A BURNS STATUE.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17295, 5 November 1921, Page 9

A BURNS STATUE.

t SOME NOTES BY A MERE SASSENACH. IgfMUUn WBITTBN TOR "THE PBXSS.") (By CYRANO.) Tf an educated Englishman iras told that a statue of a poet had been erecteTin Auckland, New Zealand, he would have little difficulty in guessing the name of tl» P«*. There " °™ ZT he ffould reflect, whom British oeop'e far and near honour in this way. Shakespeare is the most glorious flower of the rase, but how many monuments to him are there in the British Lmpire" How often have the Irish so ■ honoured Tom Moore? I do not suppose that outside Britain there is a ainsle British monument to Keats, / / KhJLeV Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, or B?oW But Burns is different. There are now tnree Burns statues m Np W Zealand alone—m JDunedin, 1 imam, and Auckland; the third is to oe unveiled to-day. There are probably in-the UiigiWi-spoakmg wond more presentments of Burns in marble and In bronze than there are statues of ad other British poets put A\ hy t l'o answer this question i>erhaps you need to be a Soot—or pernaps you do not If you are a Scot you will approach your subject with the greater enthusiasm; if a Sassenach, with a more critical eye. 1 am sufficiently .ar from being Scottish as to appreciate fully the story that the. Irish invented the bagpipes, and seeing the joke, pushed them over to the Scots. Why a it that Burns is, judged by the outward and visib.e signs of appreciation, the most popular of British poets? Why are there so many Bums' blubs and "niohts wi* Burns?" (Is that the right spelling?) Why does a Scot become moist-eyed and loudly sentimental when he talks of Burns, whereas an Englishman can discuss Tennyson calm and dry-eyed? For one reason, I think, because tlie Scots are a smaller nation than the English ("Kameradl"— I mean smaller numerically), and local patriotism tends to develop in inverse ratio 'to sire. The Englishman loves England, but ne does not become excited in hi* affection. Burns is of the very soil of Scotland. His verses have not only the tang of Scottish speech, but the scents of Scottish life. No poems that were ever written smack less of the study and more of the soil. They are ihe authentic inspiration of natural genius—a genius that takes its subject from the common life about it, be this mottse or daisy or cottage kitchen. Burns, too, had tremendous vitality. He could write' with infinite tenderness, but he always wrote either with great power or-with a suggestion of latent strength; /I am told that to be able to sing pianissimo really well, o'singer must be able to sing fortissimo. Burns had this double gift.' He was "the.young mnn from the country." frosh. virile, piercingly direct. *" "The eye of Bums," says' a critic, "is ; almost terrible for its calm and cool insight. About his expression there is a Japonic pith and racy vigour which v- strikes'to. the' very marrow of the popular understanding. . .'.-'He .seems'to . be,able to speak so much plainer than the scholar can, without losing a scholar's precision, so unerring in Mb s- eye, so.keen is his verbal dexterity." (hie of Burns's great services to his country was that he completed the. begun by lesser men, of rescuing * the speech-of the people from literary oblivion. Before the tune of Burns and his forerunners the vernacular had. - fallen into disuse, and literary men had come to write in English. The results of that rescue are written large in literature, from Bums himself to our own Kailyard school, but I am one of those who find themselves at a disadvantage in enjoying the fruits of victory. We. cannot wholly enjoy dialect poetry. Pure English is the accepted medium of British literature, Arid.those unfamiliar with it find that dialect gives to; poetry and .prose' a foreign savour. The need of a glossary is a handicap to the even flow, of understanding" and imagination! Mr A. C. Benson has said of- Meredith that a novel should be a pleasant notan obstacle race, and the comparison has ite application to Burns. Undoubtedly, however, Burns sained far more than he lost by his choice of a medium. So much has been said of the merits of a poet that it is well nigh impossible tp say anything new. It is best on such ' an- occasion to; quote freely from bett*r*men. Years ago I was struck, in reading Mr Chesterton's admirable volume of Browning; by a penetrating comparison that this truly great critic i ' niakes between two schools of poetry. U- jou turn to pages 156 and 167 of "The Golden Treasury." you will find, ■\ side by side, Goldsmith's famous "When Lovely Woman Btoops to Folly," and beside it, Burns's still more famous "Ye • Banks and Braes o' Bonnie ,Doon." ': ffiVe- you ever noticed, the - world of pfference between the two treatments ofrthe same subject? Goldsmith's is 'S hut.it dote not move you. - r Burns's version goes right; to the heart, v puts it, "the juxtaposi--tftfn represents one vast revolution in "-«itfe poetical s manner of looking at ':'wnn.'" ' Goldsmith's words,; he savs. -£?"spbken about a certain situation,-' «*'-Burns's are spoken "in that tarnation." "Goldsmith writes an essay ; VoiC a trusting and. deserted woman.. :'■ Burns is that-woman, and here you have pressed most of the huge difference Sweeh i two schools of poetry. In " *3fr, Banks and Braes" you nave one of first noteß of the marvellous '.- itpiantio movement. How wonderful it is»that this.revolution should have been Veneered by "a peasant, born in a cottage that no sanitary inspector in tltese days would tolerate for a mo- .. ianjtiit';struggling; with desperate effort : 'against •pauperism, almost in _vain; ■ snatching at scraps of learning in the of, toil, as it were with his teeth: a heavy, Bilent lad. proud of"his ploughing. All of a sudden, without preface or warning, he breaks out ' mto' exquisite song, like a nightingale / feMi 4 brushwood, and continues.singihe. as sweetly—with. nightingale , he dies." ••" ""He ia a great poet, but not amongst titer very greatest. He ranks below ' Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, . geite, Shelley, Tennyson) and Browning. This, of course, is a matter of osinion.. If I were given the choice between being deprived of Burns or Tennyson, 1 would sacrifice < Burns, But las appeal to men is of avkind different from, that of any of these giants. His songs are not so ttagical as some of Shakespeare's, but S"*«td Jjgag Syne," to say nothing of My Love's Like a Red, Red Rose" others have moved, more hearts -••0. Mistress Mine." Many, of Tennyson 8 crystallisations of sentiment have passed into the language, but tstte of his utterances have the simple, Uthripet-tongued notes of "A Man a a for a' that 1" How many armies his it been worth in the fight for democracy? He bears, 'as Lorn Rosebery . mb well said, "the banner of the essen- ; tiki' equality of man," and it is partly | because he is such a standard-bearer . tHt his birthday is celebrated:."more ; Uhrversany than that of any human bring** and) that ne "reigns-over a < gteaer dominion than any empire that i > de .world-; has ever seen." To-day, in ; '»■ Auckland, his effigygravenby a skilled '. 1 hand,, will look over a fair scene in a : land of whose very existence he was i gabably ignorant. There he is, in his '< _bit as he lived, with plough and pen- ' i CM, symbols of his craft, his origin, and ! his intense, human sympathy. These < ire also'proofs that the magnificent doctrine of equality that he preached has its inexorable limitations, for genius "blows where it listeth, and setß one i nan above another by a distance greater far than the differences of wealth *n«i station. i