Robert Burns was born near Ayr, in 1759, in the yet-venerated claybuilt cottage which his father's hands had constructed. Reared amidst a religious and virtuous household's struggles with poverty and toil, he enjoyed little even of the ordinary education of a Scottish peasant. A smattering of French, a little mathematics, some half dozen English authors, some exercise in local debating clubs, the fire-side religious instruction of his father, the songs of his mother, and the traditional legends of an old female domestic,-these constituted the early intellectual stock in trade of the ploughman poet. From his youth song burst from him incontrollably; "his passions," he himself says, "raged like so many devils," till quenched in the stream of his verse. A nature susceptible, wayward, impetuous, proud, and, even in youth, shadowed with hypochondria, could not give promise of a life of prudence and steadiness. His father had died in embarrassment and distress; a farm leased by Robert and his brother Gilbert was, like the family's former agricultural speculations, totally unsuccessful; this, combined with the consequences of the poet's own indiscretion or criminality, forced him to think of seeking a more propitious fortune in the West Indies. The publication of his poems at Kilmarnock had, however, blown his reputation to Edinburgh. On the point of embarking for Jamaica, he was advised to try what patronage and fame might do for him in the Scottish capital. He was received with unbounded applause by rank and learning; nor was his bearing or his conversation unworthy of the spheres in which he mingled; nobility owned the title of low-born genius to a patent to higher respect than birth can confer; and learning was amazed by the power of the gigantic judgment, the untaught eloquence, and the splendid wit, that enabled the unacademic rustic to cope with her acquirements. The Edinburgh edition of his poems yielded the poet, it is said, nearly L.900. Rescued thus from poverty, he retired to the farm of Elliesland on the Nith in Dumfriesshire, with his wife (formerly Miss Armour-" Bonnie Jean") and her four children. The disadvantages of his farm, added to his own careless management, compelled him in two or three years to throw up his lease, and rely on the prospect of promotion in the excise, in which he had procured a humble situation. The jealousy excited by some parts of his conduct, by former satires on the royal family, and by imprudent political jeux-d'esprit, prevented his advancement. Meanwhile, his health was daily undermined by the dissipation into which he was seduced by his profession, and by the importunities of hundreds who sought him for the charms of his conversation. He died in 1796 at Dumfries, in disease, and in utter poverty, but without one farthing of debt. The sorrow of his country was universal. The mausoleums erected to his memory would have amply "stowed his pantry;" the patronage denied to the unfortunate poet has been generously extended to his family. The physical frame of Burns in his prime corresponded to the massive qualities of his mind; his unaffected semi-farmer dress, his stalwart bearing, his expressive thoughtful face, above all his kindling eye, "such as was never seen in a human head," were in perfect keeping with the lineaments of his genius. The prominent feature of the genius of Burns is its intensity; every object which it envelopes glows in its fire to a white heat; tenderness, patriotism, humour, friendship, love, all are penetrated in its furnace with an immortal brightness. Yet Burns displays little of the spiritualism of the poetic temperament; the character of most of his poetry is best described by the modern term sensuousness. Crabbe has the same attribute in a different sphere of objects, and his genius is invested with a higher and a purer morality. Cowper has the intensity of Burns, but not of the same fervid and impetuous character; he has the benign philosophy of Crabbe, but tinged with more genial and attractive hues. The genius of Burns is the glorified material body of Triptolemus: that of Cowper is the ethereal essence of an angelic nature. In Cowper's muse we miss totally the inspiration of love; while every string of the Scottish poet thrills with its intensest ardours. Among the peculiar attributes of Burns must not be omitted his nationality: his whole heart and soul are essentially Scottish. In farther comparison of the three poets, we add the following short quotation from Mr Hugh Miller :-Cowper's "poetry was in the natural, what Pope's was in the artificial world-of a generic character; whereas theirs (Burns' and Crabbe's) was of a strongly specific cast. The writers who have followed Crabbe and Burns we at once detect as imitators; whereas the writers to whom Cowper furnished the starting note have attained to the dignity of originals. He withdrew their attention from the old models-thoroughly common-placed by reproduction-and sent them out into the fields and the woods to describe new things in fresh language. And thus has he exercised an indirect but potent influence on the thinking and mode of description of poets whose writings furnish little or no trace of his peculiar style and manner. Even in style and manner, however, we discover in his pregnant writings the half-developed germs of after schools." And, presenting some examples of this fact, Mr Miller proceeds: "But it is not form and manner that the restored literature of England mainly owes to Cowper, it is spirit and life; not so much any particular mode of exhibiting nature, as a revival of the habit of looking at it."-First Impressions of England and its People, p. 299. The principal poems of Burns are "The Twa Dogs," "Hallowe'en," "Tam o' Shanter," "The Cottar's Saturday Night," "The Vision," "The Jolly Beggars," epistles, satires, political jeux-d'esprit, &c., and songs, a large portion of which the poet executed gratuitously, as a labour of love, for Johnson's Museum of Scottish Song. He left also an extensive body of correspondence. Among the biographers of Burns are Currie, Lockhart, and Cunningham.1 They're no sae wretched's ane wad think, Their grushie' weans and faithfu' wives; 1 We have avoided, as far as possible, in the life of Burns, touching on the circumstances that have blemished his memory: the controversy respecting the amount of moral blame attached to the poet is too wide a sphere to enter on he has been as warmly defended by pens that command the highest respect, as ever he had been violently condemned. 2 Thick; of thriving growth. Comp. Fr. gros.; Eng. grow. The prattling things are just their pride, And whiles twalpenny1 worth o' nappy As bleak-faced Hallowmas1 returns, Love blinks, wit slaps, and social mirth EDINBURGH CASTLE AND HOLYROOD PALACE There, watching high the least alarms, With awe-struck thought and pitying tears Their royal name low in the dust! Their hapless race wild-wand'ring roam,11 A penny sterling; nappy, ale: adj. tipsy; nap, a cup. Very; unco, adj., strange, unknown; uncouth has originally the same meaning. See note 11, p. 3. 3 Wonder (verb and noun). All-saints'-day (1st Nov.); its eve (see Burns' Hallowe'en) is a great festival among the Scottish peasantry. 5 Harvest Home feasts. Eng. cream; so, leam, Eng. gleam; roup (cough), Eng. croup. 1 Smoking, burning. 8 Snuff-box. Cheerful. 10 Conversing comfortably. "Burns in his youth was an amateur Jacobite. Wild beats my heart to trace your steps, Haply, my sires have left their shed, SONG. Go fetch to me a pint of wine, A service to my bonnie lassie. Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry, The ship rides by the Berwick-law, And I maun leave my bonnie Mary. The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The battle closes thick and bluidy : November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;2 At length his lonely cot appears in view, Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher thro', To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. 1 Cup: Fr. tasse. The Scottish language abounds with words imported from France during the long and intimate political connection between the countries, in the centuries when England was their common enemy. 2 Rough breathing sound; Ang.-Sax. siccan; Eng. sigh; Gr. psyche. • Morrow. 4 Stagger. His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil. Belyvel the elder bairns come drapping in, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers aud sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly speirs :* Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, His lyarts haffets wearing thin an' bare; They chant their artless notes in simple guise; |