it probably was, took up the matter warmly. Burns, forgetting that he could not justify one indiscreet expression by giving vent to others, replied with as much heat, and the two men began a squabble in which both appear to have lost their senses. Writing on the following morning to Samuel Clark, a lawyer of considerable social and professional position in the town, Burns said: From the expressions Captain Dods made use of to me, had I had nobody's welfare to care for but my own we should certainly have come, according to the manners of the world, to the necessity of murdering one another about the business. The words were such as generally, I believe, end in a brace of pistols. You know that the report of certain political opinions being mine has already once before brought me to the brink of destruction. I dread last night's business may be misrepresented in the same way. You, I beg, will take care to prevent it. What, after all, was the obnoxious toast ?- May our success in the present war be equal to the justice of our cause,' a toast that the most outrageous frenzy of loyalty cannot object to." Apparently the good offices of Clark prevailed-at any rate no more was heard of the incident. But, however much Burns sympathised with the French people in what he believed to be their struggle for liberty, he fully proved, when the occasion arose, that he was not a disloyal subject of his own country. The dispatch of an army to the Continent had seriously weakened the home defence, and to meet what was regarded as a crisis a volunteer army was raised. The town of Dumfries contributed two companies, in which many citizens, whose free expression of liberal opinions created a suspicion of their loyalty, made haste to enrol themselves. Among the number was Burns, whose enlistment, according to Allan Cunningham, met with opposition from some of the Tories. "I well remember." wrote Cunningham, "the appearance of that respectable corps their cdd but not ungraceful dress, white kerseymere breeches and waistcoat, short blue coat faced with red, and "Does haughty Gaul invasion threat? There's wooden walls upon our seas, O let us not, like snarling curs, Be Britain still to Britain true, For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted." 66 We can well imagine how, in the condition of public affairs which then prevailed, the song (to use again the words of Allan Cunningham) "hit the taste and suited the feelings of the humbler classes, who added to it the Poor and Honest Sodger,' The Song of Death,' and 'Scots wha hae wi' Wallace Bled.' Hills echoed with it; it was heard in every street; and did more to right the mind of the rustic part of the population than all the speeches of Pitt and Dundas or the Chosen Five-and-Forty." "The Song of Death," which Thomas Campbell was fond of describing as one of the most brilliant efforts of Burns, was written in 1791 to an old Highland air; but, though produced independent of the war with France, it suited the spirit which was dominant in the years immediately following, and was therefore extremely popular. lines Witness the concluding In the field of proud honour, our swords in our hands, While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands, O! who would not die with the brave? One thing which the student of Burns notices is that while he alluded so frequently to war he seldom attempted to depict an actual conflict, a fact which is remarkable in the case of one possessed of such a fine imagination and unsurpassed powers of description. In The Battle of 66 the Poet goes into details, thus The red-coat lads, wi' black cockauds, The great Argyle led on his files, I wat they glanced for twenty miles; They houghed the Clans like nine-pin kyles ; They hacked and hashed, while braidswords clashed, And through they dashed, and hewed, and smashed, Till fey men died awa', man.’ 66 This is not what to expect of Burns, and, indeed, one may be permitted to doubt whether he is the author of the poem. Gilbert Burns was not sure that "The Battle of Sheriffmuir was the work of his brother, though Dr Wallace does not see that there is any just grounds for suspicion. .Dr Currie said that Burns wrote the verses on his Highland tour, basing them on a more profuse production of the Rev. John Barclay, the founder of a small sect called the Barclayites. Yet the most compact description of a battle ever written came from the pen of Burns. The opinion is not mine, but that of Lord Tennyson, who, in a conversation with his friend Canon Rawnsley, quoted the following four lines in proof of his belief In preparing this paper I put to myself this questionand the same question may also have entered the mind of the reader: Since Burns was such a hater of war and such a lover of peace, did he suggest any means by which his vision of universal brotherhood might be realised? How to secure peace among all the nations was a problem which I do not think he tried to solve. Others besides Burns may have cherished the hope that some day world-wide peace would prevail ; but neither he nor any one else of his time thought out any practical scheme to bring about a result so much to be desired. The nations were too busy fighting to think how such con flicts might be avoided in the future, and generations were to pass before anything in the way of disarmament was to be seriously discussed. But while all this is true, Burns certainly had ideas on the subject. He saw that the wars which were waged in his own time had their origin in the inborn yearning for liberty; he believed that if the nations granted this right-to which all mankind were entitled-to their subjects and to their neighbours, the causes of war would vanish, and this conviction he embodied in the democratic poem, which he either wrote entirely or greatly improved, "The Tree of Liberty " THE HOME LIFE OF BURNS. M OST of us recognise that the home life of Robert Burns was capable of improvement; yet we should not forget that the National Poet lived at a time when hard drinking was the rule and not the exception amongst countless thousands of the people, high and low, rich and poor, so it is not fair to apply to Burns the moral standards of the present day. It has been clearly demonstrated by those in a position to judge, that Burns was not a drunken sot, as certain of his detractors would lead us to believe; on the contrary, he was able to pursue his avocation, either as ploughman, gauger, or poet. A man addicted to liquor, addicted to it in the sense of generally being "fou and unco happy," could not have produced what Burns produced in the way of literature. When we take into account the length of his years (he was only 38 when he died), the hard lot which he had to experience, and the opportunities placed within his reach to cultivate to the fullest extent that which was nearest his heart-the making of a sang for puir ald Scotland's sake-we must realise that he accomplished wonders. His output was marvellous, considering the quality of his work, in the domain of literature. To the uninspired, the writing of songs and poems is frequently dreary work, and always mechanical; but to Burns the muse was a passion, and therefore amongst the greatest of earthly pleasures. The temperament of Burns was of the self-revealing kind. He never paraded his virtues before an admiring world, but he was always ready to depreciate his own sins of omission and commission. This man had none of the hypocrisy that is so prevalent to-day. 66 great ladies' We all know the National Poet was a man." |