
 io to the unworthy ; and, amid tears, strains to his glow- 
 ing heart a heart that knows only the name of friend- 
 ship. And yet he was ' quick to learn ' ; a man of keen 
 vision, before whom common disguises afforded no con- 
 cealment. His understanding saw through the hollow- 
 
 15 ness even of accomplished deceiversj but there war. a 
 generous credulity in his heart. I And so did r ir 
 Peasant show himself among us; <a soul like 1 
 iEolian harp, in whose strings the vulgar wind, d 
 passed through them, changed itself into articulate 
 
 20 melody.' And this was he for whom the world found 
 no fitter business than quarrelling with smugglers and 
 vintners, computing excise-dues upon tallow, and gaug- 
 ing ale-barrels ! In such toils was that mighty Spirit 
 sorrowfully wasted : and a hundred years may pass on, 
 
 25 before another such is given us to waste. 
 
BURNS 15 
 
 -All that remains of Burns, the Writings lie has left, 
 seem to us*, as we hinted above, no more than a poor 
 mutilated fraction of what was in him ; brief, broken 
 glimpses of a genius that could never show itself 
 complete ; that wanted all things for completeness : 5 
 culture, leisure, true effort, nay, even length of life. 
 His poems are, with scarcely any exception, mere occa- 
 sional effusions ; poured forth with little premeditation ; 
 expressing, by such means as offered, the passion, opin- 
 ion, or humor of the hour. Never in one instance was 10 
 it permitted him to grapple with any subject with the 
 full collection of his strength, to fuse and mould it in 
 the concentrated lire of his genius.. ■ To try by the 
 strict rules of Art such imperfect fragments, would be 
 at .once unprofitable and unfair. Nevertheless, there 15 
 is something in these poems, marred and defective as 
 the are, which forbids the most fastidious student of 
 poet v to pass them by J Some sort of enduring qual- 
 ity they must have : for after fifty years of the wildest 
 vicissitudes in poetic taste, they still continue to be 20 
 read ; nay, are read more and more eagerly, more and 
 more extensively ; and this not only by literary vir- 
 tuosos, and that class upon whom transitory causes 
 opefrate most strongly, but by all classes, down to the 
 
 nost hard, unlettered and truly natural class, who 25 
 
16 BURNS 
 
 read little, and especially no poetry, except because 
 they find pleasure in it. The grounds of so singu- 
 lar and wide a popularity, which extends, in a literal 
 sense, from the palace to the hut, and over all regions 
 5 where the English tongue is spoken, are well worth 
 inquiring into. After every just deduction, it seems 
 to imply some rare excellence in these works. What 
 is that excellence ? 
 
 To answer this question will not lead us far. The 
 
 10 excellence of Burns is, indeed, among the rarest, 
 whether in poetry or prose ; but, at the same time, it 
 is plain and easily recognized : his Sincerity, his indis- 
 putable air of Truth. Here are no fabulous woes or 
 joys; no hollow fantastic sentimentalities; no wire- 
 
 15 drawn refinings, either in thought or feeling : the pas- 
 sion that is traced before us has glowed in a living 
 heart; the opinion he utters has risen in his own under- 
 standing, and been a light to his own steps. He does 
 not write from hearsay, but from sight and experience; 
 
 20 it is the scenes that he has lived and labored amidst, 
 that he describes : those scenes, rude and humble as 
 they are, have kindled beautiful emotions in his soul, 
 noble thoughts, and definite resolves; and he speaks 
 forth what is in him, not from any outward call of 
 
 25 vanity or interest, but because his heart is too full to 
 
BUENS 17 
 
 be silent. (He speaks it with such melody and modu- 
 lation as he can; 'in homely rustic jingle'; but it is 
 his own, and genuine. This is the grand secret for 
 rinding readers and retaining them : let him who 
 would move and convince others, be first moved and 5 
 convinced himself. Horace's rule, Si vis me Jlere,° is 
 applicable in a wider sense than the literal one. To 
 every poet, to every writer, we might say : Be true, if 
 you would be believed. Let a man but speak forth 
 with genuine earnestness the thought, the emotion, the 10 
 actual condition of his own heart ; and other men, so 
 strangely are we all knit together by the tie of sym- 
 pathy, must and will give heed to him. In culture, 
 in extent of view, we may stand above the speaker, or 
 below him ; but in either case, his words, if they are 15 
 earnest and sincere, will find some response within us ; 
 for in spite of all casual varieties in outward rank or 
 inward, as face answers to face, so does the heart of 
 man to man. 
 
 This may appear a very simple principle, and one 20 
 which Burns had little merit in discovering. True, 
 the discovery is easy enough : but the practical appli- 
 ance is not easy ; is indeed the fundamental difficulty 
 which all poets have to strive with, and which scarcely 
 one in the hundred ever fairly surmounts. A head 25 
 
18 BURNS 
 
 too dull to discriminate the true from the false; a 
 heart too dull to love the one at all risks, and to hate 
 the other in spite of all temptations, are alike fatal to 
 a writer. With either, or as more commonly happens, 
 5 with both of these deficiencies combine a love of dis- 
 tinction, a wish to be original, which is seldom want- 
 ing, and we have Affectation .j the bane of literature, 
 as Cant, its elder brother, is of morals. How often 
 does the one and the other front us, in poetry, as in 
 
 io life ! Great poets themselves are not always free of 
 this vice ; nay, it is precisely on a certain sort and 
 degree of greatness that it is most commonly ingrafted. 
 A strong effort after excellence will sometimes solace 
 itself with a mere shadow of success ; he who has 
 
 15 much to unfold, will sometimes unfold it imper- 
 fectly. Byron, for instance, was no common man : 
 yet if we examine his poetry with this view, we shall 
 find it far enough from faultless. Generally speaking, 
 we should say that it is not true. He refreshes us, 
 
 20 not with the divine fountain, but too often with vul- 
 gar strong waters, stimulating indeed to the taste, but 
 soon ending in dislike, or even nausea. Are his Har- 
 olds and Giaours, we would ask, real men; we mean, 
 poetically consistent and conceivable men ? Do not 
 
 25 these characters, does not the character of their author, 
 
BURNS 19 
 
 which more or less shines through them all, rather 
 appear a thing put on for the occasion ; no natural or 
 possible mode of being, but something intended to 
 look much grander than nature? Surely, all these 
 stormful agonies, this volcanic heroism, superhuman 5 
 contempt and moody desperation, with so much scowl- 
 ing, and teeth-gnashing, and other sulphurous humor, 
 is more like the brawling of a player in some paltry 
 tragedy, which is to last three hours, than the bearing 
 of a man in the business of life, which is to last three- 10 
 score and ten years. To our minds, there is a taint of 
 this sort, something which we should call theatrical, 
 false, affected, in every one of these otherwise so pow- 
 erful pieces. Perhaps Don Juan, especially the latter 
 parts of it, is the only thing approaching to a sincere 15 
 work, he ever wrote ; the only work where he showed 
 himself, in any measure, as he was; and seemed so 
 intent on his subject as, for moments, to forget him- 
 self, ^fcet Byron hated this vice ; we believe, heartily 
 detested it : nay, he had declared formal war against 20 
 it in words. So difficult is it even for the strongest 
 to make this primary attainment, which might seem 
 the simplest of all : to read its own consciousness ivith- 
 out mistakes, without errors involuntary or wilful ! 
 We recollect no poet of Burns's susceptibility who 25 
 
20 BUBJVS 
 
 comes before us from the first, and abides with, us to 
 the last, with such a total want of affectation. He is 
 an honest man, and an honest writer. In his successes 
 and his failures, in his greatness and his littleness, he 
 
 5 is ever clear, simple, true, and glitters with no lustre 
 but his own. We reckon this to be a great virtue ; to 
 be, in fact, the root of most other virtues, literary as 
 well as moral. 
 
 Here, however, let us say, it is to the Poetry of 
 
 io Burns that we now allude; to those writings which 
 he had time to meditate, and where no special reason 
 existed to warp his critical feeling, or obstruct his 
 endeavor to fulfil it. Certain of his Letterv-and 
 other fractions of prose composition, by no means 
 
 15 deserve this praise. Here, doubtless, there is not 
 the same natural truth of style; but on the con- 
 trary, something not only stiff, but strained and 
 twisted; a certain highflown inflated tonej the stilt- 
 ing emphasis of which contrasts ill with the firmness 
 
 20 and rugged simplicity of even his poorest verses. 
 Thus no man, it would appear, is altogether unaf- 
 fected. Does not Shakespeare himself sometimes pre- 
 meditate the sheerest bombast ! But even with regard 
 to these Letters of Burns, it is but fair to state that 
 
 25 he had two excuses. The first was his comparative 
 
BURNS 21 
 
 deficiency in language. Burns, though for the most 
 part he writes with singular force, and even graceful- 
 ness, is not master of English prose, as he is of Scottish 
 verse; not master of it, we mean, in proportion to the 
 depth and vehemence of his matter. These Letters 5 
 strike us as the effort of a man to express something 
 which he has no organ fit for expressing. But a sec- 
 ond and weightier excuse is to be found in the pecu- 
 liarity of Burns's social rank. His correspondents 
 are often men whose relation to him he has never 10 
 accurately ascertained; whom therefore he is either 
 forearming himself against, or else unconsciously 
 flattering, by adopting the style he thinks will 
 please them. At all events, we should remember 
 that these faults, even in his Letters, are not the 15 
 rule, but the exception. Whenever he writes, as one 
 would ever wish to do, to trusted friends and on real 
 interests, his style becomes simple, vigorous, expres- 
 sive, sometimes even beautiful. His letters to Mrs. 
 Dunlop are uniformly excellent. 20 
 
 But we return to his Poetry. In addition to its 
 Sincerity, it has another peculiar merit, which indeed 
 is but a mode, or perhaps a means, of the foregoing : 
 this displays itself in his choice of subjects ; or rather 
 in his indifference as to subjects, and the power he 25. 
 
22 BUENS 
 
 has of making all subjects interesting. The ordinary 
 poet, like the ordinary man, is forever seeking in 
 external circumstances the help which can be found 
 only in himself. In what is familiar and near at hand, 
 5 he discerns no form or comeliness : home is not poeti- 
 cal, but prosaic; it is in some past, distant, conven- 
 tional heroic world, that poetry resides j were he there 
 and not here, were he thus and not so, it would be 
 well with him. Hence our innumerable host of rose- 
 
 10 colored Novels and iron-mailed Epics, with their local- 
 ity not on the Earth, but somewhere nearer to the 
 Moon. Hence our Virgins of the Sun,° and our 
 Knights of the Cross, malicious Saracens in turbans, 
 and copper-colored Chiefs in wampum, and so many 
 
 15 other truculent figures from the heroic times or the 
 heroic climates, who on all hands swarm in our poetry. 
 Peace be with them! But yet, as a great moralist 
 proposed preaching to the men of this century, so 
 would we fain preach to the poets, 'a sermon on the 
 
 20 duty of staying at home.' Let them be sure that 
 heroic ages and heroic climates can do little for them. 
 That form of life has attraction for us, less because it 
 is better or nobler than our own, than simply because 
 it is different ; and even this attraction must be of the 
 
 25 most transient sort. For will not our own age, one 
 
BURNS 23 
 
 ■ 
 
 day, be an ancient one ; and have as quaint a costume 
 as the rest; not contrasted with the rest, therefore, 
 but ranked along with them, in respect of quaintness ? 
 D oes Homer interest us now, because he wrote of 
 what passed beyond his native Greece, and twos 
 centuries before he was born ; or because he wrote 
 what passed in God's world, and in the heart of 
 man, which is the same after thirty centuries ? Let 
 our poets look to this: is their feeling really finer, 
 truer, and their vision deeper than that of other 10 
 men, — they have nothing to fear, even from the 
 humblest subject; is it not so, — they have nothing 
 to hope, but an ephemeral favor, even from the 
 highest. 
 
 The poet, we imagine, can never have far to seek 15 
 for a subject: the elements of his art are in him, and 
 around him on every hand; for him the Ideal world 
 is not remote from the Actual, but under it and within 
 it : nay, he is a poet, precisely because he can discern 
 it there. Wherever there is a sky above him, and a 20 
 world around him, the poet is in his place ; for here 
 too is man's existence, with its infinite longings and 
 small acquirings ; its ever-thwarted, ever-renewed en- 
 deavors ; its unspeakable aspirations, its fears and 
 hopes that wander through Eternity; and all the 25 
 
24 BURNS 
 
 mystery of brightness and of gloom that it was ever 
 made of, in any age or climate, since man first began 
 to live. Is there not the fifth act of a Tragedy in 
 every death-bed, though it were a peasant's, and a 
 
 5 bed of heath ? And are wooings and weddings obso- 
 lete, that there can be Comedy no longer ? Or are 
 men suddenly grown wise, that Laughter must no 
 longer shake his sides, but be cheated of his Farce ? 
 Man's life and nature is, as it was, and as it will ever 
 
 io be. But the poet must have an eye to read these 
 things, and a heart to understand them ; or they 
 come and pass away before him in vain. He is a 
 vates,° a seer; a gift of vision has been given him. 
 Has life no meanings for him, which another cannot 
 
 15 equally decipher ; then he is no poet, and Delphi 
 itself will not make him one. 
 
 In this respect, Burns, though not perhaps abso- 
 lutely a great poet, better manifests his capability, 
 better proves the truth of his genius, than if he had, 
 
 20 by his own strength, kept the whole Minerva Press 
 going, to the end of his literary course. He shows 
 himself at least a poet of Nature's own making ; and 
 Nature, after all, is still the grand agent in making 
 poets. We often hear of this and the other external 
 
 25 condition being requisite for the existence of a poet. 
 
BURNS 25 
 
 Sometimes it is a certain sort of training; he must 
 have studied certain things, studied for instance 'the 
 elder dramatists/ and so learned a poetic language; 
 as if poetry lay in the tongue, not in the heart. At 
 other times we are told he must be bred in a certain 5 
 rank, and must be on a confidential footing with the 
 higher classes ; because, above all things, he must see 
 the world. As to seeing the world, we apprehend 
 this will cause him little difficulty, if he have but 
 eyesight to see it with. Without eyesight, indeed, 10 
 the task might be hard. The blind or the purblind 
 man 'travels from Dan to Beersheba, and finds it all 
 barren.' But happily every poet is born in the world; I 
 and sees it, with or against his will, every day and | 
 every hour he lives. \ The mysterious workmanship 15 
 of man's heart, the true light and the inscrutable 
 darkness of man's destiny, reveal themselves not 
 only in capital cities and crowded saloons, but in 
 every hut and hamlet where men have their abode! 
 N"ay, do not the elements of all human virtues and 20 
 all human vices ; the passions at once of a Borgia and 
 of a Luther, lie written, in stronger or fainter lines, 
 in the consciousness of every individual bosom, that 
 has practised honest self-examination ? Truly, this 
 same world may be seen in Mossgiel and Tarbolton, 25 
 
26 BURNS 
 
 if we look well, as clearly as it ever came to light in 
 Crockford's, or the Tuileries itself. 
 
 But sometimes still harder requisitions are laid on 
 the poor aspirant to poetry, for it is hinted that he 
 
 5 should have been born two centuries ago ;° inasmuch 
 as poetry, about that date, vanished from the earth, 
 and became no longer attainable by men! Such cob- 
 web speculations have, now and then, overhung the 
 field of literature ; but they obstruct not the growth 
 
 io of any plant there : the Shakespeare or the Burns, un- 
 consciously and merely as he walks onward, silently 
 brushes them away. Is not every genius an impossi- 
 bility till he appear ? Why do we call him new and 
 original, if ive saw where his marble was lying, and 
 
 is what fabric he could rear from it ? It is not the 
 material but the workman that is wanting. -J.lt is not 
 the dark place that hinders, but the dim eye'*; A Scot- 
 tish peasant's life was the meanest and rudest of all 
 lives, till Burns became a poet in it, and a poet of it ; 
 
 20 found it a man's life, and therefore significant to men. 
 A thousand battle-fields remain unsung; but the 
 Wounded Hare has not perished without its memo- 
 rial ; a balm of mercy yet breathes on us from its 
 dumb agonies, because a poet was there. Our Hallo- 
 
 25 ween had passed and repassed, in rude awe and laugh- 
 
BURNS 27 
 
 ter, since the era of the Druids ; but no Theocritus, 
 till Burns, discerned in it the materials of a Scottish 
 Idyl : neither was the Holy Fair any Council of Trent 
 or Roman Jubilee ; but nevertheless, Superstition and 
 Hypocrisy and Fun having been propitious to him, in 5 
 phis man's hand it became a poem, instinct with satire 
 and genuine comic life. Let, bnt_i^e._jtrjie. poet be 
 jiven us, we repeat it, place him where and how you 
 will, and true poetry will not b e wanting ^ ^^ 
 
 Independently of the essential gift of poetic feeling, 10 
 as we have now attempted to describe it, a .certain 
 digged sterling wortly pervades whatever Burns has 
 written; a virtue, as of green fields and mountain 
 oreezes, dwells in his poetry ; it is redolent of natural 
 life and hardy natural men. /There is a decisive 15 
 strength in him, and yet a sweet native gracefulness : 
 he is tender, he is vehement, yet without constraint 
 or too visible effort ; he melts the heart, or inflames it, 
 with a power which seems habitual and familiar to 
 him. J We see that in this man there was the gentle- 20 
 ness, the trembling pity of a woman, with the deep 
 earnestness, the force and passionate ardor of a hero. 
 Tears lie in him, and consuming fire; as lightning 
 lurks in the drops of the summer cloud. ; He has a 
 resonance in his bosom for every note of human feel- 25 
 
28 BURNS 
 
 ing ; the high and the low, the sad, the ludicrous, the 
 joyful, are welcome in their turns to his ' lightly- 
 moved and all-conceiving spirit.' And observe with 
 what a fierce prompt force he grasps his subject, be it 
 
 5 what it may ! * How he fixes, as it were, the full 
 image of the matter in his eye ; full and clear in every 
 lineament ; and catches the real type and essence of 
 it, amid a thousand accidents and superficial circum- 
 stances, no one of which misleads him f Is it of rea- 
 
 10 son, some truth to be discovered ? No sophistry, no 
 vain surface-logic detains him ; quick, resolute, unerr- 
 ingfhe pierces through into the marrow of the ques- 
 tion ; and speaks his verdict with an emphasis that 
 cannot be forgottemjls it of description; some visual 
 
 15 object to be represented? No poet of any age or 
 nation is more graphic than Burns : the characteristic 
 features disclose themselves to him at a glance; three 
 lines from his hand, and we have a likeness. And, in 
 that rough dialect, in that rude, often awkward metre, 
 
 20 so clear and definite a likeness ! It seems a draughts- 
 man working with a burnt stick ; and yet the burin 
 of a Retzsch is not more expressive or exact. 
 
 Of this last excellence, the plainest and most com- 
 prehensive of all, being indeed the root and foundation 
 
 25 of every sort of talent, poetical or intellectual, we could 
 
BUBXS 29 
 
 produce innumerable instances from the writings of 
 Burns. Take these glimpses of a snow-storm from 
 his Winter Night (the italics are ours) ; 
 
 When biting Boreas, fell and doure, 
 
 Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r, 5 
 
 And Phcebus gies a short-liv'd glowr° 
 
 Far south the lift, 
 Dim-dark" 1 ning thro' the flaky shower 
 
 Or whirling drift : 
 
 Ae night the storm the steeples rock'd, 10 
 
 Poor labor sweet in sleep was lock'd, 
 While burns wV snawy wreeths upchok^d 
 
 Wild-eddying swirl, 
 Or thro' the mining outlet bock'd° 
 
 Down headlong hurl. 15 
 
 Are there not ' descriptive touches ' here ? The 
 describer saiv this thing; the essential feature and 
 true likeness of every circumstance in it; saw, and 
 not with the eye only. ' Poor labor locked in sweet 
 sleep'; the dead stillness of man, unconscious, van- 20 
 quished, yet not unprotected, while such strife of the 
 material elements rages, and seems to reign supreme 
 in loneliness: this is of the heart as well as of the 
 eye ! — Look also at his image of a thaw, and prophe- 
 ied fall of the Auld Brig : 25 
 
 
30 BURNS 
 
 When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains, 
 Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains ; 
 When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil, 
 Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil, 
 5 Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course, 
 
 Or haunted Garpal 1 draws his feeble source, 
 Arous'd by blust'ring winds and spotting thowes, 
 In mony a torrent down his snaw-broo° rowes; 
 While crashing ice, borne on the roaring spate, 
 io Sweeps dams and mills and brigs «' 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 jaiips up to the pouring skies. 
 
 15 The last line is in itself a Poussin-picture of that 
 Deluge ! The welkin has, as it were, bent down with 
 its weight; the 'gumlie jaups' and the 'pouring 
 skies ' are mingled together ; it is a world of rain 
 and ruin. — In respect of mere clearness and minute 
 
 20 fidelity, the Farmer's commendation of his Auld Mare, 
 in plough or in cart, may vie with Homer's Smithy of 
 the Cyclops, or yoking of Priam's Chariot. Nor have 
 we forgotten stout Burn-the-wind° and his brawny cus- 
 tomers, inspired by Scotch Drink: but it is needless 
 
 25 to multiply examples. One other trait of a much finer 
 
 1 Fdbulosus Hydaspes !° 
 
an 31 
 
 sort we select from multitudes of such among his 
 Soui/s. It gives, in a single line, to the saddest feel- 
 ing the saddest environment and local habitation : 
 
 Tlie pale 3Ioon is setting beyond the white wave, 
 And time is setting wV me, 0'; 5 
 
 Farewell, false friends ! false lover, farewell ! 
 I'll nae mair trouble them nor thee, 0. 
 
 ;This clearness of sight we have called the founda- 
 tion of all talent; for in fact, unless we see our object, 
 how shall we knQw_hpw__tp_,place_or_ prize it, in o ur 10 
 understanding, our imagination, our affections ? Yet 
 it is not in itself perhaps, a very high excellence ; but 
 capable of being united indifferently with the strong- 
 est, or with ordinary power. Homer surpasses all men 
 in this quality: but strangely enough, at no great dis-15 
 tance below him are Richardson and Defoe. It belongs, 
 in truth, to what is called a lively mind ; and gives no 
 sure indication of the higher endowments that may 
 exist along with it. In all the three cases we have 
 mentioned, it is combined with great garrulity ; their 20 
 descriptions are detailed, ample and lovingly exact; 
 Homer's fire bursts through, from time to time, as if 
 by accident ; but Defoe and Richardson have no fire. 
 Burns, again, is not more distinguished by the clear- 
 ness than by the impetuous force of his conceptions. 25 
 
32 BURNS 
 
 Of the strength, the piercing emphasis with which he 
 thought, his emphasis of expression may give a hum- 
 bl*fe but the readiest proof. Who ever uttered sharper 
 sayings than his ; words more memorable, now by 
 5 their burning vehemence, now by their cool vigor and 
 laconic pith ? A single phrase depicts a whole sub- 
 ject, a whole scene. We hear of i a gentleman that de- 
 rived his patent of nobility direct from the Almighty 
 God.' Our Scottish forefathers in the battle-field 
 10 struggled forward, he says, i red-wat-shod ' ° : giving 
 in this one word, a full vision of horror and carnage, 
 perhaps too frightfully accurate for Art ! 
 fin fact, one of the leading features in the mind of 
 Burns is this vigor of his strictly intellectual percep- 
 tions. A resolute force is ever visible Jn his judg- 
 ments, and m his feelings and volitions.. Professor 
 Stewart says of him, with some surprise: 'All the 
 faculties of Burns's mind were,, as far as I could judge, 
 equally vigorous ; and his predilection for x^oetry was 
 20 rather the result of his own enthusiastic and impas- 
 sioned temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted 
 to that species of composition. From his conversation 
 I should have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in 
 whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his 
 25 abilities.' But this, if we mistake not, is at all times 
 
BURNS 33 
 
 the very essence of a truly poetical endowment. 
 Pofilry, except in such cases as that of Keats, where 
 • the whole consists in a weak-eyed maudlin sensibility, 
 ; , and a certain vague random tunefulness of nature, is_ 
 no separate faculty, no organ which can be superadded 5 
 to the rest, or disjoined from them ; but rather the 
 result of their general harmony and completion. The 
 feelings, the gifts, that exist in the Poet are those that 
 exist, with more or less development, in every human 
 soul : the imagination, which shudders at the Hell of 10 
 Dante, is the same faculty, weaker in degree, which 
 called that picture into being. I How does the Poet 
 speak to men, with power, but by being still more a 
 man than they? Shakespeare, it has been well ob- 
 served, in the planning and completing of his tragedies, 15 
 has shown an Understanding, were it nothing more, 
 which might have governed states, or indicted a Novum 
 Organum. What Burns's force of understanding may 
 have been, we have less means of judging : it had to 
 dwell among the humblest objects; never saw Phi- 20 
 losophy ; never rose, except by natural effort and for 
 tervals, into the region of great ideas. Never- 
 theless, sufficient indication, if no proof sufficient, 
 8 for us in his works : we discern the brawny 
 movements of a gigantic though untutored strength ; 25 
 
34 BUBNS 
 
 and can understand how, in conversation, his quick 
 sure insight into men and things may, as much as 
 aught else about him, have amazed the best thinkers 
 of his time and country. 
 
 5 But, unless we mistake, the intellectual gift of 
 Burns is fine as well as strong. The more delicate 
 relations of things could not well have escaped his 
 eye, for they were intimately present to his heart. 
 The logic of the senate and the forum is indispensa- 
 
 io ble, but not all-sufficient ; nay, perhaps the highest 
 Truth is that which will the most certainly elude it. 
 For this logic works by words, and ' the highest,' it 
 has been said, 'cannot be expressed in words.' We 
 are not without tokens of an openness for this higher 
 
 15 truth also, of a keen though uncultivated sense for 
 it, having existed in Burns. Mr. Stewart, it will be 
 remembered, 'wonders,' in the passage above quoted, 
 that Burns had formed some distinct conception of 
 the ' doctrine of association.' ° We rather think that 
 
 20 far subtler things than the doctrine of association had 
 
 from of old been familiar to him. Here for instance : 
 
 ' We know nothing,' ° thus writes he, ' or ne: to 
 
 nothing, of the structure of our souls, so we cannot 
 
 account for those seeming caprices in them, tha ne 
 
 25 should be particularly pleased with this thing, or 
 
BURXS 35 
 
 struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, 
 makes no extraordinary impression. I have some 
 favorite flowers 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 5 
 I view and hang over with particular delight. I never 
 hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a sum- 
 mer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of 
 gray plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling 
 an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion 10 
 or poetry. Tell me, my clear friend, to what can this 
 be owing ? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like 
 the iEolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the 
 passing accident ; or do these workings argue some- 
 thing within us above the trodden clod ? I own myself 15 
 partial to such proofs of those awful and important 
 realities : a God that made all things, man's imma- 
 terial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or 
 woe beyond death and the grave.' 
 
 Force and fineness of understanding/are often spoken 20 
 of as something different from general force and fine- 
 ness of nature, as something partly independent of 
 them. The necessities of language so require it; but 
 in truth these qualities are not distinct and indepen- 
 dent : except in special cases, and from special causes, 25 
 
36 BUBXS 
 
 tliey ever go together. A man of strong understand- 
 ing is generally a man of strong character ; neither is 
 delicacy in the one kind often divided from delicacy 
 in the other. \No one, at all events, is ignorant that 
 
 5 in the Poetry oT Burns keenness of insight keeps pace 
 with keenness of feeling; that his light is not more 
 pervading than his warmth. He is a man of the most 
 impassioned temper; with passions not strong only, 
 but noble, and of the sort in which great virtues and 
 
 io great poems take their rise. It is reverence, it is love 
 towards all Nature that inspires him, that opens his 
 eyes to its beauty, and makes heart and voice eloquenl 
 in its praise. There is a true old saying, that ' Lovt 
 furthers knowledge ' : but above all, it is the living 
 
 15 essence of that knowledge which makes poets ; the 
 first principle of its existence, increase, activity. Oi 
 Burns's fervid affection, his generous all-embracing 
 Love, we have spoken already, as of the grand dis- 
 tinction of his nature, seen equally in word and deed. 
 
 20 in his Life and in his Writings. It were easy to mul- 
 tiply examples. Not man only, but all that environ 
 man in the material and moral universe, is lovely h 
 his sight : ' the hoary hawthorn,' the ' troop of graj 
 plover,' the ' solitary curlew,' all are dear to him ; -a 
 
 25 live in this Earth along with him, and to all he is kn 
 
 1 
 
Briars 37 
 
 as in mysterious brotherhood. How touching is it, for 
 instance, that, amidst the gloom of personal misery, 
 brooding over the wintry desolation without him and 
 within him, he thinks of the ' ourie cattle ' and ' silly 
 sheep,' and their sufferings in the pitiless storm ! 5 
 
 I thought me on the ourie cattle, 
 Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 
 
 O' wintry war, 
 Or thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, 
 
 Beneath a scar. 10 
 
 Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, 
 That in the merry months o' spring 
 Delighted me to hear thee sing, 
 
 What comes o' thee ? 
 Where wilt thou cow'r thy cluttering wing, 15 
 
 An close thy ee ? 
 
 The tenant of the mean hut, with its ' ragged roof and 
 chinky wall,' has a heart to pity even these ! This is 
 worth several homilies on Mercy ; for it is the voice 
 of Mercy herself. Burns, indeed, lives in sympathy; 20 
 his soul rushes forth into all realms of being; nothing 
 that has existence can be indifferent to him. The 
 very Devil he cannot hate with right orthodoxy: 
 
 But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben ; 
 
 0, wad ye tak' a thought and men' ! 25 
 
38 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Ye aiblins might, — I dinna ken, — 
 Still hae a stake ; 
 
 I'm wae to think upo' yon den, 
 
 Even for your sake ! 
 
 5 " He is the father of curses and lies," said Dr. Slop ; 
 "and is cursed and damned already." — "I am sorry 
 for it," quoth my uncle Toby ! — a Poet without 
 Love were a physical and metaphysical impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 io But has it not been said, in contradiction to this 
 principle, that ' Indignation makes verses ' ° ? It has 
 been so said, and is true enough : but the contradic- 
 tion is apparent, not real. The Indignation which 
 makes verses is, properly speaking, an inverted Love j 
 
 i 5 the love of some right, some worth, some goodness, 
 belonging to ourselves or others, which has been 
 injured, and which this tempestuous feeling issues 
 forth to defend and avenge. No selfish fury of heart, 
 existing there as a primary feeling, and without its 
 
 20 opposite, ever produced much Poetry : otherwise, we 
 suppose, the Tiger were the most musical of all our 
 choristers. Qphnson said, he loved a good hater ; by 
 which he must have meant, not so much one that 
 hated violently, as one that hated wisely ; hated 
 
 25 baseness from love of nobleness. However, in spite 
 
BURNS 39 
 
 of Johnson's paradox, tolerable enough for once in 
 speech, but which need not have been so often adopted 
 in print since then, we rather believe that good men 
 deal sparingly in hatred, either wise or unwise : nay, 
 that a i good ' hater is still a desideratum in this 5 
 world. The Devil, at least, who passes for the chief 
 and best of that class, is said to be nowise an amiable 
 character. 
 
 Of the verses which Indignation makes, Burns has 
 also given us specimens : and among the best that 10 
 were ever given. Who will forget his ' Dweller in yon 
 Dungeon dark ' ; a piece that might have been chanted 
 by the Furies of ^Eschylus ? The secrets of the 
 infernal Pit are laid bare ; a boundless, baleful ' dark- 
 ness visible ' ; and streaks of hell-fire quivering madly 15 
 in its black haggard bosom ! 
 
 Dweller in yon Dungeon dark, 
 
 Hangman of Creation, mark ! 
 
 Who in widow's weeds appears, 
 
 Laden with unhonored years, 20 
 
 Noosing with care a bursting purse 
 
 Baited with many a deadly curse ! 
 
 Why should we speak of Scots ivha hae wV Wallace 
 bled; since all know of it, from the king to the mean- 
 est of his subjects ? This dithyrambic was composed 25 
 
40 BUBNS 
 
 on horseback; in riding in the middle of tempests, 
 over the wildest Galloway moor, in company with a 
 Mr. Syme, who, observing the poet's looks, forbore to 
 speak, — judiciously enough, for a man composing 
 5 Bruce' s Address might be unsafe to trifle with. 
 Doubtless this stern hymn was singing itself, as he 
 formed it, through the soul of Burns : but to the ex- 
 ternal ear, it should be sung with the throat of the 
 whirlwind. So long as there is warm blood in the 
 
 io heart of Scotchman or man, it will move in fierce 
 thrills under this war-ode; the best, we believe, that 
 was ever written by any pen. 
 
 Another wild stormful Song, that dwells in our ear 
 and mind with a strange tenacity, is Macphersorts 
 
 15 Farewell. Perhaps there is something in the tradition 
 itself .that cooperates. For was not this grim Celt, 
 this shaggy Northland Cacus,° that 'lived a life of 
 sturt° and strife, and died by treacherie,' — was- not 
 he too one of the Nimrods and Napoleons of the 
 
 20 earth, in the arena of his own remote misty glens, for 
 want of a clearer and wider one ? Nay, was there 
 not a touch of grace given him ? A fibre of love and 
 softness, of poetry itself, must have lived in his sav- 
 age heart : for he composed that air the night before 
 
 25 his execution ; on the wings of that poor melody his 
 
BFRNS 41 
 
 better soul would soar away above oblivion, pain, and 
 all the ignominy and despair, which, like an ava- 
 lanche, was hurling him to the abyss ! Here also, as 
 at Thebes, and in Pelops' line, was material Fate 
 matched against man's Free-will ; matched in bitter- 5 
 est though obscure duel; and the ethereal soul sank 
 not, even in its blindness, without a cry which has 
 survived it. But who, except Burns, could have given 
 words to such a soul ; words that we never listen to 
 without a strange half-barbarous, half-poetic fellow- 10 
 f eelinsr ? 
 
 
 Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 
 
 Sae dauntingly gaed he ; 
 He played a spring and danced it round, 
 
 Beloiv the gallows-tree. 
 
 Under a lighter disguise, the same principle of Love, 
 which we have recognized as the great characteristic 
 of Burns, and of all true poets, occasionally manifests 
 itself in the shape of Humor. Everywhere, indeed, 
 in his sunny moods, a full buoyant flood of mirth rolls 20 
 through the mind of Burns ; he rises to the high, and 
 stoops_to the low, and is brother and playmate to all 
 Nature.) We speak not of his bold and often irresisti- 
 ble faculty of caricature; for this is Drollery rather 
 than Humor: but a much tenderer sportfulness 25 
 
42 BURNS 
 
 dwells in him; and comes forth here and there, in 
 evanescent and beautiful touches ; as in his Address 
 to the Mouse, or the Farmer's Mare, or in his Elegy 
 on poor Mailie, which last may be reckoned his hap- 
 5 piest effort of this kind. In these pieces there are 
 traits of a Humor as fine as that of Sterne ; yet 
 altogether different, original, peculiar, — the Humor 
 of Burns. 
 £Of the tenderness, the playful pathos] and many 
 
 io other kindred qualities of Burns's Poetry, much more 
 might be said; but now, with these poor outlines of 
 a sketch, we must prepare to quit this part of our sub- 
 ject. To speak of his individual Writings, adequately 
 and with any detail, would lead us far beyond our 
 
 15 limits. \As already hinted, we can look on but few 
 of these pieces as, in strict critical language, deserv- 
 
 * ing the name of Poems : they are rhymed eloquence, 
 rhymed pathos, rhymed sense ; yet seldom essentially 
 melodious, aerial, poetical. Tarn 0' Shanter itself, 
 
 20 which enjoys so high a favor, does not appear to us 
 at all decisively to come under this last category. It 
 is not so much a poem, as a piece of sparkling rheto- 
 ric ; the heart and body of the story still lies hard 
 and dead. He has not gone back, much less carried 
 
 25 us back, into that dark, earnest, wondering age, when 
 
BURNS 43 
 
 the tradition was believed, and when it took its rise ; 
 lie does not attempt, by any new-modelling of his 
 supernatural ware, to strike anew that deep mysteri- 
 ous chord Of human nature, which once responded to 
 such things ; and which lives in us too, and will for- 5 
 ever live, though silent now, or vibrating with far 
 other notes, and to far different issues. Our German 
 readers will understand us, when we say, that he is 
 not the Tieck but the Musaus of this tale. Exter- 
 nally it is all green and living; yet look closer, it is 10 
 10 firm growth, but only ivy on a rock. The piece 
 does not properly cohere : the strange chasm which 
 yawns in our incredulous imaginations between the 
 Ayr public-house and the gate of Tophet, is nowhere 
 bridged over, nay, the idea of such a bridge is laughed 15 
 at; and thus the Tragedy of the adventure becomes 
 1 mere drunken phantasmagoria, or many-colored 
 (spectrum painted on ale-vapors, and the Farce alone 
 has any reality. We do not say that Burns should 
 lave made much more of this tradition ; we rather 20 
 Ihink that, for strictly poetical purposes, not much 
 vas to be made of it. Neither are we blind to the 
 deep, varied, genial power displayed in what he has 
 actually accomplished; but we find far more 'Shake- 
 jpearean ' qualities, as these of Tarn 0' Shanter have 25 
 
44 BURNS 
 
 been fondly named, in many of his other pieces ; nay, 
 we incline to believe that this latter might have been 
 written, all but quite as well, by a man who, in place 
 of genius, had only possessed talent. 
 
 5 Perhaps we may venture to say, that the most 
 strictly poetical of all his ' poems ' is one which does 
 not appear in Currie's Edition ; but has been often 
 printed before and since, under the humble title of 
 The Jolly Beggars. The subject truly is among the 
 
 10 lowest in Nature; but it only the more shows our 
 Poet's gift in raising it into the domain of Art. To 
 our minds, this piece seems thoroughly compacted ; 
 melted together, refined; and poured forth in one 
 flood of true liquid harmony. It is light, airy, soft of 
 
 15 movement; yet sharp and precise in its details ; every 
 face is a portrait : that raucle carlin° that wee Apollo ° 
 that Son of Mar 8° are Scottish, yet ideal ; the scene 
 is at once a dream, and the very Eagcastle of ' Poosie- 
 Nansie.' ° Farther, it seems in a considerable degree 
 
 20 complete, a real self-supporting Whole, which is the 
 highest merit in a poem. The blanket of the Night 
 is drawn asunder for a moment; in full, ruddy, flam- 
 ing light, these rough tatterdemalions are seen in 
 their boisterous revel; for the strong pulse of Life 
 
 25 vindicates its- right to gladness even here ; and when 
 
BURNS 
 
 © 
 
 the curtain closes, we prolong the action, without 
 effort; the next clay as the last, our Caird° and our 
 BcUladmonger are singing and soldiering; their ' brats 
 and callets ' ° are hawking, begging, cheating ; and 
 some other night, in new combinations, they will 5 
 wring from Fate another hour of wassail and good 
 cheer. Apart from the universal sympathy with 
 man which this again bespeaks in Burns, a genuine 
 inspiration and no inconsiderable technical talent are 
 manifested here. There is the fidelity, humor, warm 10 
 life, and accurate painting and grouping of some Ten- 
 iers,° for whom hostlers and ca.rousing peasants are not 
 without significance. It would be strange, doubtless, 
 to call this the best of Burns's writings : we mean to 
 say only, that it seems to us the most perfect of its 15 
 kind, as a piece of poetical composition, strictly so 
 called. In the Beggars' Opera, in the Beggars' 
 P'i$h° as other critics have already remarked, there 
 is nothing which, in real poetic vigor, equals this 
 Cantata ; nothing, as we think, which comes within 20 
 many degrees of it. 
 
 1/ 
 
 But by far the most finished, complete, and truly 
 inspired pieces of Burns are, without dispute, to be 
 found among his Songs. It is here that, although 
 
46 BURKS 
 
 through a small aperture, his light shines with least 
 obstruction ; in its highest beauty and pure sunny 
 clearness. The reason may be, that Song is a brief 
 simple species of composition; and requires nothing 
 
 ; so much for its perfection as genuine poetic feeling, 
 genuine music of heart. Yet the Song has its rules 
 equally with the Tragedy ; rules which in most cases 
 are poorly fulfilled, in many cases are not so much as 
 felt. We might write a long essay on the Songs of 
 
 io Burns ; which we reckon by far the best that Britain 
 has yet produced : for indeed, since the era of Queen 
 Elizabeth, we know not that, by any other hand, aught 
 truly worth attention has been accomplished in this 
 department. True, we have songs enough 'by per- 
 
 15 sons of quality'; we have tawdry, hollow, wine-bred 
 madrigals ; many a rhymed speech ' in the flowing and 
 watery vein of Ossorius the Portugal Bishop,' rich in 
 sonorous words, and, for moral, dashed perhaps wi 1 
 some tint of a sentimental sensuality ; all which many 
 
 20 persons cease not from endeavoring to sing ; though 
 for most part, we fear, the music is but from the 
 throat outwards, or at best from some region far 
 enough short of the Soul ; not in which, but in a 
 certain inane Limbo of the Fancy, or even in some 
 
 25 vaporous debatable-land on the outskirts of the Ner- 
 
BUBXS 47 
 
 vous System, most of such madrigals and rhymed 
 speeches seem to have originated. 
 
 With ,tfee Songs of Burns we must not name these 
 things, {independently of the clear, manly, heartfelt 
 sentiment that ever pervades his poetry,Qiis Songs are 5 
 honesj>in another point of view : in form, as well as 
 in spirit. ) They do not affect to be set to music, but 
 they actually and in themselves are music; they have 
 received their life, and fashioned themselves together, 
 in the medium of Harmony, as Venus rose from the 10 
 bosom of the sea. The story, the feeling, is not 
 detailed, but suggested ; not said, or spouted, in rhe- 
 torical completeness and coherence ; but sung, in fitful 
 gushes, in glowing hints, in fantastic breaks, in war- 
 blings not of the voice only, but of the whole mind. 15 
 (We consider this to be the essence of a song) and 
 that no songs since the little careless catches, and as 
 were drops of song, which Shakespeare has here and 
 there sprinkled over his Plays, fulfil this condition 
 in nearly the same degree as most of Burns's do. 20 
 Such grace and truth of external movement, too, pre- 
 supposes in general a corresponding force and truth 
 of sentiment and inward meaning.'! The Songs of 
 Burns are not more perfect in the former quality 
 than in the latter. With what tenderness he sings, 25 
 
48 BURNS 
 
 yet with what vehemence and entireness ! There is 
 a piercing wail in his sorrow, the purest rapture in 
 his joy; he burns with the sternest ire, or laughs 
 with the loudest or sliest mirth ; and yet he is sweet 
 
 5 and soft, ' sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, 
 and soft as their parting tear.' If we farther take 
 into account the immense variety of his subjects; 
 how, from the loud flowing revel in Willie brew'd a 
 Peck o' Maut, to the still, rapt enthusiasm of sadness 
 
 iofor Mary in Heaven ; from the glad kind greeting of 
 Auld Langsyne, or the comic archness of Duncan Gray, 
 to the fire-eyed fury of Scots wlia liae wi y Wallace bled, 
 he has found a tone and words for every mood of 
 man's heart, -£- it will seem a small praise if we rank 
 
 15 him as the first of all our Song-writersJ for we know 
 
 not where to find one worthy of being second to him.! 
 
 It is on his Songs, as we believe, that Burns's chief 
 
 influence as an author will ultimately be found to 
 
 depend^ nor, if our Fletcher's aphorism is true, shall 
 
 20 we account this a small influence. ' Let me make the 
 songs of a people,' said he, 'and you shall make its 
 laws.' Surely, if ever any Poet might have equalled 
 himself with Legislators on this ground, it was Burns. 
 His Songs are already part of the mother-tongue, not 
 
 25 of Scotland only but of Britain, and of the millions 
 
BURNS 49 
 
 that in all ends of the earth speak a British language. 
 In hut and hall, as the heart unfolds itself in many- 
 colored joy and woe of existence, the name, the voice 
 of that joy and that woe, is the name and voice which 
 Burns has given them. QStrictly speaking, perhaps 5 
 no British man has so deeply affected the thoughts 
 and feelings of so many men, as this solitary and alto- 
 gether private individual, with means apparently the 
 humblest/ 
 
 In another point of view, moreover, we incline to 10 
 think that Burns's influence may have been consider- 
 able : we mean, as exerted specially on the Literature 
 of his country, at least on the Literature of Scotland. 
 Among the great changes which British, particularly 
 Scottish, literature has undergone since that period, 15 
 one of the greatest will be found to consist in its 
 remarkable increase of nationality} Even the English 
 writers, most popular in Burns's time, were little dis- 
 tinguished for their literary patriotism, in this its best 
 sense. A certain attenuated cosmopolitanism had, in 20 
 good measure, taken place of the old insular home- 
 feeling ; literature was, as it were, without any local 
 environment ; was not nourished by the affections 
 which spring from a native soil. Our Grays and 
 Glovers seemed to write almost as if in vacuo ; the 25 
 
50 BURNS 
 
 thing written bears no mark of place ; it is not written 
 so much for Englishmen, as for men ; or rather, which 
 is the inevitable result of this, for certain Generali- 
 zations which philosophy termed men. Goldsmith 
 5 is an exception : not so Johnson ; the scene of his 
 Rambler is little more English than that of his 
 Hasselas. 
 
 But if such was, in some degree, the case with Eng- 
 land, it was, in the highest degree, the case with Scot- 
 
 io land. In fact, our Scottish literature had, at that 
 period, a very singular aspect ; unexampled, so far as 
 we know, except perhaps at Geneva, where the same 
 state of matters appears still to continue. Eor a long 
 period after Scotland became British, we had no litera- 
 
 15 ture: at the date when Addison and Steele were writing 
 their Spectators, our good John Boston was writing, 
 with the noblest intent, but alike in defiance of 
 grammar and philosophy, his Fourfold State' of Man. 
 Then came the schisms in our National Church, and 
 
 20 the fiercer schisms in our Body "Politic: Theologic 
 ink, and Jacobite blood, with gall enough in both 
 cases, seemed to have blotted out the intellect of 
 the country : however, it was only obscured, not 
 obliterated. Lord Kamesi made nearly the first 
 
 25 attempt at writing English ; and ere long, Hume, 
 
BURKS 51 
 
 Robertson, Smith, and a whole host of followers, 
 attracted hither the eyes of all Europe. And yet 
 in this brilliant resuscitation of our 'fervid genius,' 
 there was nothing truly Scottish, nothing indigenous ; 
 except, perhaps, the natural impetuosity of intellect, 5 
 which we sometimes claim, and are sometimes up- 
 braided with, as a characteristic of our nation. It is 
 curious to remark that Scotland, so full of writers, had 
 no Scottish culture, nor indeed any English ; our cul- 
 ture was almost exclusively French. It was by study- 10 
 ing Racine and Voltaire, Batteux and Boileau, that 
 Karnes had trained himself to be a critic and philoso- 
 pher ; it was the light of Montesquieu and Mably° 
 that guided Robertson in his political speculations ; 
 Quesnay's lamp that kindled the lamp of Adam Smith. 15 
 Hume was too rich a man to borrow ; and perhaps he 
 reacted on the French more than he was acted on by 
 them : but neither had he aught to do with Scotland ; 
 Edinburgh, equally with La Fleche, was but the lodg- 
 ing and laboratory, in which he not so much morally 20 
 lived, as metaphysically investigated. Never, perhaps, 
 was there a class of writers so clear and well-ordered, 
 yet so totally destitute, to all appearance, of any patri- 
 otic affection, nay, of any human affection whatever. 
 The French wits of the period were as unpatriotic : 25 
 
52 BURNS 
 
 but their general deficiency in moral principle, not to 
 say their avowed sensuality and unbelief in all virtue, 
 strictly so called, render this accountable enough. We 
 hope, there is a patriotism founded on something better 
 
 5 than prejudice; that our country may be dear to us, 
 without injury to our philosophy ; that in loving and 
 justly prizing all other lands, we may prize justly, and 
 yet love before all others, our own stern Motherland, 
 and the venerable Structure of social and moral Life, 
 
 io which Mind has through long ages been building up 
 for us there. Surely there is nourishment for the 
 better part of man's heart in all this : surely the roots, 
 that have fixed themselves in the very core of man's 
 being, may be so cultivated as to grow up not into 
 
 15 briers, but into roses, in the field of his life ! Our 
 Scottish sages have no such propensities : the field of 
 their life shows neither briers nor roses ; but only a 
 flat, continuous thrashing-floor for Logic, whereon all 
 questions, from the ' Doctrine of Rent ' to the ' Natural 
 
 20 History of Religion,' are thrashed and sifted with the 
 same mechanical impartiality ! 
 
 With Sir AValter Scott at the head of our literature, 
 
 ",it cannot be denied that much of this evil is past, or 
 
 rapidly passing away : our chief literary men, what- 
 
 25 ever other faults they may have, no longer live among 
 
BURXS 53 
 
 us like a French Colony, or some knot of Propaganda 
 Missionaries ; but like natural-born subjects of the soil, 
 partaking and sympathizing in all our attachments, 
 humors and habits. Our literature no longer grows 
 in water but iiiinoula, and with the true racy virtues 5 
 of the soil and climate. How much of this change 
 may be due to Burns, or to any other individual, it 
 might be difficult to estimate. Direct literary imi- 
 tation of Burns was not to be looked for. But his 
 example, in the fearless adoption of domestic subjects, 10 
 could not but operate from afar ; and certainly in no 
 heart did the love of country ever burn with a warmer 
 glow than in that of Burns : 'a tide of Scottish preju- 
 dice/ as he modestly calls this deep and generous feel- 
 ing, ' had been poured along his veins; and he felt that 15 
 it would boil there till the flood-gates shut in eternal 
 rest.' It seemed to him, as if he could do so little for 
 his country, and yet would so gladly have done all. 
 One small province stood open for him, — that of 
 Scottish Song ; and how eagerly he entered on it, how 20 
 devotedly he labored there ! In his toilsome journey- 
 ings, this objects never quits him; it is the little happy- 
 valley of his careworn heart. In the gloom of his own 
 affliction, he eagerly searches after some lonely brother 
 of the muse, and rejoices to snatch one other name 25 
 
54/ burns 
 
 from the oblivion that was covering it ! These were 
 early feelings, and they abode with him to the end : 
 
 ... A wish (I mind its power), 
 A wish, that to my latest hour 
 Will strongly heave my breast , — 
 That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake, 
 Some useful plan or book could make, 
 Or sing a sang at least. 
 
 The rough bur Thistle spreading wide 
 io Amang the bearded bear, 
 
 I turn'd my weeding-clips aside, 
 \i And spared the symbol dear. 
 
 But to leave the mere literary character of Burns, 
 which has already detained us too long. Far more 
 
 15 interesting than any of his written works, as it ap- 
 pears to us, are his acted ones : the Life he willed and 
 was fated to lead among his fellow-men. vThese Poems 
 are but like little rhymed fragments scattered here and 
 there in the grand un rhymed Romance of his earthly 
 
 20 existence pand it is only when intercalated in this at 
 their proper places, that they attain their full measure 
 of significance. v And this too, alas, was but a fragment! | 
 The plan of a mighty edifice had been sketched ; some 
 columns, porticos, firm masses of building, stand com- 
 
 25 pleted ; the rest more or less clearly indicated ; with 
 
BURNS 55 
 
 many a far-stretching tendency, which only studious 
 and friendly eyes can now trace towards the purposed 
 termination. For the work is broken off in the middle, 
 almost in the beginning ; and rises among us, beautiful 
 and sad, at once unfinished and a ruin ! If charitable 5 
 judgment was necessary in estimating his Poems, and 
 justice required that the aim and the manifest power 
 to fulfil it must often be accepted for the fulfilment ; 
 much more is this the case in regard to his Life, the 
 sum and result of all his endeavors, where his difn- 10 
 culties came upon him not in detail only, but in mass ; 
 and so much has been left unaccomplished, nay, was 
 mistaken, and altogether marred. 
 C^Properly speaking, there is but one era in the life of 
 Burns, and that the earliest. We have not youth and 15 
 manhood, but only youth : for, to the end, we discern 
 no decisive change in the complexion of his character ; 
 in his thirty-seventh year, he is still, as it were, in 
 youth. With all that resoluteness of judgment, that 
 penetrating insight, and singular maturity of intellec- 20 
 tual power, exhibited in his writings, lie never attains 
 to any clearness regarding himseli ; to the last, he 
 never ascertains his peculiar aim,° even with such 
 distinctness as is common among ordinary men ; and 
 therefore never can pursue it with that singleness of 25 
 
56 BURNS 
 
 will, which insures success and some contentment to 
 such men. /To the last, he wavers between two pur- 
 poses : glorying in his talent, like a true poet, he yet 
 cannot consent to make this his chief and sole glory, 
 5 and to follow it as the one thing needful, through pov- 
 erty or riches, through good or evil report} Another 
 far meaner ambition still cleaves to him ; he must 
 dream and struggle about a certain ' Eock of Indepen- 
 dence ' ; which, natural and even admirable as it might 
 
 io be, was still but a warring with the world, on the com- 
 paratively insignificant ground of his being more com- 
 pletely or less completely supplied with money than 
 others ; of his standing at a higher or at a lower alti- 
 tude in general estimation than others. For the world 
 
 15 still appears to him, as to the young, in borrowed col- 
 ors : he expects from it what it cannot give to any 
 man ; seeks for contentment, not within himself, in 
 action and wise effort, but from without, in the kind- 
 ness of circumstances, in love, friendship, honor, pecun- 
 
 2oiary ease. He would be happy, not actively and in 
 himself, but passively and from some ideal cornuco- 
 pia of Enjoyments, not earned by his own labor, but 
 showered on him by the beneficence of Destiny. Thus, 
 like a young man, he cannot gird himself up for any 
 
 25 worthy well-calculated goal, but swerves to and fro, 
 
BURNS 57 
 
 between passionate hope and remorseful disappoint- 
 ment : rushing onwards with a deep tempestuous force, 
 he surmounts or breaks asunder many a barrier ; trav- 
 els, nay, advances far, but advancing only under uncer- 
 tain guidance, is ever and anon turned from his path ; 5 
 and to the last cannot reach the /on ly true h appinesjL. 
 of a maivthat of_clear decidedAcJ^iyityJju^ — 
 
 for which, by nature and circu nis tances, Jie__IiR« Vigp-n 
 
 fitteci ahdTappointed. ) 
 
 We do not say these things in dispraise of Burns ; 10 
 nay, perhaps, they but interest us the more in his 
 favor. This blessing is not given soonest to the best ; 
 but rather, it is often the greatest minds that are 
 latest in obtaining it ; for where most is to be devel- 
 oped, most time may be required to develop it. A 15 
 complex condition had been assigned him from with- 
 out ; as complex a condition from within : no i pre- 
 established harmony ' existed between the clay soil of 
 Mossgiel and the empyrean soul of Robert Burns ; it 
 was not wonderful that the adjustment between them 20 
 should have been long postponed, and his arm long 
 cumbered, and his sight confused, in so vast and dis- 
 cordant an economy as he had been appointed steward 
 over. Byron was, at his death, but a year younger 
 than Burns ; and through life, as it might have ap- 25 
 
58 BURNS 
 
 peared, far more simply situated : yet in him too we 
 can trace no such adjustment, no such moral man- 
 hood ; but at best, and only a little before his end, 
 the beginning of what seemed such. 
 5 Q3y much the most striking incident in Burns's Life 
 is his journey to EdinburglijCbut perhaps a still more 
 important one is his residence at Irvine) so early as 
 in his twenty-third year. (Hitherto his life had been 
 poor and toil worn ; but otherwise not ungenial, and, 
 
 io with all its' distresses, by no means unhappy) In his 
 parentage, deducting outward circumstances, he had 
 every reason to reckon himself fortunate. His father 
 was a man of thoughtful, intense, earnest character, 
 as the best of our peasants are ; valuing knowledge, 
 
 15 possessing some, and, what is far better and rarer, 
 open-minded for more : a man with a keen insight 
 and devout heart; reverent towards God, friendly 
 therefore at once, and fearless towards all that God 
 has made : in one word, though but a hard-handed 
 
 20 peasant, a complete and fully unfolded Man. Such 
 a father is seldom found in any rank in society ; and 
 was worth descending far in society to seek. (Unfor- 
 tunately, he was very poor ; had he been even a little 
 richer, almost never so little, the whole might have 
 
 25 issued far otherwise./ Mighty events turn on a straw ; 
 
BURNS 
 
 65 
 
 the crossing of a brook decides the conquest of the 
 world. fHacl this William Burns's small seven acres 
 of nursery -ground anywise prospered, the boy Robert 
 had been sent to school ; had struggled forward, as so 
 many weaker men do, to some university ; come forth 5 
 not as a rustic wonder, but as a regular well-trained 
 intellectual workman, and changed the whole course 
 of British Literature^)— f or it lay in him to have 
 done this ! But the nursery did not prosper ; pov- 
 erty sank his whole family below the help of even 10 
 our cheap school-system : Burns remained a hard- 
 worked ploughboy, and British literature took its 
 own course. Nevertheless, even in this rugged scene 
 there is much to nourish him. If he drudges, it is 
 with his brother, and for his father and mother, whom 15 
 he loves, and would fain shield from want. Wisdoi 
 is not banished from their poor hearth, nor the bah 11 
 of natural feeling: the solemn words, Let us worship 
 God, are heard there from a ' priest-like father ' ° : if 
 threatenings of unjust men throw mother and chil-20 
 dren into tears, these are tears not of grief only, but 
 of holiest affection ; every heart in that humble group 
 feels itself the closer knit to every other ; in their 
 hard warfare they are there together, a k ' little band 
 of brethren.' Neither are such tears, and the deep 25 
 
60 BURXS 
 
 beauty that dwells in them, their only portion. Light 
 visits the hearts as it does the eyes of all living: there 
 is a force, too, in this youth, that enables him to tram- 
 ple on misfortune ; nay, to bind it under his feet to 
 5 make him sport. For a bold, warm, buoyant humor 
 of character has been given him; and so the thick- 
 coming shapes of evil are welcomed with a gay, 
 friendly irony, and in their closest pressure he bates 
 no jot of heart or hope. Vague yearnings of ambi- 
 io tion fail not, as he grows up ; dreamy fancies hang 
 like cloud-cities around him ; the curtain of Existence 
 is slowly rising, in many-colored splendor and gloom : 
 and the auroral light of first love is gilding his horizon, 
 and the music of song is on his path ; and. so he walks 
 
 15 in glory and in joy,° 
 
 Behind his plough, upon the mountain side. 
 
 C We ourselves know, from the best evidence, that 
 up to this date Burns was happy ; nay, that he was 
 the gayest, brightest, most fantastic, fascinating being 
 20 to be found in the world; more so even than he ever 
 afterwards appeared.} But now, at this early age, he 
 quits the paternal roof; goes forth into looser, louder, 
 more exciting society ; and becomes initiated in those 
 dissipations, those vices, which a certain class of phi' 
 
BURNS 61 
 
 losopliers have asserted to be a natural preparation 
 for entering on active life; a kind of mud-bath, in 
 which the youth is, as it were, necessitated to steep, 
 and, we suppose, cleanse himself, before the real toga 
 of Manhood can be laid on him. We shall not dis-5 
 pute much with this class of philosophers ; we hope 
 they are mistaken : for Sin and Kemorse so easily 
 beset us at all stages of life, and are always such 
 indifferent company, that it seems hard we should, at 
 any stage, be forced and fated not only to meet but 10 
 to yield to them, and even serve for a term in their 
 leprous armada. We hope it is not so. Clear we are, 
 at all events, it cannot be the training one receives 
 in this Devil's-service, but only our determining to 
 desert from it, that fits us for true n^kly Action. 15 
 We become men, not after we have been dissipated, 
 and disappointed in the chase of false pleasure; but 
 after we have ascertained, in any way, what impas- 
 sable barriers hem us in through this life^ how mad 
 it is to hope for contentment to our infinite soul 20 
 from the gifts of this extremely finite world ; that a 
 man must be sufficient for himself ; and that for suf- 
 fering and enduring there is no remedy but striving 
 and doing, fl Manhood begins when we have in any 
 way made truce with Necessity ; / begins even when 25 
 
62 BURNS 
 
 we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part 
 only do ; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when 
 we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity ; and thus, 
 in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Neces- 
 5 sity we are freeTj Surely, such lessons as this last, 
 which, in one shape or other, is the grand lesson for 
 every mortal man, are better learned from the lips of 
 a devout mother, in the looks and actions of a devout, 
 father, while the heart is yet soft and pliant, than in 
 
 10 collision with the sharp adamant of Fate, attracting 
 us to shipwreck us, when the heart is grown hard, 
 and may be broken before it will become contrite. 
 Had Burns continued to learn this, as he was already 
 learning it, in his father's cottage, he would have 
 
 15 learned it fully, which he never did, and been saved 
 many a lasting aberration, many a bitter hour and 
 year of remorseful sorrow. 
 
 Tit seems to us another circumstance of fatal import in 
 Burns's history, that at this time too he became involved 
 
 20 in the religious quarrels of his district^ that he was 
 enlisted and feasted, as the fighting man of the New- 
 Light Priesthood, in their highly unprofitable warfare. 
 At the tables of these free-minded clergy he learned 
 much more than was needful for him. Such liberal 
 
 25 ridicule of fanaticism awakened in his mind scruples 
 
BURNS 63 
 
 about Religion itself ; and a whole world of Doubts, 
 which it required quite another set of conjurers than 
 these men to exorcise. We do not say that such an 
 intellect as his could have escaped similar doubts at 
 some period of his history ; or even that he could, at 5 
 a later period, have come through them altogether 
 victorious and unharmed : but it seems peculiarly 
 unfortunate that this time, above all others, should have 
 been fixed for the encounter. For now, with princi- 
 ples assailed by evil example from without, by ' pas- 10 
 sions raging like demons ' ° from within, he had little 
 need of sceptical misgivings to whisper treason in the 
 heat of the battle, or to cut off his retreat if he were 
 already defeated. He loses his feeling of innocence ; 
 his mind is at variance with itself; the old divinity 15 
 no longer presides there; but wild Desires and wild 
 Repentance alternately oppress him. Ere long, too, 
 he has committed himself before the world £his char- 
 acter for sobriety, dear to a Scottish peasant as few 
 corrupted worldlings can even conceive, is destroyed 20 
 in the eyes of men) and his only refuge consists in 
 trying to disbelieve his guiltiness, and is but a refuge 
 of lies. The blackest desperation now gathers over 
 him, broken only by red lightnings of remorse. The 
 whole fabric of his life is blasted asunder ; for now 25 
 
64 BURNS 
 
 not only his character, but his personal liberty, is to 
 be lost ; men and Fortune are leagued for his hurt ; 
 'hungry Ruin has him in the wind.' He sees no 
 escape but the saddest of all : exile from his loved 
 5 country, to a country in every sense inhospitable and 
 abhorrent to him. While the l gloomy night is gath- 
 ering fast,' ° in mental storm and solitude, as well as 
 in physical, he sings his wild farewell to Scotland : 
 
 Farewell, my friends ; farewell, my foes ! 
 10 My peace with these, my love with those : 
 
 The bursting tears my heart declare ; 
 Adieu, my native banks of Ayr ! 
 
 Light breaks suddenly in on him in floods ; but still 
 a false transitory light, and no real sunshine. He is 
 
 15 invited to Edinburgh ; hastens thither with anticipat- 
 ing heart; is welcomed as in a triumph, and with 
 universal blandishment and acclamation ; whatever 
 is wisest, whatever is greatest or loveliest there, 
 gathers round him, to gaze on his face, to show him 
 
 20 honor, sympathy, affection. Burns' s appearance among 
 the sages and nobles of Edinburgh must be regarded 
 as one of the most singular phenomena in modern Lit- 
 erature ; almost like the appearance of some Napoleon 
 among the crowned sovereigns of modern Politics. For 
 
BUMWS G5 
 
 it is nowise as a < mockery king/ set there by favor, 
 transiently and for a purpose, that he will let him- 
 self be treated ; still less is he a mad Rienzi, whose 
 sudden elevation turns his too weak head: but he 
 stands there on his own basis; cool, unastonished, 5 
 holding his equal rank from Nature herself ; putting 
 forth no claim which there is not strength hi him, as 
 Well as about him, to vindicate. Mr. Lockhart has 
 some forcible observations on this point : 
 
 ' It needs no effort of imagination,' says he, 'to con- 10 
 ceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars 
 (almost all either clergymen or professors) must have 
 been in the presence of this big-boned, black-browed, 
 brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, 
 having forced his way among them from the plough- 15 
 tail at a single stride, manifested in the whole strain 
 of his bearing and conversation a most thorough con- 
 viction, that in the society of the most eminent men 
 of his nation he was exactly where he was entitled to 
 be ; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even 20 
 an occasional symptom of being flattered by their 
 notice; by turns calmly measured himself against 
 the most cultivated understandings of his time in 
 discussion; overpowered the bon-mots of the most 
 
66 BURNS 
 
 - celebrated convivialists by broad floods of merri- 
 ment, impregnated with all the burning life of genins : 
 astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice 
 piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them tci 
 5 tremble, — nay, to tremble visibly, — beneath th^. 
 fearless touch of natural pathos ; and all this withoiyi 
 indicating the smallest willingness to be ranked among 
 those professional ministers of excitement, who are coil- 
 tent to be paid in money and smiles for doing wha;t 
 
 10 the spectators and auditors would be ashamed of doing 
 in their own persons, even if they had the power of 
 doing it; and last, and probably worst of all, who 
 was known to be in the habit of enlivening societies 
 which they would have scorned to approach, still more 
 
 15 frequently than their own, with eloquence no less mag- 
 nificent ; with wit, in all likelihood still more daring ; 
 often enough, as the superiors whom he fronted with- 
 out alarm might have guessed from the beginning, 
 and had ere long no occasion to guess, with wit pointed 
 
 20 at themselves.' 
 
 The farther we remove from this scene, the more 
 singular will it seem to us : details of the exterior 
 aspect of it are already full of interest. Most readers 
 recollect Mr. Walker's personal interviews with Burns 
 
BURNS 67 
 
 as among the best passages of his Narrative : a time 
 will come when this reminiscence of Sir Walter Scott's, 
 slight though it is, will also be precious : 
 
 1 As for Burns/ writes Sir Walter, ' I may truly 
 say, Virgilium vidi tantum.° I was a lad of fifteen in 5 
 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had 
 sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his 
 poetry, and would have given the world to know him : 
 but I had very little acquaintance with any literary 
 people, and still less with the gentry of the west 10 
 country ; the two sets that he most frequented. Mr. 
 Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my 
 father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him 
 to his lodgings to dinner ; but had no opportunity to 
 keep his word ; otherwise I might have seen more of 15 
 this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day 
 at the late venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there 
 were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among 
 whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. 
 Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked, and lis- 20 
 tened. The only thing I remember which was remark- 
 able in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon 
 him by a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier 
 lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on 
 
68 BUKXS 
 
 one side, — on the other, his widow, with a child in 
 her arms. These lines were written beneath : 
 
 " Cold on Canadian hills, or Minderfs plain, 
 Perhaps that mother wept her soldier slain ; 
 5 Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, — 
 
 The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, 
 Gave the sad presage of his future years, 
 The child of misery, baptized in tears.'" 
 
 ' Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather 
 
 io by the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actu- 
 ally shed tears. He asked whose the lines were ; and 
 it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that 
 they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's 
 called by the unpromising title of " The Justice of 
 
 15 Peace." I whispered my information to a friend pres- 
 ent ; he mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a 
 look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then 
 received and still recollect with very great pleasure. 
 ' His person was strong and robust ; his manners rus- 
 
 20 tic, 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 Mr. Nasmyth's picture: 
 but to me it conveys the idea that they are dimin- 
 
 25 ished, as if seen in perspective. I think his counte- 
 
BURNS 69 
 
 nance was more massive than it looks in any of the 
 portraits. I should have taken the poet, had I not 
 known what he was, for a very sagacious country 
 farmer of the old Scotch school, i.e., none of your 
 modern agriculturists who kept laborers for theirs 
 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 tempera- 
 ment. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed 10 
 (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or 
 interest. I never saw such another eye in a human 
 head, though I have seen the most distinguished men 
 of my time. His conversation expressed perfect self- 
 confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among 15 
 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 20 
 not remember any part of his conversation distinctly 
 enough to be quoted ; nor did I ever see him again, 
 except in the street, where he did not recognize me, as 
 I could not expect he should. He was much caressed 
 in Edinburgh : but (considering what literary emolu- 25 
 
70 BURWS 
 
 ments have been since his day) the efforts made for 
 his relief were extremely trifling. 
 
 ' I remember, on this occasion I mention, I thought 
 Burns's acquaintance with English poetry was rather 
 
 5 limited ; and also that, having twenty times the abili- 
 ties of Allan Ramsay and of Ferguson, he talked of 
 them with too much humility as his models : there 
 was doubtless national predilection in his estimate. 
 ' This is all I can tell you about Burns. I have only 
 
 10 to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. 
 He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with 
 the laird. I do not speak in mcdam partem, when I 
 say, I never saw a man in company with his superiors 
 in station or information more perfectly free from 
 
 15 either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. 
 I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to 
 females was extremely deferential, and always with a 
 turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which en- 
 gaged their attention particularly. I have heard the 
 
 20 late Duchess of Gordon remark this. — I do not know 
 anything I can add to these recollections of forty years 
 since.' 
 
 The conduct of Burns under this dazzling blaze of 
 favor ; the calm, unaffected, manly manner in which 
 
BURNS 71 
 
 he not only bore it, but estimated its value, has justly 
 been regarded as the best proof that could be given of 
 his real vigor and integrity of mind. A little natural 
 vanity, some touches of hypocritical modesty, some 
 glimmerings of affectation, at least some fear of being 5 
 thought affected, we could have pardoned in almost 
 any man ; but no such indication is to be traced here. 
 In his unexampled situation the young peasant is not 
 a moment perplexed ; so many strange lights do not 
 confuse him, do not lead him astray; Nevertheless, 10 
 we cannot but perceive that this winter did him great 
 and lasting injury. A somewhat clearer knowledge of 
 men's affairs, scarcely of their characters, it did afford 
 him ; but a sharper feeling of Fortune's unequal ar- 
 rangements in their social destiny it also left with 15 
 him. He had seen the gay and gorgeous arena, in 
 which the powerful are born to play their parts ; nay, 
 had himself stood in the midst of it; %nd he felt more 
 bitterly than ever, that here he was but a looker-on, 
 and had no part or lot in that splendid game. From 20 
 this time a jealous indignant fear of social degradation 
 takes possession of him ; and perverts, so far as aught 
 could pervert, his private contentment, and his feelings 
 towards his richer fellows. It was clear to Burns that 
 he had talent enough to make a fortune, or a hundred 25 
 
72 BURNS 
 
 fortunes, could he but have rightly willed this ; it was 
 clear also that he willed something far different, and 
 therefore could not make one. Unhappy it was that 
 he had not power to choose the one, and reject the 
 
 , 5 other ; but must halt forever between two opinions, 
 two objects ; making hampered advancement towards 
 either. But so is it with many men : Ave '' long for 
 the merchandise, yet would fain keep the price); and 
 so stand chaffering with Fate, in vexatious altercation, 
 
 10 till the night come, and our fair is over ! 
 
 The Edinburgh Learned of that period were in gen- 
 eral more noted for clearness of head than for warmth 
 of heart : with the exception of the good old Black- 
 lock, whose help w^as too ineffectual, scarcely one 
 
 15 among them seems to have looked at Burns with any 
 true sympathy, or indeed much otherwise than as at 
 a highly curious thing. By the great also he is treated 
 in the customary fashion ; entertained at their tables 
 and dismissed: certain modica of pudding and praise 
 
 20 are, from time to time, gladly exchanged for the fas- 
 cination of his presence ; which exchange once effected, 
 the bargain is finished, and each party goes his sev- 
 eral way. At the end of this strange season, Burns 
 gloomily sums up his gains and losses, and meditates 
 
 25 on the chaotic future. In money he is somewhat 
 
BURJSTS 73 
 
 richer ; in fame and the show of happiness, infinitely 
 richer ; but in the substance of it, as poor as ever. 
 Nay, poorer; for his heart is now maddened still 
 more with the fever of worldly Ambition ; and 
 through long years the disease will rack him with 5 
 unprofitable sufferings, and weaken his strength for 
 all true and nobler aims. / 
 
 What Burns was next to do or to avoid; how a 
 man so circumstanced was now to guide himself 
 towards his true advantage, might at this point of 10 
 time have been a question for the wisest. It was a 
 question too, which apparently he was left altogether 
 to answer for himself : of his learned or rich patrons 
 it had not struck any individual to turn a thought on 
 this so trivial matter. Without claiming for Burns 15 
 the praise of perfect sagacity, we must say, that his 
 Excise and Farm scheme does not seem to us a very 
 unreasonable one ; that we should be at a loss, even 
 now, to suggest one decidedly better. Certain of his 
 admirers have felt scandalized at his ever resolving to 20 
 gauge ; and would have had him lie at the pool, till 
 the spirit of Patronage stirred the waters, that so, 
 with one friendly plunge, all his sorrows might be 
 healed. Unwise counsellors ! They know not the 
 manner of this spirit; and how, in the lap of most 25 
 
74 BURNS 
 
 golden dreams, a man might have happiness, were it 
 not that in the interim he must die of hunger ! It 
 reflects credit on the manliness and sound sense of 
 Burns, that he felt so early on what ground he was 
 
 5 standing ; and preferred self-help, on the humblest 
 scale, to dependence and inaction, though with hope 
 of far more splendid possibilities. But even these 
 possibilities were not rejected in his scheme : he 
 might expect, if it chanced that he had any friend, to 
 
 io rise, in no long period, into something even like opu- 
 lence and leisure ; while again, if it chanced that he 
 had no friend, he could still live in security ; and for 
 the rest, he ' did not intend to borrow honor from any 
 profession.' We think, then, that his plan was hon- 
 
 15 est and well-calculated : all turned on the execution 
 of it. Doubtless it failed; yet not, we believe, from 
 any vice inherent in itself. Nay, after all, it was no 
 failure of external means, but of internal, that over- 
 took Burns. His was no bankruptcy of the purse, 
 
 20 but of the soul; to his last day, he owed no man 
 anything. 
 
 Meanwhile he begins well : with two good and wise 
 actions. His donation to his mother, munificent from 
 a man whose income had lately been seven pounds 
 
 25 a-year, was worthy of him, and not more than worthy. 
 
BURNS 75 
 
 Generous also, and worthy of him, was his treatment 
 of the woman whose life's welfare now depended on 
 his pleasure. A friendly observer might have hoped 
 serene days for him : his mind is on the true road to 
 peace with itself : what clearness he still wants will 5 
 be given as he proceeds ; for the best teacher of duties 
 that still lie dim to us, is the Practice of those we see 
 and have at hand. Had the ' patrons of genius,' who 
 could give him nothing, but taken nothing from him, 
 at least nothing more ! The wounds of his heart i 
 would have healed, vulgar ambition would have died 
 away. Toil and Frugality would have been welcome, 
 since Virtue dwelt with them ; and Poetry would 
 have shone through them as of old : and in her clear 
 ethereal light, which was his own by birthright, he 15 
 might have looked down on his earthly destiny and 
 all its obstructions, not with patience only, but with 
 love. 
 
 But the patrons of genius would not have it so. 
 Picturesque tourists, 1 all manner of fashionable dan- 20 
 
 1 There is one little sketch by certain ' English gentlemen ' 
 of this class, which, though adopted in Currie's Narrative, and 
 since then repeated in most others, we have all along felt an 
 invincible disposition to regard as imaginary : ' On a rock that 
 projected into the stream, they saw a man employed in angling, 25 
 
76 BURNS 
 
 glers after literature, and, far worse, all manner of 
 convivial Maecenases, hovered round him in his 
 retreat ; and his good as well as his weak qualities 
 secured them influence over him. He was flattered 
 5 by their notice ; and his warm social nature made it 
 impossible for him to shake them off, and hold on his 
 way apart from them. These men, as we believe, 
 were proximately the means of his ruin. Not that 
 they meant him any ill ; they only meant themselves 
 io a little good; if he suffered harm, let Mm look to it! 
 But they wasted his precious time and his precious 
 talent; they disturbed his composure, broke down 
 his returning habits of temperance and assiduous 
 contented exertion. Their pampering was baneful 
 
 15 of a singular appearance. He had a cap made of fox skin on 
 
 his head, a loose greatcoat fixed round him by a belt, from 
 
 which depended an enormous Highland broad-sword. It was 
 
 Burns.' Now, we rather think, it was not Burns. For, to say 
 
 ■nothing of the fox skin cap, the loose and quite Hiberniar 
 
 20 watchcoat with the belt, what are we to make of this ' enor- 
 mous Highland broadsword ' depending from him ? More 
 especially, as there is no word of parish constables on the look- 
 out to see whether, as Dennis phrases it, he had an eye to his 
 own midriff or that of the public ! Burns, of all men, had the 
 
 2 5 least need, and the least tendency, to seek for distinction, either 
 in his own eyes, or those of others, by such poor mummeries. 
 
 
BURXS 77 
 
 to him ; their cruelty, which soon followed, was 
 equally baneful. 'The old grudge against Fortune's 
 inequality awoke with new bitterness in their neigh- 
 borhood ; and Burns had no retreat but to * the Rock 
 of Independence,' which is but an air-castle after all, 5 
 that looks well at a distance, but will screen no one 
 from real wind and wet. Flushed with irregular 
 excitement, exasperated alternately by contempt of 
 others, and contempt of himself, Burns was no longer 
 regaining his peace of mind, but fast losing it forever. 10 
 There was a hollowness at the heart of his life, for 
 his conscience did not now approve what he was doing. 
 Amid the vapors of unwise enjoyment, of bootless 
 remorse, and angry discontent with Fate, his true 
 loadstar, a life of Poetry, with Poverty, nay, with 15 
 Famine if it must be so, was too often altogether hid- 
 den from his eyes. And yet he sailed a sea, where 
 without some such loadstar there was no right steering. 
 Meteors of French Politics rise before him, but these 
 were not his stars. An accident this, which hastened, 20 
 but did not originate, his worst distresses. In the 
 mad contentions of that time, he comes in collision 
 with certain official Superiors ; is wounded by them ; 
 cruelly lacerated, we should say, could a dead 
 mechanical implement, in any case, be called cruel : 25 
 
78 BURNS 
 
 and shrinks, in indignant pain, into deeper self-seclu- 
 sion, into gloomier moodiness than ever. His life has 
 now lost its unity : it is a life of fragments ; led with 
 little aim, beyond the melancholy one of securing its 
 5 own continuance, — in fits of wild false joy when 
 such offered, and of black despondency when they 
 passed away. His character before the world begins 
 to suffer : calumny is busy with him ; for a miserable 
 man makes more enemies than friends. Some faults 
 
 io he has fallen into, and a thousand misfortunes ; but 
 deep criminality is what he stands accused of, and 
 they that are not without sin cast the first stone at 
 him! For is he not a well-wisher to the French 
 Revolution, a Jacobin, and therefore in that one act 
 
 15 guilty of all ? These accusations, political and moral, 
 it has since appeared, were false enough : but the 
 world hesitated little to credit them. Nay, his con- 
 vivial Maecenases- themselves were not the last to do 
 it. There is reason to believe that, in his later years, 
 
 20 the Dumfries Aristocracy had partly withdrawn them- 
 selves from Burns, as from a tainted person no longer 
 worthy of their acquaintance. That painful class, 
 stationed, in all provincial cities, behind the outmost 
 breastwork of Gentility, there to stand siege and do 
 
 25 battle against the intrusions of Grocerdom and Gra- 
 
BURXS 79 
 
 zierdom, had actually seen dishonor in the society 
 of Burns, and branded him with their veto ; had, as 
 we vulgarly say, cut him ! We find one passage in 
 this Work of Mr. Lockhart's, which will not out of 
 our thoughts : 5 
 
 ( A gentleman of that county, whose name I have 
 already more than once had occasion to refer to, has 
 often told me that he was seldom more grieved than 
 when, riding into Dumfries one fine summer evening 
 about this time to attend a county ball, he saw Burns 10 
 walking alone, on the shady side of the principal 
 street of the town, while the opposite side was gay 
 with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all 
 drawn together for the festivities of the night, not 
 one of whom appeared willing to recognize him. The 15 
 horseman dismounted, and joined Burns > who on his 
 proposing to cross the street said : " Nay, nay, my 
 young friend, that's all over now " ; and quoted, after 
 a pause, some verses of Lady Grizzel Baillie's pathetic 
 ballad : 20 
 
 " His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on bis brow, 
 His auld ane lookM better than mony ane's new ; 
 But now he lets 't wear ony way it will hing, 
 And casts himsel dowie upon the corn-bing.° 
 
80 BURNS 
 
 " 0, were we young as we ance hae been, 
 We sulci hae been galloping down on yon green, 
 And linking it ower the lily-white lea ! 
 And werena my heart light, I wad die. 1 '' 
 
 
 5 It was little in Burns's character to let his feelings on 
 certain subjects escape in this fashion. He, immedi- 
 ately after reciting these verses, assumed the spright- 
 liness of his most pleasing manner ; and taking his 
 young friend home with him, entertained him very 
 
 io agreeably till the hour of the ball arrived.' 
 
 Alas ! when we think that Burns now sleeps * where 
 bitter indignation can no longer lacerate his heart,' ! 
 and that most of those fair dames and frizzled gentle- 
 men already lie at his side, where the breastwork of 
 
 i 5 gentility is quite thrown down, — who would not sigh 
 over the thin delusions and foolish toys that divide 
 heart from heart, and make man unmerciful to his 
 brother ! 
 
 It was not now to be hoped that the genius of 
 
 20 Burns would ever reach maturity, or accomplish aught 
 worthy of itself. His spirit was jarred in its melody; 
 not the soft breath of natural feeling, but the rude 
 
 1 UM sceva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare nequit. Swift's 
 Epitaph. 
 
BURNS 81 
 
 hand of Fate, was now sweeping over the strings. 
 And yet what harmony was in him, what music even 
 in his discords ! How the wild tones had a charm for 
 the simplest and the wisest ; and all men felt and 
 knew that here also was one of the Gifted ! ' If he 5 
 entered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates were 
 in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the 
 cellar to the garret ; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, 
 the landlord and all his guests were assembled ! ' 
 Some brief pure moments of poetic life were yet 10 
 appointed him, in the composition of his Songs. We 
 can understand how he grasped at this employment ; 
 and how too, he spurned all other reward for it but 
 what the labor itself brought him. For the soul of 
 Burns, though scathed and marred, was yet living in 15 
 its full moral strength, though sharply conscious of 
 its errors and abasement : and here, in his destitution 
 and degradation, was one act of seeming nobleness 
 and self-devotedness left even for him to perform. 
 He felt too, that with all the ' thoughtless follies ' 20 
 that had ' laid him low/ the world was unjust and 
 cruel to him ; and he silently appealed to another and 
 calmer time. Not as a hired soldier, but as a patriot, 
 would he strive for the glory of his country: so he 
 cast from him the poor sixpence a-day, and served 25 
 
 G 
 
82 BURXS 
 
 zealously as a volunteer. Let us not grudge him this 
 last luxury of his existence; let him not have appeale 1 
 to us in vain ! The money was not necessary to him . 
 he struggled through without it : long since, thes^r 
 
 5 guineas would have been gone ; and now the higl - 
 mindedness of refusing them will plead for him in 
 all hearts forever. 
 
 AVe are here arrived at the crisis of Burns's life ; fc 
 matters had now taken such a shape with him as could 
 
 io not long continue. If improvement was not to be 
 looked for, Nature could only for a limited time main- 
 tain this dark and maddening warfare against the 
 world and itself. We are not medically informed 
 whether any continuance of years was, at this period, 
 
 15 probable for Burns ; whether his death is to be looked 
 on as in some sense an accidental event, or only as the 
 natural consequence of the long series of events that 
 had preceded. The latter seems to be the likelier 
 opinion ; and yet it is by no means a certain one. At 
 
 20 all events, as we have said, some change could not be 
 very distant. \Xhree gates of deliverance, it seems to 
 us, were open for Burns : clear poetical activity ; mad- 
 ness ; or death. The first, with longer life, was still 
 possible, though not probable ; for physical causes 
 
 25 were beginning to be concerned in it : and yet Burns 
 
Bunirs 83 
 
 had an iron resolution ; could he bnt have seen and 
 felt, that not only his highest glory, bnt his first duty, 
 and the true medicine for all his woes, lay here. The 
 second was still less probable ; for his mind was ever 
 among the clearest and firmest. So the milder third 5 
 gate was opened for him : and he passed, not softly, 
 yet speedily, into that still country, where the hail- 
 storms and fire-showers do not reach, and the heaviest- 
 laden wayfarer at length lays down his load ! 
 
 Contemplating this sad end of Burns, and how he 10 
 sank unaided by any real help, uncheered by any wise 
 sympathy, generous minds have sometimes figured to 
 themselves, with a reproachful sorrow, that much might 
 have been done for him ; that by counsel, true affec- 
 tion, and friendly ministrations, he might have been 15 
 saved to himself and the world. We question whether 
 there is not more tenderness of heart than soundness 
 of judgment in these suggestions. It seems dubious 
 to us whether the richest, wisest, most benevolent 
 individual could have lent Burns any effectual help. 20 
 Counsel, which seldom profits any one, he did not 
 need ; in his understanding, he knew the right from 
 the wrong, as well perhaps as any man ever did ; but 
 the persuasion which would have availed him, lies not 
 
84 BURNS 
 
 so much in the head as in the heart, where no argu- 
 ment or expostulation could have assisted much to 
 implant it. As to money again, we do not believe 
 that this was his essential want ; or well see how any 
 
 5 private man could, even presupposing Burns's consent, 
 have bestowed on him an independent fortune, with 
 much prospect of decisive advantage. It is a mortify- 
 ing truth, that two men in any rank of society could 
 hardly be found virtuous enough to give money, and 
 
 ioto take it as a necessary gift, without injury to the 
 moral entireness of one or both. But so stands the 
 fact: Friendship, in the old heroic sense of that term, 
 no longer exists ; except in the cases of kindred or 
 other legal affinity, it is in reality no longer expected, or 
 
 15 recognized as a virtue among men. A close observer 
 of manners has pronounced 'Patronage,' that is, pe- 
 cuniary or other economic furtherance, to be 'twice 
 cursed ' ; ° cursing him that gives, and him that takes ! 
 And thus, in regard to outward matters also, it has 
 
 20 become the rule, as in regard to inward it always 
 was and must be the rule, that no one shall look for 
 effectual help to another ; but that each shall rest con- 
 tented with what help he can afford himself. Such, 
 we say, is the principle of modern Honor ; naturally 
 
 25 enough growing out of that sentiment of Pride, which 
 
BURNS 85 
 
 we inculcate and encourage as the basis of our whole 
 social morality. Many a poet has been poorer than 
 Burns; but no one was ever prouder: we may ques- 
 tion whether, without great precautions, even a pension 
 from Royalty would not have galled and encumbered, 5 
 more than actually assisted him. 
 
 Still less, therefore, are we disposed to join with 
 another class of Burns's admirers, who accuse the 
 higher ranks among us of having ruined Burns by 
 their selfish neglect of him. We have already stated 10 
 our doubts whether direct pecuniary help, had it been 
 offered, would have been accepted, or could have proved 
 very effectual. We shall readily admit, however, that 
 much was to be done for Burns ; that many a poisoned 
 arrow might have been warded from his bosom ; many 15 
 an entanglement in his path cut asunder by the hand 
 of the powerful ; and light and heat, shed on him from 
 high places, would have made his humble atmosphere 
 more genial ; and the softest heart then breathing 
 might have lived and died with some fewer pangs. 20 
 Nay, we shall grant farther, and for Burns it is grant- 
 ing much, that, with all his pride, he would have 
 thanked, even with exaggerated gratitude, any one 
 who had cordially befriended him : patronage, unless 
 once cursed, needed not to have been twice so. At 25 
 
86 BURNS 
 
 all events, the poor promotion he desired in his call- 
 ing might have been granted : it was his own scheme, 
 therefore likelier than any other to be of service. All 
 this it might have been a luxury, nay, it was a duty, 
 5 for our nobility to have done. No part of all this, 
 however, did any of them do ; or apparently attempt, 
 or wish to do : so much is granted against them. But 
 what then is the amount of their blame ? Simply that 
 they were men of the world, and walked by the prin- 
 
 io ciples of such men ; that they treated Burns, as other 
 nobles and other commoners had done other poets ; as 
 the English did Shakespeare ; as King Charles and his 
 Cavaliers did Butler, as King Philip and his Grandees 
 did Cervantes. Do men gather grapes of thorns ; or 
 
 15 shall we cut down our thorns for yielding only a fence 
 and haws ? How, indeed, could the ' nobility and gen- 
 try of his native land ' hold out any help to this ' Scot- 
 tish Bard, proud of his name and country ' ? Were 
 the nobility and gentry so much as able rightly to 
 
 20 help themselves ? Had they not their game to pre- 
 serve ; their borough interests to strengthen ; dinners, 
 therefore, of various kinds to eat and give ? Were 
 their means more than adequate to all this business, 
 or less than adequate ? Less than adequate, in gen- 
 
 25 eral ; few of them in reality were richer than Burns ; 
 
BURNS 87 
 
 many of them were poorer ; for sometimes they had 
 to wring their supplies, as with thumb-screws, from 
 the hard hand ; and, in their need of guineas, to forget 
 their duty of mercy ; which Burns was never reduced 
 to do. Let us pity and forgive them. The game they 5 
 preserved and shot, the dinners they ate and gave, the 
 borough interests they strengthened, the little Baby- 
 Ions they severally buil^ed by the glory of their might, 
 are all melted or melting back into the primeval 
 Chaos, as man's merely selfish endeavors are fated to 10 
 do : and here was an action, extending, in virtue of 
 its worldly influence, we may say, through all time ; 
 in virtue of its moral nature, beyond all time, being 
 immortal as the Spirit of Goodness itself ; this action 
 was offered them to do, and light was not given them 15 
 to do it. Let us pity and forgive them. But better 
 than pity, let us go and do otherwise. Human suffering 
 did not end with the life of Burns ; neither was the 
 so]emn mandate, 'Love one another, bear one another's 
 burdens,' given to the rich only, but to all men. True, 20 
 we shall find no Burns to relieve, to assuage by our 
 aid or our pity ; but celestial natures, groaning under 
 the fardels of a weary life, we shall still find ; and 
 that wretchedness which Fate has rendered voiceless 
 and tuneless, is not the least wretched, but the most. 25 
 
88 BURNS 
 
 Still, we do not think that the blame of Burns's 
 failure lies chiefly with the world. The world, it 
 seems to us, treated him with more rather than with 
 less kindness than it usiially shows to such men. 
 
 5 It has ever, we fear, shown but small favor to its 
 Teachers : hunger and nakedness, perils and revilings, 
 the prison, the cross, the poison-chalice have, in most 
 times and countries, been the market-price it has 
 offered for Wisdom, the welcome with which it has 
 
 io greeted those who have come to enlighten and purify. 
 Homer and Socrates, and the Christian Apostles, 
 belong to old days ; but the world's Martyrology was 
 not completed with these. Eoger BacOh and Galileo 
 languish in priestly dungeons ; Tasso° pines in the 
 
 15 cell of a madhouse ; Camoens°-'aies begging on the 
 streets of Lisbon. So neglected, so ' persecuted they 
 the Prophets,' not in Judea only, but in all places 
 where men have been. We reckon that every poet of 
 Burns's order is, or should be, a prophet and teacher 
 
 20 to his age ; that he has no right to expect great kind- 
 ness from it, but rather is bound to do it great kind- 
 ness ; that Burns, in particular, experienced fully the 
 usual proportion of the world's goodness ; and that the 
 blame of his failure, as we have said, lies not chiefly 
 
 25 with the world. 
 
BURNS 89 
 
 Where, then, does it lie ? We are forced to answer : 
 With himself ; it is his inward, not his outward mis- 
 fortunes that bring him to the dust. Seldom, indeed, 
 is it otherwise ; seldom is a life morally wrecked but 
 the grand cause lies in some internal mal-arrangement, 5 
 some want less of good fortune than of good guidance. 
 Nature fashions no creature without implanting in it 
 the strength needful for its action and duration ; least 
 of all does she so neglect her masterpiece and darling, 
 the poetic soul. Neither can we believe that it is in 10 
 the power of any external circumstances utterly to 
 ruin the mind of a man ; nay, if proper wisdom be 
 given him, even so much as to affect its essential 
 health and beauty. The sternest sum-total of all 
 worldly misfortunes is Death; nothing more can lie 15 
 in the cup of human woe : yet many men, in all ages, 
 have triumphed over Death, and led it captive ; con- 
 verting its physical victory into a moral victory for 
 themselves, into a seal and immortal consecration for 
 all that their past life had achieved. What has been 20 
 done, may be done again: nay, it is but the degree 
 and not the kind of such heroism that differs in differ- 
 ent seasons ; for without some portion of this spirit, 
 not of boisterous daring, but of silent fearlessness, of 
 Self-denial in all its forms, no good man, in any 25 
 scene or time, has ever attained to be good. 
 
90 BURNS 
 
 We have already stated the error of Burns ; and 
 mourned over it, rather than blamed it. It was the 
 want of unity in his purposes, of consistency in his 
 aims ; the hapless attempt to mingle in friendly union 
 5 the common spirit of the world with the spirit of 
 poetry, which is of a far different and altogether 
 irreconcilable nature. Burns was nothing wholly, 
 and Burns could be nothing, no man formed as he 
 was can be anything, by halves. The heart, not of a 
 
 io mere hot-blooded, popular Versemonger, or poetical 
 Restaurateur, but of a true Poet and Singer, worthy 
 of the old religious heroic times, had been given him : 
 and he fell in an age, not of heroism and religion, but 
 of scepticism, selfishness and triviality, when true 
 
 15 Nobleness was little understood, and its place sup- 
 plied by a hollow, dissocial, altogether barren and 
 unfruitful principle of Pride. The influences of 
 that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to say 
 nothing of his highly untoward situation, made it 
 
 20 more than usually difficult for him to cast aside, or 
 rightly subordinate ; the better spirit that was within 
 him ever sternly demanded its rights, its supremacy : 
 he spent his life in endeavoring to reconcile these 
 two ; and lost it, as he must lose it, without reconcil- 
 
 25 ing them. 
 
BUBXS 91 
 
 Burns was born poor ; and born also to continue 
 poor, for he would not endeavor to be otherwise ; 
 this it had been well could he have once for all 
 idmitted, and considered as finally settled. He was 
 >oor, truly ; but hundreds even of his own class and 5 
 order of minds have been poorer, yet have suffered 
 nothing deadly from it : nay, his own Father had a 
 far sorer battle with ungrateful destiny than his was ; 
 and he did not yield to it, but died courageously war- 
 ring, and to all moral intents prevailing, against it. 10 
 True, Burns had little means, had even little time for 
 poetry, his only real pursuit and vocation; but so 
 much the more precious was what little he had. In 
 all these external respects his case was hard ; but 
 very far from the hardest. Poverty, incessant drudg- 15 
 ery,- and much worse evils, it has often been the lot of 
 Poets and wise men to strive with, and their glory 
 to conquer. Locke was banished as a traitor; and 
 wrote his Essay on the Human Understanding shelter- 
 ing himself in a Dutch garret. Was Milton rich or at 20 
 his ease when he composed Paradise Lost ? Not only 
 low, but fallen from a height : not only poor, but 
 impoverished; in darkness and with dangers com- 
 passed round, he sang his immortal song, and found 
 fit audience, though few. Did not Cervantes finish 25 
 
92 BURNS 
 
 his work, a maimed soldier and in prison ? Nay, 
 was not the Araucana° which Spain acknowledges as 
 its Epic, written without even the aid of a paper ; on 
 scraps of leather, as the stout fighter and voyager 
 
 5 snatched any moment from that wild warfare ? 
 
 And what, then, had these men, which Burns 
 wanted ? Two things ; both which, it seems to us, 
 are indispensable for such men. They had a true, 
 religious principle of morals ; and a single, not a 
 
 io double aim in their activity. They were not self- 
 seekers and self- worshippers ; but seekers and wor- 
 shippers of something far better than Self. Not 
 personal enjoyment was their object; but a high, 
 heroic idea of Keligion, of Patriotism, of heavenly 
 
 15 Wisdom, in one or the other form, ever hovered 
 before them ; in which cause they neither shrank 
 from suffering, nor called on the earth to witness it 
 as something wonderful; but patiently endured, count- 
 ing it blessedness enough so to spend and be spent. 
 
 20 Thus the ' golden-calf of Self-love,' however curiously 
 carved, was not their Deity ; but the Invisible Good- 
 ness, which alone is man's reasonable service. This 
 feeling was as a celestial fountain, whose streams 
 refreshed into gladness and beauty all the provinces 
 
 25 of their otherwise too desolate existence. In a word, 
 
BURNS 93 
 
 they willed one thing, to which all other things were 
 subordinated and made subservient; and therefore 
 they accomplished it. The wedge will rend rocks; 
 but its edge must be sharp and single : if it be double, 
 the wedge is bruised in pieces, and will rend nothing. 5 
 
 Part of this superiority these men owed to their 
 age ; in which heroism and devotedness were still 
 practised, or at least not yet disbelieved in : but 
 much of it likewise they owed to themselves. With 
 Burns, again, it was different. His morality, in most 10 
 of its practical points, is that of a mere worldly man ; 
 enjoyment, in a finer or coarser shape, is the only 
 thing he longs and strives for. A noble instinct some- 
 times raises him above this ; but an instinct only, and 
 acting only for moments. He has no Keligion ; in 15 
 the shallow age, where his days were cast, Religion 
 was not discriminated from the New and Old Light 
 forms of Religion ; and was, with these, becoming 
 obsolete in the minds of men. His heart, indeed, is 
 alive with a trembling adoration, but there is no 20 
 temple in his understanding. He lives in darkness 
 and in the shadow of doubt. His religion, at best, 
 is an anxious wish; like that of Rabelais, <a great 
 Perhaps.' 
 
 He loved Poetry warmly, and in his heart; could 25 
 
94 BURKS 
 
 he but have loved it purely, and with his whole undi- 
 vided heart, it had been well. For Poetry, as Burns 
 could have followed it, is but another form of Wis- 
 dom, of Religion; is itself Wisdom and Religion. 
 5 But this also was denied him. His poetry is a stray 
 vagrant gleam, which will not be extinguished within 
 him, yet rises not to be the true light of his path, but 
 is often a wildfire that misleads him. It was not 
 necessary for Burns to be rich, to be, or to seem, 
 
 10 ( independent ' ; but it was necessary for him to be 
 at one with his own heart ; to place what was high- 
 est in his nature highest also in his life ; ' to seek 
 within himself for that consistency and sequence, 
 which external events would forever refuse him.' 
 
 15 He was born a poet ; poetry was the celestial' - ele- 
 ment of his being, and should have been the soul of 
 his whole endeavors. Lifted into that serene ether, 
 whither he had wings given him to mount, he would 
 have needed no other elevation : poverty, neglect, and 
 
 20 all evil, save the desecration of himself and his Art, 
 were a small matter to him ; the pride and the pas- 
 sions of the world lay far beneath his feet; and he 
 looked down alike on noble and slave, on prince and 
 beggar, and all that wore the stamp of man, with clear 
 
 25 recognition, with brotherly affection, with sympathy, 
 
BURNS 95 
 
 with pity. Nay, we question whether for his culture 
 as a Poet poverty and much suffering for a season 
 were not absolutely advantageous. Great men, in 
 looking back over their lives, have testified to that 
 effect. ' I would not for much/ says Jean Paul, 5 
 ' that I had been born richer.' And yet Paul's birth 
 was poor enough ; for, in another place, he adds : 
 ' The prisoner's allowance is bread and water ; and I 
 had often only the latter.' But the gold that is 
 refined in the hottest furnace comes out the purest ; 10 
 or, as he has himself expressed it, 'the canary-bird 
 sings sweeter the longer it has been trained in a 
 darkened cage.' 
 
 A man like Burns might have divided his hours 
 betw°en poetry and virtuous industry ; industry which 15 
 all true feeling sanctions, nay prescribes, and which 
 has a beauty, for that cause, beyond the pomp of 
 thrones: but to divide his hours between poetry and 
 rich men's banquets was an ill-starred and inauspi- 
 cious attempt. How could he be at ease at such 20 
 banquets ? What had he to do there, mingling his 
 music with the coarse roar of altogether earthly 
 voices ; brightening the thick smoke of intoxication 
 with fire lent him from heaven ? Was it his aim to 
 enjoy life? To-morrow he must go drudge as an 25 
 
96 BUKNS 
 
 Exciseman! We wonder not that Burns became 
 moody, indignant, and at times an offender against 
 certain rules of society ; but rather that he did not 
 grow utterly frantic, and run amuck against them all. 
 
 5 How could a man, so falsely placed, by his own or 
 others' fault, ever know contentment or peaceable 
 diligence for an hour ? What he did, under such 
 perverse guidance, and what he forbore to do, alike 
 fill us with astonishment at the natural strength and 
 
 10 worth of his character. 
 
 Doubtless there was a remedy for this perverseness ; 
 but not in others; only in himself; least of all in 
 simple increase of wealth and worldly 'respectabil- 
 ity.' We hope we have now heard enough about the 
 
 15 efficacy of wealth for poetry, and to make poets 
 happy. Nay, have we not seen another instance of it 
 in these very days ? Byron, a man of an endowment 
 considerably less ethereal than that of Burns, is born 
 in the rank not of a Scottish ploughman, but of an 
 
 20 English peer : the highest worldly honors, the fairest 
 worldly career, are his by inheritance; the richest 
 harvest of fame he soon reaps, in another province, 
 by his own hand. And what does all this avail him ? 
 Is he happy, is he good, is he true ? Alas, he has a 
 
 ^5 poet's soul, and strives towards the Infinite and the 
 
BURNS 97 
 
 Eternal ; and soon feels that all this is but mounting 
 to the house-top to reach the stars ! Like Burns, he 
 is only a proud man; might, like him, have 'pur- 
 chased a pocket-copy of Milton to study the character 
 of Satan ' ; for Satan also is Byron's grand exemplar, 5 
 the hero of his poetry, and the model apparently of 
 his conduct. As in Burns' s case too, the celestial ele- 
 ment will not mingle with the clay of earth ; both 
 poet and man of the world he must not be ; vulgar 
 Ambition will not live kindly with poetic Adoration ; 10 
 he cannot serve God and Mammon. Byron, like Burns, 
 is not happy ; nay, he is the most wretched of all men. 
 His life is falsely arranged : the fire that is in him is 
 not a strong, still, central fire, warming into beauty 
 the products of a world ; but it is the mad fire of a 15 
 volcano ; and now — we look sadly into the ashes of 
 a crater, which ere long will fill itself with snow ! 
 Byron and Burns were sent forth as missionaries to 
 their generation, to teach it a higher Doctrine, a purer 
 Truth; they had a message to deliver, which left 20 
 them no rest till it was accomplished ; in dim throes 
 of pain, this divine behest lay smouldering within 
 them ; for they knew not what it meant, and felt it 
 only in mysterious anticipation, and they had to die 
 without articulately uttering it. They are in the 25 
 
98 BURNS 
 
 camp of the Unconverted ; yet not as high messengers 
 of rigorous though benignant truth, but as soft flatter- 
 ing singers, and in pleasant fellowship will they live 
 there : they are first adulated, then persecuted ; they 
 5 accomplish little for others ; they find no peace for 
 themselves, but only death and the peace of the grave. 
 We confess, it is not without a certain mournful awe 
 that we view the fate of these noble souls, so richly 
 gifted, yet ruined to so little purpose with all their 
 
 io gifts. It seems to us there is a stern moral taught in 
 this piece of history, — twice told us in our own time! 
 Surely to men of like genius, if there be any such, it 
 carries with it a lesson of deep impressive signifi- 
 cance. Surely it would become such a man, furnished 
 
 15 for the highest of all enterprises, that of being the 
 Poet of his Age, to consider well what it is that he 
 attempts, and in what spirit he attempts it. For the 
 words of Milton are true in all times, and were never 
 truer than in this : ' He who would write heroic poems 
 
 20 must make his whole life a heroic poem.' If he can- 
 not first so make his life, then let him hasten from 
 this arena ; for neither its lofty glories, nor its fearful 
 perils, are for him. Let him dwindle into a modish 
 balladmonger ; let him worship and be-sing the idols 
 
 25 of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him. 
 
BURNS 99 
 
 If, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity ! 
 Byron and Burns could not live as idol-priests, but 
 the fire of their own hearts consumed them; and 
 better it was for them that they could not. For it is 
 not in the favor of the great or of the small, but in 5 
 a life of truth, and. in the inexpugnable citadel of his 
 own soul, that a Byron's or a Burns's strength must 
 lie. Let the great stand aloof from him, or know how 
 to reverence him. Beautiful is the union of wealth 
 with favor and furtherance for literature ; like the 10 
 costliest flower-jar enclosing the loveliest amaranth. 
 Yet let not the relation be mistaken. A true poet is 
 not one whom they can hire by money or flattery to 
 be a minister of their pleasures, their writer of occa- 
 sional verses, their purveyor of table-wit ; he cannot 15 
 be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. 
 At the peril of both parties, let no such union be 
 attempted ! Will a Courser of the Sun work softly in 
 the harness of a Dray-horse ? His hoofs are of fire, 
 and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to 20 
 all lands ; will he lumber on mud highways, dragging 
 ale for earthly appetites from door to door ? 
 
 But we must stop short in these considerations, 
 which would lead us to boundless lengths. We had 
 something to say on the public moral character of 25 
 
 Lore. 
 
100 BUBNS 
 
 Burns; but this also we must forbear. We are far 
 from regarding him as guilty before the world, as 
 guiltier than the average ; nay, from doubting that 
 he is less guilty than one of ten thousand. Tried at 
 
 5 a tribunal far more rigid than that where the Ple- 
 biscita of common civic reputations are pronounced, 
 he has seemed to us even there less worthy of blame 
 than of pity and wonder. But the world is habitually 
 unjust in its judgments of such men ; unjust on many 
 
 io grounds, of which this one may be stated as the sub- 
 stance : It decides, like a court of law, by dead 
 statutes; and not positively but negatively, less on 
 what is done right, than on what is or is not done 
 wrong. Not the few inches of deflection from the 
 
 15 mathematical orbit, which are so easily measured, but 
 the ratio of these to the whole diameter, constitutes 
 the real aberration. This orbit may be a planet's, its 
 diameter the breadth of the solar system ; or it may 
 be a city hippodrome ; nay, the circle of a ginhorse, 
 
 20 its diameter a score of feet or paces. But the inches 
 of deflection only are measured: and it is assumed 
 that the diameter of the ginhorse, and that of the 
 planet, will yield the same ratio when compared with 
 them ! Here lies the root of many a blind, cruel 
 
 25 condemnation of Burnses, Swifts, Kousseaus, which 
 
BURNS 101 
 
 one never listens to with approval. Granted, the 
 ship comes into harbor with shrouds and tackle 
 damaged ; the pilot is blameworthy ; he has not been 
 all-wise and all-powerful : but to know hoiv blame- 
 worthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been 5 
 round the Globe, or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of 
 l)ogs°. 
 
 With our readers in general, with men of right feel- 
 ing anywhere, we are not required to plead for Burns. 
 In pitying admiration he lies enshrined in all our 10 
 hearts, in a far nobler mausoleum than that one of 
 marble ; neither will his Works, even as they are, 
 pass away from the memory of men. While the 
 Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers 
 through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of 15 
 traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves ; 
 this little Valclusa Fountain ° will also arrest our eye : 
 for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning 
 workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, 
 with a full gushing current, into the light of day ; 20 
 and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its 
 clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines ! 
 
POEMS FROM BURNS 
 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ., OF AYR 
 
 Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 ♦ Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 
 Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 
 The short and simple annals of the Poor. — 
 
 — Gray. 
 
 My lov'd, my honor'd, much respected friend ! 
 
 No mercenary bard his homage pays ; 
 With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end, 
 
 My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : 
 To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 
 
 The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene ; 
 The native feelings strong, the guileless ways ; 
 
 What Aiken in a cottage would have been ; 
 Ah ! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween. 
 
 November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 
 The short'ning winter-day is near a close ; 
 103 
 
104 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 The miry beasts retreating f rae the pleugh ; 
 
 The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose : 
 The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes, 
 
 This night his weekly moil is at an end, 
 Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 
 
 Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 
 And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward 
 bend. 
 
 At length his lonely cot appears in view, 
 
 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
 Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through 
 
 To meet their ' dad,' wi' flichterin noise an' glee. 
 His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie, 
 
 His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wine's smile, 
 The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
 
 Does a' his weary cafking cares beguile, 
 An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil. 
 
 Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, 
 At service out, amang the farmers roun' ; 
 
 Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin 
 A cannie errand to a neibor town : 
 
 Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown, 
 In youthf u' bloom — love sparkling in her e'e — 
 
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 105 
 
 Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown, 
 
 Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, 
 To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 
 
 With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, 
 
 An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers : 
 The social hours, swift-wing'd, nnnotic'd fleet ; -* 
 
 Each tells the imcos that he sees or hears ; 
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 
 
 Anticipation forward points the view ; 
 The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, 
 
 Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; 
 The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 
 
 Their master's an' their mistress's command, 
 
 The yunkers a' are warned to obey ; 
 An' mind their labors wi' an eydent hand, 
 
 An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play ; 
 An' ! be sure to fear the Lord alway, 
 
 " An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night ! 
 Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 
 
 Implore His counsel and assisting might : 
 They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright." 
 
 But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; 
 Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, 
 
106 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor, 
 To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
 
 The wily mother sees the conscious flame 
 Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 
 
 Wi' heart-struck anxious care, enquires his name, 
 While Jenny hafnins is afraid to speak ; 
 
 Weel-pleas'd the mother hears, it's nae wild, worthless 
 rake. 
 
 Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings hini ben ; 
 
 A strappin' youth, he takes the mother's eye ; 
 Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ; 
 
 The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. 
 The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, 
 
 But blate an' laithf u', scarce can weel behave ; 
 The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 
 
 What makes the youth sae bashf u' an' sae grave ; 
 W r eel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the 
 lave. 
 
 happy love ! where love like this is found ! 
 
 heart-felt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! 
 I've paced much this weary, mortal round, 
 
 And sage experience bids me this declare, — 
 " If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 
 
 One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
 
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 107 
 
 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, 
 
 In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, 
 Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning 
 gale." 
 
 Is there, in human form, that bears a heart — 
 
 A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! 
 That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, 
 
 Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 
 Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth! 
 
 Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? 
 Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, 
 
 Points to the parents fondling o'er their child ? 
 Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction 
 wild ? 
 
 But now the supper crowns their simple board, 
 
 The halsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food ; 
 The sowpe their only hawkie does afford, 
 
 That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood : 
 The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, 
 
 To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell ; 
 An ? aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ; 
 
 The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, 
 How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. 
 
108 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 
 
 They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
 The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, 
 
 The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride : 
 His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 
 
 His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare ; 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
 
 He wales a portion with judicious care, 
 And " Let us worship God ! " he says, with solemn air. 
 
 They chant their artless notes in simple guise, 
 
 They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim ; 
 Perhaps ' Dundee's ' wild warbling measures rise, 
 
 Or plaintive ' Martyrs,' worthy of the name ; 
 Or noble ' Elgin ' beets the heaven-ward flame 
 
 The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 
 Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame ; 
 
 The tickl'd ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
 Nae unison hae they, with our Creator's praise. 
 
 The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 
 How Abram was the friend of G-od on high; 
 
 Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
 With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
 
 Or, how the royal Bard did groaning lie 
 
 Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; 
 
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 109 
 
 Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; 
 
 Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
 Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre. 
 
 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, 
 
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; ~ 
 How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, 
 
 Had not on earth whereon to lay His head : 
 How His first followers and servants sped ; 
 
 The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
 How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 
 
 Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
 And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by 
 Heaven's command. 
 
 Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, 
 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
 Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing," 
 
 That thus they all shall meet in future days, 
 There, ever bask in uncreated rays, 
 
 No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
 Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
 
 In such society, yet still more dear ; 
 While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. 
 
 Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride, v 
 In all the pomp of method, and of art j 
 
110 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 When men display to congregations wide 
 Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart ! 
 
 The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert, 
 The pompons strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 
 
 But haply, in some cottage far apart, 
 
 May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul ; 
 
 And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enrol. 
 
 Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way ; 
 
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest : 
 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 
 
 And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request, 
 That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, 
 
 And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, 
 Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 
 
 For them and for their little ones provide ; 
 But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. 
 
 From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
 That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad : 
 
 Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
 " An honest man's the noblest work of God : " 
 
 And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, 
 The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 
 
 What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load, 
 
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 111 
 
 Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 
 Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd ! 
 
 Scotia ! my dear,, my native soil ! 
 
 For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, 
 Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 
 
 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ! 
 And, Oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent 
 
 From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! 
 Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 
 
 A virtuous populace may rise the while, 
 And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle. 
 
 Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide, 
 
 That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart, 
 Who dar'd 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 ! 
 
112 MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN 
 
 MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN 
 
 When chill November's surly blast 
 
 Made fields and forests bare, 
 One ev'ning as I wander'd forth 
 
 Along the banks of Ayr, 
 I spy'd a man, whose aged step 
 
 Seem'd weary, worn with care ; 
 His face was furrow'd o'er with years, 
 
 And hoary was his hair. 
 
 Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou ? 
 
 Began the rev'rend sage ; 
 Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 
 
 Or youthful pleasure's rage ? 
 Or, haply, prest with cares and woes 
 
 Too soon thou hast began 
 To wander forth, with me, to mourn 
 
 The miseries of man. 
 
 The sun that overhangs yon moors, 
 
 Out-spreading far and wide, 
 Where hundreds labor to support 
 
 A haughty lordling's pride j 
 
MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN 113 
 
 I've seen yon weary winter sun 
 
 Twice forty times return : 
 And ev'ry time has added proofs, 
 
 That man was made to mourn. 
 
 man ! while in thy early years, 
 
 How prodigal of time ! 
 Mis-spending all thy precious hours, 
 
 Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
 Alternate follies take the sway ; 
 
 Licentious passions burn ; 
 Which tenfold force give nature's law, 
 
 That man was made to mourn. 
 
 Look not alone on youthful prime, 
 
 Or manhood's active might ; 
 Man then is useful to his kind, 
 
 Supported in his right, 
 But see him on the edge of life, 
 
 With cares and sorrows worn, 
 Then age and want, Oh ! ill-match'd pair ! 
 
 Show man was made to raourn. 
 
 A few seem favorites of fate, 
 
 In pleasure's lap carest ; 
 Yet, think not all the rich and great 
 
 i 
 
114 MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN 
 
 Are likewise truly blest. 
 But, Oh ! what crowds in ev'ry land 
 
 Are wretched and forlorn ; 
 Thro' weary life this lesson learn, 
 
 That man was made to mourn. 
 
 Many and sharp the lium'rous ills 
 
 Inwoven with our frames ! 
 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'erlabor'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 off-spring mourn. 
 
 If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave, 
 By nature's law design'd, 
 
MAX WAS MADE TO MOURN 111 
 
 Why was an independent wish 
 
 E'er planted in my mind ? 
 If not, why am I subject to 
 
 His cruelty, or scorn ? 
 Or why has man the will and pow'r 
 
 To make his fellow mourn ? 
 
 Yet, let not this too much, my son, 
 
 Disturb thy youthful breast ; 
 This partial view of human-kind 
 
 Is surely not the last ! 
 The poor, oppressed, honest man, 
 
 Had never, sure, been born, 
 Had there not been some recompense 
 
 To comfort those that mourn ! 
 
 death ! the poor man's dearest friend, 
 
 The kindest and the best ! 
 Welcome the hour my aged limbs 
 
 Are laid with thee at rest ! 
 The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, 
 
 From pomp and pleasures torn; 
 But, Oh ! a blest relief to those 
 
 That weary-laden mourn ! 
 
116 A PRAYER 
 
 A PRAYER, IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH 
 
 Thou unknown, Almighty Cause 
 
 Of all my hope and fear ! 
 In whose dread presence, ere an hour, 
 
 Perhaps I must appear ! 
 
 If I have wander'd in those paths 
 
 Of life I ought to shun — 
 As something, loudly in my breast, 
 
 Remonstrates I have done — 
 
 Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me 
 With passions wild and strong ; 
 
 And list'ning to their witching voice 
 Has often led me wrong. 
 
 Where human weakness has come short, 
 
 Or frailty stept aside, 
 Do Thou, All Good ! — for such Thou art — 
 
 In shades of darkness hide. 
 
 Where with intention I have err'd, 
 
 No other plea I have, 
 But, Thou art good ; and Goodness still 
 
 Delighteth to forgive. 
 
 
MY FATHER WAS A FARMER 117 
 
 MY FATHER WAS A FARMER 
 
 Tune — " The Weaver and his Shuttle, O " 
 
 My Father was a Farmer upon the Carrick border, 
 And carefully he bred me in decency and order, 
 He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a 
 
 farthing, 
 For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth 
 
 regarding, 0. 
 
 Then out into the world my course I did determine, 
 
 Tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was 
 charming, 
 
 My talents they were not the worst : nor yet my edu- 
 cation, 
 
 Resolv'd was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, 0. 
 
 In many a way, and vain essay, I courted fortune's 
 
 favor ; 
 Some cause unseen still stept between, to frustrate each 
 
 endeavor, O 
 Sometimes by foes I was o'erpower'd ; sometimes by 
 
 friends forsaken 5 
 And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst 
 
 mistaken, 0. 
 
118 MY FATHER WAS A FARMER 
 
 Then sore harass'd, and tir'd at last, with fortune's 
 
 vain delusion ; 
 I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this 
 
 conclusion ; 
 The past was bad, and the future hid ; its good or ill 
 
 untried ; 
 But the present hour was in my pow'r, and so I would 
 
 enjoy it, 0. 
 
 No help, nor hope, nor view had I ; nor person to be- 
 friend me 5 
 
 So I must toil, and sweat and broil, and labor to sus- 
 tain me, 
 
 To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred 
 me early ; 
 
 For one, he said, to labor bred, was a match for fortune 
 fairly, O. 
 
 Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro' life I'm 
 doom'd to wander, 
 
 Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slum- 
 ber; 
 
 No view nor care, but shun whate'er might breed me 
 pain or sorrow ; 
 
 I live to-day as well's I may, regardless of to-mor- 
 row, 0. 
 
MY FATHER WAS A FARMER 119 
 
 But cheerful still, I am as well as a monarch in a 
 
 palace, 
 Tho' fortune's frown still hunts me down, with all her 
 
 wonted malice ; 
 I make indeed my daily bread, but ne'er can make it 
 
 farther; 
 But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard 
 
 her, 0. 
 
 When sometimes by my labor I earn a little money, O 
 Some unforeseen misfortune comes gen 'rally upon 
 
 me; 
 Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my good-natur'd 
 
 folly ; 
 But come what will, I've sworn it still, I'll ne'er be 
 
 melancholy, 0. 
 
 All you who follow wealth and power, with unremit- 
 ting ardor, 
 
 The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your 
 view the farther ; 
 
 Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore 
 you, 
 
 A cheerful honest-hearted clown I will prefer before 
 you, 0. 
 
120 THE FARMER'S SALUTATION TO HIS MARE 
 
 THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR MORN- 
 ING SALUTATION TO HIS AULD MARE, 
 MAGGIE, 
 
 ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO HANSEL IN 
 THE NEW YEAR 
 
 A guid New- Year I wish thee, Maggie ! 
 Hae, there's a ripp to thy auld baggie : 
 Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie, 
 
 I've seen the day, 
 Thou could hae gone like ony staggie 
 
 Out-owre the lay. 
 
 Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy, 
 An' thy auld hide's as white's a daisie, 
 I've seen thee dappl't, sleek an' glaizie, 
 
 A bonie gray : 
 He should been tight that daur't to raize thee, 
 
 Ance in a day. 
 
 Thou ance was i' the foremost rank, 
 A filly buirdly, steeve, an' swank, 
 An' set weel down a shapely shank, 
 As e'er tread yird ; 
 
THE FARMER'S SALUTATION TO HIS MARE 121 
 
 An' could hae flown out-owre a stank, 
 Like ony bird. 
 
 It's now some nine-an'-twenty year, 
 Sin' thou was my guid-f ather's meere ; 
 He gied me thee, o' tocher clear, 
 
 An' fifty mark ; 
 Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear, 
 
 An' thou was stark. 
 
 When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, 
 Ye then was trottin wi' your minnie : 
 Tho' ye was trickie, slee, an' funnie, 
 
 Ye ne'er was donsie ; 
 But namely, tawie, quiet, an' cannie, 
 
 An unco sonsie. 
 
 That day, ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride, 
 When ye bure hame my bonie bride ; 
 An' sweet an' gracefu' she did ride, 
 
 Wi' maiden air ! 
 Kyle-Stewart I could bragged wide, 
 
 For sic a pair. 
 
 Tho' now ye dow but hoyte and hoble 
 An' wintle like a saumont-coble, 
 
122 THE FARMER'S SALUTATION TO HIS MARE 
 
 That day ye was a j inker noble 
 
 For heels an' win' ! 
 An' ran them till they a' did wauble, 
 
 Far, far behin'. 
 
 When them an' I were young and skeigh, 
 
 An' stable-meals at fairs were driegh, 
 
 How thou wad prance, an' snore, an' skriegh 
 
 An' tak the road ! 
 Town's-bodies ran, and stood abeigh, 
 
 An' ca't thee mad. 
 
 When thou was corn't, an' I was mellow, 
 We took the road ay like a swallow : 
 At brooses thou had ne'er a fellow, 
 
 For pith an' speed ; 
 But ev'ry tail thou pay't them hollow, 
 
 Whare'er thou gaed. 
 
 The sma', droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle, 
 Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle ; 
 But sax Scotch miles thou try't their mettle, 
 
 An' gart them whaizle : 
 Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle 
 
 0' saugh or hazel. 
 
Thou was a noble fittie-lan', 
 
 As e'er in tug or tow was drawn ! 
 
 Aft thee an' I, in aught hours gaun, 
 
 On guid March-weather 
 Hae turn'd sax rood beside our han', 
 
 For days thegither. 
 
 Thou never braindg't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit, 
 But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit 
 An' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd briskit, 
 
 Wi' pith an' pow'r, 
 Till spritty knowes wad rair't and riskit, 
 
 An' slypet owre. 
 
 When frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep. 
 An' threaten' d labor back to keep, 
 I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap 
 
 Aboon the timmer ; 
 I ken'd my Maggie wad na sleep 
 
 For that, or simmer. 
 
 In cart or car thou never reestit ; 
 The steyest brae thou wad hae face't it ; 
 Thou never lap, an' sten't, and breastit, 
 Then stood to blaw ; 
 
124 THE FARMER'S SALUTATION TO HIS MARE 
 
 But just thy step a wee thing hastit, 
 Thou snoov't awa. 
 
 My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a' : 
 Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw ; 
 For bye sax niae, I've sell't awa, 
 
 That thou hast nurst : 
 They drew me thretteen pund an' twa, 
 
 The vera warst. 
 
 Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought, 
 An' wi' the weary warl' fought ! 
 An' monie an anxious day, I thought 
 
 We wad be beat ! 
 Yet here to crazy age we're brought, 
 
 Wi' something yet. 
 
 And think na, my auld, trusty servan', 
 That now perhaps thou's less deservin, 
 An' thy auld days may end in star v in, 
 
 For my last fou, 
 A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane 
 
 Laid by for you. 
 
 We've worn to crazy years thegither ; 
 We'll toy te about wi' ane anither ; 
 
THE FARMER'S SALUTATION TO HIS MARE 125 
 
 Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether 
 
 To some hain'd rig, 
 Whare ye may nobly rax your leather, 
 
 Wi' sma' fatigue. 
 
 TO A MOUSE 
 
 ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, 
 NOVEMBER, 1785 
 
 Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, 
 0, what a panic's in thy breastie ! 
 Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 
 
 Wi' bickering brattle ! 
 I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, 
 
 Wi' murd'ring pattle ! 
 
 I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
 Has broken Nature's social union, 
 An' justifies that ill opinion, 
 
 Which makes thee startle, 
 At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, 
 
 An' fellow-mortal ! 
 
 I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve ; 
 What then ? poor beastie, thou maun live ! 
 
126 TO A MOUSE 
 
 A daimen-icker in a thrave 
 
 'S a sma' request : 
 
 I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, 
 
 And never miss't ! 
 
 Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! 
 Its silly wa's the win's are strewin ! 
 An' naething, now, to big a new ane, 
 
 0' f oggage green ! 
 An' bleak December's winds ensuin, 
 
 Baith snell an' keen ! 
 
 Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, 
 An' weary winter comin fast, 
 An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 
 
 Thou thought to dwell, 
 Till crash ! the cruel coulter past, 
 
 Out thro' thy cell. 
 
 That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
 Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! 
 Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble 
 
 But house or hald, 
 To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 
 
 An' cranreuch cauld ! 
 
TO A MOUSE 127 
 
 But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
 In proving foresight may be vain : 
 The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 
 
 Gang aft a-gley, 
 An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 
 
 For promis'd joy. 
 
 Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me ! 
 The present only toucheth thee : 
 But, Och ! I backward cast my e'e 
 
 On prospects drear ! 
 An' forward, tho' I canna see, 
 
 I guess an' fear ! 
 
 ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY 
 ME, WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT 
 
 Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'rous art, 
 And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye ; 
 May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, 
 
 Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart ! 
 
 Go, live, poor wanderer of the wood and field, 
 The bitter little that of life remains : 
 
128 THE WOUNDED HARE 
 
 No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains 
 To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. 
 
 Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest, 
 No more of rest, but now thy dying bed ! 
 The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, 
 
 The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. 
 
 Oft as by winding Kith, I, musing, wait 
 The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, 
 I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, 
 
 And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless 
 fate. 
 
 POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY 
 
 Lament in rhyme, lament in prose, 
 Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose ; 
 Our Bardie's fate is at a close, 
 
 Past a' remead ; 
 The last, sad cape-stane of his woes ; 
 
 Poor Mailie's dead ! 
 
 It's no the loss o' warl's gear, 
 That could sae bitter draw the tear, 
 
POOR MAILIE' S ELEGY 129 
 
 Or mak our Bardie, dowie, wear 
 
 The mournin weed: 
 He's lost a friend and neibor dear, 
 
 In Mailie dead. 
 
 Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him ; 
 A lang half-mile she could descry him ; 
 Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, 
 
 She ran wi' speed : 
 A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him, 
 
 Than Mailie dead. 
 
 I wat she was a sheep o'- sense, 
 An' could behave hersel wi' mense ; 
 I'll say't, she never brak a fence, 
 
 Thro' thievish greed. 
 Our Bardie, lanely, keeps the spence 
 
 Sin' Mailie's dead. 
 
 Or, if he wanders up the howe 
 
 Her living image in her yowe 
 
 Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe, 
 
 For bits o' bread ; 
 An' down the briny pearls rowe 
 
 For Mailie dead. 
 
130 POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY 
 
 She was nae get o' moorland tips, 
 
 Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips ; 
 
 For her forbears were brought in ships, 
 
 Frae yont the Tweed : 
 A bonier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips 
 
 Than Mailie's dead. 
 
 Wae worth the man wha first did shape 
 That vile, wanchancie thing — a rape ! 
 It maks guid fellows grin an' gape, 
 
 Wi' chokin dread ; 
 An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape, 
 
 For Mailie dead. 
 
 O, a' ye Bards on bonie Doon ! 
 
 An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune ! 
 
 Come, join the melancholious croon 
 
 0' Eobin's reed ! 
 His heart will never get aboon ! 
 
 His Mailie's dead ! 
 
 
A WINTER NIGHT 131 
 
 A WINTER NIGHT 
 
 Poor naked wretches, whei-esoe'er you are, 
 That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm ! 
 How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, 
 Your loop'd and ivindow'd raggedness, defend you, 
 From seasons such as these ? 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 When biting Boreas, fell and doure, 
 Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r ; 
 When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r, 
 
 Far south the lift, 
 Dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r, 
 
 Or whirling drift : 
 
 Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, 
 Poor Labor sweet in sleep was locked, 
 While burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked, 
 
 Wild-eddying swirl, 
 Or thro' the mining outlet bocked, 
 
 Down headlong hurl. 
 
 List'ning, the doors an' winnocks rattle, 
 I thought me on the ourie cattle, 
 Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 
 0' winter war, 
 
132 A WINTER NIGHT 
 
 And 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 thon cow'r thy cluttering wing 
 
 An' close thy e'e ? 
 
 Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd, 
 Lone from your savage homes exil'd, 
 The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd 
 
 My heart forgets, 
 While pityless the tempest wild 
 
 Sore on you v beats. 
 
 Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign, 
 Dark muffled, view'd the dreary plain ; 
 Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, 
 
 Rose in my soul, 
 When on my ear this plaintive strain, 
 
 Slow, solemn, stole — 
 
 " Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust ! 
 And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost ! 
 
A WINTER NIGHT 133 
 
 Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows ! 
 Not all your rage, as now, united shows 
 More hard unkindness, unrelenting, 
 Vengeful malice, un repenting, 
 Than heav'n-illumin'd man on brother man bestows ! 
 
 " See stern Oppression's iron grip, 
 Or mad Ambition's gory hand, 
 
 Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip 
 Woe, want, and murder o'er a land ! 
 
 Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale, 
 
 Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, 
 How pamper'd Luxury, Flatt'ry by her side, 
 
 The parasite empoisoning her ear, 
 
 With all the servile wretches in the rear, 
 Looks o'er proud property, extended wide ; 
 
 And eyes the simple rustic hind, 
 
 Whose toil upholds the glitt'ring show, 
 
 A creature of another kind, 
 
 Some coarser substance, unrefin'd, 
 Plac'd for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below. 
 
 "Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe, 
 With lordly Honor's lofty brow, 
 The pow'rs you proudly own ? 
 Is there, beneath Love's noble name, 
 
134 A WINTER NIGHT 
 
 Can harbor, dark, the selfish aim, 
 To bless himself alone ! 
 
 Mark maiden-innocence a prey- 
 To love-pretending snares, 
 
 This boasted honor turns away, 
 
 Shunning soft pity's rising sway, 
 Regardless of the tears, and unavailing pray'rs ! 
 
 Perhaps this hour, in mis'ry's squalid nest, 
 
 She strains your infant to her joyless breast, 
 And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast ! 
 
 " Oh ye ! who, sunk in beds of down, 
 
 Feel not a want but what yourselves create, 
 
 Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate, 
 
 Whom friends and fortune quite disown ! 
 Ill-satisfied keen nature's clam'rous call, 
 
 Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to sleep, 
 While thro' the ragged roof and chinky wall, 
 
 Chill o'er his slumbers, piles the drifty heap ! 
 Think on the dungeon's grim confine, 
 Where guilt and poor misfortune pine ! 
 Guilt, erring man, relenting view ! 
 But shall thy legal rage pursue 
 The wretch, already crushed low, 
 By cruel fortune's undeserved blow ? 
 
WINTER 135 
 
 Affliction's sons are brothers in distress ; 
 
 A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss ! " 
 
 I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer 
 
 Shook off the pouthery snaw, 
 And hail'd the morning with a cheer, 
 
 A cottage-rousing craw. 
 
 ^But deep this truth impress'd my mind 
 Thro' all His works abroad, 
 The heart benevolent and kind 
 The most resembles God. ) 
 
 WINTER 
 
 The wintry west extends his blast, 
 
 And hail and rain does blaw ; 
 Or the stormy north sends driving forth 
 
 The blinding sleet and snaw : 
 While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down, 
 
 And roars frae bank to brae : 
 And bird and beast in covert rest, 
 
 And pass the heartless day. 
 
136 WINTER 
 
 " The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast," 
 
 The joyless winter day, 
 Let others fear, to me more dear 
 
 Than all the pride of May : 
 The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, 
 
 My griefs it seems to join ; 
 The leafless trees my fancy please, 
 
 Their fate resembles mine ! 
 
 Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme 
 
 These woes of mine fulfil, 
 Here, firm, I rest, they must be best, 
 
 Because they are Thy will ! 
 Then all I want (Oh ! do thou grant 
 
 This one request of mine !) 
 Since to enjoy thou dost deny, 
 
 Assist me to resign. 
 
 TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY 
 
 ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786 
 
 Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, 
 Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 
 For I maun crush amang the stoure 
 Thy slender stem. 
 
TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY 137 
 
 To spare thee now is past my pow'r, 
 Thou boilie gem. 
 
 Alas ! it's no thy neibor sweet, 
 The bonnie lark, companion meet ! 
 Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ! 
 
 Wi' spreckl'd breast, 
 When upward-springing, blythe, to greet 
 
 The purpling east. 
 
 Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
 Upon thy early, humble birth; 
 Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
 
 Amid the storm, 
 Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth 
 
 Thy tender form. 
 
 The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, 
 High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield, 
 But thou, beneath the random bield 
 
 0' clod or stane, 
 Adorns the histie stibble-field, 
 
 Unseen, alane. 
 
 There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
 Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, 
 
138 TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY 
 
 Thou lifts thy unassuming head 
 In humble guise ; 
 
 But now the share uptears thy bed, 
 And low thou lies ! 
 
 Such is the fate of artless maid, 
 Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade ! 
 By love's simplicity betray'd, 
 
 And guileless trust, 
 Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid 
 
 Low i' the dust. 
 
 Such is the fate of simple bard, 
 
 On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd ! 
 
 Unskilful he to note the card 
 
 Of prudent lore, 
 Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 
 
 And whelm him o'er ! 
 
 Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n, 
 Who long with wants and woes has striv'n, 
 By human pride or cunning driv'n 
 
 To mis'ry's brink, 
 Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n, 
 
 He, ruin'd, sink ! 
 
AFTON WATER 139 
 
 Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, 
 That fate is thine — no distant date ; 
 Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, 
 
 Full on thy bloom, 
 Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, 
 
 Shall be thy doom ! 
 
 ^FTON WATER 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
 Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise ; 
 My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 
 
 Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen, 
 Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, 
 Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear, 
 I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. 
 
 How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills, 
 Far mark'd with the courses of clear, winding rills ; 
 There daily I wander as noon rises high, 
 My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 
 
 How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, 
 Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow ; 
 
140 AFTON WATER 
 
 There oft as mild ev'ning weeps over the lea, 
 The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 
 
 Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides, 
 And winds by the cot where my Mary resides ; 
 How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, 
 As gathering sweet flow'rets she stems thy clear 
 wave. 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
 Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays ; 
 My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 
 
 THE BANKS 0' DOON 
 
 Tune — " The Caledonian Hunt's Delight " 
 
 Ye banks and braes o' bonie Doon, 
 
 How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ? 
 How can ye chant, ye little birds, 
 
 And I sae weary fu' o' care ! 
 Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, 
 
 That wantons thro' the flowering thorn : 
 Thou minds me o' departed joys, 
 
 Departed — never to return. 
 
DUNCAN GRAY 141 
 
 Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon, 
 
 To see the rose and woodbine twine ; 
 And ilka bird sang o' its Luve, 
 
 And fondly sae did I o' mine ; 
 Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 
 
 Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree ! 
 And my fause Luver staw my rose, 
 
 But ah ! he left the thorn wi' me. 
 
 ^DUNCAN GRAY 
 
 Duncan Gray cam here to woo, 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o't, 
 
 On blythe yule night when we were fou, 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
 
 Maggie coost her head fu high, 
 
 Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, 
 
 Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
 
 Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, 
 
142 DUNCAN GRAY 
 
 Grat his een baith bleer't and blin', 
 Spak o' lowpin o'er a linn ; 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 
 Time and chance are but a tide, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Slighted love is sair to bide, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Shall I, like a fool, quoth he, 
 For a haughty hizzie die ? 
 She may gae to — France for me ! 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 
 How it comes let doctors tell, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Meg grew sick, as he grew well, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Something in her bosom wrings, 
 For relief a sigh she brings ; 
 And 0, her een, they spak sic things ! 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 
 Duncan was a lad o' grace, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Maggie's was a piteous case, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 
AULD LANG SYNE 143 
 
 Duncan couldna be her death, 
 Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath ; 
 Now they're crouse and cantie baith ; 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
 
 ^AULD LANG SYNE 
 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And never brought to min' ? 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And auld lang syne ? 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 For auld lang syne, my dear, 
 
 For auld lang syne, 
 We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 
 
 For auld lang syne. 
 
 We twa hae run about the braes, 
 
 And pu'd the gowans fine, 
 But we've wander'd mony a weary foot 
 
 Sin' auld lang syne. 
 For auld, &c. 
 
 We twa hae paidl't i' the burn, 
 From morning sun till dine j 
 
144 { AULD LANG SYNE 
 
 But seas between us braid hae roar'd 
 Sin' auld lang syne. 
 For auld, &c. 
 
 And here's a hand, my trusty tier, 
 
 And gie's a hand o' thine ; 
 And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught, 
 
 For auld lang syne. 
 For auld, &c. 
 
 HIGHLAND MAEY 
 
 Tune — " Katherine Ogie " 
 
 Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 
 
 The castle o' Montgomery ! 
 Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 
 
 Your waters never drumly : 
 There simmer first unf auld her robes, 
 
 And there the langest tarry ; 
 For there I took the last fareweel 
 
 0' my sweet Highland Mary. 
 
 How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk, 
 How rich the hawthorn's blossom, 
 
HIGHLAND MARY , 145 
 
 As underneath their fragrant shade, 
 
 I clasp'd her to my bosom ! 
 The golden hours, on angel wings, 
 
 Flew o'er me and my dearie ; 
 For dear to me, as light and life, 
 
 Was my sweet Highland Mary. 
 
 Wi' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace, 
 
 Our parting was f u' tender ; 
 And, pledging aft to meet again, 
 
 We tore oursels asunder ; 
 But oh ! fell death's untimely frost, 
 
 That nipt my flower sae early ! 
 Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, 
 
 That wraps my Highland Mary. 
 
 O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, 
 
 I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly ! 
 And closed for aye the sparkling glance, 
 
 That dwelt on me sae kindly! 
 And mould'ring now in silent dust, 
 
 That heart that lo'ed me dearly ! 
 But still within my bosom's core 
 
 Shall live my Highland Mary. 
 
146 TO MARY W HEAVEN 
 
 TO MAEY IN HEAVEN 
 
 Tune — "3fiss Forbes' farewell to Banff" 
 
 Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, 
 
 Thou lov'st to greet the early morn, 
 Again thou usher'st in the day 
 
 My Mary from my soul was torn. 
 Mary ! dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 That sacred hour can I forget ? 
 
 Can I forget the hallow'd grove, 
 Where by the winding Ayr we met, 
 
 To live one day of parting love ? 
 Eternity will not efface 
 
 Those records dear of transports past ; 
 Thy image at our last embrace ; 
 
 Ah ! little thought we 'twas our last ! 
 
 Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore, 
 
 O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green • 
 
 The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, 
 Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene. 
 
 The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, 
 
ODE TO MRS. OSWALD 147 
 
 The birds sang love on ev'ry spray, 
 Till too, too soon, the glowing west 
 Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. 
 
 Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, 
 
 And fondly broods with miser care ! 
 Time but the impression deeper makes, 
 
 As streams their channels deeper wear. 
 My Mary, dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 ODE, SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. 
 OSWALD 
 
 Dweller in yon dungeon dark, 
 Hangman of creation ! mark, 
 Who in widow-weeds appears, 
 Laden with unhonor'd years, 
 Noosing with care a bursting purse, 
 Baited with many a deadly curse ? 
 
 STROPHE 
 
 View the wither'd beldam's face — 
 Can thy keen inspection trace 
 
148 ODE TO MEMORY OF MRS. OSWALD 
 
 Aught of humanity's sweet melting grace ? 
 
 Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows, 
 
 Pity's flood there never rose. 
 
 See those hands, ne'er stretch' d to save, 
 
 Hands that took — but never gave. 
 
 Keeper of Mammon's iron chest, 
 
 Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest 
 
 She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest ! 
 
 ANTISTROPHE 
 
 Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes, 
 
 (A while forbear, ye tort'ring fiends,) 
 
 Seest thou whose step unwilling hither bends ? 
 
 No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies ; 
 
 'Tis thy trusty quondam mate, 
 
 Doom'd to share thy fiery fate, 
 
 She, tardy, hell-ward plies. 
 
 EPODE 
 
 And are they of no more avail, 
 
 Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a year ? 
 
 In other worlds can Mammon fail, 
 
 Omnipotent as he is here ? 
 
 0, bitter mock'ry of the pompons bier, 
 
 While down the wretched vital part is driv'n ! 
 
MY NANNIE' S AWA 149 
 
 The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear, 
 Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav'n. 
 
 MY NANNIE'S AWA 
 
 Tune — " There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame" 
 
 Now in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays, 
 And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, 
 While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw; 
 But to me it's delightless — my Nannie's awa. 
 
 The snaw-drop and primrose our woodlands adorn, 
 And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn : 
 They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw, 
 They mind me o' Nannie — my Nannie's awa. 
 
 Thou laverock that springs frae the dews o' the lawn. 
 The shepherd to warn o' the gray -breaking dawn, 
 And thou, yellow mavis, that hails the night-fa', 
 Gie over for pity — my Nannie's awa. 
 
 Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray, 
 And soothe me wi' tidings o' Nature's decay ; 
 The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw, 
 Alane can delight me — now Nannie's awa. 
 
150 O, WERT THOU 
 
 0, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST 
 
 Tune — " The Lass of Livingstone " 
 
 0. wert thou in the cauld blast, 
 
 On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
 My plaidie to the angry airt, 
 
 I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee. 
 Or did misfortune's bitter storms 
 
 Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
 Thy bield should be my bosom, 
 
 To share it a', to share it a'. 
 
 Or were I in the wildest waste, 
 
 Of earth and air, of earth and air, 
 The desert were a paradise, 
 
 If thou wert there, if thou wert there. 
 Or were I monarch o' the globe, 
 
 Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, 
 The only jewel in my crown 
 
 Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 
 
 4 
 
 JOHN ANDERSON MY JO 
 
 John Anderson - my jo, John, 
 When we were first acquent, 
 
FAREWELL TO AYR 151 
 
 Your locks were like the raven, 
 
 Your bonie brow was brent ; 
 But now your brow is held, John, 
 
 Your locks are like the snaw ; 
 But blessings on your frosty pow, 
 
 John Anderson ray jo. 
 
 John Anderson my jo, John, 
 
 We clamb the hill thegither ; 
 And monie a can tie day, John, 
 
 We've had wi' ane anither : 
 Now we maun totter down, John, 
 
 But hand in hand we'll go, 
 And sleep thegither at the foot, 
 
 John Anderson my jo. 
 
 FAREWELL TO AYE, 
 
 Tune — "Rodin Castle" 
 
 The gloomy night is gath'ring fast, 
 Loud roars the wild inconstant blast, 
 Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 
 I see it driving o'er the plain ; 
 The hunter now has left the moor, 
 
152 FAREWELL TO AYR 
 
 The scattered coveys meet secure, 
 While here I wander, prest with care, 
 Along the lonely banks of Ayr. • 
 
 The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn 
 By early Winter's ravage torn ; 
 Across her placid, azure sky, 
 She sees the scowling tempest fly : 
 Chill runs my blood to hear it rave, 
 I think upon the stormy wave, 
 Where many a danger I must dare, 
 Far from the bonie banks of Ayr. 
 
 'Tis not the surging billow's roar, 
 'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore ; 
 Tho' death in ev'ry shape appear, 
 The wretched have no more to fear : 
 But round my heart the ties are bound, 
 That heart transpierc'd with many a wound 
 These bleed afresh, those ties I tear, 
 To leave the bonie banks of Ayr. 
 
 Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales, 
 Her heathy moors and winding vales ; 
 The scenes where wretched fancy roves, 
 Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! 
 
Ji 
 
 MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS 153 
 
 Farewell, my friends ! Farewell, my foes ! 
 My peace with these, my love with those : 
 The bursting tears my heart declare — 
 Farewell, the bonie banks of Ayr. 
 
 / 
 MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS 
 
 My heart's in the Highland's, my heart is not here ; 
 My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; 
 Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, 
 My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
 Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 
 The birth-place of valor, the country of worth ; 
 Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, 
 The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 
 
 L o* 
 
 Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow ; 
 Farewell to the straths and green valleys below ; 
 Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods ; 
 Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. 
 My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; 
 My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; 
 Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, 
 My heart's in* the Highlands, wherever I go. 
 
154 MACPHERSON'S FAREWELL 
 
 MACPHEKSON'S FAKEWELL 
 
 Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, 
 
 The wretch's destinie ! 
 Macpherson's time will not be long 
 
 On yonder gallows tree. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 
 
 Sae dauntingly gaed he; 
 He play'd a spring and danc'd it round, 
 
 Below the gallows tree. 
 
 Oh, what is death but parting breath ? 
 
 On monie a bloody plain 
 I've dar'd his face, and in this place 
 
 I scorn him yet again ! 
 
 Sae rantingly, &c. 
 
 Untie these bands from off my hands, 
 
 And bring to me my sword ; 
 And there's no man in all Scotland, 
 
 But I'll brave him at a word. 
 Sae rantingly, &c. • 
 
BANNOCKBURN 155 
 
 I've liv'd a life of sturt and strife ; 
 
 I die by treacherie : 
 It burns my heart I must depart 
 
 And not avenged be. 
 
 Sae rantingly, &c. 
 
 Now farewell light, thou sunshine bright, 
 
 And all beneath the sky ! 
 May coward shame disdain his name, 
 
 The wretch that dares not die ! 
 Sae rantingly, &c. 
 
 <J BANNOCKBURN 
 
 ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY 
 
 To its ain Tune 
 
 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 ! 
 
156 BANNOCKBURN 
 
 Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
 Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
 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 ! 
 Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
 Liberty's in every blow ! 
 Let us do — or die ! 
 
 THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS 
 
 Tune — " Push about the jorum " 
 
 Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 
 
 Then let the loons beware, Sir, 
 There's wooden walls upon our seas, 
 
 And volunteers on shore, Sir. 
 
THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS 157 
 
 The Nith shall run to Corsincon, 
 
 And C riff el sink to Sol way, 
 Ere we permit a foreign foe 
 
 On British ground to rally ! 
 
 Fal de ral, &c. 
 
 O let us not like snarling tykes 
 
 In wrangling be divided ; 
 Till, slap, come in an unco loon 
 
 And wi' a rung decide it. 
 Be Britain still to Britain true, 
 
 Amang oursels united ; 
 For never but by British hands 
 
 Maun British wrangs be righted ! 
 Fal de ral, &c. 
 
 The kettle o' the kirk and state, 
 
 Perhaps a clout may fail in't ; 
 But deil a foreign tinkler loon 
 
 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 ! 
 
 Fal de ral, &c. 
 
 
158 THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS 
 
 The wretch that wad a tyrant own, 
 
 And the wretch his trne-born brother, 
 Who would set the mob aboon the throne, 
 
 May they be damn'd together ! 
 Who will not sing, " G-od 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 ! 
 
 A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT 
 
 Is there, for honest poverty, 
 
 That hangs his head, an' a' that ? 
 The coward-slave, we pass him by, 
 We dare be poor for a' that ; 
 For a' that, an' a' that, 
 
 Our toils obscure, an' a' that ; 
 The rank is but the guinea stamp ; 
 The man's the gowd for a' that. 
 
 W T hat tho' on hamely fare we dine, 
 Wear hodden-gray, an' a' that ; 
 
 Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 
 A man's a man for a' that. 
 
A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT 159 
 
 For a' that, an' a' that, 
 
 Their tinsel show, an' a' that ; 
 
 The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, 
 Is king o' men for a' that. 
 
 Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 
 
 Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that ; 
 Tho' hundreds worship at his word, 
 He's but a coof for a' that : 
 For a' that, an' a' that, 
 
 His riband, star, an' a' that, 
 The man o' independent mind, 
 He looks and laughs at a' that. 
 
 A prince can mak a belted knight, 
 
 A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
 But an honest man's aboon his might, 
 Guid faith he manna fa' that ! 
 For a' that, an' a' that, 
 
 Their dignities, an' a' that, 
 The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, 
 Are higher rank than a' that. 
 
 Then let us pray that come it may, 
 As come it will for a' that : 
 
160 A MAN'S A MAN FOE A' THAT 
 
 That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, 
 May bear the gree, an' a' that. 
 For a' that, an' a' that, 
 
 It's coming yet, for a' that, 
 That man to man, the war Id o'er, 
 Shall brothers be for a' that. 
 
NOTES 
 
 Page 1, line 3. Butler (Samuel, 1612-1680). Author of 
 Hudibras (1663-1678), a mock-heroic poem satirizing Puri- 
 tanism and popular in the court of Charles II. " It was, how- 
 ever, the scandal of the age, that though the king was lavish in 
 promises, he never did anything to relieve Butler's poverty. . . . 
 He lived in poverty and obscurity for seventeen years after the 
 first appearance of Hudibras. — Edmund Gosse, in Dictionary 
 of National Biography. 
 
 ' ' My first favorite books had been Hudibras and Tristram 
 Shandy." — Carlyle. Froude, Vol. I., p. 396. 
 
 1. 7. The inventor of a spinning-jenny. Even he — James 
 Hargreaves (17 -1778) — was driven from his home in Lanca- 
 shire by a mob of spinners on the old-fashioned wheel, who 
 feared they would be thrown out of employment by his inven- 
 tion. 
 
 1. 17. more than one splendid monument. For more infor- 
 mation in regard to the monuments erected to the memory of 
 Burns, see a well-illustrated article in the Art Journal, Vol. 49, 
 p. 238. 
 
 Page 2, line 4. the sixth narrative of his Life. The Life of 
 Bobert Bums. By J. G. Lockhart, LL.B. Edinburgh, 1828. 
 There were even more than five before. " The four principal 
 biographers of our poet, Heron, Currie, Walker, and Irving," 
 
 m 161 
 
162 NOTES [Page 2. 
 
 etc. — Lockhart: Life of Burns, chap. viii. Cromek and 
 Peterkin had also written narratives of the poet's life. See 
 bibliography in Blackie's Life of Burns (Great Writers Series) 
 and note to article on Burns in Diet, of Nat. Biog. 
 
 1. 6. Lockhart (John Gibson, 1794-1854) is best known as the 
 biographer of Sir Walter Scott, whose son-in-law he was. 
 
 1. 23. Sir Thomas Lucy, according to a now discredited tra- 
 dition, prosecuted Shakespeare for poaching in his deer park, 
 which was near Charlecote Hall, three miles from Stratford. 
 
 1. 24. John a Combe was a well-to-do and (according to tra- 
 dition) usurious citizen of Stratford, from whom Shakespeare 
 purchased many acres of land, and for whom, at his laughing 
 request, Shakespeare is said to have proposed the following- 
 epitaph : — 
 
 " Ten-in-the-Hundred lies here ingrav'd ; 
 Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not sav'd. 
 If any man asks, ' Who lies in this tomb ? ' 
 ' Oh, ho! ' quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.' " 
 — Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines of Shakespeare's Life. 
 
 Page 3, line 9. Honorable Excise Commissioners. The ex- 
 cise is an inland duty levied on certain commodities of home 
 produce, such as ale, spirits, tobacco, etc., or on their manufac- 
 ture or sale. Gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt. An associa- 
 tion of Scotch noblemen and gentry. Burns dedicated to them 
 the second edition of his poems (the first Edinburgh edition). 
 The following excerpt from the minutes of a meeting of the asso- 
 ciation, held at Edinburgh, January 10, 1787, may be of interest 
 in this connection : "A motion being made by the Earl of Glen- 
 
Page 5.] NOTES 163 
 
 cavin, and seconded by Sir John Whitefoord, in favor of Mr. 
 Burns of Ayrshire, who had dedicated the new Edition of his 
 Poems to the Caledonian Hunt. The meeting were of the opin- 
 ion, that, in consideration of his superior merit as well as of the 
 compliment paid to them, Mr. Hagart should be directed to sub- 
 scribe for one hundred copies, in their name, for which he should 
 pay to Mr. Burns, twenty-five pounds, upon the publication of his 
 book.'" — Bibliography of Robert Burns. (James Gibson, edi- 
 tor.) 
 
 1. 1 1 . Ayr Writers. In Scotland the term " writer " is applied 
 to law agents, attorneys, and sometimes to their principal clerks. 
 
 1. 12. New and Old Light Clergy. Two factions into which 
 the church of Scotland was split. The former, under the leader- 
 ship of Blair and Robertson, were radical and progressive, the 
 latter adhered to strict Calvinistic views. Burns sided with the 
 New lights. Cf. p. 62 and p. 93. 
 
 1. 28. Dr. Currie. Dr. James Currie (1756-1805), a Scotch 
 physician, published in 1800, in behalf of the family of the poet, 
 an edition of the poems, introduced by a Life of Burns. Mr. 
 Walker. A life of Burns, by Josiah Walker, was prefixed to 
 an edition of the poems in 1811, and separately printed. 
 
 Page 5, line 10. Constable's Miscellany. It consisted of a 
 series of original works, and of standard works republished in 
 cheap form, and was the earliest attempt to popularize good 
 literature. Lockhart's Life of Burns appeared in this form 
 (dated 1828), — a duodecimo volume of 310 pages. The series 
 was projected in 1825 by Archibald Constable (1774-1827), the 
 famous Edinburgh publisher of Scott's novels. 
 
 1. 21. Mr. Morris Birkbeck. His book was entitled, Notes 
 
164 NOTES [Page 5. 
 
 on a Journey in America, from the Coast of Virginia to the 
 Territory of Illinois, London, 1818. 
 
 Page 9, line 1. Titan. The Titans were twelve children oi 
 Uranus aiid Gaza (Heaven and Earth), and typified the law- 
 less, brute forces of nature. In their wars with Zeus they 
 piled mountains upon mountains in attempting to scale heaven. 
 
 1. 11. Fergus[s]on (Robert, 1750-1774). One of his best 
 poems was The Farmer's Ingle, from which Burns is said to have 
 derived the idea of his Cotter'' s Saturday Night. Ramsay (Allan. 
 1686-1758). " In some respects the best pastoral writer in the. 
 world." — Leigh Hunt. For an interesting discussion of Burns' i- 
 style, cf. R. L. Stevenson : Some Aspects of Bobert Burns it, 
 Familiar Studies of Men and Books. The following sentences 
 are quoted from the same : "To Ramsay and to Fergusson, then, 
 he was indebted in a very uncommon degree, not only following 
 their tradition and using their measures, but directly and 
 avowedly imitating their pieces. . . . When we remembei 
 Burns' s obligations to his predecessors, we must never forgei 
 his immense advances on them. They had already ' discovered 
 nature ; but Burns discovered poetry — a higher and more in- 
 tense way of thinking of the things that go to make up nature, a 
 higher and more ideal key of words in which to speak of them." 
 Cf. also p. 70, line 6. 
 
 Page 10, line 25. Sir Hudson Lowe (1769-1844). A British 
 general who was governor of St. Helena during Napoleon's cap- 
 tivity there (1815-1821). 
 
 Page 11, linel. amid the melancholy main. Quoted from = 
 stanza xxx. of the Castle of Indolence, by James Thomson 
 (1700-1748). 
 
 
Page 24.] NOTES 165 
 
 Page 12, line 12. The Daisy. Cf. To a Mountain Daisy. 
 
 1. 14. wee, cowering, etc. Cf. To a Mouse. 
 
 1. 15. thole. To endure, dribble. Drizzle, cranreuch. 
 Hoar frost. 
 
 1. 16. Winter. Cf. Winter : a Dirge. 
 
 1. 20. it raises his thoughts, etc. Psalms civ. 3. Burns in a 
 note to the poem, Winter : a Dirge, says: " It [winter] is my 
 best season for devotion ; my mind is rapt up in a kind of 
 enthusiasm to Him who, in the pompous language of Scripture, 
 1 walks on the wings of the wind. ' In one of these seasons, just 
 after a tract of misfortunes, I composed the following song." — 
 Commonplace Book, April, 1784. 
 
 Page 13, line 6. Arcadian illusion. Arcadia was a district in 
 the heart of the Peloponnesus, shut in on all sides by mountains, 
 where dwelt a simple, pastoral people, fond of music and danc- 
 ing ; hence it has become a synonym for ideal rustic simplicity. 
 
 Page 17, line 6. " Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi 
 tibi; turn tua me infortunia laedent." — Horace : De Arte Po- 
 etica. Liber II, 102, 103. If you wish me to weep, you must 
 first feel grief yourself ; then your sorrows will touch me. 
 
 Page 21, line 20. Letters to Mrs. Dunlop. Cf. " Robert 
 Burns and Mrs. Dunlop. Correspondence now published in full 
 for the first time with elucidations by William Wallace. " 2 vols. 
 New York, 1898. Cf. also extract from letter on pp. 34-35. 
 
 Page 22, line 12. Virgins of the Sun. Knights. . . . Sara- 
 cens. . . . Chiefs, etc. Probably allusions to Moore's Lalla 
 Bookh, Scott's Talisman and Ivanhoe, and Cooper's Leather- 
 Stocking Tales. 
 
 Page 24, line 13. vates. Soothsayer, prophet. 
 
166 NOTES [Page 24. 
 
 1. 20. Minerva Press. A printing house in London, noted 
 for the publication of trashy, sentimental novels. 
 
 Page 25, line 25. Mossgiel. A farm near Mauchline, about 
 118 acres in extent, on which Burns and his brother worked 
 (1784-1786). and where he wrote many of his finest poems. 
 Tarbolton. A parish in which William Burness, father of the 
 poet, rented a farm during the last six years of his life (1777- 
 1784). 
 
 Page 26. line 2. Crockford's. A fashionable gambling resort 
 in London. Tuileries. A famous palace in Paris, begun by 
 Catherine de Medici in 1564, burned by the Commune in 1871. 
 
 1. 5. it is hinted that he should have been born two centu- 
 ries ago, etc. A probable allusion to the idea developed by 
 Macaulay in his Essay on Milton {Edinburgh Review, August, 
 1825), that " as civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily 
 declines." 
 
 Page 27, line 1. Theocritus (3d century b.c.) . A Greek poet ; 
 a writer of pastoral poetry, of idyls — "little pictures of life." 
 
 1. 3. Council of Trent. A council held at Trent (1545-1563), 
 which condemned the leading doctrines of the Reformation 
 concerning the Bible, original sin, and justification by faith. 
 
 1. 4. Roman Jubilee. A solemn festival of the Catholic 
 Church, usually held once in twenty-five years. The year 1900 
 is a Jubilee Year. 
 
 Page 28, line 22. Retzsch (Moritz, 1779-1857). A German 
 etcher and painter, who illustrated the works of Goethe, 
 Schiller, and Shakespeare. 
 
 Page 29, line 4. Boreas. The north wind. fell. Keen. 
 doure. Sullen, stubborn. 
 
Page B2.] XOTES 167 
 
 1. 6. Phoebus. The sun. glowr. Stare. 
 
 1. 7. lift. The sky. 
 
 1. 12. burns. Brooks, wreeths. Drifts. 
 
 1. 14. bock'd. Gushed. 
 
 Page 30, line 7. thowes. Thaws. 
 
 1. 8. snaw-broo. Snow-broth. 
 
 1. 9. spate. A sweeping torrent after a rain or thaw. 
 
 1. 14. gumlie jaups. Muddy jets. 
 
 1. 15. Poussin (Nicholas, 1594-1665). A noted French 
 historical and landscape painter. He painted a picture called 
 "The Deluge,' 1 to which Carlyle may refer, but which Buskin 
 in Modern Painters dismisses with a brief criticism as "un- 
 characteristic." 
 
 1. 22. Smithy of the Cyclops. Cf. Odyssey, IX. yoking of 
 Priam's Chariot. Cf. Iliad, XXIV. 
 
 1. 23. Burn-the-wind. Blacksmith. 
 
 Note. Fabulosus Hydaspes ! From the familiar Ode of 
 Horace beginning ,k Integer vitse " (Lib. I., Car. XXII.). The 
 Hydaspes is a tributary of the Indus ; on its banks Alexander 
 defeated Porus (b.c. 327). It was called fabulosus, because it 
 was in the far East, about which unexplored region numberless 
 stories were afloat in Rome. 
 
 Page 31, line 23. Defoe (Daniel, 1661-1731). Best known 
 to-day as the author of Robinson Crusoe. Richardson (Samuel, 
 1689-1761). Called the founder of the English domestic novel. 
 
 Page 32, line 10. red-wat-shod. Wat means wet. The 
 whole expression — wading in blood. 
 
 1. 17. Professor Stewart (Dugald, 1753-1828). A famous 
 Scottish philosopher who held the chair of moral philosophy in 
 
168 NOTES [Page 32. 
 
 the University of Edinburgh. During the early years of his 
 professorship he spent his summers at Catrine, on the water of 
 Ayr, not far from Mossgiel ; and there formed a friendship with 
 the poet. Cf. note on p. 25, line 25. The passage quoted by 
 Carlyle is to be found in Stewart's Works, edited by Sir William 
 Hamilton. Edinburgh: 1858, Vol. X., p. cxl. 
 
 Page 33, line 2. Keats (John, 1796-1821). An English poet 
 whose Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Eve of 
 St. Agnes one should read before assenting to Carlyle's harsh 
 criticism. For a fairer criticism see Matthew Arnold's Essay 
 on John Keats. 
 
 1. 18. Novum Organum. The title of Lord Bacon's greatest 
 philosophical work, which was completed in 1620. The words 
 mean "new instrument." 
 
 Page 34, line 19. doctrine of association — of ideas. 
 
 1. 22. We know nothing, etc. From a letter addressed to 
 Mrs. Dunlop, dated Ellisland, New-year-day Morning, 1789. 
 Cf. note on p. 21, line 20. 
 
 Page 37, line 6. ourie. Shivering, drooping. 
 
 1. 7. brattle. Fury. 
 
 1. 9. deep-lairing. Deep-wading, sprattle. Scramble. 
 
 1. 10. scar. Cliff. A steep, bare, rocky place on the side 
 of a hill. 
 
 1. 11. Ilk. Every. 
 
 1. 15. chittering. Trembling with cold. 
 
 Page 38, line 1. aiblins. Perhaps. 
 
 1. 5. Dr. Slop and uncle Toby. Characters in Laurence 
 Sterne's Tristram Shandy, — a favorite book of Carlyle's. 
 
 1. 11. Indignation makes verses. Cf. "Si natura negat, 
 
Page 41.] NOTES 169 
 
 fecit indignatioversum." — Juvenal (Junius, a Roman satirist, 
 38-120), Sat. i. 79. If nature denies the ability, "indignation 
 makes verses.'" 
 
 Page 39, line 1. Johnson (Samuel, 1709-1784). A biogra- 
 pher, essayist, critic, versifier, and lexicographer. He is re- 
 ported to have said, " Dear Bathurst was a man to my heart's 
 content : he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated 
 a Whig; he was a very good hater." — Boswell : Life of 
 Johnson. 
 
 1. 13. Furies of iEschylus. iEschylus (525-426) is ac- 
 counted the greatest of Greek tragic poets. The allusion is to 
 his tragedy called The Eumenides, in which the Furies compose 
 the chorus. 
 
 Page 40, line 17. Cacus. A giant and son of Vulcan, who, 
 according to Roman mythology, lived near the spot where Rome 
 was built. He stole from Hercules some of the cattle that had 
 belonged to Geryon, dragging them backward into his cave 
 under the Aventine, so that their tracks appeared to lead out- 
 ward. But Hercules found them by their lowing and choked 
 to death the thief, incendia vana vomentem. For the particu- 
 lars of the story see iEneid, Book VIII. , lines 190-267. 
 
 1. 18. sturt. Struggle. 
 
 1. 19. Nimrods. 'Nimrod was a mighty hunter. Gen. x. 
 8, 9. I Chron. i. 10. 
 
 Page 41, line 4. Thebes. The chief city of Bceotia. The 
 fortunes and misfortunes of CEdipus, king of Thebes, and his 
 race, furnished many themes for the tragic poets. Pelops' line. 
 This line included Atreus, Agamemnon, Orestes, and Ephige- 
 nia. Cf. Milton's lines in II Penseroso : — 
 
170 NOTES [Page 41. 
 
 " Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy 
 In sept red pall come sweeping by, 
 Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, 
 Or the tale of Troy divine." 
 
 Page 43. line 9. he is not the Tieck but the Musaus of this 
 tale. Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) and Johann Karl August 
 Musaus (1735-1787) were German authors ; the former was a 
 poet and critic ; the latter was noted chiefly for his Folk-Tales 
 of the Germans. About three years before writing the Essay 
 on Burns, Caiiyle was engaged in translating representative 
 works of both (cf. Introduction, p. xxii.). The translations, 
 together with an essay on each by C.arlyle, constitute Vol. I. of 
 the German Romances, from which the following passages are 
 quoted, in order that those who are not " our German readers " 
 may feel in some degree the force of the distinction between the 
 two authors : " A very slight power of observation will su 
 flee to convince us that Tieck is no ordinary man ; but a try 
 Poet, a Poet horn as well as made. ... He is no mere observt 
 and compiler ; rendering back to us, with additions or subtra 
 tions, the Beauty which existing things have of themselves pr. 
 senteel to him ; but a true Maker, to whom the actual ai 
 external is but the excitement for ideal creations, representir 
 and ennobling its effects." Of Musaus; "His style sparkles 
 with metaphors, sometimes just and beautiful, often new a;. 1 
 surprising ; but it is laborious, unnatural, and diffuse. . i . 
 Musaus is. in fact, no poet ; he can see, and describe with rir , 
 graces what he sees ; but he is nothing, or very little, o:. a 
 Maker. His imagination is not powerless : it is like a bird of 
 feeble wing, which can fly from tree to tree : but never soars 
 
Page 49.] NOTES 171 
 
 for a moment into the aether of Poetry, to bathe in its serene 
 splendor, with the region of the Actual lying far below, and 
 brightened into beauty by radiance not its own." 
 
 Page 44, line 16. raucle carlin. Fearless old crone, wee 
 Apollo. ' ' A pigmy scraper with his fiddle. ' ' 
 1. 17. Son of Mars. A soldier. 
 
 1. 19. Poosie-Nansie. The name of the keeper of the ale- 
 house. 
 
 Page 45, line 2. Caird. A travelling tinker. 
 1. 4. brats and callets. Loose women. 
 
 1. 12. Teniers (David, 1610-1690). A noted Flemish genre, 
 landscape, and portrait painter. 
 
 1. 17. Beggars' Opera. A satirical opera by John Gay 
 (1728). Cf. Century Cyclopaedia of Names. 
 I 1. 18. Beggars' Bush. A comedy by Fletcher and others, 
 .erformed at court in 1622. Cf. Century Cyclopaedia of 
 fames. 
 ■ Page 46, line 17. Ossorius the Portugal Bishop (Osorio, 
 Feronymo, 1506-1580). Called the Cicero of Portugal. 
 - 1 Page 48, line 19. Fletcher (Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, 
 J653-1716). A Scottish writer whose chief claim to lasting 
 %me appears to hang upon the following remark, which was 
 made in a letter to the Marquis of Montrose : " I knew a very 
 "tfise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make 
 all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a 
 - nation." 
 
 tPage 49, line 25. Our Grays and Glovers. Thomas Gray 
 
 ■ (1716-1771) is best known as the writer of The Elegy in <i 
 
 Country Churchyard. For a fairer estimate of his work, see 
 
172 NOTES [Page 49. 
 
 Matthew Arnold's Essay on Thomas Gray. Richard Glover 
 (1712-1785). Cf. Gosse, Eighteenth Century Literature. 
 
 Page 50, line 4. Goldsmith (Oliver, 1728-1774). Compare 
 his verses with those of Pope, for example, or his Vicar of 
 Wakefield with Johnson's Basselas, to find out why he was an 
 " exception." 
 
 1. 5. Johnson. Cf. note on p. 39, line 1. The Rambler was 
 a semi-weekly, issued 1750-1752 and following in the track of 
 Addison's and Steele's Spectator. The Latinized style of the 
 essays in the Rambler is noted for its studied avoidance of com- 
 mon English words. Rasselas (1759) is a romance, the scene 
 of which is laid in the Orient. 
 
 1. 16. Boston (Thomas, 1676-1732). A noted Scotch Pres- 
 byterian divine. He wrote Human Nature in its Fourfold State 
 in 1720. 
 
 1. 24. Lord Karnes (Henry Home, 1696-1782). A Scottish 
 judge and philosophical writer ; author of Elements of Criticism. 
 
 Page 51, line 1. Hume (David, 1711-1776). A Scottish 
 philosopher and historian. See the last two paragraphs of 
 Carlyle's Essay on BosweWs Johnson for an interesting com- 
 parison between Hume and Johnson. Robertson (William, 
 1721-1793). A Scottish historian and clergyman. Smith 
 (Adam, 1723-1790). A celebrated Scottish political economist, 
 — one of the founders of the science. His chief work is An In- 
 quiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). 
 
 1. 11. Racine (Jean Baptiste, 1639-1699). A French tragic 
 poet. Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet de, 1694-1778). A 
 French poet, essayist, and critic. Batteux (Charles, 1713- 
 1780). A French critic, chiefly noted as a writer on esthetics. 
 
Page 55.] NOTES 17.3 
 
 Boileau-Despreaux (Nicholas, 1636-1711). A French critic, 
 satirist, and poet. 
 
 1. 13. Montesquieu (Baron de la Brede et de, Charles de 
 Secondat, 1689-1755). A French philosopher. Mably (Gabriel 
 Bonnot, Abbe de, 1709-1785). A French publicist. 
 
 1. 15. Quesnay (Fran§ois, 1694-1774). A French political 
 economist ; founder of the school of physiocrats. Adam Smith's 
 indebtedness to Quesnay is denied by John Kae in his Life of 
 Adam Smith, p. 215. London, 1895. 
 
 1. 19. La Fleche. A town in the department of Sarthe, 
 France, on the Loire, where Hume spent three years. He 
 describes himself as wandering about there " in solitude, dream- 
 ing the dream of his philosophy " ; and there he composed his 
 ; first work, the Treatise of Human Nature. 
 
 Page 54, line 3. A wish, etc. From his epistle To the 
 fi aid wife of Wauchope House. 
 
 1. 10. bear. Barley. > 
 
 Page 55, 1. 22. he never attains to any clearness regarding 
 himself, etc. Yet in his autobiographical letter to Dr. Moore 
 (which is quoted in Currie's Life) he wrote : " It was ever my 
 opinion that the great, unhappy mistakes and blunders, both 
 in a rational and religious point of view, of which we see 
 thousands daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance or mistaken 
 notions of themselves. To know myself, had been all along my 
 constant study. I weighed myself, alone ; I balanced myself 
 with others ; I watched every means of information, how much 
 ground I occupied as a man and as a poet ; I studied assidu- 
 ously Nature's design, where she seemed to have intended the 
 various lights and shades in my character." 
 
174 NOTES [Page 55. 
 
 1. 23. he never ascertains his peculiar aim. In the same 
 autobiographical letter, from which a quotation was made 
 above, are the following sentences: "The great misfortune of 
 my life was never to have an aim. I had felt early some stir- 
 rings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's 
 Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's situa- 
 tion entailed on me perpetual labor. The only two doors by 
 which I could enter the fields of fortune were — the most 
 niggardly economy or the little chicaning art of bargain-making. 
 The first is so contracted an aperture, I never could squeeze 
 myself into it ; the last — I always hated the contamination of 
 its threshold ! " Are any of the statements made by Carlyle 
 and Burns in regard to the self-knowledge and lack of aim of 
 the latter inconsistent ? 
 
 Page 59, line 19. priest-like father. Cf. r flie Cotter's Satur- 
 day Night. 
 
 Page 60, line 15. in glory and in joy, etc. From Words- 
 worth's Leech Gatherer, stanza vii.; quoted also by Lockhart 
 on the title-page of the Life of Burns. 
 
 Page 63, line 11. passions raging like demons, etc. "My 
 passions, when once they were lighted up, raged like so many 
 devils till they got vent in rhyme ; and then conning over my 
 verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet!" Written with 
 reference to about the time of his twenty -third year. — Auto- 
 biographical letter to Dr. Moore. 
 
 Page 64, line 3. hungry Ruin has him in the wind. Quoted 
 by Burns as a reason for engaging a passage in the first ship 
 that was to sail for Jamaica. — Autobiographical letter to Dr. 
 Moore. 
 
Page 68.] NOTES 17 O 
 
 1. 7. the gloomy night is gathering fast, etc. The first line 
 of the poem entitled Farewell to Ayr, of which Carlyle quotes 
 the last four lines, substituting "Adieu, my native banks of 
 Ayr," for " Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr." 
 
 " I had for some time been skulking from covert to covert, 
 under all the terrors of a jail ; as some ill-advised, ungrateful 
 people had uncoupled the merciless legal pack at my heels. I 
 had taken the last farewell of my few friends ; my chest was on 
 the road to Greenock ; I had composed a song, ' The gloomy 
 night is gathering fast,' which was to be the last effort of my 
 muse in Caledonia, when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend 
 of mine overthrew all my schemes, by rousing my poetic ambi- 
 tion. His idea, that I would meet with every encouragement 
 for a second edition, fired me so much that away I posted for 
 Edinburgh without a single acquaintance in town, or a single 
 letter of recommendation in my pocket." — Autobiographical 
 letter to Dr. Moore. 
 
 Page 65, line 3. Rienzi (Nicolo Gabrini, 1313-1354) headed 
 a revolt against the oligarchs of Rome and sought to reestablish 
 the Republic. His head was turned by sudden success. Re- 
 sorting to violence to raise funds, he lost his popularity, and 
 was put to death by a mob. 
 
 Page 67, line 5. Virgilium vidi tantum. Ovid : Tristia IV. 
 10, line 51. I have at least seen Virgil. 
 
 Page 68, line 13. Langhorne (John, 1735-1779). An Eng- 
 lish clergyman and poet. For some of his poems see Chambers' 
 Cyclopaedia of English Literature. In quoting, Scott appears 
 to have substituted " mother wept " for " parent mourned." 
 
 1. 23. Nasmyth's picture. See frontispiece. 
 
176 NOTES [Page 70. 
 
 Page 70, line 12. in malam partem. Disparagingly. 
 
 Page 76, line 2. Maecenases. Maecenas was a wealthy Roman 
 of the equestrian order, who was a friend and patron of Horace 
 and Virgil. His name has become a synonym for a liberal pat- 
 ron of letters. 
 
 Page 78, line 14. Jacobin. Literally, a member of the club 
 of radical political agitators who took their name from the Jac- 
 obin Convent in which they held their secret meetings during 
 the French Revolution. 
 
 Page 79, line 25. corn-bing. Heap of grain. 
 
 Page 80, line 3. linking. Walking smartly. 
 
 Page 82, line 1. as a volunteer. Cf. Burns's poem, The 
 Dumfries Volunteers. 
 
 Page 85, line 24. Patronage . . . twice cursed, etc. Cf. 
 Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 177. 
 
 Page 87, line 23. fardels of a weary life, etc. Fardels — 
 burdens. Cf. the famous soliloquy, Hamlet, III. i., in which 
 are to be found the words, 
 
 " who would fardels bear, 
 To grunt and sweat under a weary life," etc. 
 
 Page 88, line 13. Roger Bacon (1219-1294). An English 
 Franciscan monk and philosopher, who was imprisoned because 
 of his heretical writings. Galileo (1564-1642). A famous Italian 
 astronomer, whose doctrines were condemned by the Pope, and 
 who was forced by the Inquisition to abjure the Copernican 
 theory. 
 
 1. 14. Tasso (Torquato, 1544-1595). An Italian poet. 
 
Page 100.] NOTES 177 
 
 1. 15. Camoens (Luiz de, 1524-1580). The greatest Portu- 
 guese poet. 
 
 Page 91, line 18. Locke (John, 1632-1704). An English phi- 
 losopher and political writer. 
 
 Page 92, line 2. Araucana. Written by Alonso de Ercilla 
 y Zuhiga (1533-1595), a Spanish soldier and poet. The epic is 
 based upon his experiences as a soldier : he took an active part 
 in a campaign against the Araucanos, an Indian tribe in South 
 America. 
 
 Page 93, line 23. Rabelais (Francois, 1495-1553). A bril- 
 liant, but sceptical French satirist. 
 
 Page 95, line 5. Jean Paul, Johann Paul Friedrich Richter 
 (1763-1825), a German poet and philosopher, introduced to the 
 English public by Carlyle's Essay on Richter (1827). 
 
 Page 96, line 17. Byron. For further light on the point 
 under discussion, cf. Morley's Essay on Carlyle — "Mr. Car- 
 lyle's victory over Byronism," and Matthew Arnold's Essay on 
 Byron. 
 
 Page 98, line 18. words of Milton, etc. " And long it was 
 not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who 
 would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in 
 laudable things ought himself to be a true poem ; that is, a com- 
 position and pattern of the best and honorablest things ; not 
 presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, 
 unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all 
 that which is praiseworthy." — Milton : An Apology for Smec- 
 tymnuus (1642). 
 
 Page 100, line 6. Plebiscita. Laws enacted by the common 
 people. 
 
 N 
 
178 NOTES [Page 101. 
 
 Page 101, line 6. Ramsgate. A popular seaside resort in 
 Kent, about sixty miles east of London. 
 
 1. 7. Isle of Dogs. A peninsula of the Thames, three and a 
 half miles east of St. Paul's, London, where the king's hounds 
 were once kept. 
 
 1. 17. Valclusa Fountain. The fountain is associated with 
 the poet Petrarch, who made his home in Valcluse, a village 
 about ten miles east of Avignon. 
 
INDEX TO NOTES 
 
 .Eschylus, 169. 
 Araucana, 177. 
 Arcadia, 165. 
 Ayr Writers, 163. 
 
 Bacon, 176. 
 Batteaux, 172. 
 Birkbeck, 163. 
 Boileau, 173. 
 Butler, 161. 
 Byron, 177. 
 
 Cacus, 169. 
 
 Caledonian Hunt, 162. 
 
 Camoens, 176. 
 
 Constable's Miscellany, 163. 
 
 Council of Trent, 166. 
 
 ">ockford's, 166. 
 
 Jiirrie, 163. 
 
 3foe, 167. 
 
 mlop, Letters to Mrs., 165. 
 
 rise Commissioners, 162. 
 
 )ulosus Hydaspes, 167. 
 gusson, 164. 
 
 Fletcher, 177. 
 
 Galileo, 176. 
 Glover, 171. 
 Goldsmith, 172. 
 Gray, 171. 
 
 Horace, 165. 
 Hume, 172. 
 
 Isle of Dogs, 178. 
 
 Jacobin, 176. 
 Johnson, 169 and 172. 
 
 Kames, Lord, 172. 
 Keats, 168. 
 
 La Fleche, 173. 
 Langhorne, 175. 
 Locke, 177. 
 Lockhart, 162. 
 Lowe, 164. 
 Lucy, 162. 
 
 Mably, 173. 
 Maecenas, 176. 
 179 
 
180 
 
 INDEX TO NOTES 
 
 Milton, 177. 
 Minerva Press, 166. 
 Montesquieu, 173. 
 Monuments to Burns, 161. 
 Mossgiel, 166. 
 Musiius, 170. 
 
 New and Old Light Clergy, 163. 
 
 Nimrod, 169. 
 
 Novum Organum, 168. . 
 
 Ossorius, 171. 
 
 Pelops' line, 169. 
 Plebiscita, 177. 
 
 Quesnay, 173. 
 
 Rabelais, 177. 
 Racine, 172. 
 Ramsay, 164. 
 Ramsgate, 177. 
 Retzsch, 166. 
 Richardson, 167. 
 
 Richter, 177. 
 Rienzi, 175. 
 Robertson, 172. 
 Roman Jubilee, 166. 
 
 Si vis me flere, 165. 
 Smith, 172. 
 Stewart, 167. 
 Style of Burns, 164. 
 
 Tarbolton, 166. 
 Tasso, 176. 
 Teniers, 171. 
 Thebes, 169. 
 Theocritus, 166. 
 Tieck, 170. 
 Titan, 164. 
 Tuileries, 166. 
 
 Valclusa Fountain, 178. 
 Voltaire, 172. 
 
 Walker, 163. 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 A', all. 
 
 Abeigh, at a shy distance. 
 
 Aboon, above. 
 
 Acqueut, acquainted. 
 
 Ae, one. 
 
 Aften, often. 
 
 A-gley, off the right line. 
 
 Aiblins, perhaps. 
 
 Ain, own. 
 
 Airt, direction, the point from 
 
 which the wind blows. 
 Amaist, almost. 
 Amaug, among. 
 A nee, once. 
 Ane, one. 
 Asklent, aslant. 
 Aught, eight. 
 Auld, old. 
 
 Baggie (dim. of bag), the stom- 
 ach. 
 Bairns, children. 
 Bairntirae, a family of children. 
 Baitb, both. 
 Bardie, dim. of bard. 
 Bear, barley. 
 Beet, to add fuel to afire. 
 
 Beld, bald. 
 
 Belyve, by and by. 
 
 Ben, through, into the spence or 
 parlor. 
 
 Bid, a habitation. 
 
 Bield, shelter. 
 
 Big, to build. 
 
 Bing, heap of corn, potatoes, etc. 
 
 Birk, the birch. 
 
 Birkie, a spirited fellow. 
 
 Blate, shamefaced. 
 
 Blaw, to blow. 
 
 Bleer't, bleared. 
 
 Blin', blind. 
 
 Bluid, blood. 
 
 Bocked, vomited. 
 
 Bonie, beautiful. 
 
 Brae, the slope of a hill. 
 
 Braid, broad. 
 
 Braing't, reeled forward. 
 
 Brattle, a short race ; hurry ; 
 fury. 
 
 Braw, handsome. 
 
 Breastit, did spring up or for- 
 ward. 
 
 Brent, straight, smooth, un- 
 wrinTcled. 
 181 
 
182 
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Brig, bridge. 
 
 Brooses, races at country wed- 
 dings, who shall first reach the 
 bridegroom's house on return- 
 ing from church. 
 
 Buirdly, strong, imposing look- 
 ing, iv ell-knit. 
 
 Bure, bore, did bear. 
 
 Burn, stream. 
 
 Burnewin, i.e. burn the wind, a 
 blacksmith. 
 
 Ca', to drive. 
 
 Ca'd, named. 
 
 Caird, tinker. 
 
 Canna, cannot. 
 
 Cannie, careful. 
 
 Cantie, in high spirits, merry. 
 
 Cape-stane, cope-stone. 
 
 Carlin, an old woman. 
 
 Cauld, cold. 
 
 Glittering, trembling with cold. 
 
 Claes, clothes. 
 
 Clips, shears. 
 
 Clout, a patch. 
 
 Cog, a wooden dish. 
 
 Coila, from Kyle, a district of 
 Ayrshire, so called, saith tra- 
 dition, from Coil, or Coila, a 
 Pictish monarch. 
 
 Coot, fool. 
 
 Coost, did cast. 
 
 Corn' t, fed with oats. 
 
 Crack, converse, gossip. 
 
 Cranreuch, hoar frost. 
 
 I Craw, to crow. 
 Croon, a hollow and continued 
 
 moan. 
 Crouse, gleeful. 
 
 Daimen-icker. an ear of corn 
 
 now and then. 
 Daur't, dared. 
 Daurk, a day's labor. 
 Deil, devil. 
 Dine, dinner-time. 
 Donsie, unlucky. 
 Doure, stubborn. 
 Dow, do, ca». 
 Dowie, low-spirited. 
 Dribble, drizzle. 
 Driegh, tedious. 
 Droop-rumpl't. that droops at the 
 
 crupper. 
 Drumly, muddy. 
 
 Ee, eye. 
 I Een, eyes. 
 Eydent, diligent. 
 
 Fairin, a present, a reward. 
 
 Fa use, false. 
 
 ¥e\\,keen, biting; nippy, tasty. 
 
 Fetch't, pulled intermittently. 
 
 Fidge, to fidget. 
 
 Fier, brother, friend. 
 
 Fittie-lan, the near horse of the 
 
 hindmost pair in the plough. 
 Fleech'd, supplicated. 
 Fleesh, a fleece. 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 183 
 
 Flichterin' , fluttering. 
 
 Fliskit, fretted. 
 
 Flit, remove. 
 
 Foggage, a second growth of 
 
 grass, aftergrass. 
 Forbye, besides. 
 Fou, full, tipsy; a bushel. 
 Frae, from. 
 
 Gae, go. 
 
 Gar, to make. 
 
 Gat, got. 
 
 Gaun, going. 
 
 Gear, wealth, goods. 
 
 Gie, .give. 
 
 Glaizie, glittering, smooth, like 
 
 glass. 
 Glowr, stare. 
 Gowau, the daisy. 
 Gowd, gold. 
 Grat, wept. 
 Gree, a prize. 
 Guid, good. 
 Guid-willie, ivith hearty good 
 
 will. 
 Gumlie, muddy, discolored. 
 
 Ha' Bible, hall-Bible. 
 Hae, have. 
 Haffets, the temples. 
 Hafflins, partly. 
 Haiu'd, spared, saved. 
 Hald, an abiding -place. 
 Hallaa, a particular partition 
 wall in a cottage. 
 
 Ha me. /mine. 
 I Hamely, homely. 
 i Hansel, a gift for a particular 
 season, or the first money on 
 any particular occasion. 
 
 Hastit, hasted. 
 
 Hawkie, cow. 
 
 Heapit, heaped. 
 
 Histie, dry, barren. 
 
 Hizzie, hussy. 
 
 Hoble, to hobble. 
 
 Hodden-gray, woollen cloth of a 
 coarse quality, made by min- 
 gling one black fleece with a 
 dozen white ones. 
 
 Hotcli'd, fidgeted. 
 
 Howe, a hollow or dell. 
 
 Howe-backit, sunk in the back. 
 
 Hoyte, to amble crazily. 
 
 Ilk, every. 
 
 Ingle, the household fire. 
 
 Jauk, to dally, to trifle. 
 Jaups, splashes. 
 
 Jinker, that turns quickly, a 
 dodger. 
 
 Kebbuck, a cheese. 
 
 Ken, knoio. 
 
 Ket, a hairy, matted fleece. 
 
 Knaggie, like knags, or points of 
 
 rock. 
 Knowe, a hillock, a knoll. 
 Kye, cows. 
 
184 
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Lairing, wading and sinking in 
 
 snow or mud. 
 Laith, loth. 
 Laithfu', bashful. 
 Lane, alone. 
 Lanely, lonely. 
 Lap, did leap. 
 Lave, the rest. 
 Laverock, the lark. 
 Lift, sky. 
 Linkin, tripping. 
 Linn, a waterfall. 
 Lint, flax. Sin lint was i' the 
 
 bell, since flax was in flower. 
 Lowping, leaping. 
 Lyart, gray. 
 
 Maun, must. 
 
 Mavis, the thrush. 
 
 Meere, a mare. 
 
 Melder, com or grain of any 
 
 / jid sent to the mill to be 
 
 §r d. 
 Mei. t ^od manners. 
 Minnie, mother. 
 Mony, many. 
 Muckle, great, big. 
 
 Na\ not. 
 
 Naething, nothing. 
 Neibor, neighbor. 
 
 Ony, any. 
 
 Or, is often used for ere, before, 
 p. 123. 
 
 Ourie, shivering. 
 Owre, over. 
 
 Paidl't, paddled. 
 
 Parritch, oatmeal boiled in water, 
 
 stirabout. 
 Pattle, a small spade to clean the 
 
 plough. 
 Pleugh, plough. 
 Pow, the head, the skull. 
 Pu', to pull. 
 
 Rair, to roar. Wad rair't, would 
 have roared. 
 
 Rape, a rope. 
 
 Ra ucl e , fe a rless . 
 
 Rax, to stretch. 
 
 Reestit, stood restive. 
 
 Remead, remedy. 
 
 Rig, a ridge. 
 
 Rin, run. 
 
 Ripp, a handful of unthrashed 
 com. 
 
 Riskit, made a noise like the tear- 
 ing of roots. 
 
 Rowe, roll. 
 
 Rung, cudgel. 
 
 Sae, so. 
 Sair, sore. 
 Saugh, the willow. 
 Saumont-coble, salmon fishing- 
 boat. 
 Saut, salt. 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 185 
 
 Sax, six. 
 
 Scai-, a precipitous bank of rock 
 or earth. 
 
 Shaw, show. 
 
 Sic, such. 
 
 Simmer, summer. 
 
 Skeigh, high-mettled, proud, 
 saucy. 
 
 Skriegh, to scream. 
 
 Slee, shy. 
 
 Sleekit, slesk. 
 
 Slypet, slipped. 
 
 Smoor'd, smothered. 
 
 Snaw broo, melted snow. 
 
 Snell, bitter, biting. 
 
 Snoov't, vient smoothly. 
 
 Sonsie, jolly, comely. 
 
 Sowpe, a small quantity of any- 
 thing liquid. 
 
 Spate, a sioeeping torrent after a 
 rain or thaw. 
 
 Spean, to wean. 
 
 Spence, the count?']/ parlor. 
 
 Spier, to ask, to inquire. 
 
 Sprat tie, to struggle. 
 
 Spritty, full of speets — tough- 
 rooted plants something like 
 rushes. 
 
 Stacher, stagger, walk un- 
 steadily. 
 
 Staggie, dim. of stag. 
 
 Stane, stone. 
 
 Stank, a pool or pond. 
 
 Stark, strong. 
 
 Staw, did steal. 
 
 Steeve, € /7>ra, compacted. 
 
 Sten't, reared. 
 
 Steyest, steepest. 
 
 Stibble, stubble. 
 
 Stimpart, an eighth part of a 
 
 Winchester bushel. 
 Stoure, dust. 
 Start, struggle. 
 Sugh, a rushing sound. 
 Swank, stately. 
 Swats, ale. 
 Syne, since, then. 
 
 Tawie, that allows itself peace- 
 ably to be handled. 
 
 Tawted, malted, uncombed. 
 
 Tentie, heedful. 
 
 Thegither, together. 
 
 Thole, to suffer, to endure. 
 
 Thowes, thaws. 
 
 Thrave, twenty-four sheavA of 
 corn, including two shocks. 
 
 Timmer, timber. 
 
 Tint, lost. 
 
 Tips, rams. 
 
 Tocher, marriage portion. 
 
 Towmond, a twelvemonth. 
 
 Toyte, to totter. 
 
 Trickie, tricksy. 
 
 Tyke, a vagrant dog. 
 
 Unco, very. 
 
 Uncos, strange things, news of 
 the country-side. 
 
186 
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Wa', a wall. 
 Wad, would. 
 Wanchancie, unlucky. 
 Warld, world. 
 Warst, worst. 
 Wat, wot, know. 
 Wattle, a wand. 
 Waught, a copious drink. 
 Waur, to fight, to defeat. 
 Weel, well. 
 Weet, wet, dew. 
 
 Wha, who. 
 
 Whaizle, to wheeze. 
 
 Wham. whom. 
 
 Willie-waught, a hearty draught. 
 
 Win', wind. 
 
 Wintle, to stagger, to reel. 
 
 Wreeths, drifts. 
 
 Yird, the earth. 
 Yont, b yond. 
 Yowe, ewe. 
 
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