petrated by Burns, in October, one is at a loss to comprehend how, in December, he could have been "surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr Mitchell, the Collector, telling me that he has received an order for your Board to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person disaffected to government." The fact we believe to be this—that Burns, whose loyalty was suspected, had been rudely commanded to take off his hat by some vociferous time-servers —just as he was going to do so that the row arose from his declining to uncover on compulsion, and subsided on his disdainfully doffing his beaver of his own accord. Had he cried for 'Ca ira,' he would have deserved dismissal from the Excise; and in his own opinion, translation to another post-" Wha will not sing God save the King, shall hang as high's the steeple." The year before, "during the heat of the French. Revolution," Burns composed his grand war-song-" Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies," and sent it to Mrs Dunlop with these words: "I have just finished the following song, which to a lady, the descendant of Wallace, and many heroes of his truly illustrious lineand herself the mother of several soldiers-needs neither preface nor apology." And the year after, he composed "The Poor and Honest Sodger," "which was sung," says Allan Cunningham, "in every cottage, village, and town. Yet the man who wrote it was supposed by the mean and the spiteful to be no well-wisher to his country!" Why, as men who have any hearts at all, love their parents in any circumstances, so they love their country, be it great or small, poor or wealthy, learned or ignorant, free or enslaved; and even disgrace and degradation will not quench their filial affection to it. But Scotsmen have good reason to be proud of their country; not so much for any particular event, as for her whole historical progress. Particular events, however, are thought of by them as the landmarks of that progress; and these are the great points of history "conspicuous in the nation's eye." Earlier times present "the unconquered Caledonian spear;" later, the unequal but generally victorious struggles with the sister country, issuing in national independence; and later still, the holy devotion of the soul of the people to their own profound religious Faith, and its simple Forms. Would that Burns had pondered more on that warfare ! That he had sung its final triumph! But we must be contented with his "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled;" and with repeating after it with him, "So may God defend the cause of truth and liberty, as he did that day! Amen!" Mr Syme tells us that Burns composed this ode on the 31st of July 1793, on the moor road between Kenmure and Gatehouse. "The sky was sympathetic with the wretchedness of the soil; it became lowering and dark-the winds sighed hollow-the lightning gleamed-the thunders rolled. The poet enjoyed the awful scene he spoke not a word-but seemed rapt in meditation. In a little while the rain began to fall-it poured in floods upon us. For three hours did the wild elements rumble their bellyful upon our defenceless heads." That is very fine indeed; and "what do you think," asks Mr Syme, "Burns was about? He was charging the English Army along with Bruce at Bannockburn." On the second of August-when the weather was more sedate —on their return from St Mary's Isle to Dumfries "he was engaged in the same manner;" and it appears from one of his own letters, that he returned to the charge one evening in September. The thoughts, and feelings, and images, came rushing upon him during the storm-they formed themselves into stanzas, like so many awkward squads of raw levies, during the serene state of the atmosphere-and under the harvest moon, firm as the measured tread of marching men, with admirable precision they wheeled into line. This account of the composition of the Ode would seem to clear Mr Syme from a charge nothing short of falsehood brought against him by Allan Cunningham. Mr Syme's words are, "I said that in the midst of the storm, on the wilds of Kenmure, Burns was rapt in meditation. What do you think he was about? He was charging the English army along with Bruce at Bannockburn. He was engaged in the same manner in our ride home from St Mary's Isle, and I did not disturb him. Next day he produced me the Address of Bruce to his troops, and gave me a copy to Dalzell." Nothing can be more circumstantial; and if not true, it is a thumper. Allan says, "Two or three plain words, and a stubborn date or two, will go far, I fear, to raise this pleasing legend into the regions of romance. The Galloway adventure, according to Syme, happened in July; but in the succeeding September, the poet announced the song to Thomson in these words: "There is a tradition which I have met with in many places in Scotland that the air of 'Hey tuttie taittie' was Robert Bruce's march at the Battle of Bannockburn. This thought in my yesternight's evening walk warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and independence, which I threw into a kind of Scottish ode-that one might suppose to be the royal Scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morning. I showed the air to Urbani, who was greatly pleased with it, and begged me to make soft verses for it; but I had no idea of giving myself any trouble on the subject till the accidental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glowing idea of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite so ancient, roused up my rhyming mania." Currie, to make the letter agree with the legend, altered yesternight's evening walk into solitary wanderings. Burns was indeed a remarkable man, and yielded no doubt to strange impulses; but to compose a song "in thunder, lightning, and in rain," intimates such self-possession as few possess. We can more readily believe that Burns wrote " yesternight's evening walk," to save himself the trouble of entering into any detail of his previous study of the subject, than that Syme told a downright lie. As to composing a song in a thunderstorm, Cunningham-who is himself "a remarkable man," and has composed some songs worthy of being classed with those of Burns, would find it one of the easiest and pleasantest of feats; for lightning is among the most harmless vagaries of the electric fluid, and, in a hilly country, seldom singes but worsted stockings and sheep. Burns sent the Address in its perfection to George Thomson, recommending it to be set to the old air, "Hey tuttie taittie" -according to Tradition, who cannot, however, be reasonably expected "to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"-Robert Bruce's march at the Battle of Bannockburn. A committee of taste sat on "Hey tuttie taittie,” and pronounced it execrable. "I happened to dine yesterday," says Mr Thomson, "with a party of your friends, to whom I read it. They were all charmed with it; entreated me to find out a suitable air for it, and reprobated the idea of giving it a tune so totally devoid of interest or grandeur as 'Hey tuttie taittie.' Assuredly your partiality for this tune must arise from the ideas associated in your mind by the tradition concerning it, for I never heard any person-and I have conversed again and again with the greatest enthusiasts for Scottish airs-I say, I never heard any one speak of it as worthy of notice. I have been running over the whole hundred airs-of which I have lately sent you the list-and I think Lewie Gordon is most happily adapted to your ode, at least with a very slight alteration of the fourth line, which I shall presently submit to you. Now the variation I have to suggest upon the last line of each verse, the only line too short for the air, is as follows: Verse 1st, Or to glorious victory. 2d, Chains-chains and slavery. 3d, Let him, let him turn and flee. 4th, Let him bravely follow me. 5th, But they shall, they shall be free. 6th, Let us, let us do or die." "Glorious" and "bravely," bad as they are, especially "bravely," which is indeed most bitter bad, might have been borne; but just suppose for a moment, that Robert Bruce had, in addressing his army "on the morning of that eventful day," come over again in that odd way every word he uttered, "chains-chains;" "let him -let him; ""they shall they shall;" "let us-let us;" why, the army would have thought him a Bauldy! Action, unquestionably, is the main point in oratory, and Bruce might have imposed on many by the peculiar style in which it is known he handled his battle-axe, but we do not hesitate to assert that had he stuttered in that style, the English would have won the day. Burns winced sorely, but did what he could to accommodate Lewie Gordon. "The only line," said Mr T., "which I dislike in the whole of the song is 'Welcome to your gory bed.' Would not another word be preferable to welcome?'" Mr T. pro เ posed "honour's bed;" but Burns replied, "your idea of 'honour's bed' is, though a beautiful, a hackneyed idea; so if you please we will let the line stand as it is." But Mr T. was tenacious: "One word more with regard to your heroic ode. I think, with great deference to the poet, that a prudent general would avoid saying anything to his soldiers. which might tend to make death more frightful than it is. 'Gory' presents a disagreeable image to the mind; and to tell them 'Welcome to your gory bed,' seems rather a dis couraging address, notwithstanding the alternative which follows. I have shown the song to three friends of excellent taste, and each of them objected to this line, which emboldens me to use the freedom of bringing it again under your notice. I would suggest 'Now prepare for honour's grimly—" My Your proposed I have scru bed, or for glorious victory.'" Quoth Burns ode pleases me so much that I cannot alter it. alteration would, in my opinion, make it tame. tinised it over and over again, and to the world some way or other it shall go, as it is." That four Scotsmen, taken seriatim et separatim—in the martial ardour of their patriotic souls should object to "Welcome to your gory bed," from an uncommunicated apprehension common to the nature of them all and operating like an instinct, that it was fitted to frighten Robert Bruce's army, and make it take to its heels, leaving the cause of Liberty and Independence to shift for itself, is a coincidence that sets at defiance the doctrine of chances, proves history to be indeed an old almanac, and national character an empty name. "Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Or to victory! Now's the day, and now's the hour; See approach proud Edward's power-- Wha will be a traitor knave? Wha sae base as be a slave ? Wha for Scotland's king and law By oppression's woes and pains! |