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ODE TO THE MEMORY OF BURNS.

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL.

SOUL of the Poet! wheresoe'er,
Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality:
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.

And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and strife, at BURNS's name,
Exorcised by his memory;

For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.

And love's own strain to him was given,
To warble all its ecstacies

With Pythian words unsought, unwill'd-
Love, the surviving gift of Heaven,
The choicest sweet of Paradise,
In life's else bitter cup distill'd.

Who that has melted o'er his lay
To Mary's soul, in heaven above,
But pictured sees, in fancy strong,
The landscape and the livelong day
That smiled upon their mutual love?--
Who that has felt forgets the song?

Nor skill'd one flame alone to fan:
His country's high-soul'd peasantry
What patriot-pride he taught !-how much
To weigh the inborn worth of man!
And rustic life and poverty
Grow beautiful beneath his touch.

Him, in his clay-built cot, the Muse
Entranced, and show'd him all the forms
Of fairy light and wizard gloom
(That only gifted Poet views),
The genii of the floods and storms,
And martial shades from Glory's tomb.
On Bannock-field what thoughts arouse
The swain whom BURNS's song inspires!
Beat not his Caledonian veins,
As o'er th' heroic turf he ploughs,
With all the spirit of his sires,

And all their scorn of death and chains?

And see the Scottish exile, tann'd
By many a far and foreign clime,
Bend o'er his home-born verse, and weep

In memory of his native land,
With love that scorns the lapse of time,
And ties that stretch beyond the deep!
Encamp'd by Indian rivers wild,
The soldier, resting on his arms,
In BURNS's carol sweet recals

The scenes that bless'd him when a child,
And glows and gladdens at the charms
Of Scotia's woods and waterfalls.

Oh deem not, 'midst this worldly strife,
An idle art the Poet brings:
Let high Philosophy control
And sages calm the stream of life,
"Tis he refines its fountain-springs,
The nobler passions of the soul.
It is the Muse that consecrates
The native banner of the brave,
Unfurling, at the trumpet's breath,
Rose, thistle, harp; 'tis she elates
To sweep the field or ride the wave,
A sunburst in the storm of death!
And thou, young hero, when thy pall
Is cross'd with mournful sword and plume,
When public grief begins to fade,
And only tears of kindred fall,.
Who but the Bard shall dress thy tomb,
And greet with fame thy gallant shade!
Such was the soldier-BURNS, forgive
That sorrows of mine own intrude
In strains to thy great memory due.
In verse like thine, oh! could he live,
The friend I mourn'd-the brave, the good-
Edward that died at Waterloo !*

Farewell, high chief of Scottish song!
That couldst alternately impart
Wisdom and rapture in thy page,
And brand each vice with satire strong,
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.
Farewell! and ne'er may envy dare
To wring one baleful poison-drop
From the crush'd laurels of thy bust:
But while the lark sings sweet in air,
Still may the grateful pilgrim stop,

To bless the spot that holds thy dust.

M

* Major Edward Hodge, of the 7th Hussars, who fell at the head

of his squadron in the attack of the Polish Lancers.

THE LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

THOUGH the dialect in which many of the happiest effusions of ROBERT BURNS are composed be peculiar to Scotland, yet his reputation has extended itself beyond the limits of that country, and his poetry has been admired as the offspring of original genius, by persons of taste in every part of the sister islands. It seems proper, therefore, to write the memoirs of his life, not with the view of their being read by Scotchmen only, but also by natives of England, and of other countries where the English language is spoken or understood.

the simplicity of the means employed, or the provisions made to render these means effectual to their purpose. This excellent statute was repealed on the accession of Charles II. in 1660, together with all the other laws passed during the Commonwealth, as not being sanctioned by the royal assent. It slept during the reigns of Charles and James, but was re-enacted precisely in the same terms, by the Scottish Parliament, after the Revolution in 1696; and this is the last provision on the subject. Its effects on the national character may be considered to have commenced about the period of the Union, and doubtless it co-operated with the peace and security arising from that happy event, in producing the extraordinary change in favour of industry and good morals, which the character of the common people of Scotland has since undergone.

Robert Burns was, in reality, what he has been represented to be, a Scottish peasant. To render the incidents of his humble story generally intelligible, it seems, therefore, advisable to prefix some observations on the character and situation of the order to which he belonged The church establishment of Scotland happily coin-a class of men distinguished by many peculiarities: cides with the institution just mentioned, which may be by this means we shall form a more correct notion of called its school establishment. The clergyman, being the advantages with which he started, and of the obsta- every where resident in his particular parish, becomes cles which he surmounted. A few observations on the the natural patron and superintendant of the parish Scottish peasantry will not, perhaps, be found unworthy school, and is enabled in various ways to promote the of attention in other respects-and the subject is, in a comfort of the teacher, and the proficiency of the schogreat measure, new. Scotland has produced persons of lars. The teacher himself is often a candidate for holy high distinction in every branch of philosophy and litera-orders, who, during the long course of study and proture; and her history, while a separate and independent bation required in the Scottish church, renders the nation, has been successfully explored. But the present time which can be spared from his professional studies character of the people was not then formed; the nation useful to others as well as to himself, by assuming the then presented features similar to those which the feu- respectable character of a schoolmaster. It is common dal system and the Catholic religion had diffused over for the established schools, even in the country parishes Europe, modified, indeed, by the peculiar nature of her of Scotland, to enjoy the means of classical instruction; territory and climate. The Reformation, by which such and many of the farmers, and some even of the cottaimportant changes were produced on the national cha- gers, submit to much privation, that they may obtain, racter, was speedily followed by the accession of the for one of their sons at least, the precarious advantage Scottish monarchs to the English throne; and the period of a learned education. The difficulty to be surmounted which elapsed from that accession to the Union, has been arises, indeed, not from the expense of instructing their rendered memorable, chiefly, by those bloody convul- children, but from the charge of supporting them. In sions in which both divisions of the island were involved, the country parish schools, the English language, writand which, in a considerable degree, concealed from the ing, and accounts, are generally taught at the rate of eye of the historian the domestic history of the people, six shillings, and Latin at the rate of ten or twelve and the gradual variations in their condition and man- shillings, per annum. In the towns the prices are someners. Since the Union, Scotland, though the seat of two what higher. unsuccessful attempts to restore the house of Stuart to the throne, has enjoyed a comparative tranquillity; and it is since this period that the present character of her peasantry has been in a great measure formed, though the political causes affecting it are to be traced to the previous acts of her separate legislature.

A slight acquaintance with the peasantry of Scotland will serve to convince an unprejudiced observer, that they possess a degree of intelligence not generally found among the same class of men in the other countries of Europe. In the very humblest condition of the Scottish peasants, every one can read, and most persons are more or less skilled in writing and arithmetic; and, under the disguise of their uncouth appearance, and of their peculiar manners and dialect, a stranger will discover that they possess a curiosity, and have obtained a degree of information, corresponding to these acquire

It would be improper in this place to inquire minutely into the degree of instruction received at these seminaries, or to attempt any precise estimate of its effects, either on the individuals who are the subjects of this instruction, or on the community to which they belong. That it is on the whole favourable to industry and morals, though doubtless with some individual exceptions, seems to be proved by the most striking and decisive experience; and it is equally clear, that it is the cause of that spirit of emigration and of adventure so prevalent among the Scotch. Knowledge has, by Lord Verulam, been denominated power; by others it has, with less propriety, been denominated virtue or happiness: we may with confidence consider it as motion. A human being, in proportion as he is informed, has his wishes enlarged, as well as the means of gratifying those wishes. He may be considered as taking within the sphere of his vision a large portion of the globe on These advantages they owe to the legal provision which we tread, and discovering advantage at a greater made by the Parliament of Scotland in 1646, for the distance on its surface. His desires or ambition, once establishment of a school in every parish throughout excited, are stimulated by his imagination; and distant the kingdom, for the express purpose of educating the and uncertain objects, giving freer scope to the operapoor-a law which may challenge comparison with any tion of this faculty, often acquire, in the mind of the act of legislation to be found in the records of history, youthful adventurer, an attraction from their very diswhether we consider the wisdom of the ends in view,tance and uncertainty. If, therefore, a greater degree

ments.

of instruction be given to the peasantry of a country comparatively poor, in the neighbourhood of other countries rich in natural and acquired advantages, and if the barriers be removed that kept them separate, emigration from the former to the latter will take place to a certain extent, by laws nearly as uniform as those by which heat diffuses itself among surrounding bodies, or water finds its level when left to its natural course. By the articles of the Union, the barrier was broken down which divided the two British nations, and knowledge and poverty poured the adventurous natives of the north over the fertile plains of England; and more especially over the colonies which she had settled in the east and in the west. The stream of population continues to flow from the north to the south, for the causes that originally impelled it continue to operate; and the richer country is constantly invigorated by the accession of an informed and hardy race of men, educated in poverty, and prepared for hardship and danger; patient of labour, and prodigal of life.

poverty; hence it will not appear surprising, if the Scottish peasantry have a more than usual share of prudence and reflection, if they approach nearer than persons of their order usually do to the definition of a man, that of " a being that looks before and after." These observations must indeed be taken with many exceptions; the favourable operation of the causes just mentioned is counteracted by others of an opposite tendency; and the subject, if fully examined, would lead to discussions of great extent.

When the Reformation was established in Scotland, instrumental music was banished from the churches, as savouring too much of "profane minstrelsy." Instead of being regulated by an instrument, the voices of the congregation are led and directed by a person under the name of a precentor, and the people are all expected to join in the tune which he chooses for the psalm which is to be sung. Church music is therefore a part of the education of the peasantry of Scotland, in which they are usually instructed in the long winter The preachers of the Reformation in Scotland were nights by the parish schoolmaster, who is generally the disciples of Calvin, and brought with them the temper precentor, or by itinerant teachers, more celebrated for as well as the tenets of that celebrated heresiarch. The their powers of voice. This branch of education had, presbyterian form of worship and of church govern- in the last reign, fallen into some neglect, but was rement was endeared to the people, from its being esta-vived about thirty or forty years ago, when the music blished by themselves. It was endeared to them, also, itself was reformed and improved. The Scottish system by the struggle it had to maintain with the Catholic and of psalmody is, however, radically bad. Destitute of Protestant episcopal churches; over both of which, after taste or harmony, it forms a striking contrast with the a hundred years of fierce, and sometimes bloody con- delicacy and pathos of the profane airs. Our poet, it tention, it finally triumphed, receiving the countenance will be found, was taught church music, in which, how of government and the sanction of law. During this ever, he made little proficiency. long period of contention and of suffering, the temper That dancing should also be very generally a part of of the people became more and more obstinate and the education of the Scottish peasantry, will surprise bigoted; and the nation received that deep tinge of those who have only seen this description of men; and fanaticism which coloured their public transactions, as still more those who reflect on the rigid spirit of Calwell as their private virtues, and of which evident traces vinism with which the nation is so deeply affected, and may be found in our own times. When the public schools to which this recreation is so strongly abhorrent. The were established, the instruction communicated in them winter is also the season when they acquire dancing, partook of the religious character of the people. The and, indeed, almost all their other instruction. They are Catechism of the Westminster Divines was the univer- taught to dance by persons generally of their own numsal school-book, and was put into the hands of the young ber, many of whom work at daily labour during the peasant as soon as he had acquired a knowledge of his summer months. The school is usually a barn, and the alphabet; and his first exercise in the art of reading, arena for the performers is generally a clay floor. The introduced him to the most mysterious doctrines of the dome is lighted by candles stuck in one end of a cloven Christian faith. This practice is continued in our own stick, the other end of which is thrust into the wall. times. After the Assembly's Catechism, the Proverbs Reels, strathspeys, country-dances, and hornpipes, are of Solomon, and the New and Old Testament, follow in here practised. The jig, so much in favour among the regular succession; and the scholar departs, gifted with English peasantry, has no place among them. The atthe knowledge of the sacred writings, and receiving their tachment of the people of Scotland of every rank, and doctrines according to the interpretation of the West-particularly of the peasantry, to this amusement, is very minster Confession of Faith. Thus, with the instruction great. After the labours of the day are over, young of infancy in the schools of Scotland, are blended the men and women walk many miles, in the cold and dreary dogmas of the national church; and hence the first and nights of winter, to these country dancing-schools; and most constant exercise of ingenuity among the peasantry the instant that the violin sounds a Scottish air, fatigue of Scotland, is displayed in religious disputation. With seems to vanish, the toil-bent rustic becomes erect, his a strong attachment to the national creed, is conjoined features brighten with sympathy, every nerve seems to a bigoted preference of certain forms of worship; the thrill with sensation, and every artery to vibrate with source of which would be often altogether obscure, if life. These rustic performers are indeed less to be adwe did not recollect that the ceremonies of the Scottish mired for grace than for agility and animation, and their Church were framed in direct opposition, in every point, accurate observance of time. Their modes of dancing, to those of the church of Rome. as well as their tunes, are common to every rank in Scotland, and are now generally known. In our own day they have penetrated into England, and have established themselves even in the circle of royalty. In another generation they will be naturalised in every part of the island.

The eccentricities of conduct, and singularities of opinion and manners, which characterised the English sectaries in the last century, afforded a subject for the comic muse of Butler, whose pictures lose their interest since their archetypes are lost. Some of the peculiarities common among the more rigid disciples of Calvinism in Scotland, in the present times, have given scope to the ridicule of Burns, whose humour is equal to Butler's; and whose drawings from living manners are singularly expressive and exact. Unfortunately, the correctness of his taste did not always correspond with the strength of his genius.

The information and the religious education of the peasantry of Scotland, promote sedateness of conduct, and habits of thought and reflection. These good qualities are not counteracted by the establishment of poor laws. Happily, in Scotland, the same legislature which established a system of instruction for the poor, resisted the introduction of a legal provision for the support of

The prevalence of this taste, or rather passion, for dancing, among a people so deeply tinctured with the spirit and doctrines of Calvin, is one of those contradictions which the philosophic observer so often finds in national character and manners. It is probably to be ascribed to the Scottish music, which, throughout all its varieties, is so full of sensibility, and which, in its livelier strains, awakes those vivid emotions that find in dancing their natural solace and relief.

This triumph of the music of Scotland over the spirit of the established religion, has not, however, been obtained, without long-continued and obstinate struggles. The numerous sectaries who dissent from the establishment on account of the relaxation which they perceive,

SCOTTISH MUSIC.

The Reformation, which proved fatal to the rise of the other fine arts in Scotland, probably impeded, but could not obstruct, the progress of its music-a circumstance that will convince the impartial inquirer, that this music not only existed previously to that era, but had taken a firm hold of the nation, thus affording a proof of its antiquity stronger than any produced by the researches of our antiquaries.+

9

or think they perceive, in the Church, from her original | of his arrival; and sometimes it is repeated again and doctrines and discipline, universally condemn the prac- again, before the capricious fair one will obey the sumtice of dancing, and the schools where it is taught; and mons. But if she favours his addresses, she escapes the more elderly and serious part of the people, of every unobserved, and receives the vows of her lover under persuasion, tolerate rather than approve these meetings the gloom of twilight or the deeper shade of night. Inof the young of both sexes, where dancing is practised terviews of this kind are the subjects of many of the to their spirit-stirring music, where care is dispelled, Scottish songs, some of the most beautiful of which toil is forgotten, and prudence itself is sometimes lulled Burns has imitated or improved. In the art which to sleep.* they celebrate he was perfectly skilled; he knew and had practised all its mysteries. Intercourse of this sort is indeed universal, even in the humblest condition of man in every region of the earth. But it is not unnatural to suppose that it may exist in a greater degree, and in a more romantic form, among the peasantry of a country who are supposed to be more than commonly instructed; who find in their rural songs expressions for their youthful emotions; and in whom the embers of passion are continually fanned by the breathings of a music full of tenderness and sensibility. The direct influence of physical causes on the attachment between the sexes is comparatively small, but it is modified by moral causes beyond any other affection of the mind. Of these, music and poetry are the chief. Among the snows of Lapland, and under the burning sun of Angola, the savage is seen hastening to his mistress, and every where he beguiles the weariness of his journey with poetry and song.*

The impression which the Scottish music has made on the people, is deepened by its union with the national songs, of which various collections of unequal merit are before the public. These songs, like those of other nations, are many of them humorous, but they chiefly treat of love, war, and drinking. Love is the subject of the greater proportion. Without displaying the higher powers of the imagination, they exhibit a perfect knowledge of the human heart, and breathe a spirit of affection, and sometimes of delicate and romantic tenderness, not to be surpassed in modern poetry, and which the more polished strains of antiquity have seldom possessed.

In appreciating the happiness and virtue of a community, there is perhaps no single criterion on which so much dependence may be placed, as the state of the intercourse between the sexes. Where this displays ardour of attachment, accompanied by purity of conduct, the character and the influence of women rise in society, our imperfect nature mounts in the scale of moral excellence; and, from the source of this single affection, a stream of felicity descends, which branches into a thousand rivulets that enrich and adorn the field of life. Where the attachment between the sexes sinks into an appetite, the heritage of our species is comparatively poor, and man approaches the condition of the brutes that perish. "If we could with safety indulge the pleasing supposition that Fingal lived and that Ossian sung," Scotland, judging from this criterion, might be considered as ranking high in happiness and virtue in very remote ages. To appreciate her situation by the same criterion in our own times, would be a delicate and a difficult undertaking. After considering the pro

The origin of this amatory character in the rustic muse of Scotland, or of the greater number of these love-songs themselves, it would be difficult to trace; they have accumulated in the silent lapse of time, and it is now perhaps impossible to give an arrangement of them in the order of their date, valuable as such a record of taste and manners would be. Their present influence on the character of the nation is, however, great and striking. To them we must attribute, in a great measure, the romantic passion which so often characterises the attachments of the humblest of the people of Scotland, to a degree, that, if we mistake not, is seldom found in the same rank of society in other countries. The pictures of love and happiness exhibited in their rural songs, are early impressed on the mind of the peasant, and are rendered more attractive from the music with which they are united. They associate themselves with his own youthful emotions; they ele-bable influence of her popular songs and her national vate the object as well as the nature of his attachment; and give to the impressions of sense the beautiful colours of imagination. Hence, in the course of his passion, a Scottish peasant often exerts a spirit of adventure, of which a Spanish cavalier need not be ashamed. After the labours of the day are over, he sets out for the habitation of his mistress, perhaps at many miles' distance, regardless of the length or the dreariness of the way. He approaches her in secrecy, under the disguise of night. A signal at the door or window, perhaps agreed on, and understood by none but her, gives information *[To account for the co-existence of a taste for dancing, music, and song, with the austere religious feelings above described, we must bear in mind that the latter are not of such long standing, having only existed in great force since the time of the civil war. It is also to be observed, that those tastes and those feelings did not always possess the same minds. Throughout the most rigid times, the young formed a party whom the promptings of nature compelled to favour mirthful recreation and the productions of the muse, all preachments from the old notwithstanding. Then the Episcopalian or Jacobite party formed a large and important exception from the general spirit of the nation, being declared patrons of not only dancing and song, but of theatricals.]

[Till a recent period, the history of Scottish music previous to the reign of George I., was a matter of conjecture only. Even the remark in the text as to the existence of music before the Reformation, had no proper basis. The existence of popular airs at a time little subsequent to the Reformation, including some which still flourish, is at length ascertained, in consequence of the discovery of a MS. collection of airs, which belonged to Sir John Skene of Currie-hill, and must have been written about the year 1620. See an elegant and laborious work by William Dauney, Esq., advocate, 4to. 1838.]

music, and examining how far the effects to be expected from these are supported by facts, the inquirer would also have to examine the influence of other causes, and particularly of her civil and ecclesiastical institutions, by which the character, and even the manners of a people, though silently and slowly, are often powerfully controlled. In the point of view in which we are considering the subject, the ecclesiastical establishments of Scotland may be supposed peculiarly favourable to purity of conduct. The dissoluteness of manners among the Catholic clergy, which preceded, and in some measure produced the Reformation, led to an extraordinary strictness on the part of the reformers, and especially in that particular in which the licentiousness of the clergy had been carried to its greatest height-the intercourse between the sexes. On this point, as on all others connected with austerity of manners, the disciples of Calvin assumed a greater severity than those of the Protestant Episcopal church. The punishment of illicit connection between the sexes was, throughout all Europe, a province which the clergy assumed to themselves; and the church of Scotland, which at the Reformation renounced so many powers and privileges, at that period took this crime under her more especial jurisdiction. Where pregnancy takes place without marriage, the condition of the female causes the discovery, and it is on her, therefore, in the first instance,

*The North American Indians, among whom the attachment between the sexes is said to be weak, and love, in the purer sense of the word, unknown, seem nearly unacquainted with the charms of poetry and music.-See Weld's Tour.

† Gibbon.

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