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Syme, and many others might be adduced:

"Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore,

There is no species of poetry, the productions of the drama not excepted, so much calculated to influence the morals, as well as the happiness of a people,bas

Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar: those popular verses which are associated There would I weep my woes,

There seek my last repose,
Till grief my eyes should close
Ne'er to wake more."

In one song, the scene of which is laid in a winter-night, the "wan moon" is described as "setting behind the white waves;" in another, the "storms" are apostrophized, and commanded to "rest in the cave of their slumbers," on several occasions the genius of Burns loses sight entirely of his archetypes, and rises into a strain of uniform sublimity. Instances of this kind appear in Libertie, a Vision; and in his two war-songs, Bruce to his Troops, and the Song of Death. These last are of a description of which we have no other in our language. The martial songs of our nation are not military, but naval. If we were to seek a comparison of these songs of Burns with others of a similar nature, we must have recourse to the poetry of ancient Greece, or of modern Gaul.

with national airs; and which being learned in the years of infancy, make a deep impression on the heart before the evolution of the powers of the understanding. The compositions of Burns of this kind, now presented in a collected form to the world, make a most important addition to the popular songs of his nation. Like all his other writings, they exhibit independence of sentiment; they are peculiarly calculated to increase those ties which bind generous hearts to their native soil, and to the domestic circle of their infancy; and to cherish those sensibilities which, under due restriction, form the purest happiness of our nature. If in his unguarded moments he composed some songs on which this praise cannot be bestowed, let us hope that they will speedily be forgotten. In several instances, where Scottish airs were allied to words objectionable in point of delicacy, Burns has substituted others of a purer character. On such occasions, without chang ing the subject, he has changed the senBurns has made an important addition timents. A proof of this may be seen in to the songs of Scotland. In his compo- the air of John Anderson my Joe, which sitions, the poetry equals and sometimes is now united to words that breathe a surpasses the music. He has enlarged strain of conjugal tenderness, that is as the poetical scenery of his country. Ma-highly moral as it is exquisitely affecting. ny of her rivers and mountains, formerly unknown to the muse, are now consecrated by his immortal verse. The Doon, the Lugar, the Ayr, the Nith, and the Cluden, will in future, like the Yarrow, the Tweed, and the Tay, be considered as classic streams, and their borders will be trodden with new and superior emotions.

his

The greater part of the songs of Burns were written after he removed into the county of Dumfries. Influenced, perhaps, by habits formed in early life, he usually composed while walking in the open air. When engaged in writing these songs, favourite walks were on the banks of the Nith, or of the Cluden, particularly near the ruins of Lincluden Abbey; and this beautiful scenery he has very happily described under various aspects, as it appears during the softness and serenity of evening, and during the stillness and solemnity of the moon-light night.f

* See pp. 55, 56.

↑ See Poems, p. 96; & the Vision. p 117.

Few circumstances could afford a more striking proof of the strength of Burns's genius, than the general circulation of his poems in England, notwithstanding the dialect in which the greater part are writ ten, and which might be supposed to render them here uncouth or obscure. In some instances he has used this dialect on subjects of a sublime nature; but in general he confines it to sentiments or and where he rises into elevation of descriptions of a tender or humorous kind; thought, he assumes a purer English style. The singular faculty he possessed of mingments and descriptions, with imagery of ling in the same poem, humorous sentia sublime and terrific nature, enabled him to use this variety of dialect on some ocTam o'Shanter affords an instance of this. casions with striking effect. His poem of There he passes from a scene of the lowest humour, to situations of the most awful and terrible kind. He is a musician that runs from the lowest to the highest of his keys; and the use of the Scottish

dialect enables him to add two additional | considered as attractive in a different notes to the bottom of his scale.

eat efforts have been made by the inhabitants of Scotland, of the superior ranks, to approximate in their speech to the pure English standard; and this has made it difficult to write in the Scottish dialect, without exciting in them some feelings of disgust, which in England are scarcely felt. An Englishman who understands the meaning of the Scottish words, is not offended, nay, on certain subjects, he is perhaps, pleased with the rustic dialect, as he may be with the Doric Greek of Theocritus.

point of view. Estranged from their native soil, and spread over foreign lands, the idiom of their country unites with the sentiments and the descriptions on which it is employed, to recal to their minds the interesting scenes of infancy and youthto awaken many pleasing, many tender recollections. Literary men, residing at Edinburgh or Aberdeen, cannot judge on this point for one hundred and fifty thousand of their expatriated countrymen.*

To the use of the Scottish dialect in one species of poetry, the composition of songs, the taste of the public has been for some time reconciled. The dialect in question excels, as has already been observed, in the copiousness and exactness of its terms for natural objects; and in pastoral or rural songs, it gives a Doric simplicity, which is very generally ap proved. Neither does the regret seem well founded which some persons of taste have expressed, that Burns used this dialect in so many other of his compositions. His declared purpose was to paint the manners of rustic life among "humble compeers," and it is not easy to conceive, that this could have been done with equal humour and effect, if he had not adopted their idiom. There are some, indeed, who will think the subject too low for poetry. Persons of this sick ly taste will find their delicacies consulted in many a polite and learned author: let them not seek for gratification in the rough and vigorous lines, in the unbridled humour, or in the overpowering sensibility of this bard of nature.

his

But a Scotchman inhabiting his own country, if a man of education, and more especially if a literary character, has banished such words from his writings, and has attempted to banish them from his speech and being accustomed to hear them from the vulgar, daily, does not easily admit of their use in poetry, which requires a style elevated and ornamental. A dislike of this kind is, however, accidental, not natural. It is one of the species of disgust which we feel at seeing a female of high birth in the dress of a rustic; which, if she be really young and beautiful, a little habit will enable us to overcome. A lady who assumes such a dress, puts her beauty, indeed, to a severer trial. She rejects-she, indeed, opposes the influence of fashion; she possibly abandons the grace of elegant and flowing drapery; but her native charms remain the more striking, perhaps, because the less adorned; and to these she trusts for fixing her empire on those affections over which fashion has no sway. If she succeeds, a new association arises. The dress of the beautiful rustic becomes itself beautiful, and establishes a new fashion for the young and the gay. And when in after ages, the contemplative observer shall view her picture in the gallery that contains the portraits of the beauties of successive centuries, each in These observations are excited by some remarks of the dress of her respective day, her dra-respectable correspondents of the description alluded to. pery will not deviate, more than that of This calculation of the number of Scotchmen living out her rivals, from the standard of his taste, bly below the truth. It is, in some degree, founded on of Scotland is not altogether arbitrary, and it is proba and he will give the palm to her who excels in the lineaments of nature.

Burns wrote professedly for the peasantry of his country, and by them their native dialect is universally relished. To a numerous class of the natives of Scotland of another description, it may also be

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

the proportion between the number of the sexes in Scotland, as it appears from the invaluable Statistics of Sir John Sinclair. For Scotchmen of this description, more

particularly, Burns seems to have written his song, be ginning, Their groves o' sweet myrtle, a beautiful strain, which, it may be confidently predicted, will be sung with equal or superior interest on the banks of the Ganges or of the Mississippi, as on those of the Tay or

the Tweed.

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 them both, in whom both these qualities are united. Of Homer himself it may be said, that, like his own Achilles, he surpasses his competitors in nobility as well as strength.

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 had an ancommon 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 the most durable of the monuments of genius.

ΤΟ

DR. CURRIE'S

EDITION OF THE CORRESPONDENCE.

It is impossible to dismiss this volume* of the Correspondence of our Bard, without some anxiety as to the reception it may meet with. The experiment we are making has not often been tried; perhaps on no occasion has so large a portion of the recent and unpremeditated effusions of a man of genius been committed to the press.

| selves worthy of a place in this volume, we have not hesitated to insert them, though they may not always correspond exactly with the letters transmitted, which have been lost or withheld.

there are but five of the letters thus selected by the poet, to be found in the present volume, the rest being thought of inferior merit, or otherwise unfit for the public eye.

Our author appears at one time to have formed an intention of making a collection of his letters for the amusement of a friend. Accordingly he copied an inconOf the following letters of Burns, a con- siderable number of them into a book, siderable number were transmitted for which he presented to Robert Riddel, of publication, by the individuals to whom Glenriddel, Esq. Among these was the they were addressed; but very few have account of his life, addressed to Doctor been printed entire. It will easily be be- Moore, and printed in the first volume.* lieved, that in a series of letters written In copying from his imperfect sketches, without the least view to publication, va- (it does not appear that he had the letters rious passages were found unfit for the actually sent to his correspondents before press, from different considerations. It him,) he seems to have occasionally enwill also be readily supposed, that our po-larged his observations, and altered his et, writing nearly at the same time, and expressions. In such instances his emenunder the same feelings to different indi-dations have been adopted; but in truth viduals, would sometimes fall into the same train of sentiment and forms of expression. To avoid, therefore, the tediousness of such repetitions, it has been found necessary to mutilate many of the individual letters, and sometimes to exscind parts of great delicacy-the unbridled effusions of panegyric and regard. But though many of the letters are printed from originals furnished by the persons to whom they were addressed, others are printed from first draughts, or sketches, found among the papers of our Bard. Though in general no man committed his thoughts to his correspondents with less consideration or effort than Burns, yet it appears that in some instances he was dissatisfied with his first essays, and wrote out his communications in a fairer character, or perhaps in more studied language. In the chaos of his manuscripts, some of the original sketches were found; and as these sketches, though less perfect, are fairly to be considered as the offspring of his mind, where they have seemed in them

* Dr. Currie's edition of Burus's Works was originally published in four volumes, of which the followIng Correspondence formed the second.

In printing this volume, the editor has found some corrections of grammar necessary; but these have been very few, and such as may be supposed to occur in the careless effusions, even of literary characters, who have not been in the habit of carrying their compositions to the press. These corrections have never been extended to any habitual modes of expres sion of the poet, even where his phraseology may seem to violate the delicacies of taste; or the idiom of our language, which he wrote in general with great accuracy. Some difference will indeed be found in this respect in his earlier and in his later compositions; and this volume will exhibit the progress of his style, as well as the history of his mind. In the fourth edition, several new letters were introduced, and some of inferior impor tance were omitted.

* Occupying from page 9 to page 16 of this Edition.

GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE

OF

ROBERT BURNS.

LETTERS, &C.

No. I.

TO MR. JOHN MURDOCH,

SCHOOLMASTER,

STAPLES INN BUILDINGS, LONDON.

Lochlee, 15th January, 1783.

DEAR SIR,

As I have an opportunity of sending you a letter, without putting you to that expense which any production of mine would but ill repay, I embrace it with pleasure, to tell you that I have not forgotten nor ever will forget, the many obligations I lie under to your kindness and friendship.

I do not doubt, Sir, but you will wish to know what has been the result of all the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher; and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with such a as you would be pleased with; but that

recital

is what I am afraid will not be the case.

who tricks me of my money, if there be any thing original about him which shows me human nature in a different light from any thing I have seen before. In short, the joy of my heart is to "study men, their manners, and their ways ;" and for this darling object, I cheerfully sacrifice every other consideration. I am quite indolent about those great concerns that set the bustling busy sons of care agog; and if I have to answer for the present hour, I am very easy with regard to any thing further. Even the last worthy shift, of the unfortunate and the wretched does not much terrify me: I know that even then my talent for what country-folks call 66 a sensible crack," when once it is sanctified by a hoary head, would procure me so much esteem, that even then-I would learn to be happy. However, I am under no apprehensions about that; for, though indolent, yet, so far as an extremely delicate constitution permits, I am not lazy; and in many things, especially in

*

tavern-matters, I am a strict economist; not indeed for the sake of the money, but one of the principal parts in my composition is a kind of pride of stomach, and I scorn to fear the face of any man living; above every thing, I abhor, as hell, the idea of sneaking in a corner to avoid dun-possibly some pitiful, sordid wretch, whom in my heart I despise and detest. 'Tis this, and this alone, that endears economy to me. In the matter of books, indeed, I am very profuse. My favourite authors are of the sentimental kind, such

I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of vicious
habits; and in this respect, I hope my
conduct will not disgrace the education I
bave gotten; but as a man of the world,
I am most miserably deficient. One
would have thought that bred as I have
been, under a father who has figured
pretty well as un homme des affaires, I
might have been what the world calls a
pushing, active fellow; but, to tell you
the truth, Sir, there is hardly any thing
more my reverse. I seem to be one sent
into the world to see, and observe; and
I very easily compound with the knave of an itinerant beggar.

*The last shift alluded to here, must be the condition

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