ROBERT BURNS

New Zealand Times, Volume LVIX, Issue 2875, 18 July 1896, Page 1 (Supplement)

ROBERT BURNS

/ Born, 25th January, 1769; Died. 21st July, 1796. THE MAN AND HIS WORK. AN ESSAY IN APPRECIATION. IBY SCRUTATOR.] On Tuesday next, the 21st insfc., one hundred years will have elapsed sine® one of the most famous of Scots, assuredly Scotland’s most famous and popular poet, passed away, and left his countrymen sorrowing deeply over tho untimely end of their gifted brother. The occasion is to bo celebrated in "Wellington by a social gathering, which will take tho form of a supper, at which His Excellency the Governor and several other notables will be present, and at which, over the social board, many eloquent panegyrics will no doubt be paid to the genius and fame of Burns and his poetry. It has occurred to the present writer that a brief analysis of the poet’s character, accompanied incidentally by somo short appreciation of the leading features of his verse, would not be out of place in the literary columns of this journal at such a time as the present. That the writer of the following sketch is a Southron will, no doubt, bo forgiven him by Scotsmen and colonials of Scots descent, for birth is but an accident, and with every branch of the English-speaking race the Ayrshire ploughman’s is tx well and deservedly honoured name. So much by way of preface.

GREAT POETS AND THEIR MESSAGE. In what is in every way an admirable “ Life of Burns,” published in the “ Great Writers ” series, the late Professor Blackie, himself a Scot and a poet, whose memory will long be cherished with pride by his fellow countrymen, declares the true function of the poet to be the “calling back to nature and truth of the spoiled children of convention and affectation.” “ The works of great poets —we do not speak here of mere dressers of pretty fancies—are a real Evangel of Nature to all people who have ears to hear.” “ Such,” continues tho Professor, “ were Homer and Pindar to the Greeks j Horace and Virgil to the Romans ; to the English, Shakespeare and Wordsworth ; to Scotland, Walter Scott and Robert Burns—both largely human, and at the same time, though in very different fashion, characteristically Scotch, and therefore eminently worthy of being hung up prominently in the great gallery of human notabilities.” BURNS' BIRTH AND EDUCATION.

The poetic messenger who, according to Professor Blackie, is sent at intervals to call us back to Nature was, in tho case of Burns, chosen from the lowliest ranks of society. Born near Ayr on January 25th, 1759 (the same year as that or the birth of Schiller, Germany’s greatest and certainly most popular poet), Robert Burns was the son of a gardener who had gradually blossomed into a small farmer. The future poet had to work hard on the farm—at 15 he did a full man’s work—and necessarily his education was somewhat curtailed. In a day when poetry was too much in the hands of the pedantic “schoolmen,” it was a blessing in disguise to Burns that he had but “small Latin and less Greek.” Had he been a fine classical scholar ho might have gone more to classical models and imitated the pedantic and soulless versification which we politely if not truthfully call the “poetry” of the eighteenth century, a poetry in which so much is sacrificed to mere form, and in which Nature and Nature's dictates are too frequently wanting. For Burns, Nature was to be the great teacher and inspirer, and Nature taught this Ayrshire ploughman, this man of lowly birth but Divinely-gifted intellect, to write some of the sweetest, noblest, truest lyrics that the world has known. It must not be inferred, however, that he was ill-educated, simply because he was not versed in the classics. At a very early age he had devoured Shakespeare, and Pope and Allan Ramsay—variety enough here, in all conscience—with equal avidity and relish. , Also, he was well grounded in French, scraps of which frequently crop up in his correspondence. As to his Latin the story goes that to a lady who had asked him whether he had enjoyed the benefit of drill in the language of the Romans, he replied promptly and politely that “ All he knew of Latin was contained in three words. Omnia vincit amor (love is all powerful),” an adage the truth of which it might have been better for tho poet had he put it less into personal exemplification.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND MANNERS.

Burns was one of Nature’s gentlemen. The son of a small farmer, reared in the humblest surroundings, he was never without a certain native dignity. In conversation he shone to great advantage. The Duchess of Gordon declared “it carried her oil her feet,” and as good Sir Walter Scott, who met him at Edinburgh when the poet was in the first flush of fame, and who was himself a young man of sixteen at the time, remarks, “ his conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men, who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without tha least intrusive forwardness.” Both Scott and Professor Josiah Walker describe him as strikingly handsome, Scott “ being particularly struck by his' eyes. They were large and of a cast which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.” When in his later teens. Burns described himself as being the “ most awkward being in the parish,” but he got certain graces at a dancing school, and had in manhood a strikingly easy carriage. Better, perhaps, had it been for him to be less well favoured of face and figure, for these were substantial aids to tpe prosecution of the many amours in vyhieh he indulged and wluoh got him into SUpil tTfiuhlle. Into the actual record of all top short life, the limits of space will prevent me from entering, and, inched, tire main facts are so well known that any recapitulation is needless. It is vfith Tug work that I wish to deal, for in that words are mirrored the principal characteristics of the man. Mr Andrew Lang states the chief impulses tp bo found fn THE POETRY OP BURNS

to ho love, patriotism, satire, pity and enjoyment, The impulse of love, of a strong, passionate, sometimes sensuous love, was, I think all critics are agreed, the chief of those impulses. To ft large extent lija amatory verse was an outcome of his own experiences, "He dearly lov’d the lassos O” Bums sings of “the wisest Man the warl saw,” and in one respect Burns was a most consistent disciple of the great Solomon:—

There’s nought bat care on ev’ry ban’, In ev’ry hour that passes, 0 : What signifies the life o’ man An’ ’twere na for the lasses, 0 1 Green grow the rashes, 01 Green grow the rashes, 0 1 ’ The sweetest hours that e’er X spend Are spent among the lasses, 0 I So he sings in “ Green Grow the Bashes, O!” and he was devoted to this somewhat Epicurean philosophy. How exquisite arc some of his loyp lyrics. Were eyer more bcantjiql lines pemjed thap these tp Mary btorispnS—

Q Mary, at thy windows he. It is the wish'd, the trysted hour ! Those smiles and glances’ let me see, That make the miser's treasure poor. How blythely wad I bide the stoure A weary slave free sun to sun; Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison, * ♦ # * 0 Mary oans’t thou wreck his peace, Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? Or cans’t thou break that heart of his, Whose only faut is loving thee ? If love for love thou wilt na gie At least be pity to me shown; A thought ungentle cannot be Tlie.thought o’ Mary Morison. There is a simple, domestic, peculiarly rustic charm about “ify Ifaiinip Q.” one of his earliest production?, which makes that poarq peculiarly delightful.’ Thera is quite q THeocrjtean strain in the venae— Xba westlin wind blows loud an’- shrill; The night's baith mirk and rainy, o,’ But I’ll get my plaid an' out I’ll steal ’ Ah' owre the hill to Nanie, Q. A charming lass t-hi? same “ Name Q,” as Borns pqintg hay—Iyer face i? fair, h-r heart is true. As'spotless as she's bonis, O; ' The opining gowan, wat wi' dew Nile purer is than Nanis, O. 1 fhe post’s sturdy pride in his lowly aur-

roundings and humble occupation find expression in the two verses— A country lad is my degree An’ few there be that ken me, O, But what care I how few they he, I’m welcome ay to Name, O,

My riches a’e my penny fee, An’ I maun guide it cannie, O ; But warl’a gear ne’er troubles me My thoughts are a’—my Nanie O. To Clarinda, Mrs McLehose, the Edinburgh young lady who at on© time held his heart in passion’s strings he indited some charming verse. Forinstance his “Parting Song ” to the lady contains what is one of the most polished and passionate of the many gems to be found in Burns—- “ the essence of a thousand love tales ” Scott calls it— Had we never loved sae kindly Had we never loved sae blindly Never met or never parted We had ne’er been broken-hearted. There is a fine romantic ring about “ 0 Saw Ye Bonie Lesley— O saw ye bonnie Lesley, As she gaed o’er the border ? She’s gone like Alexander, To spread her conquests further, To see her is to love her, And love but her for ever. For Nature made her what she is And never made auither ! Many Burns’ lovers too swear by the delightful poem the opening verso of which reads— O ! my Luve’s like a red red rose That’s newly sprung in June 0 ! my Luve’a like the melodie That’s sweetly played in June. But at times Burns’ muse led him into describing the more recklessly rapturous side of his love affairs, as witness tho famous “ Rigs o’ Barley,” of which I quote tho first verse and the chorus— It was upon a Lammas night When the corn-rigs are bonie Beneath the moon’s unclouded light 1 held awa to Annie. The time flew by wi’ tentless head Till, ’tween the late and early Wi sma’ persuasion she agreed To see me thro’ the barley. Corn-rigs an’ harley-rigs An’ corn-rigs are bonie I’ll ne’er forget that happy night Amang the rigs wi’ Annie. AMOURS AND REPENTANCE.

I need not retell tho long and not always pleasant story of Burns* amours, suffice it is to say in his excuse that he married her of whoso over trusting love ho had two pledges, the “bonnie” Jean Armour. Although, ns he says, “ She had the handsomest figure, tho sweetest temper, the soundest constitution and the kindest heart in tho country ....

and has the finest wood notes ye over heard,” Jean was not in many ways a fitting life partner for such a man. Whether the more cultured Clarinda would have saved him from the excesses into which he fell at Dumfries, and which hastened his untimely end, may bo doubted, but certain it is that when he saw poor Jean after his return from the gay society of Ediuburgh he was disenchanted. In Paterson’s Life I find a letter to Clarinda in which tho following occurs:—“Now for a little news that will please you. I, this morning, as I came home, called for a certain woman, lam disgusted with her —I cannot endure her.” .... Here was tasteless insipidity, vulgarity of soul and mercenary fawning, there polished good sense, heaven-born genius and the most generous, the most delicate, tho most tender passion. “I have done with her and she with me ” But ho had not “ done with her,” for on March 3 ho writes to a friend, Mr Ainslio, that he was reconciled to Joan, and on August

sth of the same year he and Jean appeared before the session and solemnly confirmed and legalised the previous irregular union. He had now, in familiar phrase “ made his bed ” and was to lie on it, “ for better or for worse,” and he made the best of what he at first considered a bad job. His wife, the " bonnie Jean,” was, he tells us, “a clean limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussey.” "I can,” he adds, “ easily fancy a more agreeable partner for my journey of life, but, upon my honour, I have never seen the individual instance.” HIGHLAND MARY. Burns, like Coleridge, wasa man of moods but bis better side comes atop at times, and there can be no doubt that his passionate attachment to her whom he has celebrated as “ Highland Mary,” was devoid of any merely sensual tinge. His attachment to Mary Campbell, a most sprightly blue-eyed creature of great modesty, and self-respect was, so far as ’I can trace, devoid of any character save that of a generous sentiment, which for once at least appears to have been pure. The story of the solemn pledging of their troth, “standing on each side of a slow running brooklet and holding a Bible between them (as says Professor Bfackie) is a matte* of history, but pot for- Burps was Mary Campbell to bp the bride, for adds Professor Blaokie, “ tho day of this solemn act of devout self-dedication was the last time that Burns saw his Highland Mary.” She died in tho October of the same year in which her faith was pledged to the poet. In the degrading surroundings of vulgar debauch in which all too many of the later hours of hi? life wore to be passed it is possible that Burns may sometimes have thought with poignant heart sorrowing of her to whose sacred memory he penned his ever-memor-able “Mary in Heaven,” in which he recalled in beautiful words the sacred moments of tho romantic betrothal, which cruel Death was destined to mock. That sacred hour can I forget ? Can I forget the hallow’d grave Where hy the winding Ayr we met To live one day of parting love ? Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transport’s past, Thy image at our last embrace Ah 1 little thought we t’was our last. In no other poem than this did Borns bring Nature more ably to his aid—--1 Ayr, gurgling kiss’d his pebbly shore O’erhnng with wild woods, thick’ning green; The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar, Twin’d amorous round the raptur’d Scene, The flowers sprang wanton to be preat

The birds sang love on ev'ry spray Till top, too soon, the glowing west proclaimed the speed of winged day.

Ip nq other poeny in the English language do 1 know of such a truly poetical and more artistically conceived environment to a scene of love. THE POET’S LQYE OE HUMBLE LIFE

is shown to greatest advantage in that most noble of all his poems, “ The Cottar’s Saturday Night.’’ It breathes au atmosphere of purity, of domestic felicity, ot simple piety, such as it would have been well indeed that his pen had more frequently dwelt upon. Noble in its lessons, pathetically simple in its morals, it shows Bums at his beat, at a height to which he was often far from reaching. Th,e touching' beauty of the unaffectiye, simple happiness depicted aq ruling the villager’s humble cob io unexcelled in anything he ever wrote. Well would it have been for him had he lived up to the standard of true piety and morality therein laid down; well would it have been had he himself been true to his own canons of morality with regard to rustic love as when he writes of th,e cottar’s daughter— I But hark I a rap comes gently to tha door, | Jenqy, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells bow a neeborlad cam o’er the moor. To 60 BOTqe crrqiids and co.nvev he*- hame, The ally Moth-r r-p-.i i'-e con-rioas .flume Sparkle in Jenny’s e’r ami flusli her cheek. Wi heart-struck anxious care, inquires bis name, While jenny bafffins is afraid to speak. Weal pleas’d the Mother hears, it’s nae wild, worthless

“ Wild, worthless Rake !” Burns knew 1 well the character, and yet “ rake ” as ! unquestionably ho was—“ a Hawk ” he cills himself in one of his letters—he could call forth in language which has become * historic, the most emphatic indignation on the art of the seducer—la there in human form, that bears a heart— A Wietch ! a Villain I lost to love and truth I That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? Curse on bis perjur’d arts! dissembling smooth ! Are Honour, Virtue, Conscience all exil’d, Is there no Pity, no relenting Ruth Points to the Parents fondling o’er their child Then paints the ruin’d Maid and their distraction wild! MORALITY AND RELIGION. “Tho Cottar’s Saturday Night” is full of beauties, and is marked throughout by a strong note of deep sincerity. Burns , has been accused of insincerity with regard to religion. There is something to be said in support of tho charge, but I take him to have been a man of ever-varying moods, and I can see nothing very extraordinary in tho fact that he who penned “The Cottar’s Saturday Night” was also the author of “Holy Willie’s Prayer” and “The Jolly Beggars.” Cant and hypocrisy he loathed, but although his life was far from blameless, no one knew better than ho that no true happiness can come from ill-doing, and wo never find him jeering at any honest religious thought and custom. It is quite pathetic to read some of his letters, in which ho beats hie breast, as it wore, and calls himself “the most miserable of sinners.” As to that very “light love” in which ho was so frequently indulging, he fully recognised its effects upon the character—*kut, oh 1 it hardens a* within, And petrifies the feeling. But the buoyancy of tho man came uppermost, and although one day we may find him bewailing his moral weakness, the very next—perhaps that same night—he is loving, “not wisely, but too well,”the latest “bonnio lassie” who had captured his vagrant affections, and away to the winds go the all-too-brief repentance and vows of reform. But although he may never have “found religion” at the Kirk, either with Moderates or “ Auld Liohts,” his writings can never be said to be licentious. He was loose in his morals, and, at times, in his verso, but it was amply atoned for by poem after poem in which the Religion of Humanity was set forth, and the simple faith in an Almighty apart from all tho wearisome wranglings of rival sects unmistakably declared. He preached the gospel of kindness, consideration for q others, true charity and benevolence j his verses breathe forth an atmosphere of good deeds by man to his fellow-man. The sneering infidel he sternly reproved —

An Atheist's laugh’s a poor exchange For Deity offended. But ho rightly whips the soured-faced hypocrites of his day with severest, moat scornful satire—

But'l gne mad at their grimaces Their sighin, cantin’ grace-proud faces. Their three mile prayers, and hauf mile graces’ Their raxin conscience Whaae greed, revenge and pride disgraces Wsur nor their nonsense. # # * # God knows I'm not the thing I should be Nor am I even the thing I could be, But twenty times I rather would be

An Atheist clean Than under Gospel colours hid be Just for a screen. And much more to tbo same effect. But no one knew better the comfort of a really humble, trusting belief in true religion than ho who wrote—

0 Thou, Great Governor of all below ! If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee, Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, And still the tumult of the raging sea. With that controlling power assist ev’n me Those treadling, furious passions to confine, For all unfit I feel my powers to be So rule their torrent In th' allowed line ; O, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine! HIS PATRIOTISM. The greatest of all Burns' merits is, in the eyes of his fellow countrymen, his patriotism. With Burns, love of native land was more than a mere enthusiasm, it was an actual religion. Dearly as he loved “the lassies O,” and sweetly and gracefully as he sang their praista, his fullest poetic fervour was poured forth in admiration of and pride in his country. Whether he is depicting in enthralling verse, the beauties of Scotland’s mountains, lakes and streams, or whether ho is cultivating the homely virtues of his countrymen, Burns is always at a white heat of glowing enthusiasm for anght and everything that ia peculiarly and essentially Scottish, One of his favourite hooks in mere boyhood’s days was “The Info of Wallace.” He says “the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgate of life shuts in eternal rest.” And, as Mr .Andrew Bang remarks “ His aim was to do something for puir auld Scotland’s sake,’ 1 and it would be less than loyal if Scotsmen did not regard him with the heartiest affection and admiration,” Homer was not more truly “ the eon of Hellas," as a writer in the Anthology calls him, than Bums was the Sun of Scotland. The whole life of the people, labour, religion, revelry, traditional customs, he illuminated it all, he showed it in its native colours to the world, and he warms it still. How soul-stirring are those verses in which Bruce is depicted 'as addressing his army:— Scots, wha has wi‘ Wallace bled! Scats, wham Bruoe has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed Or to glorious Victoria. * * * ' » Wha will be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward’s grave? Wha sae base as be a slave ! Traitor, coward, turn and fise 1

And the final verse, with its pious prayer in prose —was ever the unto of true patriotism more nobly struck? —

J,:iy the proud Usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty’s in every blow! Forward 1 let us Do—or Die !! So may God ever defend the cause of Truth and Liberty aa he did that day 5 LB* He wrote Jacobite songs, and herein he has been accused of treachery to the people, but his accusers forget that it was purely the romantic side which attracted the poet. He was always on the side of those in distress, whether the village poor or “bonnio Prince Charlie" fleeing for his life. His beautiful pictures of Scottish scenery will surely live as long as his country endures, otherwise were his fellow countrymen the basest of ingrates—which they are not. ‘‘Ye banks and braes and streams around," “ My heart’s in the Highlands,’’'and the charming “Logan Braes,” will be read and admired so long as Scotsmen, can be found—and the Jraco is hard to kill. BURNS THE MAN, Nor will his ardent championship of the poor, of the good old cause—which always, even now, as in Burns’ day, needs fighting for—the cause of Eight against Might, ever fade away from the fond and grateful remembrance of his countrymen. He had faults. Who has not ? But take him all | in all, he was a Man, a Man the like of ; which the world does not often see. Had ; he but written one poem, one alone, that ■ magnificent challenge to pride, that inspir--1 ing, helpful championship of the honest poor. “A Man’s a Man’s for a’that," his name would well be worth the remembering. When we read or hoar of his amours, of his intemperance, of his feelings and follies, let us be charitable and

forget. But never let it bo forgotten that his writings can cheer and hearten the dejected and distressed as no other poems can do, and let all true lovers of bravo Robert Burns try to live up, na ho prayed wo might live up, to the grandest, truest, purest, most honest cause ho over espoused in his noble verse, tho Brotherhood of Man— Then let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a’ that), That Sense and Wonh oVr a’ tho earth Should hear the groe an’ u* that. For a' that and a’ Unit, It’s cornin' yot for a’ that, That man to man, the warld o’er Shall brothers be for a’ that.