sullied his brighter qualifications interpose, let him remember at the same time the imperfection of all human excellence; and leave those inconsistencies which alternately exalted his nature to the seraph, and sunk it again into the man, to the tribunal which alone can investigate the labyrinths of the human heart 'Where they alike in trembling hope repose; The bosom of his father, and his God." GRAY'S ELEGY. "ANNANDALE, Aug. 7, 1796.” AFTER this account of the life and personal character of Burns, it may be expected that some inquiry should be made into his literary merits. It will not however be necessary to enter very minutely into this investigation. If fiction be, as some suppose, the soul of poetry, no one had ever less pretensions to the name of poet than Burns. Though he has displayed great powers of imagination, yet the subjects on which he has written, are seldom, if ever, imaginary; his poems, as well as his letters, may be considered as the effusions of his sensibility, and the transcript of his own musings on the real incidents of his humble life. If we add, that they also contain most happy delineations of the characters, manners, and scenery that presented themselves to his observation, we shall include almost all the subjects of his muse. His writings may therefore be regarded as affording a great part of the data on which our account of his personal character has been founded; and most of the observations we have applied to the man, are applicable, with little variation, to the poet. The impression of his birth, and of his original station in life, was not more evident on his form and manners, than on his poetical productions. The incidents which form the subjects of his poems, though some of them highly interesting, and susceptible of poetical imagery, are incidents in the life of a peasant who takes no pains to disguise the lowliness of his condition, or to throw into shade the circumstances attending it, which more feeble or more artificial minds would have endeavoured to conceal. The same rudeness and inattention appears in the formation of his rhymes, which are frequently incorrect, while the measure in which many of the poems are written has little of the pomp or harmony of modern versification, and is indeed, to an English ear, strange and uncouth. The greater part of his earlier poems are written in the dialect of his country, which is obscure, if not unintelligible to Englishmen, and which, though it still adheres more or less to the speech of almost every Scotchman, all the polite and the ambitious are now endeavouring to banish from their tongues as well as their writings. The use of it in composition na turally therefore calls up ideas of vulgarity in the mind. These singularities are increased by the character of the poet, who delights to express himself with a simplicity that approaches to nakedness, and with an unmeasured energy that often alarms delicacy, and sometimes offends taste. Hence, in approaching him, the first impression is perhaps repulsive: there is an air of coarseness about him, which is difficultly reconciled with our established notions of poetical excellence. As the reader, however, becomes better acquainted with the poet, the effects of his peculiarities lessen. He perceives in his poems, even on the lowest subjects, expressions of sentiment, and delineations of mar.ners, which are highly interesting. The scenery he describes is evidently taken from real life; the characters he introduces, and the incidents he relates, have the impression of nature and truth. His humour, though wild and un bridled, is irresistibly amusing, and is sometimes heightened in its effects by the introduction of emotions of tenderness, with which genuine humour so happily unites. Nor is this the extent of his power. The reader, as he examines farther, discovers that the poet is not confined to the descriptive, the humorous, or the pathetic: he is found, as occasion offers, to rise with ease into the terrible and the sublime. Every where he appears devcid of artifice, performing what he attempts with little apparent effort; and impressing on the offspring of his fancy the stamp of his understanding. The reader, capable of forming a just estimate of poetical talents, discovers in these circumstances marks of uncommon genius, and is willing to investigate more minutely its nature and its claim to originality. This last point we shall examine first. That Burns had not the advantages of a classical education, or of any degree of acquaintance with the Greek or Roman writers in their original dress, has appeared in the history of his life. He acquired, indeed, some knowledge of the French language, but it does not appear that he was ever much conversant in French literature, nor is there any evidence of his having derived any of his poetical stories from that source. With the English classics he became well acquainted in the course of his life, and the effects of this acquaintance are observable in his latter productions; but the character and style of his poetry were formed very early, and the model which he followed, in as far as he can be said to have had one, is to be sought for in the works of the poets who have written in the Scottish dialect-in the works of such of them more especially, as are familiar to the peasantry of Scotland. Some observations on these may form a proper introduction to a more particular examination of the poetry of Burns. The studies of the editor in this direction are indeed very recent and very imperfect. It would have been imprudent for him to have entered on this subject at all, but for the kindness of Mr | Ramsay of Ochtertyre, whose assistance he is proud to acknowledge, and to whom the reader must ascribe whatever is of any value in the following imperfect sketch of literary compositions in the Scottish idiom. It is a circumstance not a little curious, and which does not seem to be satisfactorily explained, that in the thirteenth century, the language of the two British nations, if at all different, differed only in dialect, the Gaelic in the one, like the Welch and Armoric in the other, being confined to the mountainous districts. The English under the Edwards, and the Scots under Wallace and Bruce, spoke the same language. We may observe also, that in Scotland the history ascends to a period nearly as remote as in England. Barbour and Blind Harry, James the First, Dunbar, Douglas, and Lindsay, who lived in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, were coeval with the fathers of poetry in England; and in the opinion of Mr Wharton, not inferior to them in genius or in composition. Though the language of the two countries gradually deviated from each other during this period, yet the difference on the whole was not considerable; nor perhaps greater than between the different dialects of the different parts of England in our own time. At the death of James the Fifth, in 1542, the language of Scotland was in a flourishing condition, wanting only writers in prose equal to those in verse. Two circumstances, propitious on the whole, operated to prevent this. The first was the passion of the Scots for composition in Latin; and the second, the accession of James the Sixth to the English throne. It may easily be imagined, that if Buchanan had devoted his admirable talents, even in part, to the cultivation of his native tongue, as was done by the revivers of letters in Italy, he would have left compositions in that language which might have excited other men of genius to have followed his example, t and given duration to the language itself. The union of the two crowns in the person of James, overthrew all reasonable expectation of this kind. That monarch, seated on the English throne, would no longer be addressed in the rude dialect in which the Scottish clergy had so often insulted his dignity. He encouraged Latin or English only, both of which he prided himself on writing with purity, though he himself never could acquire the English pronunciation, but spoke with a Scottish idiom and intonation to the last. Scotsmen of talents declined writing in their native language, which they knew was not acceptable to their learned and pedantic monarch; and at a time when national prejudice and enmity * Historical Essays on Scottish Song, p. 20, by Mr Ritson. te. g. The Authors of the Delicia Poetarum Scotorum, &c. prevailed to a great degree, they disdained to study the niceties of the English tongue, though of so much easier acquisition than a dead language. Lord Stirling and Drummond of Hawthornden, the only Scotsmen who wrote poetry in those times, were exceptions. They studied the language of England, and composed in it with precision and elegance. They were how ver the last of their countrymen who deserved to be considered as poets in that century. The muses of Scotland sunk into silence, and did not again raise their voices for a period of eighty years. To what causes are we to attribute this extreme depression among a people comparatively learned, enterprising, and ingenious? Shall we impute it to the fanaticism of the covenanters, or to the tyranny of the house of Stuart after their restoration to the throne? Doubtless these causes operated, but they seem unequal to account for the effect. In England, similar distractions and oppressions took place, yet poetry flourished there in a remarkable degree. During this period, Cowley, and Waller, and Dryden sung, and Milton_raised his strain of unparalleled grandeur. To the causes already mentioned, another must be added, in accounting for the torpor of Scottish literature-the want of a proper vehicle for men of genius to employ. The civil wars had frightened away the Latin muses, and no standard had been established of the Scottish tongue, which was deviating still farther from the pure English idiom. The revival of literature in Scotland may be dated from the establishment of the union, or rather from the extinction of the rebellion in 1715. The nations being finally incorporated, it was clearly seen that their tongues must in the end incorporate also; or rather indeed that the Scottish language must degenerate into a provincial idiom, to be avoided by those who would aim at distinction in letters, or rise to eminence in the united legislature. Soon after this, a band of men of genius appeared, who studied the English classics, and imitated their beauties, in the same manner as they studied the classics of Greece and Rome. They had admirable models of composition lately presented to them by the writers of the reign of Queen Anne; particularly in the periodical papers published by Steele, Addison, and their associated friends, which circulated widely through Scotland, and diffused every where a taste for purity of style and sentiment, and for critical disquisition. At length, the Scottish writers succeeded in English composition, and a union was formed of the literary talents, as well as of the legislatures of the two nations. On this occasion the poets took the lead. While Henry Home, Dr Wallace, and their learned associates, were only laying in their intellectual stores, and studying to clear themselves of their Scot * Lord Kaims. It seems indeed probable, that the establishment of the parochial schools produced effects on the rural muse of Scotland also, which have not hitherto been suspected, and which, though less splendid in their nature, are not however to be regarded as trivial, whether we consider the happiness or the morals of the people. The tish idioms, Thomson, Mallet, and Hamilton songs," says Ramsay of Ochtertyre," recourse of Bangour, had made their appearance before may be had to conjecture. One would be the public, and been enrolled on the list of disposed to think, that the most beautiful of English poets. The writers in prose follow-the Scottish tunes were clothed with new ed a numerous and powerful band, and words after the union of the crowns. poured their ample stores into the general inhabitants of the borders, who had formerly stream of British literature. Scotland pos- been warriors from choice, and husbandmen sessed her four universities before the acces- from necessity, either quitted the country, or sion of James to the English throne. Im- were transformed into real shepherds, easy in mediately before the union, she acquired her their circumstances, and satisfied with their parochial schools. These establishments com- lot. Some sparks of that spirit of chivalry bining happily together, made the elements of for which they are celebrated by Froissart, reknowledge of easy acquisition, and presented mained sufficient to inspire elevation of sentia direct path, by which the ardent student ment and gallantry towards the fair sex. The might be carried along into the recesses of familiarity and kindness which had long subscience or learning. As civil broils ceased, sisted between the gentry and the peasantry, and faction and prejudice gradually died away, could not all at once be obliterated, and this a wider field was opened to literary ambition, connexion tended to sweeten rural life. In and the influence of the Scottish institutions this state of innocence, ease, and tranquillity for instruction, on the productions of the press, of mind, the love of poetry and music would became more and more apparent. still maintain its ground, though it would naturally assume a form congenial to the more peaceful state of society. The minstrels, whose metrical tales used once to rouse the borderers like the trumpet's sound, had been, by an order of the Legislature (1579), classed with rogues and vagabonds, and attempted to be suppressed. Knox and his disciples influenced the Scottish parliament, but contended in vain with her rural muse. Amidst our Arcadian vales, probably on the banks of the Tweed, or some of its tributary streams, one or more original geniuses may have arisen who were destined to give a new turn to the taste of their countrymen. They would see that the events and pursuits which chequer private life were the proper subjects for popular poetry. Love, which had formerly held a divided sway with glory and ambition, became now the master-passion of the soul. To portray in lively and delicate colours, though with a hasty hand, the hopes and fears that agitate the breast of the love-sick swain, or forlorn maiden, afford ample scope to the rural poet. Love-songs, of which Tibullus himself would not have been ashamed, might be composed by an uneducated rustic with a slight tincture of letters; or if in these songs the character of the rustic be sometimes assumed, the truth of character, and the language of nature, are preserved. With unaffected simplicity and tenderness, topics are urged, most likely to soften the heart of a cruel and coy mistress, or to regain a fickle lover. Even in such as are of a melancholy cast, a ray of hope breaks through, and dispels the deep and settled gloom which characterizes the sweetest of the Highland luinags, or vocal airs. Nor are these songs all plaintive; many of them are lively and humorous, and some appear to us coarse and indelicate. They seem, however, genuine descriptions of the manners of an energetic and sequestered people in their hours of mirth and festivity, though in their portraits some objects are brought into open view, which more fastidious painters would have thrown into shade." There is some reason to believe, that the original inhabitants of the British isles possessed a peculiar and interesting species of music, which being banished from the plains by the successive invasions of the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, was preserved with the native race, in the wilds of Ireland and in the mountains of Scotland and Wales. The Irish, the Scottish, and the Welsh music, differ indeed from each other, but the difference may be considered as in dialect only, and probably produced by the influence of time, like the different dialects of their common language. If this conjecture be true, the Scottish music must be more immediately of a Highland origin, and the Lowland tunes, though now of a character somewhat distinct, inust have descended from the mountains in remote ages. Whatever credit may be given to conjectures, evidently involved in great uncertainty, there can be no doubt that the Scottish peasantry have been long in possession of a number of songs and ballads composed in their native dialect, and sung to their native music. The subjects of these compositions were such as most interested the simple inhabitants, and in the succession of time varied probably as the condition of society varied. During the separation and the hostility of the two nations, these songs and ballads, as far as our imperfect documents enable us to judge, were chiefly warlike; such as the Huntis of Cheviot, and the Battle of Harlaw. After the union of the two crowns, when a certain degree of peace and tranquillity took place, the rural muse of Scotland breathed in softer accents." In the want of real evidence respecting the history of our "As those rural poets sung for amusement, F not for gain, their effusions seldom exceeded a | shown to the inquiring traveller.* He was the love-song, or a ballad of satire or humour, son of a peasant, and probably received such which, like the words of the elder minstrels, instruction as his parish-school bestowed, and were seldom committed to writing, but trea- the poverty of his parents admitted.† Ramsay sured up in the memory of their friends and made his appearance in Edinburgh, in the beneighbours. Neither known to the learned ginning of the present century, in the humble nor patronized by the great, these rustic bards character of an apprentice to a barber; he was lived and died in obscurity; and by a strange then fourteen or fifteen years of age. By defatality, their story, and even their very names grees he acquired notice for his social disposihave been forgotten. When proper models tion, and his talent for the composition of for pastoral songs were produced, there would verses in the Scottish idiom; and, changing be no want of imitators. To succeed in this his profession for that of a bookseller, he bespecies of composition, soundness of under-came intimate with many of the literary, as standing and sensibility of heart were more re-well as the gay and fashionable characters of quisite than flights of imagination or pomp of his time. Having published a volume of numbers. Great changes have certainly taken poems of his own in 1721, which was favourplace in Scottish song-writing, though we can- ably received, he undertook to make a collecnot trace the steps of this change; and few of tion of ancient Scottish poems, under the title the pieces admired in Queen Mary's time are of the Ever-Green, and was afterwards encour now to be discovered in modern collections. aged to present to the world a collection of It is possible, though not probable, that the Scottish songs. "From what sources he promusic may have remained nearly the same, cured them," says Ramsay of Ochtertyre, though the words to the tunes were entirely "whether from tradition or manuscript, is unnew-modelled."t certain. As in the Ever-Green he made some rash attempts to improve on the originals of his ancient poems, he probably used still greater freedom with the songs and ballads. The truth cannot, however, be known on this point, till manuscripts of the songs printed by him, more ancient than the present century, shall be produced, or access be obtained to his own papers, if they are still in existence. To several tunes which either wanted words, or had words that were improper, or imperfect, he or his friends adapted verses worthy of the melodies they accompanied, worthy indeed of the golden age. These verses were perfectly intelligible to every rustic, yet justly admired by persons of taste, who regarded them as the genuine offspring of the pastoral muse. In some respects Ramsay had advantages not possessed by poets writing in the Scottish dialect in our days. Songs in the dialect of Cumberland or Lancashire, could never be popular, because these dialects have never been spoken by persons of fashion. But till the middle of the present century, every Scotsman, from the peer to the peasant, spoke a truly Doric language. It is true the English moralists and poets were by this time read by every person of condition, and considered as the standards for polite composition. But, as national prejudices were still These conjectures are highly ingenious. It cannot, however, be presumed, that the state of ease and tranquillity described by Mr Ramsay took place among the Scottish peasantry immediately on the union of the crowns, or indeed during the greater part of the seventeenth century. The Scottish nation, through all ranks, was deeply agitated by the civil wars, and the religious persecutions which succeeded each other in that disastrous period; it was not till after the revolution in 1688, and the subsequent establishment of their beloved form of church government, that the peasantry of the Lowlands enjoyed comparative repose; and it is since that period that a great number of the most admired Scottish songs have been produced, though the tunes to which they are sung, are in general of much greater antiquity. It is not unreasonable to suppose, that the peace and security derived from the Revolution, and the Union, produced a favourable change on the rustic poetry of Scotland; and it can scarcely be doubted, that the institution of parish schools in 1696, by which a certain degree of instruction was diffused universally among the peasantry, contributed to this happy effect. Soon after this appeared Allan Ramsay, the Scottish Theocritus. He was born on the high mountains that divide Clydesdale and Annandale, in a small hamlet by the banks of Glengonar, a stream which descends into the Clyde. The ruins of this hamlet are still In the Pepys collection, there are a few Scottish songs of the last century, but the names of the authors are not preserved. + Extract of a letter from Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre to the Editor, Sept 11, 1799. In the Bee, Vol. II. p. 201, is a communication of Mr Ramsay, under the signa ture of J. Runcole, which enters into this subject somewhat more at large. In that paper he gives his reasons for questioning the antiquity of many of the celebrated Scottish Songs. *See Campbell's History of Poetry in Scotland, p. 185. +The father of Mr Ramsay was, it is said, a workman in the lead-mines of the Earl of Hopetoun, at Lead-hills. The workmen at those mines at present are of a very superior character to miners in general. They have only six hours of labour in the day, and have time for reading. They have a common library supported by contribution, containing several thousand volumes. When this was instituted I have not learned. These miners are said to be of a very sober and moral character. Allan Ramsay, when very young, is supposed to have been a washer of ore in these mines. "He was coeval with Joseph Mitchell, and his club of small wits, who, about 1719, published a very poor miscellany, to which Dr Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, prefixed a copy of verses." Extract of a letter from Mr Ramsay of Öchtertyre to the Editor. strong, the busy, the learned, the gay, and the vailed for the national songs and music. "For fair continued to speak their native dialect, and many years," says Mr Ramsay, "the singing of that with an elegance and poignancy of which songs was the great delight of the higher and Scotsmen of the present day can have no just middle order of the people, as well as of the notion. I am old enough to have conversed peasantry; and though a taste for Italian music with Mr Spittal, of Leuchat, a scholar and a has interfered with this amusement, it is still man of fashion, who survived all the members very prevalent. Between forty and fifty years of the Union Parliament, in which he had a ago, the common people were not only exceedseat. His pronunciation and phraseology dif-ingly fond of songs and ballads, but of metrical fered as much from the common dialect, as the history. Often have I, in my cheerful morn language of St James's from that of Thames of youth, listened to them with delight, when Street. Had we retained a court and parlia- reading or reciting the exploits of Wallace and ment of our own, the tongues of the two sister Bruce against the Southrons. Lord Hailes kingdoms would indeed have differed like the was wont to call Blind Harry their Bible, he Castilian and Portuguese; but each would being their great favourite next the Scriptures. have its own classics, not in a single branch, When, therefore, one in the vale of life felt the but in the whole circle of literature. first emotion of genius, he wanted not models sui generis. But though the seeds of poetry were scattered with a plentiful hand among the Scottish peasantry, the product was probably like that of pears and apples-of a thousand that sprung up, nine hundred and fifty are so bad as to set the teeth on edge; forty-five or more are passable and useful; and the rest of an exquisite flavour. Allan Ramsay and Burns are wildings of this last description. They had the example of the elder Scottish poets; they were not without the aid of the best English writers; and, what was of still more importance, they were no strangers to the book of nature, and to the book of God." "Ramsay associated with the men of wit and fashion of his day, and several of them attempted to write poetry in his manner. Persons too idle or too dissipated to think of compositions that required much exertion, succeeded very happily in making tender sonnets to favourite tunes in compliment to their mistresses, and transforming themselves into impassioned shepherds, caught the language of the characters they assumed. Thus, about the year 1731, Robert Crawfurd of Auchinames, wrote the modern song of Tweedside, which has been so much admired. In 1743, Sir Gilbert Elliot, the first of our lawyers who both spoke and wrote English elegantly, composed, in the character of a love-sick swain, a beautiful song, beginning, My sheep I neglected, I lost my sheep-hook, on the marriage of his mistress, Miss Forbes, with Ronald Crawfurd. And about twelve years afterwards, the sister of Sir Gilbert wrote the ancient words to the tune of the Flowers of the Forest, and supposed to allude to the battle of Flowden. In spite of the double rhyme, it is a sweet, and though in some parts allegorical, a natural expression of national sorrow. The more modern words to the same tune, beginning, I have seen the smiling of fortune beguiling, were written long before by Mrs Cockburn, a woman of great wit, who outlived all the first group of literati of the present century, all of whom were very fond of her. I was delighted with her company, though when I saw her, she was very old. Much did she know that is now lost." In addition to these instances of Scottish songs, produced in the earlier part of the present century, may be mentioned the ballad of Hardiknute, by Lady Wardlaw; the ballad of William and Margaret; and the song entitled the Birks of Invermay, by Mallet; the love-song, beginning, For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove, produced by the youthful muse of Thomson; and the exquisite pathetic ballad, the Braes of Yarrow, by Hamilton of Bangour. On the revival of letters in Scotland, subsequent to the Union, a very general taste seems to have pre. Beginning, What beauties does Fora disclose! + Beginning, I have heard a lilting at our ewes-milking. From this general view, it is apparent that Allan Ramsay may be considered as in a great measure the reviver of the rural poetry of his country. His collection of ancient Scottish poems under the name of The Ever-Green, his collection of Scottish songs, and his own poems, the principal of which is the Gentle Shepherd, have been universally read among the peasantry of his country, and have in some degree superseded the adventures of Bruce and Wallace, as recorded by Barbour and Blind Harry. Burns was well acquainted with all of these, He had also before him the poems of Fergusson in the Scottish dialect, which have been produced in our own times, and of which it will be necessary to give a short account. | In the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, See also, Campbell's Introduction to the History of Po etry in Scotland, See p. 288. |