THE FAME OF ROBERT BURNS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 5199, 13 February 1904, Page 13

THE FAME OF ROBERT BURNS.

(By R.S.C. in the “Age.”) For now he haunts his native land As an immortal youth ; his Guides very plough; He sits beside each inglonook, His voice is in each rushing brook. Each rustling bough.

That Burns died a ‘'broken” man in the vennel of Dumfries is part of lus unhappy history, but it is also recorded that the squalid gloom of h:s bitter death bod was lit up by the consciousness of his emerging fame. ‘'Don’t bo afraid,” wore tho last confident words. “I’ll be more respected a hundred years after X am dead than I am at present.” And well he might! For he died shunned by all local respectability, of doubtful loyalty to Church and State, and of evil, or, at best, indifferent, reputation in a Soots provincial town. Tho hundred years have passed, and the dying prophecy is as notable for its modesty as for its confidence. He knew bis worth, no man belter; but lie could have had no consciousness whatever of the magnificent revengo of time. If a plebiscite were taken to-day among Jus countrymen to chooso one name among all their great dead to represent and embody to tile world the literary glory of Scotland, while men would! favour this name and that name on good and sufficient grounds, there can bo no doubt tho great mass of the people would return unhesitating tho name of Robert Burns. After a hundred years, the statue which is to ho unveiled in. Melbourne in tho course of a few weeks excites no moro surprise than the statue in Ayr; yet it is at the other end of tho world—tho tribute of a land ho never knew. It expresses a rckpeot of wh-pli he never dreamed: it is a marvellous fulfilment, beyond his proudest hope. His supremo position as representative of his nation is unique in literature. It is curious matter for reflection that a nation which can boast of a Walter Scott has a deeper love for ITS MORE ERRING SON, and expresses it more constantly. In his masterly biography of Burns—itself a centennial tribute to his memory— Henley remarks his “peculiar immortality,” and tho adjective is well chosen. None of the immortals—nob even the consummate Shakespeare—is so literally a living influence as this “peasant of genius,” whose earthly existence was so passion driven and to all outward seeming so deplorable. The entire history of letters, affords no parallel; tho apothesis is remarkable. Burns was least of all men an instance of virtue rewarded. Ha was no Incarnation of copybook maxims. Least of any did ho possess tlie civic and" conventional -respectabilities. What is the secret of his prestige ? How has the unexpected happened? The main explanation after all is simple enough. It lies in the muchquoted and very wise sentiment of another Scotsman, old Flotolior of Sqltoun “Let me make the songs of a people and who will may make the laws.” Burns made tho songs of. Scotland. and Burns has been identified, and is becoming more and moro to ho identified with, Scotland itself. Ho is the incarnation of the Scots idea. And tho idea in its turn has transfigured him. His love of liberty and his broad humanity, which in his lifetime were as unwelcome as they were clamantly necessary, have sweetened the atmosphere of his native country, so that after his death it can ho saicMn the words of Henley that “the Scotland ho loved so well and took such pride in honouring could scarce have been tho Scotland she is had he not been.” The immortality conferred upon him in terms so absolute and to a degree so unexampled is in reality tho acknowledgment of an outstanding account. Tho late Professor Niciiol, of Glasgow, has asserted, in grandiose vein to bo sure, that “Scotland has thrown her shield over the errors of HKR, MOST SPLENDID SON, and, lance in rest, she .dares her very pulpits to dethrone him.” But the pulpits can have no such desire. They owe him too much. Burns has beaten the kirk; sentiment and sensibility have conquered Calvinism. The ministers who have shared tho warmth engendered by Burns have little cause and less inclination to decry its source. The truth of “Holy Willie’s Prayer” was tho sting of it. Tho sting lias been extracted. Peculiar the immortality of Burns may be, but his paramount power over his countryufen is deserved and has been justified. With all his many tributes to the “light heeled Muse” he purified Scots song to an extent beyond belief and manifest only to the student of its earlier history. If his pungent satire could not expunge religious hypocrisy, it brought the breath of a sweater life into kirk-ridden Scotland. It is hard historical fact that Burns led at length to victory that struggle for individual liberty inaugurated by Knox, but by him and his suosuccossors so wantonly betrayed. To rectify THE ERRORS OF KNOX

and lift Scots humanity out of tho slough of clerical tyranny was a hard task. It is tho enduring title of Burns to the world’s regard that ho attempted it. The .Reformation was a dead letter till ho came; for he secured for all what Hume and Hutcheson had secured for the few. He came with a magnificent endowment for the task; but the endowment carried its own defects, so that it seems almost an irony that one so peculiarly open to attack from indignant piety and from that argumentum ad hominom which fills so large a space in theological squabble should ha,ve been destined to so large a fate. The kirk could and did place .him on the ‘‘cutty stool,” but thereby it took its reckoning with the patent defects only. For tho end was not the triumph of the kirk, but “cutty stool” and all, the apothesis of the offender and in far off logical sequence tho purification of the kirk itself —and the statue in Melbourne. This identification with Scotland and tho extent to which ho has been, and must be, credited with the transformation are’ sufficient explanation for his countrymen of that profound homage to his memory which to so many others appears unwarrafJted or inexplicable. With fine instinct his countrymen have pierced, beyond defects to the intrinsic worth.

These Burns statues come, indeed, as triumphant answer to much fruitless moralising on the character of tho national poet of Scotland. Burns has formed the text for many sermons, and these are seldom instructive. His errnrs, so bitterly expiated a long century ago, deserve final interment at this late day. Stevenson, who bad a turn for that sort of thing, and employed 1 himself with depreciating even the great. Scott, gave us his Don Juan Burns ad nauseam. BURNS WAS “ONLY A --PEASANT,” and a certain grade of “society” has

never forgiven him. With the result that tho democratic heart has turned to him all tho moro passionately. Indeed, his errors (all proclaimed hy himself from the house tops) bring him into a cioser kinship with the hulk of humanity. Over tho waste places of life crossed hy the weary feet of saint and sinner alike, are visible the footprints of Robert Borns, and. perhaps, many a man gets h*s last clutch at self-respect from the thought. A century is a hard test for a reputation. Yet tho star of Burns was never more brilliant. His fame is nowhere greater than in America. Almost alone of British literary men he has receive).! tho tributes of tho Empire—not only like all the great dead, by immortal homage, but by explicit recognition in bronze and marble. It would be absurd to reckon him as in any way a greater poet if actually nearly as groat as the splendid singers of England. His influence on intellect has beou insignificant compared to what, under happier auspices, his genius was capable. Properly speaking, there 'are many far greater names in tho splendid roll of British men of letters. E;at as manifestly ho had one quality which was peculiar to himself —a quality of tho heart, to which ho owes his unique place —a broad humanity, which has been the passport to fame, his actual achievement might have denied..“ The heart’s aye the part aye that mak’s us richt or wrung,” played havoc with his earthly life ; hut none the less surely did it point tho certain way to his literary immortality.