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ANDPERSON. BURNS AS POET ROBERT the future will decide about Eobert Burns and his What on be them that will works?what great roster of place assigned can and which be finished genius by the slow but geniuses only sure balancing of the centuries with their ample average?I of course cannot tell. But as we know him, from his recorded ut of col terances, and after nearly one century, and its diligence the figure lections, personal songs, letters, anecdotes, presenting of the canny Scotchman in a fullness and detail wonderfully own and the lines his hand, he forms to-day, complete, mainly by in some respects, the most among singers. personality interesting Then there are many things in Burns's poems and character that a repub He was essentially specially endear him to America. have been at home in the Western lican?would United States, and probably become eminent there. He was an average sample of
the
good-natured,
warm-blooded,
proud-spirited,
amative,
ali
man of the de mentive, convivial, young and early-middle-aged cent-born middle classes everywhere and any how. Without the race of which he is a distinct his specimen, poems), (and perhaps and her powerful America could not exist to-day democracy ?could not project with unparalleled historic sway into the future.
in the the peculiar coloring of the era of Burns, Perhaps and civilization, world's history, biography needs always first to It included the times of the '76-83 Bevolution be considered. in of and the French the chaos America, Eevolution, unparalleled in Europe and elsewhere. In every department, development and strange names, some in like stars, some rising, shining some declining?Voltaire, meridian, Kant, Franklin, Washington, so much, mark the era. And while Goethe, Fulton, Napoleon, and of moment, fit for the trumpet of the world's fame, was being
428
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of B. B.'s life and death was little tragi-comedy transacted?that on a in in Scotland ! country by-place going and published Burns's correspondence, collected since generally his death, gives wonderful glints into both the amiable and weak habits, good and (and worse than weak) parts of his portraiture, bad luck, ambition and associations. His letters to Mrs. Dunlop, Mrs. McLehose, Dr. Moore, Eobert (Clarinda,) Mr. Thompson, Miss Peter Hill, Mr. Chalmers, Muir, Margaret Cunningham, and Eobert Graham, Eichard Brown, Mrs. Eiddel, Eobert Ainslie, afford valuable lights and shades to the outline, and with numer ous others, help to a touch here, and fill-in there, of poet and u it is true, of the Genteel Letter There are suspicions, poems. of French with Writer," scraps and words from "the Manual some hollow mouthings. Yet and, in the love-letters, Quotations," on any account lack the letters. A full and true por we wouldn't trait is always what is wanted ; veracity at every hazard. Besides, do not we all see by this time that the story of Burns, even for its own sake, requires the record of the whole and several, with nothing and minutely left out ? Completely told, it fullest explains and He is very almost any life does). perhaps justifies itself?(as close to the earth. He picked up his best words and tunes directly but tells Thompson from the Scotch home-singers, they would not them "Icall "learned simple?you lugs," adding, please his, (T's). idiom As before said, the Scotch them silly." would pronounce in was undoubtedly writes Dr. his happiest hit. 1789, Moore, (Yet " If I were to offer an opinion, it would be that in your to Burns, stanza and future productions you should abandon the Scotch and language of modern English dialect, and adopt the measure " poetry !) of the poet draws on, (January, As the 128th birth-anniversary its vehement with celebrations, club-suppers, 1887), increasing as so O'Connor William and says, letters, speeches, on?(mostly, from people who would not have noticed E. B. at all during his actual life, nor kept his company, or read his verses, on any ac notes to print some lei surely-jotted may be opportune count)?it I take my observation of the Scottish bard I find in my budget. amid the crowded clusters, him as an individual by considering and suggesting of the old world?and fairly inquiring galaxies, to too he out of those what us, to the Western maybe myriads so fully bequeaths on no record first In the poet Eepublic. place
ROBERT
BURNS
AS POET
AND
PERSON.
429
nor illustrates more pointedly how his own personal magnetism,* one's verses, by time and reading, can so curiously fuse with the versifier's own life and death, and give light and shade to all. I would say a large part of the fascination of Burns's homely, for and future readers, is all current dialect-melodies due, simple, to the poet's personal "errors," the general bleakness of his lot, his ingrained pensiveness, his brief dash into dazzling, tantalizing, in those last years of his evanescent sunshine ; finally culminating in and and sick tabooed his sore, yawed as by con debt, life, being dissatisfied with everything, most of all with tending gales, deeply man ever really higher-spirited himself?high-spirited too?(no I think it a perfectly legitimate part too. than Eobert Burns). At any rate it has come to be an impalpable aroma through which be received. only both the songs and their singer must henceforth a noble spirit in that view-medium of misfortune?of Through and of a squalid and premature low environments, death?we the undoubted view facts, (giving, as we read them now, a sad that Burns's were, before all else, the lyrics kind of pungency,) even it is of illicit loves and carousing intoxication. Perhaps comment and influence re this strange, impalpable post-mortem the zest of ferred to, that gives them their contrast, attraction, their author's after fame. If he had lived steady, fat, moral, com fortable, well-to-do years, on his own grade, (let alone, what of course was out of the question, the ease and velvet and rosewood or Victor Hugo or Longfellow), and copious royalties of Tennyson and respectable, where could have come in and died well-ripened * no man that ever lived?a friend has made the statement?was Probably as Robert so fondly The reason is not Burns. loved, both by men and women, hard to find : he had a real heart of flesh and blood beating in his bosom ; you " hear it throb. Some one said, that if you had shaken could almost hands him his hand would The gods, have burnt yours. with him indeed, made His heart was in the right place ; but nature had a hand in him first. poetical, of poetic diction he did not pile up cantos the mountain ; he plucked daisy of field-mouse feet ; he wrote from its ruined dwelling. hurrying or the pen with And he the plough the same firm, manly grasp.'' was and roil of the women The loved. their affection who gave him simple a long manuscript; of of these were their sympathy make and most would under
He
his
held
such noble worth Chambers stand character that, as Robert says, "their may as a testimony in favor of that of Burns." the foregoing is [As I understand, rare book published from an extremely in Kilmarnock. I find the by M'Kie, whole beautiful in a capital paper on Burns, paragraph by Amelia Barr.]
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of passionate sobbing and remorse which welled forth in Scotland, and soon followed everywhere instantly and generally of his death, races, on the announcement among English-speaking and which, with no sign of stopping, only regulated and veined with flows deeply, widely yet ? fitting appreciation, Dear Eob !manly, witty, fond, friendly, full of weak spots as well as strong ones?essential type of so many thousands?perhaps the average, as just said, of the decent-born young men and the early not only of the British Isles, but America too, North mid-aged, and South, just the same. I think indeed one best part of Burns is the unquestionable existence proof he presents of the perennial among the laboring classes, especially farmers, of the finest latent in their blood. poetic elements (How clear it is to me that the common soil has always been, and is now, thickly strewn with He is well called the Ploughman. just such gems.) "Holding the plough," said his brother Gilbert, "was the favorite situation with Eobert for poetic compositions, and some of his best verses were produced while he was at that exercise." "I must return to in my wonted way, station, and woo my rustic muse my humble at the plough-tail."?1787, He has no to the Earl of Buchan. or of office indeed ideal the the ; poet poet's quite a low and high contracted notion of both : that burst
"
if thou'll but gie me still Fortune! Hale breeks, a scone, an* whiskey gill, An' rowth o' rhyme to rave at will, Tak' a' the rest."
See also his rhymed letters to Eobert Graham, invoking patron " one being dead, now these age ; stronghold," Lord Glencairn, appeals to "Fintra, my other stay," (with, in one letter, a copious In his collected poems there is shower of vituperation generally). no particular unity, nothing that can be called a leading theory, no unmistakable indeed, their very spine or skeleton. Perhaps, " is one charm of his songs : I take up one or an desultoriness " other," he says in a letter to Thompson, just as the bee of the moment
buzzes
in my
bonnet-lug."
in markedly Consonantly with the customs of the time?yet in spirit with Burns's own case, (and not a little painful consistent some features of the bard as it remains on record, as depicting between the nobility existed the relation called patronage himself),
ROBERT
AS POET
BURNS
AND
PERSON.
431
and gentry on one side, and literary people on the other, and gives one of the strongest side-lights to the general coloring of poems It crops out a good deal in Burns's Letters, and even ne and poet. It prob cessitated a certain flunkeyism on occasions, through life. it in its and counte with money helped requirements, (while ably, that life a chafed nance), did as much as any one cause in making and unhappy one, ended by a premature and miserable death. about Burns peculiarly to Yes, there is something acceptable the
human
concrete,
of
points
He
view.
poetizes
work-a-day
ag
as well as labor and life, (whose spirit and sympathies, are same the much and treats fresh, practicalities, everywhere,) ricultural
often
natural
coarse,
occurrences,
loves,
persons,
not
like many
and some old poets in a genteel style of gilt and china, ond or third removes, but in their own born atmosphere, sweat,
unction.
Perhaps
no
one
ever
sang
"lads
and
new
or at sec laughter, lasses"?
the same, too, all ages, all lands? that universal race, mainly down on their own plane, as he has. He exhibits no philosophy is hardly more than parrot-talk? worth mentioning ; his morality of old not bad or deficient, but cheap, shop-worn, the platitudes aunts and uncles to the youngsters and keep your (be good boys noses clean). Only when he gets at Poosie Nansie's, celebrating bouts and the "barley bree," or among tramps, or democratic drinking generally, (" Freedom
and whiskey
gang
thegither,")
we have, in his own unmistakable color and warmth, those inte riors of rake-helly life and tavern fun?the cantabile of jolly beg and groupings of rank glee and brawny gars in highest jinks?lights the best painted of the Dutch amorousness, pictures outvying school,
or
any
school.
By America and her democracy, such a poet, I cannot too often ; but it is best that dis repeat, must be kept in loving remembrance be made. criminations His admirers, (as at those anniversary sup pers, over the "hot Scotch "), will not accept for their favorite any thing less than the highest rank, alongside of Homer, Shakspere, etc. Such, in candor, are not the true friends of the Ayrshire bard, who really needs a different place quite by himself. The Iliad and the Odyssey express courage, craft, full-grown heroism in sit uations of danger, the sense of command and leadership, emula of self-poise, as in kings, and tion, the last and fullest evolution
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even while animal appetites. The Shaksperian compo god-like on of the primary passions, por vertebers and framework sitions, the spirit and letter of the tray, (essentially the same as Homer's), ambitious and arrogant, feudal world, the Norman taller lord, and nobler than common men?with much underplay and gusts of heat and cold, volcanoes and stormy seas. Burns, (and some will say to his credit), attempts none of these themes. He poetizes the humor, riotous blood, sulks, amorous torments, fondness for the tavern and for cheap objective nature, with disgust at the grim of his time and land, of a young farmer and narrow ecclesiasticism on a bleak and hired farm in Scotland, the years and through of the British politics of that time, and under the circumstances of his short personal career as author, from 1783 to 1796. He is and just emerged or emerging from the intuitive and affectionate, shackles of the kirk, from poverty, ignorance, and from his own of which low appetites?(out latter, however, he never extricated It is to be said that amid not a little smoke and gas in himself). his poems, there is in almost every piece a spark of fire, and now He has been applauded as democratic, and then the real afflatus. and with some warrant ;while Shakspere, and with the greatest war or aristocratic, rant, has been called monarchical (which he certainly on of Shakspere, formulated is). But the splendid personalizations are to me far the largest, freest, most heroic, most artistic mould, dearer
as
lessons,
and
more
precious
even
as models
for
Democracy,
than the humdrum The motives of some samples Burns presents. or two of his effusions are certainly discreditable personally?one so. He has, moreover, of them markedly little or no spirituality. This last is his mortal flaw and defect, tried by highest standards. The ideal he never reached, (and yet I think he leads the way to it). and now and then the simplest and sweetest He gives melodies, ones ; but harmonies, oratorios in words, never. (I complications, sense. Blessed be the mem do not speak this in any deprecatory for what he has left us, just Scotchman ory of the warm-hearted as it is !). He likewise did not know himself, in more ways than so one. and free he prided himself Though independent, really and a Jacobite?on in his songs on being a reactionist persistent " cause " of the Stuarts?the weak sentimental adherency to the that ever held a est, thinnest, most faithless, brainless dynasty throne.
Thus,
while Burns
is not at all great
for New-World
study,
in
ROBERT
BURNS
AS POET
AND
PERSON.
433
and the Book of Job are un the sense that Isaiah and iEsehylus not to be mentioned with Shakspere? great?is questionably or our Emerson?he has a hardly even with current Tennyson all and of his niche own, fond, fragrant, quaint and nestling near but built outside the temple of the mighty lodge homely?a of universal art?those and strivers, song through their works gods of harmony and melody and power, to ever show or intimate man's of Keal and Ideal. fusion in himself last, victorious crowning, and precious beyond all singers, high or low? Precious, too,?fit will Burns ever be to the native Scotch, especially to the working classes of North Britain ; so intensely one of them, and so racy of He often apostrophizes Scot the soil, sights, and local customs. or His and would be, enthusiastically is, land, patriotic. country him in a statue.* His aim is declaredly has lately commemorated in youth or His poems were all written to be 'a Rustic Bard.' ; (he was little more than a young man when he young manhood are nearly one His collected works, in giving everything, died). His brightest hit is his use of the Scotch patois, half first-drafts. so full of terms flavored like wild fruit or berries. Then I should make an allowance to Burns which cannot be made for any other even the frequent crudeness, haste, deficiencies, poet. Curiously, and puerilities by no means absent), prove upon the whole (flatness in any comprehensive of his works, not out of keeping collection ' following copy,' every piece, every line accord heroically printed, tremble for such boldness, Other poets might ing to originals. ' c In This odd kind chiel such points hardly mar such rawness. ISTot only are they in consonance with the underlying the rest. spirit of the pieces, but complete the full abandon and veracity of flavor of the Scotch vernacu the farm-fields, and the home-brewed * The Dumfries statue of Robert Burns was unveiled successfully April the occasion been made national in its charac 1881 by Lord Rosebery, having a large procession Before the ceremony, ter. the streets of the town, paraded of that part of Scotland and societies and at all the trades being represented, and ploughmen, of which went the former their dairymen driving The statue is of Sicilian and being accompanied marble. by their maids. It rests on a pedestal as of gray stone five feet high. The poet is represented
the
head
carts
in his left hand a cluster of daisies. sitting easily on an old tree root, holding His face is turned the right shoulder, toward and the eyes gaze into the dis tance. Near by lie a collie dog, a broad bonnet a well-thumbed half covering and a rustic flageolet. costume The is taken from the Nasmyth song-book, which for the features has been followed of the face. portrait,
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lar. in the very neglect, unfinish, (Is there not often something careless nudity, slovenly hiatus, coming from intrinsic genius, and not 'put on,' that secretly pleases the soul more than the wrought and re-wrought the polish of the most perfect verse ?) Mark names and in untranslatable of native the his very spice twang for
songs?"0
ane
and
twenty,
Tarn,"
"John
Barleycorn,"
"Last May a braw Wooer," "Eattlin roarin Willie," "0 wert thou in the cauld, cauld blast," "Gude e'en to you, Kimmer," "0 "Merry hae I been teething a Heckle," lay thy loof in mine, lass,"
and
others.
longer and more elaborated poems of Burns are just such please a natural but homely taste, and cute but average " Twa Dogs," (one intellect, andar? inimitable in their way. The of the best), with the conversation between Cesar and Luath, the "Tarn O'Shan "Brigs of Ayr," "the Cotter's Saturday Night," will be long read and re-read and admired, and ever ter"?all deserve to be. With nothing profound in any of them, what there is of moral and plot has an inimitably fresh and racy flavor. If it came to question, Literature could well afford to send adrift many a pretensive poem, and even book of poems, before it could spare these compositions. indeed was there truer utterance Never in a certain range of a than by this poet. idiosyncrasy piece of his, large or Hardly " and raciness. He puts in cantering rhyme, small, but has "snap (often doggerel), much cutting irony and idiomatic ear-cuffing of the kirk-deacons?dryly addresses to his cronies, (he good-natured were not if would he here this moment, from stop us, certainly "to that De'il" the and her Mailie among them)?"to classing a "to "to auld Mare Lambs," Mouse," Maggie," The
as would
"Wee,
"to
a Mountain
sleekit,
cowrin,
tim'rous
beastie:"
"to a Louse," "to the Daisy," "to a Haggis," etc.?and to his brother bards and lady occasionally patrons, often with strokes of tenderest sensibility, offener idiopathic humor, and genuine poetic imagination?still of wit, home-spun with steel-flashes shrewd, original, sheeny, the basis of sense, or lance-blade puncturing. Then, strangely, Burns's was hypochon character, with all its fun and manliness, " " Man was dria, the blues, palpable enough in Despondency," made to Mourn," to Euin," a "Bard's Epitaph," &c. "Address Toothache," or gentleman
ROBERT
BURNS
AS POET
AND
PERSON.
435
elements such deep-down sprout up, in very contrast and utterances of those riant which a superficial reading will paradox, Yet nothing not detect the hidden foundation. is clearer to me behind those pieces?as than the black and desperate background I find his most characteristic, I shall now specify them. Nature's touch and luxuriant color and heat, not in life-blood, masterly "Tarn O'Shanter," "the Cotter's Saturday Night," "Scots who hae," "Highland Mary," "the T*wa' Dogs," and the like, but in "the Jolly Beggars/' of Barley," "Scotch Drink," "the "Rigs to John Willie's and in Rankine," Epistle "Holy Prayer," In etc. these the "Halloween," first, compositions, especially there ismuch indelicacy, (some editions flatly leave it out), but the free and broad and true, and composer reigns alone, with handling You may see and feel the man indirectly in his other is an artist. these I verses, all of them, with more or less life-likeness?but in his own voice, have named last call out pronouncedly From
"I,
Rob,
am here."
in any summing-up of Burns, though so much is to Finally, in of the black marks, and be said way fault-finding, drawing severe literary criticism?(in the present outpouring I doubtless ( rather than allowed free have kept myself full in,' any flow)?after retrospect of his works and life, the "odd kind chiel" remains to my heart and brain as almost the tenderest, manliest, (even if con dearest flesh-and-blood tradictory), figure in all the streams and clusters of by-gone poets. Walt
Whitman.