When Burns told Mrs. Dunlop that he was determined to flatter no created being, she might have smiled; for in his "Earnest Cry and Prayer," he scattered praise as profusely as ever he scattered corn over his new-turned fur rows. He, who could see Demosthenes and Cicero in half-a-dozen northern members of Parliament, was inclined to flatter: Dempster, "And ane, a chap that's damn'd auld-farran, were respectable debaters, but not eloquent. "Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie," came nearer to the comparison, and almost reconciles us to the lavish waste of honours on the others. I Burns' taste, which in all things resembled his genius, was almost always correct: he depended on its accuracy, and, as he used no words at random, was unwilling to alter aught. In the "Cotter's Saturday Night" he called Wallace the "unhappy," in allusion to his fate; he hesitated now to change the word to "undaunted," in compliance with the criticism of Mrs. Dunlop. -" Your friendly advice"-he says to that lady, "I will not give it the cold name of criticism, I receive with reverence. have made some small alterations in what I before had printed. I have the advice of some very judicious friends among the literati here: but with them I sometimes find it necessary to claim the privilege of thinking for myself. The noble Earl of Glencairn, to whom I owe more than to any man, does me the honour of giving me his strictures; his hints, with respect to impropriety or indelicacy, I follow implicitly." During the spring, he sat to Alexander Nasmyth for his portrait; it was engraved by Beugo, whose boast it was that he had added to the merit of the likeness by inducing Burns to give him a sitting or two while he touched up the plate. He also allowed his profile to be taken in small: the brow is low, the hair hangs over it, and there is a short queue behind. The portrait by Nasmyth is the best, though wanting a little in massive vigour and the look of | inspiration. He sat to whoever desired him, nor seemed to be aware that genius went to such works as well as to the manufacture of rhyme. He took pleasure in presenting proof impressions of this portrait to his friends: sometimes the gift was accompanied by verse, and it has been remarked that he imagined he looked very well on paper, and expected some notice to be taken of his face as well as of his poetry. Of his verse, indeed, the notice was not always taken that he desired. On the death of Dundas of Arniston, Lord President of the Court of Session, he wrote a "Lamentation," forty lines in length. There are vigorous passages; the Poet affects an excess of grief; he complains to the hills, the plains, and the tempests, of the too early removal of one who redressed wrongs, restrained violence, defeated fraud, and protected innocence. He copied the poem into a volume now before me, and presented it to Dr. Geddes, with the following note, describing the success of his "Lamentation."-"The foregoing poem has some tolerable lines in it, but the incurable wound of my pride will not suffer me to correct or even to peruse it. I sent a copy of it, with my best prose letter, to the son of the great man, the theme of the piece, by the hands, too, of one of the noblest men in God's world, Alex. Wood, surgeon; when, behold! his solicitorship took no more notice of my poem or me than I had been a strolling fiddler, who had made free with his lady's name, over the head of a silly new reel! Did he think I looked for any dirty gratuity?"" Some of the anecdotes related of the Poet and his proof-sheets are amusing enough. When he had made up his mind to retain a line in the words of its original inspirationsuch as "When. I look back on prospects drear,"--he stated his reasons briefly for refusing to make any change, and then sat, like his own heroine, "deaf as Ailsa Craig" to all persuasion or remonstrance. Nor did he lose his serenity of mind, though the way in which he unconsciously, perhaps, crumpled up the sheet in his hand, till he almost made it illegible, shewed what was passing within him. It was on one of these occasions that a clergyman, stung with the irreverent way that Burns had handled the cloth, in some of his earlier pieces, hazarded some stern remarks on the "Holy Fair;" not, he said, but that the poem was a clever picture, he only wished to shew that it was not constructed according to the true rules of composition. The reverend censor did not acquit himself well in his perilous undertaking: the eye of the Poet began to lighten, and his lips to give a sort of twitching announcement that something sarcastic was coming. All present looked towards him; he spoke as they expected, saying, "No, by heaven! I'll not touch him 'Dulness is sacred in a souna divine.'" "I'll find you as apt a quotation as that," said the aggressor, "and from a poet whom I love more 'Corbies and Clergy are a shot right kittle." Burns laughed, held out his hand, saying, "Then we are friends again." E He did not always come off so happily: on another occasion, Cromek tells us that, at a breakfast, where a number of the literati were present, a critic, one of those fond of seeming very acute and wise, undertook to prove that Gray's Elegy in a country Church-yard, a poem of which Burns was enthusiastically fond, violated the essential rules of verse, and transgressed against true science, to which he held true poetry to be amenable. He failed, however, in explaining the nature of his scientific gauge, and he also failed in quoting the lines correctly, which he proposed to censure; upon which Burns exclaimed with great vehemence, "Sir, I now perceive a man may be an excellent judge of poetry by square and rule, and, after all, be a dd blockhead." One of those critical scenes is well described by Professor Walker, who happened to be present; it occurred at the table of Dr. Blair, who was fond of hearing the Poet read his own verses."The aversion of Burns," he observes, "to adopt alterations which were proposed to him, after having fully satisfied his own taste, is apparent from his letters. In one passage, he says that he never accepted any of the corrections of the Edinburgh Literati, except in the instance of a single word. If his admirers should be desirous to know this 'single word,' I am able to gratify them, as I happened to be present when the criticism was made. It was at the table of a gentleman of literary celebrity (Dr. Blair), who opserved, that in two lines of the Holy Fair,' beginning 'For Moodie speels the holy door, The last word, from his description of the says "I him at Dr. Blair's. The other guests were very few; and, as each had been invited chiefly to have an opportunity of meeting with the Poet, the Doctor endeavoured to draw him out, and make him the central figure of the groupe. Though he, therefore, furnished the greatest proportion of the conversation, he did no more than what he saw was evidently expected. Men of genius have often been taxed with a proneness to commit blunders in company, from that ignorance or negligence of the laws of conversation, which must be imputed to the absorption of their thoughts on a favourite subject, or to the want of that daily practice in attending to the petty modes of behaviour, which is incompatible with a studious life. From singularities of this sort, Burns was unusually free: yet, on the present occasion, he made a more awkward slip than any that are reported of the poets or mathematicians, most noted for absence. Being asked from which of the public places of worship he had received the greatest gratification, he named the high church, but gave the preference as a preacher to (the Rev. Robert Walker) the colleague (and most formidable rival) of our worthy entertainer-whose celebrity rested on his pulpit eloquence-in a tone so pointed and decisive as to throw the whole company into the most foolish embarrassment. The Doctor, indeed, with becoming self-command, endeavoured to relieve the rest by cordially seconding the encomium so injudiciously introduced; but this did not prevent the conversation from labouring under that compulsory effort which was unavoidable, while the thoughts of all were full of the only subject on which it was improper to speak. Of this blunder Burns must instantly have been aware, but he shewed the return of good sense by making no attempt to repair it. His secret mortification was indeed so great that he never mentioned the circumstance until | many years after, when he told me that his silence had proceeded from the pain which he felt in recalling it to his memory." 1 ון It must be mentioned, to the honour of Blair, that this mortifying blunder had no influence over his well-regulated mind, and that he appears, from his correspondence, to have augmented rather than lessened his kindness for the Poet; the strong sense of propriety which is visible in all that Blair ever said or wrote preserved him from this: yet he probably thought.. of the Poet's preference when he first saw the fragment on America, beginning : "When Guilford good our pilot stood;" and said, "Burns' politics always smell of the smithy." The Bard disapproved of the war waged with America; the world at large has shared in his feelings, and the sarcasm of the Doctor falls harmless on this little hasty, though not very happy production. It was likely to Blair that Burns glanced when, in reply to the question if the critical literati of Edinburgh had aided him with their opinions, -"The best of these gentlemen," said he, "are like the wife's daughter in the west-they spin the thread of their criticism so fine, that it is fit for neither warp nor waft." He was never at a loss for illustrations drawn from domestic life or rural affairs. 1. [No one has equalled Lockhart's account of try, and forming by far the most influential Burns among the literati and lawyers of Edinburgh:-" It needs no effort of imagination to conceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or professors) must have been in the presence of this big-boned, black-browed, brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, having forced his way among them from the plough-tail, at a single stride, manifested, in the whole strain of his bearing and conversation, a most thorough conviction that, in the society of the most eminent men of his nation, he was exactly where he was entitled to be; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an occasional symptom of being flattered by their notice; by turns calmly measured himself against the most cultivated understandings of his time in discussion; overpowered the bon mots of the most celebrated convivialists by broad floods of merriment, impregnated with all the burning life of genius; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to tremble-nay, to tremble visiblybeneath the fearless touch of natural pathos; and all this without indicating the smallest willingness to be ranked among those professional ministers of excitement, who are content to be paid in money and smiles, for doing what the spectators and auditors would be ashamed of doing in their own persons, even if they had the power of doing it; and-last, and probably worst of all, who was known to be in the habit of enlivening societies, which they would have scorned to approach, still more frequently than their own, with eloquence no less magnificent; with wit, in all likelihood, still more daring; often enough, as the superiors whom he fronted without alarm might have guessed from the beginning, and had, ere long, no occasion to guess, with wit pointed at themselves. "The lawyers of Edinburgh, in whose wider circle Burns figured at his outset, with at least as much success as among the professional literati, were a very different race of men from these, they would neither, I take it, have pardoned rudeness, nor been alarmed by wit. But being, in those days, with scarcely an exception, members of the landed aristocracy of the coun body (as, indeed, they still do) in the society of Scotland, they were, perhaps, as proud a set of men as ever enjoyed the tranquil pleasures of unquestioned superiority. What their haughtiness, as a body, was, may be guessed, when we know that inferior birth was reckoned a fair and legitimate ground for excluding any man from the bar. In one remarkable instance, about this very time, a man of very extraordinary talents and accomplishments was chiefly opposed in a long and painful struggle for admission, and in reality, for no reasons but those I have been alluding to, by gentlemen, who, in the sequel, stood at the very head of the Whig party in Edinburgh; and the same aristocratical prejudice has, within the memory of the present generation, kept more persons of eminent qualifications in the back-ground, for a season, than any English reader would easily believe. To this body belonged nineteen out of twenty of those "patricians," whose stateliness Burns so long remembered, and so bitterly resented. It might, perhaps, have been well for him had stateliness been the worst fault of their manners. Wine-bibbing appears to be in most regions a favourite indulgence with those whose brains and lungs are subjected to the severe exercises of legal study and forensic practice. To this day, more traces of these old habits linger about the inns of courts than in any other sections of London. In Dublin and Edinburgh, the barristers are even now eminently convivial bodies of men; but among the Scotch lawyers of the time of Burns, the principle of jollity was indeed in its "high and palmy state." He partook largely in those tavern scenes of audacious hilarity, which then soothed, as a matter of course, the arid labours of the northern noblesse de la robe (so they are well called in Red Gauntlet), and of which we are favoured with a specimen in the "High Jinks" chapter of Guy Mannering. The tavern-life is now-a-days nearly extinct every where; but it was then in full vigour in Edinburgh, and there can be no doubt that Burns rapidly familiarized himself with it during his residence. He had, after all, tasted but rarely of such excesses while in Ayr-shire.*] Towards the close of April the subscription his situation required sobriety. Lockhart, who volume * [The fact is, those who accuse Burns of drunkenness know nothing about the history of drunkenness in Scotland at all. Let them look at the character of the Baron of Bradwardine in one age, and of High Jinks in another, by Sir Walter Scott, and they will find the epitome of drinking in those ages drawn to the very life. About the beginning of the last century, and for some time previous, drinking, among the nobility and first-rate gentry of Scotland, was carried to a very great height. The late Provost Creech of Edinburgh told many good stories illustrative of that age, and among others was the following:-There was one Angusshire laird went to visit a neighbour, whose christian name was George. The visitor was the laird of Balnamoon, commonly called Bonnymoon; he would drink nothing but claret: so his friend, George, made up a great number of bottles of half-brandy and half-claret, knowing that the laird would stick to his number. He did so, and commended the wine greatly; but sat on with his friend three days and two nights without perceiving it, he being all that time in the highest glee. At the end of the third day Bonnymoon failed, grew pale, and sunk back on his chair. "Come, laird, fill your glass; this will never do." "O,-George, I can-do -no more for you." "Then you had better go to bed." "O, no!-I never sleep-from-home. Never-stay from home a-night: -never!" So off went the laird with his servant behind him-both on capital horses. The night was dark and stormy, and, in riding over a waste, off went the laird's hat. John galloped after it, and seized it, leaning on a furze bush. "John, this is not my hat at all; go and look for the right one." "There is very little wale o' cockit hats here the night, your honour." "I say, John, this is not my hat. It would hold two heads like mine. I'll be d-d but it has taken the wig away with it." After long groping, John got the wig on another furze bush, and handed it to his "On wings of wind came flying all abroad," and was widely and warmly welcomed. All that coterie influence and individual exertion all that the noblest or the humblest could do, was done to aid in giving it a kind reception; Creech, too, had announced it through the booksellers of the land, and it was soon diffused over the country, over the colonies, and whereever the language was spoken. The literary men of the south seemed even to fly a flight beyond those of the north. Some hesitated not to call him the northern Shakspeare; criticism at that period had not usurped the thro throne, and assumed the functions of genius; reviews were few in number, and moderate in influence, and followed opinion rather than led it. Had he lived in a later day, with what a triumphant air of superiority would the two leading critical journals have crushed him! They would have agreed in this, though in nothing else, to trample down a spirit which wrote not as they wrote, and felt not as they felt; they would have assumed the air of high philosophy and searching science, and buried him, as he did the Daisy, under the weight of a deep-drawn critical furrow. The Whig of the north would have pounced on his poetical jacobitism; the Tory of the south upon his love of freedom; and both would have tossed him to the meaner hounds of the kennel of criticism, after they had dissected the soul and heart out of him. Much of this these journals tried to do at a later period, when the Poet was low in the dust, and his fame as high as Heaven, and beyond their rancour or their spite. While Burns lodged with his Mauchline friend, Richmond, he kept good hours and sober company. In the course of the spring he be came acquainted with William Nicol, one of the masters of the High-school, who lived in the Buccleugh-road, and found more suitable accommodation under his roof. This has been considered as a symptom that the keeping of good hours was growing irksome. The poverty of the Poet made him live frugally-nay, meanly, when he arrived in Edinburgh; but when money came pouring in, and gentlemen of note called on him, it did not become him to remain in an apartment of which he had but a share. I see little harm in this, or proof of increasing irregularity. Nicol, it is true, was of a quick, fierce temper-loose and wavering in his religious opinions-fond of social company, and now and then indulged in excesses, though master. "John, this is not my wig; just look at it: this is not my wig at all:"-(he had put it on with the wrong side foremost.) "Ah! guid faith, your honour, if there's little wale o' hats, there's nae wale o' wigs here, this night." They rode on, and on coming to the North Esk, the laird's horse dashed down his head to drink, and off went the laird, charges the imputed irregularities of Burns on the example of Nicol, supports his conclusion by the testimony of Heron. But Heron is a doubtful evidence; he was himself not only inclined to gross sensual indulgence, but has been regarded as one not at all solicitous about the truth.-"The enticements of pleasure," says Heron, "too often unman our virtuous resolutions, even while we wear the air of rejecting them with a stern brow. We resist, and resist, | and resist; but at last suddenly turn and embrace the enchantress. The bucks of Edinburgh accomplished, in regard to Burns, that in which | the boors of Ayr-shire had failed. After residing some months in Edinburgh, he began to estrange himself, not altogether, but in some measure, from graver friends. Too many of his hours were now spent at the tables of persons | who delighted to urge conviviality to drunkenness." Heron knew not what resolutions Burns | formed, nor how much he resisted: and to push conviviality to intoxication was common in those days at the tables of the gentlemen of the north. The entertainer set down the quantity to be drunk, locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and the guests had either to swallow all his wine, or fill the landlord tipsy, steal the key, and escape. Though Burns had expressed doubts to Lord Buchan on the prudence of a pennyless poet visiting the battle-fields, and fine natural scenery of Scotland, and intimated to many of his friends his resolution to return to the plough, he longed to pull broom on the Cowden-knowes, look at the Birks on the Braes of Yarrow, and see whether Flora smiled as sweetly on the Tweed as Crawford had represented. On the third of May he wrote to Dr. Blair-"I leave Edinburgh to-morrow morning, but could not go without troubling you with half a line, sincerely to thank you for the kindness, patronage, and friendship which you have shown me." The Doctor answered his farewell at once, and his words weigh those of Heron to the dust. -"Your situation was indeed very singular; and, being brought out all at once from the shades of deepest privacy to so great a share of public notice and observation, you had to stand a severe trial. I am happy you have stood it so well; and, as far as I have known or heard though in the midst of many temptations without reproach to your character and behaviour. You are now, I presume, to retire to a more private walk of life, and I trust you will conduct yourself there with industry, prudence, and honour. You have laid the foundation for just public esteem. In the midst of those employments which your situation will render proper, you will not, I hope, neglect to promote that esteem by cultivating your genius, and attending to such productions of it, as may raise your character still higher. At the same time, be not in too great haste to come forward. Take time and leisure to improve and mature your talents; for, on any second production you give the world, your fate, as a poet, will very much depend." Burns, it is said, received this letter when about to mount his horse on his Border excursion; he read as far as I have transcribed, then crumpled up the communication, and, thrusting it into his pocket, exclaimed, "Kindly said, Doctor; but a man's first-born book is often like his first-born babe stories of the sagacity and sense of the little girl in the kitchen. -Mr. A. high in the praises of an African, his house servant-all his people old in his service-Douglas's old nurse came to Berrywell yesterday to remind them of its being his birth-day." Here he met with the author of "The Maid that tends the Goats," of whom he says, "Mr. Dudgeon-a poet at times, a worthy, remarkable character, natural penetration, a great deal of information, some genius, and extreme modesty." In the pulpit of Dunse church, he found a character of another stamp. -" Dr. Bowmaker, a man of strong lungs, and pretty judicious remark; but ill skilled in propriety, and altogether unconscious of his want of it." He preached a sermon against "obstithe Poet to a friend, "wherever I go." * -healthier and stronger than those which fol-nate sinners." "I am found out," whispered low." In this mood he quitted Edinburgh, after a residence of five months and some odd days. Burns was accompanied in this tour by Robert Ainslie, a young gentleman of talents and education, whose friendship his genius had procured, and who is still living to enjoy the esteem and some of the applause of the world.. The Poet directed his course by Lammermoor - whose hills he pronounced dreary in general, but at times picturesque-through Peebles, where he chanted a stave of the old song of "The Wife of Peebles;" passed Coldstream, where he thought of Monk and his "reformadoe saints," and from Lanton-Edge gazed on the Merse, which he pronounced "glorious." [Of this tour, Burns kept a journal; it is now before me: the entries are brief, but generally to the point." May 6th, 1787. Reach Berrywell; old Mr. Ainslie an uncommon character; his hobbies-agriculture, natural philosophy, and politics. In the first, he is unexceptionably the clearest-headed, best-informed man I ever met with; in the other two, very intelligent: as a man of business he has uncommon merit, and by fairly deserving it, has made a very decent independence. Mrs. Ainslie, an excellent, sensible, cheerful, amiable woman. Miss Ainslie, her person a little embonpoint, but handsome, her face, particularly her eyes, full of sweetness and good humour. She unites three qualities rarely to be found together; keen penetration, sly witty observation and remark, and the gentlest, most unaffected, female modesty. Douglas, a clever, fine, promising young fellow. -The family-meeting with their brother, my compagnon de voyage, very charming; particularly the sister. The whole family remarkably attached to their menials-Mrs. A. full of On reaching the Tweed, Ainslie requested Burns to pass the stream, that he might say he had been in England. The following brief entry is all the memoranda he makes of this event :"Coldstream-went over to England-glorious river Tweed, clear and majestic." His companion has enabled me to complete the picture"The Poet accompanied me on a horseback excursion from Edinburgh to Peebles, down the Tweed, all the way to Coldstream, and thence to Berrywell, near Dunse, the residence of my father. The weather was charming; both parties then youthful and in good spirits; and the Poet delighted with the fine scenery, and the many poetical associations connected with it. When we arrived at Coldstream, where the dividing line between Scotland and England is the Tweed, I suggested our going across to the other side of the river by the Coldstream bridge, that Burns might have it to say he had been in England.' We did so, and were pacing slowly along on English ground, enjoying our walk, when I was astonished to see the Poet throw away his hat, and, thus uncovered, look towards Scotland, knecling down with uplifted hands, and, apparently, in a state of great enthusiasm. I kept silence, uncertain what was next to be done, when Burns, with extreme emotion, and an expression of countenance which I will never forget, prayed for and blessed Scotland most solemnly, by pronouncing aloud, in accents of the deepest devotion, the two concluding verses of 'The Cotter's Saturday Night:' 'O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! wrote the following lines on it, which he immediately presented to her: 'Fair maid, you need not take the hint, CROMEK.] |