with too fierce a tone of defiance; and indi- | to lay it down as our opinion-that his poetry cates rather the pride of a sturdy peasant, is far superior to his prose; that his Scottish than the calm and natural elevation of a compositions are greatly to be preferred to his generous mind. The last of the symptoms of rusticity which we think it necessary to notice in the works of this extraordinary man, is that frequent mistake of mere exaggeration and violence, for force and sublimity, which has defaced so much of his prose composition, and given an air of heaviness and labour to a good deal of his serious poetry. The truth is, that his forte was in humour and in pathos-or rather in tenderness of feeling; and that he has very seldom succeeded, either where mere wit and sprightliness, or where great energy and weight of sentiment were requisite. He had evidently a very false and crude notion of what constituted strength of writing; and instead of that simple and brief directness which stamps the character of vigour upon every syllable, has generally had recourse to a mere accumulation of hyperbolical expressions, which encumber the diction instead of exalting it, and show the determination to be impressive, without the power of executing it. This error also we are inclined to ascribe entirely to the defects of his education. The value of simplicity in the expression of passion, is a lesson, we believe, of nature and of genius; but its importance in mere grave and impressive writing, is one of the latest discoveries of rhetorical experience. English ones; and that his Songs will probably outlive all his other productions. A very few remarks on each of these subjects will comprehend almost all that we have to say of the volumes now before us. The prose works of Burns consist almost entirely of his letters. They bear, as well as his poetry, the seal and the impress of his genius; but they contain much more bad taste, and are written with far more apparent labour. His poetry was almost all written primarily from feeling, and only secondarily from ambition. His letters seem to have been nearly all composed as exercises, and for display. There are few of them written with simplicity or plainness; and though natural enough as to the sentiment, they are generally very strained and elaborate in the expression. A very great proportion of them, too, relate neither to facts nor feelings peculiarly connected with the author or his correspondent— but are made up of general declamation, moral reflections, and vague discussions-all evidently composed for the sake of effect, and frequently introduced with long complaints of having nothing to say, and of the necessity and difficulty of letter-writing. By far the best of those compositions, are such as we should consider as exceptions from this general character-such as contain some With the allowances and exceptions we specific information as to himself, or are sughave now stated, we think Burns entitled to gested by events or observations directly ap the rank of a great and original genius. He plicable to his correspondent. One of the has in all his compositions great force of con- best, perhaps, is that addressed to Dr. Moore, ception; and great spirit and animation in its containing an account of his early life, of expression. He has taken a large range which Dr. Currie has made such a judicious through the region of Fancy, and naturalized use in his Biography. It is written with great himself in almost all her climates. He has clearness and characteristic effect, and congreat humour great powers of description-tains many touches of easy humour and natu great pathos and great discrimination of ral eloquence. We are struck, as we open character. Almost every thing that he says the book accidentally, with the following has spirit and originality; and every thing that he says well, is characterized by a charming facility, which gives a grace even to occasional rudeness, and communicates to the reader a delightful sympathy with the spontaneous soaring and conscious inspiration of the poet. Considering the reception which these works have met with from the public, and the long period during which the greater part of them have been in their possession, it may appear superflous to say any thing as to their characteristic or peculiar merit. Though the ultimate judgment of the public, however, be always sound, or at least decisive as to its general result, it is not always very apparent upon what grounds it has proceeded; nor in consequence of what, or in spite of what, it has been obtained. In Burns' works there is much to censure, as well as much to praise; and as time has not yet separated his ore from its dross, it may be worth while to state, in a very general way, what we presume to anticipate as the result of this separation. Without pretending to enter at all into the comparative merit of particular passages we may venture original application of a classical image, by this unlettered rustic. Talking of the first vague aspirations of his own gigantic mind, he says-we think very finely-“I had felt some early stirrings of ambition; but they were the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclop round the walls of his cave!" Of his other letters, those addressed to Mrs. Dunlop are, in our opinion, by far the best. He appears, from first to last, to have stood somewhat in awe of this excellent lady; and to have been no less sensible of her sound judgment and strict sense of propriety, than of her steady and generous partiality. The following pas sage we think is striking and characteristic: "I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordiuated routine of life and thought which is so apt to nary acts of devotion, for breaking in on that habitreduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. "This day; the first Sunday of May; a breezy, blue-skyed noon, some time about the beginning, end of autumn;-these, time out of mind, have and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the been with me a kind of holiday. "I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the "Honoured Sir,-I have purposely delayed wriSpectator, The Vision of Mirza;' a piece that ting, in the hope that I should have the pleasure of struck my young fancy before I was capable of fix-seeing you on New-year's Day; but work comes ing an idea to a word of three syllables. On the 5th day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.' We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring; among which are the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier-rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover in an autumnal rmorning, without feeling an elevation of soul, like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the Eolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod?"--Vol. ii. Pp. 195-197. To this we may add the following passage, as a part, indeed, of the same picture :— "There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more-I do not know if I should call it pleasure but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winterday, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain! It is my best season for devotion: my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Him, who, in the pompous language of the Hebrew bard, "walks on the wings of the wind."-Vol. ii. p. 11. The following is one of the best and most striking of a whole series of eloquent hypochondriasm. "After six weeks' confinement, I am beginning to walk across the room. They have been six horrible weeks;-anguish and low spirits made me unfit to read, write, or think. "I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer resigns a commission: for I would not take in any poor, ignorant wretch, by selling out. Lately I was a sixpenny private; and, God knows, a miserable soldier enough: now I march to the campaign, a starving cadet-a little more conspicuously wretched. I am ashamed of all this; for though I do want bravery for the warfare of life, I could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice." Vol. ii. pp. 127, 128. One of the most striking letters in the collection, and, to us, one of the most interesting, is the earliest of the whole series; being addressed to his father in 1781, six or seven years before his name had been heard of out of his own family. The author was then a common flax-dresser, and his father a poor peasant-yet there is not one trait of vulgarity, either in the thought or the expression; but, on the contrary, a dignity and elevation of sentiment, which must have been considered as of good omen in a youth of much higher condition. The letter is as follows: so hard upon us, that I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for some other little reasons, which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder, and, on the whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind, that I dare neither review past wants, nor look forward into futurity; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, I glimmer a little into futurity; but my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable employment, is looking backwards and forwards, in a moral and religious way. I am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this weary life; for I assure you I am heartily tired of it; and, if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. 'The soul, uneasy, and confin'd at home Rests and expatiates in a life to come.' the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter "It is for this reason I am more pleased with of the Revelations, than with any ten times as many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that this word has to offer. As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I shall never again be capable of entering into such scenes. Indeed I am altogether unconcerned for the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me; and I am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just time and paper to return to you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me; which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which, I hope, have been remembered ere it is yet too late."-Vol. i. pp. 99-101. Before proceeding to take any particular, notice of his poetical compositions, we must that all his best pieces are written in Scotch; take leave to apprise our Southern readers, and that it is impossible for them to form any adequate judgment of their merits, without a pretty long residence among those who still use that language. To be able to translate the words, is but a small part of the knowledge that is necessary. The whole genius. and idiom of the language must be familiar; and the characters, and habits, and associations of those who speak it. We beg leave too, in passing, to observe, that this Scotch is the vehicle only of rustic vulgarity and rude not to be considered as a provincial dialectlocal humour. It is the language of a whole country-long an independent kingdom, and still separate in laws, character, and manners. It is by no means peculiar to the vulgar; but is the common speech of the whole nation in early life-and, with many of its most exalted and accomplished individuals, through, out their whole existence; and, though it be true that, in later times, it has been, in some measure, laid aside by the more ambitious and aspiring of the present generation, it is still recollected, even by them, as the familiar language of their childhood, and of those who were the earliest objects of their love and veneration. It is connected, in their imagination, not only with that olden time which is uniformly conceived as more pure, lofty and simple than the present, but also with all the soft and bright colours of remembered childhood and domestic affection. All its phrases conjure up images of schoolday innocence, and sports, and friendships which have no pattern in succeeding years. Add to all this, that it is the language of a great body of poetry, with which almost all Scotchmen are familiar; and, in particular, of a great multitude of songs, written with more tenderness, nature, and feeling, than any other lyric compositions that are extant-and we may perhaps be allowed to say, that the Scotch is, in reality, a highly poetical language; and that it is an ignorant, as well as an illiberal prejudice, which would seek to confound it with the barbarous dialects of Yorkshire or Devon. In composing his Scottish poems, therefore, Burns did not merely make an instinctive and necessary use of the only dialect he could employ. The last letter which we have quoted, proves, that before he had penned a single couplet, he could write in the dialect of England with far greater purity and propriety than nine tenths of those who are called well educated in that country. He wrote in Scotch, because the writings which he most aspired to imitate were composed in that language; and it is evident, from the variations preserved by Dr. Currie, that he took much greater pains with the beauty and purity of his expressions in Scotch than in English; and, every one who understands both, must admit, with infinitely better success. But though we have ventured to say thus much in praise of the Scottish poetry of Burns, we cannot presume to lay many specimens of it before our readers; and, in the few extracts we may be tempted to make from the volumes before us, shall be guided more by a desire to exhibit what may be intelligible to all our readers, than by a feeling of what is in itself of the highest excellence. We have said that Burns is almost equally distinguished for his tenderness and his humour:-we might have added, for a faculty of combining them both in the same subject, not altogether without parallel in the older poets and ballad-makers, but altogether singular, we think, among modern writers. The passages of pure humour are entirely Scottish-and untranslateable. They consist in the most picturesque representations of life and manners, enlivened, and even exalted by traits of exquisite sagacity, and unexpected reflection. His tenderness is of two sorts; that which is combined with circumstances and characters of humble, and sometimes ludicrous simplicity; and that which is produced by gloomy and distressful impressions acting on a mind of keen sensibility. The passages which belong to the former description are, we think, the most exquisite and original, and, in our estimation, indicate the greatest and most amiable turn of genius; both as being accompanied by fine and feeling pictures of humble life, and as requiring that delicacy, as well as justness of conception, by which alone the fastidiousness of an ordinary reader can be reconciled to such representations. The exquisite description of "The Cotter's Saturday Night "affords, perhaps, the finest example of this sort of pathetic. Its whole beauty cannot, indeed, be discerned but by those whom experience has enabled to judge of the admirable fidelity and completeness of the picture. But, independent altogether of national peculiarities, and even in spite of the obscurity of the language, we think it impossible to peruse the following stanzas without feeling the force of tenderness and truth: "November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose: The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameHoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, ward bend. "At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; An' 46 Th' expectant wee-things, toddling, stacher thro' To meet their Dad, wi' flicherin noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil. Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out, amang the farmers roun'; Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A canna errand to a neebor town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown, Or deposite her sair-won penny fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. "But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad came o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; Weel pleas'd, the mother hears its nae wild, worth less rake. Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben: A srappan youth; he taks the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy. But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae [the lave. Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like "The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face. grave; They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace. The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride: His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; [air. And Let us worship GOD!" he says, with solemn They chaunt their artless notes in simple guise They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim," &c. Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; And proffer up to Heaven the warm request The charm of the fine lines written on turning up a mouse's nest with a plough, will also be found to consist in the simple tenderness of the delineation. Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! An' bleak December's winds ensuin, "Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, Thou thought to dwell, 'Till crash! the cruel coulter past "That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, The verses to a Mountain Daisy, though more elegant and picturesque, seem to derive their chief beauty from the same tone of sentiment. "Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, "Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, Wi' spreckl'd breast, When upward-springing, blythe to greet "Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above the parent earth, "There, in thy scanty mantle clad, In humble guise; There are many touches of the same kind in most of the popular and beautiful poems in this collection, especially in the Winter Night -the address to his old Mare-the address to the Devil, &c.;-in all which, though the greater part of the piece be merely ludicrous and picturesque, there are traits of a delicate and tender feeling, indicating that unaffected softness of heart which is always so enchanting. In the humorous address to the Devil, which we have just mentioned, every Scottish reader must have felt the effect of this relenting nature in the following stanzas:— 44 'Lang syne, in Eden's bonie yard, "Then you, ye auld, snic-drawing dog! "But, fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben! I'm wae to think upo' yon den, Ev'n for your sake!" He The finest examples, however, of this simple and unpretending tenderness is to be found in those songs which are likely to transmit the name of Burns to all future generations. found this delightful trait in the old Scottish ballads which he took for his model, and upon which he has improved with a felicity and delicacy of imitation altogether unrivalled in the history of literature. Sometimes it is the brief and simple pathos of the genuine old ballad; as, "But I look to the West when I lie down to rest, "Drumossie moor, Drumossie day! A waefu' day it was to me; My father dear, and brethren three. Their graves are growing green to see; That ever blest a woman's e'e! Sometimes it is animated with airy narrative, "And ay she wrought her mammie's wark: That bless the little lintwhite's nest; The flower and pride of a' the glen; "He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste, He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down; "As in the bosom o' the stream The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en; So trembling, pure, was infant love Within the breast o' bonie Jean! Vol. iv. p. 80. Sometimes, again, it is plaintive and mournful-in the same strain of unaffected simnlicity. 46 "O stay, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay, "Again, again that tender part And heard thee as the careless wind? "Thou tells o' never-ending care; Vol. iv. pp. 226, 227. We add the following from Mr. Cromek's new volume; as the original form of the very popular song given at p. 325, of Dr. Currie's fourth volume : "Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon, "Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird "Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon, To see the woodbine twine, And ilka bird sang o' its love, "Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose And my fanse luver staw the rose, Sometimes the rich imagery of the poet's fancy overshadows and almost overcomes the leading sentiment. "The merry ploughboy cheers his team, A dream of ane that never wauks. And when the lark, 'tween light and dark, The sensibility which is thus associated with simple imagery and gentle melancholy, is to us the most winning and attractive. But Burns has also expressed it when it is merely the instrument of torture-of keen remorse, and tender and agonising regret. There are some strong traits of the former feeling, in the poems entitled the Lament, Despondency, &c.; when, looking back to the times "When love's luxurious pulse beat high," he bewails the consequences of his own irregularities. There is something cumbrous and inflated, however, in the diction of these pieces. We are infinitely more moved with his Elegy upon Highland Mary. Of this first love of the poet, we are indebted to Mr. Cromek for a brief, but very striking account, from the pen of the poet himself. In a note on an early song inscribed to this mistress, he had recorded in a manuscript book— "My Highland lassie was a warm-hearted, charming young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love. After a pretty long tract of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, we met, by appointment, on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the Banks of Ayr, where we spent the day in taking a farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of Autumn following, she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock: where she had scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to the grave in a few days!-before I could even hear of her illness." Vol. v. pp. 237, 238. Mr. Cromek has added, in a note, the following interesting particulars; though without specifying the authority upon which he details them : "This adieu was performed with all those simple and striking ceremonials which rustic sentiment has devised to prolong tender emotions and to inspire awe. The lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook; they laved their hands in its limpid stream, and holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other. They parted-never to meet again! The anniversary of Mary Campbell's death (for that was her name) awakening in the sensitive mind of Burns the most lively emotion, he retired from his family, then residing on the farm of Ellisland, and wandered, solitary, on the banks of the Nith, and about the farm yard, in the extremest agitation of mind, nearly the wale of the night: His agita tion was so great, that he threw himself on the side of a corn stack, and there conceived his sublime and tender elegy-his address To Mary in Heaven." Vol. v. p. 238. The poem itself is as follows:- "O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? "That sacred hour can I forget, 64 Can I forget the hallowed grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past; |