DR CURRIE AND HIS BIOGRAPHY OF

BURNS.

M

66

In

R WM. WALLACE CURRIE, in the Memoir of his father, published in 1831, complains that various Burns admirers and biographers of Burns, including Gilbert, the brother of the Poet, had appeared before the public with the declared object of vindicating the memory of Burns from the exaggerations and misrepresentations affecting his character" which his father is charged with having admitted into the Life, published in 1800. No objections of the kind, he adds, were made till many years after the death of his father, for which reason he declined to enter upon the ungrateful field of controversy. the work referred to, he gives the text of the letters which passed between his father and John Syme shortly after the death of Burns, as well as commendatory communications from Lord Woodhouselee, Dugald Stewart, John Syme, and Gilbert Burns, after the biography was given to the world. The whole of Dr Currie's biographical information was ostensibly derived from John Syme and Gilbert Burns, both of whom went to Liverpool in the autumn of 1797, and remained there for a fortnight, arranging the documents forwarded to Currie and explaining and supplementing them to facilitate his labours as editor and biographer. The correspondence submitted by Mr Wallace Currie unfortunately lacks one essential. His father's letters to Syme are all given in continuous order, but Syme's letters, to which they were replies or interrogations, are conspicuous by their absence. From the pointed questions put by Dr Currie, it is quite obvious that Syme's replies must have had a pointed bearing on "the exaggerations and misrepresentations" attributed to Dr Currie, in which view it is both surprising and disappointing that his son did not adopt a more direct way

of exonerating his father.

66

We are left in ignorance of the contents of Syme's communications, and little or no light is thrown upon them by Dr Currie's replies. This omission of Mr Wallace Currie is extremely regrettable, because it leaves us in doubt whether the exaggerations and misrepresentations" are traceable to Syme and Gilbert Burns, or to other sources regarding which we know nothing. From "The Earnock MSS.," published in the Burns Chronicle (Nos. VII. and VIII.), we learn something of Gilbert's attitude towards the Currie narrative. Replying to Mr Roscoe, the friend of Dr Currie, who had accused him of inconsistency in his estimate of Dr Currie's work, he says: "You seem to think, from my being at Liverpool for the purpose of giving assistance, and from Dr Currie having consulted me on other subjects, I ought to be considered as advising, or at least consenting to, the statements in question. In regard to the insincerity and inconsistency you seem to think me chargeable with, I can only say that, living upwards of fifty miles distant, I had seen very little of my brother during the last three years of his life. was certain the view given by Dr Currie was agreeable to the information he had received from people he could not suspect of misrepresentation, but had I then been possessed of Mr Findlater's letter, I should certainly have communicated it to Dr Currie." Gilbert had removed from Mossgiel to the farm of Dinning, near Dumfries, in 1797, and had got a different account of his brother from intimate friends in the locality. In view of Gilbert's protest, the question arises-Was Syme Currie's only informant ? We find the following in the minute-book of the Dumfries Burns. Club, under date January 25th, 1819, at which anniversary meeting Syme was vice-president: "Burns has too long suffered," he said, " from the combined attacks of prejudice and malignity, attacks to which some high and cruel names in the literary world have most ungenerously lent their sanction. This is not fair," and so on. And he forthwith launches into a high eulogium of the Poet. In face of this, we may well again ask-Was Syme Currie's sole

I

informant? Gilbert Burns was a level-headed, fair-minded man, and we know that he resented and challenged certain parts of Syme's recorded evidence. What he says of

Dr Currie, unprejudiced opinion

will be inclined to endorse. But that does not affect the veracity of the narrative either way; it is not a question of the good faith, or good taste, of Dr Currie in utilising the evidence, but of the origin and value of the evidence itself. That he took extraordinary liberties with dates and text is undeniable, but vices of that kind were characteristics of the editors of that day. Considering his professional position, eminent respectability, and repucontemporaries, it appears incredible that he stooped to deliberate misrepresentation, or went beyond information which he deemed reliable.

Dr CURRIE.

tation amongst his

He was the only son of a parish minister, born at the Manse of Kirkpatrick-Fleming, in Annandale; and he spent his youth in the Parish of Middlebie, to which his father was translated shortly after his son's birth. He emigrated to Virginia in 1771, at the age of fifteen, with the intention of embarking on a commercial career. When the American War of Independence broke out he experienced great difficulty in returning to his native land, which he eventually accomplished; and, at the age of twenty-one, he became a medical student at Edinburgh University. On the conclusion of his studies in 1780, his intention was to emigrate to Jamaica, but he was prevailed upon by his friends to give up the idea and settle as a practitioner in Liverpool. In this city he soon became known in literary circles as a versatile and accomplished writer, chiefly on professional subjects. His Medical Reports are devoted more particularly to febrile diseases, his treatment of which

by the application of hot and cold water, though a marked innovation in the medical practice of his day, appears singularly inept in the light of modern medical discovery. One cannot read his son's account of his career without receiving the impression that he was naturally receptive of the cacoethes scribendi bacillus. He wrote to Wilberforce on the Slave Question, and, in 1793, he addressed an open letter to Pitt, signed "Jasper Wilson," in which he advocated a neutral policy towards the French Revolutionists. This last production excited considerable interest and brought him into notice, though the sequel proved that he was as far wrong in the short-sighted policy he advocated as the Pacifists at the present juncture of the world's history. But for the Liverpool edition of Burns and its many reprints, Dr Currie would only have been remembered as a writer on exploded medical theories. He was never robust in health, which incapacitated him for sustained literary work. He removed to Bath in 1805, where he died on August 31st, aged forty-nine years. He was stiff and formal in manner save to his intimates, kindly and obliging in disposition, and widely-known as a man of considerable literary ability. He was very ambitious of literary distinction, or, as his son puts it," of the homage which is paid to character and intellectual superiority." Despite his protestations, the reader cannot fail to note that he was very desirous of being appointed editor of the projected posthumous edition of Burns. The whole

profits of that edition, amounting to £1200, were handed over for behoof of the Poet's widow and family, this highsouled generosity having the effect of disarming criticism by the Poet's relatives and friends during Dr Currie's life, and for some years after his death. When dissatisfaction at length found voice in the contradictory evidence of Gray, Findlater, and Thomson, the friends of Dr Currie naturally resented it. A long letter of remonstrance addressed to Gilbert Burns by W. Roscoe (author of Lorenzo de Medici) will be found in the "Earnock MSS." already referred to, which, however, throws no more light on the

sources of Currie's information than was already known. Dr Maxwell, the intimate friend of Burns, has been suggested as a probable authority drawn upon by Currie, but there is little or no evidence available to support the conjecture. Doctors do occasionally exchange confidences, but it is contrary to the traditions of that honourable profession to lay their confidences before the general public. And there is nothing pointing to Alex. Cunningham as one of Currie's contributors to the biography. It is futile to speculate on Currie's informants other than Syme and Gilbert Burns. Of the two, Syme is the more likely to have lent himself to exaggeration. His romantic account of the composition of "Scots Wha Hae" is a myth of his own imagining; and the sword-cane incident, which roused the ire of Gilbert Burns, is accompanied by too much stage thunder to pass as literal truth. Till Syme's letters to Currie are produced-and there is now little likelihood that they ever will be- -we are thrown back on what has been vouchsafed to us of their correspondence, which we lay before our readers to enable them to judge of the extent to which Currie was beholden to others for the material which he wrote into his Life of Burns, thereby assuming all responsibility for its fidelity and trust worthiness. Why he did not apply to Mr Findlater, Mr Gray, or other well-informed friends of Burns in Dumfries is as inexplicable as it is unpardonable. Mr Roscoe is good enough to say that had Dr Currie seen the evidence of the two individuals named it would have modified, if not fundamentally affected, that which he had obtained from other sources an admission which surely reflects on the methods employed by Currie in collecting his materials. That he knew next to nothing of his subject himself should have made him all the more solicitous to ensure that his field of enquiry was as wide and comprehensive as the circumstances demanded. In this, as the sequel proved, he signally failed. That Syme was a personal friend of his, and also his agent or factor on some