BURNS. CHAPTER X. THE NEW ERA-A RETURN TO NATURE. THE AGE OF BURNS AND COWPER. THE 1784-1800. HE eighteenth century may be divided into three distinct periods-that of Pope, of Johnson, and that of Burns. In the age just ended there was a perceptible dawning of natural vigor, but it was reserved for the next era to show the complete return to nature in the spontaneous outpouring of song. It was reserved for Robert Burns, the "Ayrshire plowman," to break through the hardened soil, impoverished with the sameness of successive crops. Dryden had sowed rhymed couplets and transplanted the classics into British soil. Pope had reaped Dryden's crops and sowed the seeds he had gathered, never varying the rotation, and the product was still rhymed couplets and classic imitations. In the next age Gray tried to engraft into poetry the withered classic branch that Pope bequeathed him, but it would not prosper. Collins, Thomson, and Goldsmith planted some fresh seeds and left the soil of English poesy greener; but the influence of Pope's roller was still keeping the perfect level of the smooth-shaven lawn, and nothing less than a plowshare could break up the hard, unyielding soil, and call back the daisy to the field, the wild birds to their long-deserted woodlands. ROBERT BURNS. This singer had no need to go to ancient Greece or Rome for inspiration. Close at hand he found it. Every flower, every dumb animal around, furnished him a theme. Happy for this plowman, and for the world of poetry, if all of his inspirations had been as innocent as these. Like his great prototype, Chaucer, he was truest to himself and nature when alone with her in open fields, with the pure, fresh air of heaven around him. Near the banks of "bonny Doon" stands the little claybuilt cottage in which ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796) was born. Close by are the ruins of "Alloway's auld haunted kirk," and two miles to the north is the town of Ayr. Perhaps no better description of Burns's home could be given than that which he himself has left us in the Cotter's Saturday Night, when "With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; William Burns, the poet's father, was a man of sterling qualities, ennobling poverty and hardship, and exemplifying his son's brave words, "The honest man, though e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that." To educate his young family was his one ambition. His own education was superior to that of most farmers in his condition, and to him all the family turned for guidance and instruction. In that humble, clay-walled cottage were to be found, not only all the school-books common at that time, and the familiar traditions of Scotland's heroes, but the plays of Shakespeare, the sermons of Jeremy Taylor, Locke on the Human Understanding, Boyle's lectures, Pope's complete works, and last, but not least, the works of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson.* On one * From the reading of these two Scotch poets Burns ascribed the waking of his own muse. "These," said he, "I pored over driving my cart or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true, 'tender or sublime, from affectation and fustian." 1 inquires. 2 strange things. 3 makes. occasion, "some one entering the house at meal-time found the whole family seated each with a spoon in one hand and a book in the other." The thrifty mother had a mind stored with old songs and traditions, which she repeated by the "clean hearthstane," lending cheer to many a winter's night. Like her husband, she was of a deeply religious nature. Robert was the eldest of seven children. Of all these the second brother, Gilbert, seems to have been to the poet the most companionable.* Together they studied their early lessons; together they tilled the unyielding soil. From his eighteenth to his twenty-fifth year Robert Burns labored with his brother as a farm hand, receiving from his father seven pounds a year for his services. His days were full of drudgery; but as soon as the evening came and the farm work was ended, he bade farewell to toil and care, and gave himself up to pleasure-either to penning the verses he had composed while at his farm work, or to the social circle, not always the best. Poetry was Burns's highest enjoyment; but it was not with him a sacred art. He loved it as he loved all things that added to his enjoyment. If he had known of his ultimate triumphs, he might possibly have resisted evil. Finally, discouraged with repeated failures in farming, he was about starting for the West Indies, when a letter from Dr. Blacklock, of Edinburgh, changed the whole current of his existence. The poet had published a volume of poems for the purpose of defraying his expenses to the West Indies, and these meeting the appreciative eye of Dr. Blacklock convinced that gentleman of the rare genius of their author. "His opinion," says Burns, "that I would meet with encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition of my poems, fired me so much that away I posted for that city without a single acquaintance or a single letter of introduction." The whole winter of 1786-'87 in Edinburgh was to Burns a *"Gilbert used to recall with delight the days when they had to go with one or two companions to cut peat for winter fuel, because Robert was sure to enliven their toil with a rattling fire of witty remarks on men and things, mingled with the expres sions of a genial, glowing heart, perfectly free from the taint which he afterwards acquired by contact with the world." succession of brilliant pageantries, with himself the central figure. He was lionized and fêted by the élite, and substantial proof of genuine appreciation was given by liberal subscriptions for a new edition of his poems. The capital of Scotland was at that time the great seat of learning. Dr. Robertson, the historian, was the head of the university, Dugald Stewart was professor of moral philosophy, and Dr. Hugh Blair, who occupied the chair of belles-lettres, was then delivering his celebrated lectures on rhetoric. Adam Smith, though not connected with the university, was in the city at that time, so likewise was the novelist, Henry Mackenzie. At this time Burns had composed The Cotter's Saturday Night, The Twa Dogs, Address to the Deil, The Mountain Daisy, To a Mouse, and many of his descriptive poems, while innumerable rhymed epistles flowed from his pen. His prose letters are as remarkable for their stiffness as his rhymed ones for their ease and fluency. In his prose his thoughts, even, seem constrained, and move as if in straight-jackets! But he says: "Leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure, My chief, amaist my only pleasure, At hame, a-fiel', at wark, at leisure, The Muse, poor hizzie! Though rough an' raploch be her measure, She's seldom lazy." And it was only in his native Scotch dialect that his Muse could revel. With his wife, Jean,* he removed to a new farm at Ellisland, and, for a time, was a happier, better man than he had been since he and his brother used to cut peat together in the bog. But the farm which he had bought was poor; his crops failed, as they always had failed, and, fearing the wolf at his door, he sought employment as an exciseman, and removed to Dumfries. This was the last step towards a downward career. While at Ellisland he composed Tam o' Shanter, To Mary in Heaven, Bonny Doon, and a few short poems. Autumn," he 66 *After making love and writing songs to a score of lasses, he at length married Jean Armour. To posterity he has left one sacred image-that of "Highland Mary." Death sanctified her in the poet's memory and in ours. says. 'is my propitious season. I make more verses in it than in all the year else." When seized with a poetic inspiration he used to wander off by some burn-side, and croon over to himself his thick-coming fancies.* Burns's custom in writing songs was to fit the words to the air, after which he submitted them to his wife's voice, the "sweetest wood-note wild" in the country, he used to say. He also added stanzas to old songs. Auld Lang Syne was an ancient song. As it now stands it is entirely Burns's. Sympathy with the French Revolution, together with the patriotic love of Scotland's heroes, inspired the song of Scots wha ha. The last years of the poet's life were spent at Dumfries, and there is but little that is pleasant to recall of his life there. At war with himself and the world, he sank lower and lower in the esteem of both, trying, alas ! to drown his remorse in maddening pleasures. He cherished a growing dislike to the rich and titled, in whose smiles he once had basked. To name a lord in his presence became an offence. But the spark of genuine manhood still glowed within him, and it is a pleasure to know that only the year before his death he wrote that noblest poem, A Man's a Man for a' that. WILLIAM COWPER. Not to Burns alone does the world of poetry owe its new birth. The age was a period of revolutions in thought of every character. American independence, the struggle for liberty in France, were themes agitating all minds, and opening up a new era to mankind. * His wife describes his moods as she observed them when he composed both Highland Mary and Tam o' Shanter. As the anniversary of Highland Mary's death approached, he was always observed to grow melancholy. It was in October, 1789, that he wrote his song To Mary in Heaven. His wife says of him that, after a day of toil, "When twilight came he grew sad about something, and could not rest. He wandered first up the water-side, and then went into the stack-yard, and then threw himself on some loose sheaves, and lay looking at the sky, and particularly at a large, bright star, which shone like another moon. At last, but that was long after I left him, he came home." The song was then completed. Tam o' Shanter was composed the next year. Mrs. Burns describes his excited appearance as she found him on the banks of the Nith wildly gesticulating, and reciting aloud the verses that came into his mind. "I wish you could have seen him," said she; "he was in such ecstasy, that the tears were happing down his cheeks!" |