ROBERT BURNS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 30, 5 February 1935, Page 8

ROBERT BURNS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—lt is pleasing- to note from "Aequanimeter's" letter that Clan Ronald's shaft went .home' regarding the ignorant misnomer often applied to Robert Burns. In' his efforts to evade this real issue, "Aequanimeter" makes the astonishing statement that "natives of Scotland of average education do not refer to their compatriots as 'Scotchmen' and that they use the adjective Scotch only in relation to whiskyl"

I am afraid that "Aequanimeter" has beten unfortunate in his associates. Does he know who wrote the following' sentence? "No Scotchman of his time was more entirely Scotch than Walter Scott; the good .and .the not so good, which all, Scotchmen inherit, ran through every fibre of him." That sentence was written by.Carlyle.

Sir Walter Scott in his "Autobiography" says: "Every Scotchman has a pedigree.",, Certainly.' Scott generally uses in his verse the'more poetical word "Scottish.", as one speaks of "Scottish r songs" and "Scottish minstrelsy," but 'even the. great critic. Professor John" Stuart Blackie, of Edinburgh University, while using«the above forms, also often writes in his essays "Scotch songs" ar\d the "Scotch language." Thus, in discussing"a poet (Robert Smith) he says "he was of Scotch descent." Robert Burns himself has a poem entitled "To a Scotch Bard," and many of us know the old song "Hurrah for the Thistle, the Bonnie Scotch Thistle." It is unnecessary to multiply examples, which may be found with little difficulty.—l am, etc., STRUAN. (To the Editor;) Sir,—The; correspondence under the above heading has v interested and amused me. ( That must be my excuse for coming in. As your correspondent with the lengthy norn de plume says;■., " What does; it matter if-we call Shakespeare Willie?" Well, yes, or Burns "Bobbie,'1 Milton "Johnnie," and so on. What does it matter? What does anything matter? We may refer to Alfred the Great as "Alf," or to Julius 'Caesar as "Juli." The only ppint worth considering is that it is not seriously'done by cultured people. True it is that Robert. Burns in jest named himself "Robin," and even "Rab," but the person who had so addressed him in company would probably have received.a,severe shock,

After all, familiarity may be overdone. I like that phrase "The late Mr. Burns of Scotland." There is nothing restrictive in "it. ; We may apply it to Homer, Virgil, Dante, or even to Solomon. "The late Mr. Solomon of Judea" would look strange at first, but, no doubt, we would get used to it. The use of names' is just a matter of taste and manners. With "advanced education" wo can get used to anything.— I-'am, etc., . / ' v

d. mclaren.