tionable; but in his family, I will venture to say, he was never seen otherwise than attentive and affectionate to a high degree." These statements are entitled to every consideration: they come from men altogether incapable, for any purpose, of wilfully stating that which they know to be untrue. To whatever Burns's excesses amounted, they were, it is obvious, and that frequently, the subject of rebuke and remonstrance even from his own dearest friends. That such reprimands should have been received at times with a strange mixture of remorse and indignation, none that have considered the nervous susceptibility and haughtiness of Burns's character can hear with surprise. But this was only when the good advice was oral. No one knew better than he how to answer the written homilies of such persons as were most likely to take the freedom of admonishing him on points of such delicacy; nor is there any thing in all his correspondence more amusing than his reply to a certain solemn lecture of William Nicoll. "O thou, wisest among the wise, meridian blaze of prudence, full moon of discretion, and chief of many counsellors! how infinitely is thy puddleheaded, rattle-headed, wrong-headed, round-headed slave indebted to thy supereminent goodness, that from the luminous path of thy own right-lined rectitude thou lookest benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from the simple copulation of units, up to the hidden mysteries of fluxions! May one feeble ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy sensorium, straight as the arrow of heaven, and bright as the meteor of inspiration, may it be my portion, so that I may be less unworthy of the face and favour of that father of proverbs and master of maxims, that antipod of folly, and magnet among the sages, the wise and witty Willy Nicoll! Amen! amen! Yea, so be it! "For me! I am a beast, a reptile, and know nothing !" &c. &c. &c. To how many that have moralized over the life and death of Burns, might not such a Tu quoque be addressed! The strongest argument in favour of those who denounce the statements of Heron, Currie, and their fellow biographers, concerning the habits of the poet, during the latter years of his career, as culpably and egregiously exaggerated, still remains be considered. On the whole, Burns gave satisfaction by his manner of executing the duties of his station in the revenue service; he, moreover, as Mr. Gray tells us, (and upon this ground Mr. Gray could not possibly bemistaken), took a lively interest in the education of his children, and spen more hours in their private tuition than fathers who have more leisure tha his excisemanship left him, are often in the custom of so bestowing." He was a kind and attentive father, and took great delight in spending his evenings in the cultivation of the minds of his children. Their education was the grand object of his life, and he did not, like most parents, think it sufficient to send them to public schoo1s; he was their private instructor, and even at that early age, bestowed great pains in training their minds to habits of thought and reflection, and in keeping them pure from every form of vice. This he considered as a sacred duty, and never, to the period of his last illness, relaxed in his diligence. With his eldest son, a boy of not more than nine years of age, he had read many of the favourite poets, and some of the best historians in our language; and what is more remarkable, gave him considerable aid in the study of Latin. This boy attended the Grammar School of Dumfries and soon attracted my notice by the strength of his talent, and the ardour of his ambition. Before he had been a year at school, I thought it right to advance him a form, and he began to read Cæsar, and gave me translations of that author of such beauty as I confess surprised me. On inquiry, I found that his father made him turn over his dictionary, till he was able to translate to him the passage in such a way that he could gather the author's meaning, and that it was to him he owed that polished and forcible English with which I was so greatly struck. I have mentioned this incident merely to show what minute attention he paid to this important branch of parental duty." Lastly, although to all men's regret he wrote, after his removal to Dumfriesshire, only one poetical piece of considerable length, (Tam o' Shanter), his epistolary correspondence, and his songs to Johnson's Museum, and to the collection of Mr. George Thomson, furnish undeniable proof that, in whatever fits of dissipation he unhappily indulged, he never could possibly have sunk into any thing like that habitual grossness of manners and sottish degradation of mind, which the writers in question have not hesitated to hold up to the commiseration of mankind. Of his letters written at Elliesland and Dumfries, nearly three octavo volumes have been already printed by Currie and Cremek; and it would be easy to swell the collection to double this extent. Enough, however, has been published to enable every reader to judge for himself of the character of Burns's style of epistolary composition. The severest criticism bestowed on it has been, that it is too elaborate-that, however natural the feelings, the expression is frequently more studied and artificial than belongs to that species of composition. Be this remark altogether just in point of taste, or otherwise, the fact on which it is founded, furnishes strength to our present position. The poet produced in these years a great body of elaborate prose-writing. We have already had occasion to notice some of his contributions to Johnson's Museum. He continued to the last month of his life to take a lively interest in that work; and besides writing for it some dozens of excellent original songs, his diligence in collecting ancient pieces hitherto unpublished, and his taste and skill in eking out fragments, were largely, and most happily exerted, all along, for its benefit. Mr. Cromek saw among Johnson's papers, no fewer than 184 of the pieces which enter into the collection, in Burns's handwriting. His connexion with the more important work of Mr. Thomson commenced in September 1792; and Mr. Gray justly says, that whoever considers his correspondence with the editor, and the collection itself, must be satisfied, that from that time till the commencement of his last illness, not many days ever passed over his head without the production of some new stanzas for its pages. Besides old materials, for the most part embellished with lines, if not verses of his own, and a whole body of hints, suggestions, and criticisms, Burns gave Mr. Thomson about sixty original songs. The songs in this collection are by many eminent critics placed decidedly at the head of all our poet's performances: it is by none disputed that very many of them are worthy of his most felicitous inspiration. He bestowed much more care on them than on his contributions to the Museum; and the taste and feeling of the editor secured the work against any intrusions of that over-warm element which was too apt to mingle in his amatory ef Letter from the Rev. James Gray to Mr. Gilbert Burns. See his Edition, vol. I. Ap. pendix, No. v. fusions. Burns knew that he was now engaged on a work destined for the eye and ear of refinement; he laboured throughout, under the salutary feeling, "virginibus puerisque canto ;" and the consequences have been happy indeed for his own fame-for the literary taste, and the national music, of Scotland; and, what is of far higher importance, the moral and national feelings of his countrymen. In almost all these productions-certainly in all that deserve to be placed in the first rank of his compositions-Burns made use of his native dialect. He did so, too, in opposition to the advice of almost all the lettered correspondents he had-more especially of Dr. Moore, who, in his own novels, never ventured on more than a few casual specimens of Scottish colloquy -following therein the example of his illustrious predecessor Smollett; and not foreseeing that a triumph over English prejudice, which Smollett might have achieved, had he pleased to make the effort, was destined to be the prize of Burns's perseverance in obeying the dictates of native taste and judgment. Our poet received such suggestions, for the most part, in silence-not choosing to argue with others on a matter which concerned only his own feelings; but in writing to Mr. Thomson, he had no occasion either to conceal or disguise his sentiments. "These English songs," says he, "gravel me to death. I have not that command of the language that I have of my native tongue ;"* and again," so much for nambypamby. I may, after all, try my hand at it in Seots verse. There I am always most at home."+-He, besides, would have considered it as a sort of national crime to do any thing that must tend to divorce the music of his native land from her peculiar idiom. The "genius loci" was never worshipped more ferventy than by Burns. "I am such an enthusiast," says he, that in the course of my several peregrinations through Scotland, I made a pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its rise, Lochaber and the Braes of Ballenden excepted. So far as the locality, either from the title of the air or the tenor of the song, could be ascertained, I have paid my devotions at the particular shrine of every Scottish Muse." With such feelings, he was not likely to touch with an irreverent hand the old fabric of our national song, or to meditate a lyrical revolution for the pleasure of strangers. "There is," says he, "a naiveté, a pastoral simplicity in a slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseology, which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and I will add, to every genuine Caledonian taste), with the simple pathos or rustic sprightliness of our native music, than any English verses whatever. One hint more let me give you :-Whatever Mr. Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original airs; I mean in the song department; but let our Scottish national music preserve its native features. They are, I own, frequently wild and irreducible to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect." § Of the delight with which Burns laboured for Mr. Thomson's Collection, his letters contain some lively descriptions. "You cannot imagine," says he, 7th April 1793, "how much this business has added to my enjoyments. What with my early attachment to ballads, your book and ballad Correspondence with Mr. Thomson, p. 111. + Ibid. p. 80. +Ibid. p. 38. § It may amuse the reader to hear, that in spite of all Burns's success in the use of his native dialect, even an eminently spirited bookseller to whom the manuscript of Waverley was submitted, hesitated for some time about publishing it, on account of the Scots dialogue interwoven in the novel. making are now as completely my hobbyhorse as ever fortification was Uncle Toby's; so I'll e'en canter it away till I come to the limit of my race, (God grant I may take the right side of the winning-post), and then, cheerfully looking back on the honest folks with whom I have been happy, I shall say or sing, Sae merry as we a' hae been,' and raising my last looks to the whole human race, the last words of the voice of Coila shall be Good night, and joy be wi' you, a'. "Until I am complete master of a tune in my own singing, such as it is, I can never," says Burns, " compose for it. My way is this: I consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression, -then choose my theme,-compose one stanza. When that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then.-look out for objects in nature round me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my bosom.-humming every now and then the air, with the verses I have fram ed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study. and there commit my effusions to paper; swinging at intervals on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my pen goes. Seriously, this, at home, is almost invariably my way.-What cursed egotism !" + In this correspondence with Mr. Thomson, and in Cromek's later publication, the reader will find a world of interesting details about the particular circumstances under which these immortal songs were severally written. They are all, or almost all, in fact, part and parcel of the poet's personal history. No man ever made his muse more completely the companion of his own individual life. A new flood of light has just been poured on the same subject, in Mr. Allan Cunningham's "Collection of Scottish Songs" unless, therefore, I were to transcribe volumes, and all popular volumes too, it is impossible to go into the details of this part of the poet's history. The reader must be contented with a few general memoranda ; e. g. "Do you think that the sober gin-horse routine of existence could inspire a man with life, and love, and joy,-could fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos equal to the genius of your book? No, no. Whenever I want to be more than ordinary in song-to be in some degree equal to your divine airs-do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation? Tout au contraire. I have a glorious recipe, the very one that for his own use was invented by the Divinity of healing and poetry, when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus,-I put myself on a regimen of admiring a fine woman.” ‡ "I can assure you I was never more in earnest.-Conjugal love is a passion which I deeply feel, and highly venerate; but, somehow, it does not make such a figure in poesy as that other species of the passion, "Where love is liberty, and nature law." Musically speaking, the first is an instrument, of which the gamut is scanty and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet; while the last has powers equal to all the intellectual modulations of the human soul. Still I am a very poet in my enthusiasm of the passion. The welfare and happiness of the beloved object is the first and inviolate sentiment that pervades my • Correspondence with Mr. Thomson, p. 57. + Ibid. p. 119. 1bid. p. 174. soul; and-whatever pleasures I might wish for, or whatever raptures they might give me yet, if they interfere with that first principle, it is having these pleasures at a dishonest price; and justice forbids, and generosity disdains the purchase." * Of all Burns's love songs, the best, in his own opinion, was that which begins, "Yestreen I had a pint o' wine, Mr. Cunningham says, "if the poet thought so, I am sorry for it;" while the Reverend Hamilton Paul fully concurs in the author's own estimate of the performance. There is in the same collection a love song, which unites the suffrages, and ever will do so, of all men. It has furnished Byron with a motto, and Scott has said that that motto is "worth a thousand romances." "Had we never loved sae kindly, We had ne'er been broken-hearted." There are traditions which connect Burns with the heroines of these bewitching songs. I envy no one the task of inquiring minutely in how far these traditions rest on the foundation of truth. They refer at worst to occasional errors. "Many insinuations," says Mr. Gray, "have been made against the poet's character as a husband, but without the slightest proof; and I might pass from the charge with that neglect which it merits; but I am happy to say that I have in exculpation the direct evidence of Mrs. Burns herself, who, among many amiable and respectable qualities, ranks a veneration for the memory of her departed husband, whom she never names but in terms of the profoundest respect and the deepest regret, to lament his misfortunes, or to extol his kindnesses to herself, not as the momentary overflowings of the heart in a season of penitence for offences generously forgiven, but an habitual tenderness, which ended only with his life. I place this evidence, which I am proud to bring forward on her own authority, against a thousand anonymous calumnies." + Among the effusions, not amatory, which our poet contributed to Mr. Thomson's Collection, the famous song of Bannockburn holds the first place. We have already seen in how lively a manner Burns's feelings were kindled when he visited that glorious field. According to tradition, the tune played when Bruce led his troops to the charge, was "Hey tuttie tattie :" and it was humming this old air as he rode by himself through Glenken, a wild district in Galloway, during a terrific storm of wind and rain, that the poet composed his immortal lyric in its first and noblest form. This is one more instance of his delight in the sterner aspects of nature. "Come, winter, with thine angry howl, And raging bend the naked tree_" "There is hardly," says he in one of his letters, "there is scarcely any earthly object gives me more-I do not know if I should call it pleasure • Correspondence with Mr. Thomson, p. 191. + Letter in Gilbert Burns's Edition, vol. I. Appendix, p. 437. |