now rendered more sensible by the access of an infant family. No feeling of prudence, however, induced by his distress and his dependency, was of sufficient power to impose the proper restraint upon his conduct; and the same ardent temperament of mind, which impelled him to the social pleasures of a tavern, hurried him into discoveries of his sentiments on some of those great political topics which then agitated the public passions. By incautiously avowing himself too friendly to the principles of the French revolution, he incurred the displeasure of his official superiors; and it was only by the strong interference of his friends, that he escaped with a severe reprimand, and was suffered any longer to waste his genius in gauging for the excise. The humiliating conviction, which was thus impressed on him of his dependent condition, must necessarily have affected a high spirit like his; and it cannot reasonably excite our surprise, that the general discomforts of his situation, acting upon the sensibilities of his mind, should assist the effects of his excesses upon his body, and should thus contribute their share of poison to induce his premature dissolution. If the pride of his country, contemplating him as her prime ornament, was not sufficiently strong to urge her to lift him at once to ease and independence, it is to be wished that she had left him, as he was originally stationed by Providence, at the plough, where habitual labour would have strengthened his frame, where the excitements to intemperance, suggested by the society of towns, would not have existed, and where the consciousness of honest freedom would have preserved the vigour of his mind. By calling him from his furrows, not, as old Rome had called her dictators, to the elevation, but to the degradation of office, Scotland certainly consulted neither the demand of her own character nor the interests of him whom she affected to patronize. Amid the pains of mortification and of indigence, but unstained with any act of improbity or meanness, and unincumbered with debt, Robert Burns concluded his unhappy life on the 21st of July, 1796, at the early age of thirty-seven: and may justly be considered as the pride and the reproach of that community to which he belonged. His person and countenance are recorded as remarkably handsome and prepossessing; the former being nearly five feet ten inches in height, and moulded equally for agility and for strength; and the latter being fraught with intelligence and interesting expression. Over his open and elevated forehead curled his black hair; and his large and dark eyes were irradiated with mind and ardent with spirit. His manners were easy and polite, and such as were adapted to that higher society into which his just fame had raised him; and the attractions of his conversation, at one time sparkling with wit, and at another striking with the remarks of profound thought, were universally acknowledged and admired. Instead, in short, of the rude and illiterate ploughman, the cultivated man of mind, of reading, reflection, and genius, was alone presented to the view. His morals were blemished by an indulgence, somewhat approaching to licentious, of his sensual propensities: but they were unsullied by any of the sordid or malignant passions. During his short and distressful intercourse with the world, his conduct was erect and honourable; and he uniformly approved himself to be just, liberal, candid, benevolent, affectionate to his relations, and grateful to his benefactors. It has been said by an acute anatomizer of the human understanding', who possessed the means of knowing him, that all the faculties of his mind were equally vigorous; and that he was qualified to run with success on any course of ambi 1 Dugald Stewart. tion which he had chosen. As a writer, his prose composition was pronounced by Dr. Robertson to be as excellent as his verse; and the opinion in this instance of so high an authority seems to be confirmed by those letters of our author's which have been given to the public. And yet, be it for ever remembered, with shame and indignation, that this extraordinary man, so gifted and elevated by Nature, was suffered by his penurious country to live and to die in poverty and humiliation! Of the poetry of Robert Burns, which alone falls within our immediate province, we cannot speak more properly than with the tongue of his biographer, Doctor Currie. "To determine the comparative merit of Burns would be no easy task. Many persons, afterwards distinguished in literature, have been born in as humble a situation of life; but it would be difficult to find any other who, while earning his subsistence by daily labour, has written verses which have attracted and retained universal attention, and which are likely to give the author a permanent and distinguished place among the followers of the Muses. If he is deficient in grace, he is distinguished for ease as well as energy; and these are indications of the higher order of genius. The father of epic poetry exhibits one of his heroes as excelling in strength, another in swiftness; to form his perfect warrior, these attributes are combined. Every species of intellectual superiority admits perhaps of a similar arrangement. One writer excels in force, another in ease; he is superior to both, in whom both these qualities are united. The force of Burns lay in the powers of his understanding, and in the sensibility of his heart; and these will be found to infuse the living principle into all the works of genius which seem destined to immortality. His sensibility bad an uncommon range. He was alive to every species of emotion. He is one of the few poets that can be mentioned who have at once excelled in humour, in tenderness, and in sublimity; a praise unknown to the ancients, and which in modern times is only due to Ariosto, to Shakspeare, and perhaps to Voltaire, To compare the writings of the Scottish peasant with the works of these giants in literature, might appear presumptuous; yet it may be asserted, that he has displayed the foot of Hercules. How near he might have approached them by proper culture, with lengthened years, and under happier auspices, it is not for us to calculate. But while we run over the melancholy story of his life, it is impossible not to heave a sigh at the asperity of his fortune; and as we survey the records of his mind, it is easy to see that out of such materials have been reared the fairest and most honourable monuments of genius." |