death, where he soon became convinced that Currie's biography had grossly exaggerated the Poet's failings. When he was appointed editor of the 1820 edition of Currie he had a splendid opportunity of correcting, or amending, that editor's mis-statements, but he discovered, too late, that his hands were tied by the publishers and Mr Roscoe, the friend of Dr Currie, in whose eyes the reputation of the Poet was of much less consequence than that of his first editor. His edition was consequently a failure, but that he did not lay all the blame on Currie is evident from the following extract: "Great injury to the Poet's character seems to have arisen from people pretending friendship and intimacy with him, who wished to have something wonderful to tell of a person who had attracted so much of the notice of the world. It is well known that many persons are to be found whose code of moral obligation does not prevent them from violating truth in embellishing a story, and yet are esteemed by the world very honourable men. In the pictures which such men give of life and character, likeness is deliberately sacrificed to effect. Thus, in the foolish story of a sword-cane, brought forward in the Quarterly Review, the vanity of some pretended friend of the Poet* is displayed by the relation of a powerful admonition addressed by the narrator to the Poet, producing such theatrical starts and agitation as no one who knew the Poet, or who has ever attentively perused his letters and poetry, can give credit to for a moment." 66 Syme's account of the circumstances in which Scots wha hae was composed is another illustration of the "theatrical starts for which he had a constitutional fancy. It is romantic and dramatic and all that; but it is not truc-not a word of it. Barring this unfortunate tendency to merge fact in fiction, he seems to have been a fairly faithful friend of the Fcet to the end of his days. In the minutes of the Dumfries Burns Club,† it is recorded that John Syme was vice-chairman at the anniversary dinner, January 25th, 1819, when he delivered a speech *The story was first communicated to Sir Walter Scott. Peterkin gives the correct version on the direct authority of Syme himself. ↑ Burns and Dumfries, by Philip Sulley, 1896. on his personal intercourse with Burns, in which he says: "There is one observation which I feel compelled to make, and that relates to the character of the Poet, which has too long suffered 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. The imputation or stigma has too long extended that Burns, notwithstanding the vivid and affecting expressions of morality and religion which pervade his poems and letters, was a man of licentious and indecorous habits and feelings; in short, if not vicious, that he was profligate. Sir, this is not fair! Let me, Sir, who have often and often enjoyed Burns's intimacy-who have seen him in every phase, and have heard his lowest note and the top of his compass-let me, Sir, declare that in all these situations there was never a sentiment or expression that fell from his lips which did not gild my imagination while it warmed my heart, and which evidently flowed from a fine and benevolent fountain of morality and religion. For the former, refer to his conduct to his brother; on the other topic, instead of being what I may call liberal, I deemed him rather restrained by a sort of superstitious awe or dread. Indeed, his morality was unquestionable, for it was intensely benevolent; and where will you find true religion without benevolence ? I must conclude by quoting a verse of Burns which has ever struck me as the type of his mind, and it may be applicable to his justification : 66 'I saw thy pulse's maddening play, By passion driven; Yet still the light which led astray, Was light from Heaven.' This passage of Syme's evidence certainly does not discredit Burns," nor does it convey the slightest hint of the burnt-out cinder. Syme was neither "dull nor prejudiced," and he had the reputation of being an honest man. As an intimate friend, he might have put a sharper point on his defence of the Poet, but perhaps he could not help being somewhat "theatrical" and turgid of speech with such a theme in hand. There is no doubt whatever that John Syme spoke these words in presence of credible witnesses nearly a hundred years ago; they are not the tale of some "ancient mariner" with a habit of buttonholing an unfortunate individual from among the people who chanced to come his way. What we have been searching for all these years is the something or somebody that can furnish us with more details of the "cinder" dialogue between Syme and the innominate "whose beard with age was hoar "-and we are searching still. EDITOR. THE LATE PRINCIPAL DENNEY ON BURNS. [It is with feelings of sincere regret that we record the death of Professor Denney, Principal of the U.F. Church College, Glasgow, which took place on 12th June last. The deceased was a gentleman of super-eminent abilities, and had achieved the highest honours in the Church of which he was one of the most outstanding dignitaries. He was a lifelong abstainer and fervid Temperance Reformer. We had intended to extend our reply in the Chronicle, but we think we can best respect his memory by leaving the subject as he left it. The article appeared in the Glasgow Herald of 25th January last, and it is by the courtesy of that valuable journal that we are enabled to reproduce it.] BURNS AND PRESENT DISTRESS. BY THE REV. PRINCIPAL DENNEY, D.D. HE War, which is bringing into relief aspects hitherto unnoticed of almost everything, may perhaps give a fresh turn even to the speeches at Burns Clubs. Lord Cockburn pronounced Walter Scott's sense a still more wonderful thing than his genius, and we may say the same of our great Poet. When he simply talks sense, it is with a finality both of insight and expression against which there is no standing up. This applies to much of his humorous and satirical verse, and it is perhaps not maligning one's fellow-countrymen to suggest that Burns owes as much of his popularity in Scotland to his unimpeachable intellectual solidity as to his rarer poetic powers. A more sensible man never lived nor spoke. But the strongest sense may at times be deflected or tainted, and it was so in different ways both in Scott and Burns. A poet is the natural representative of the natural man, and has an instinctive delight in the natural virtues. He likes the goodness which is untaught, spontaneous, generous, independent of reflection and 66 comparison. He suspects the goodness which is selfconscious, which knows that it is not conforming to widely accepted standards, but deliberately protesting against them. This non-conforming conscience is his bête noire, and he assails it with all the resources of his genius. As it readily lapses into Pharisaism, his task is not difficult. If he is magnificently superior to it, as Shakespeare was, he may mock it with genial humour, and never do goodness any harm. Because thou art virtuous, shall there be no more cakes and ale?" But if he is not so magnificently superior-if the non-conforming conscience of his scciety is powerful enough to insult him-still more, if it is powerful enough to reach his own conscience and to convince him of real faults-then the humour, if the poet can still command it, is apt to be savage rather than genial, and the good sense loses its balance. This explains a good deal in Burns. It was unfortunate for him that in indulging his satirical sense he got into false relations with himself and with a higher law than that of ecclesiastical courts or social conventions. He cultivated a kind of moral bravado which is just as much hypocrisy as the hypocrisy of Holy Willie, and not less prejudicial to genuine goodness. You know," he wrote to a friend, 66 that I can sin, but dare not lie." But when a man's sins are open beforehand, when he flaunts them in everybody's face with conscious defiance, it is snatching a reputation for virtue very cheap to say that he dare not lie about them. To lie about them, to pretend that they are not there, is the one thing which he has put out of his power. It is the melancholy fact that Burns practised this miserable moral attitudinising all his life. He did it about drinking, and he did it about his unspeakable relations to women. He sometimes exhibits the painful spectacle of the Pharisaism of profligacy-the prodigal son, not penitent, but swaggering round the farm with a great spread of moral shirt-front, as though he were setting an example to his cold-blooded brother. Of course, this was not how he thought of himself in his heart of hearts; in the most 66 |