poor man! the morals of his district taught him no better, and the church was satisfied if transgressors in this department went through the formality of public censure. Burns, in fact, had to do his penance, and to stand a rebuke before the congregation of Mauchline, 6th August, 1786, being indulged in the liberty "of standing in my own seat," instead of on the stool of repentance, profanely called "cuttie." Jean, however, after bearing twins a second time to the poet, ultimately became Mrs. Burns, and was publicly acknowledged to be his wedded wife, August 5, 1788. It would be out of place to speak of Burns' interminable amours; but it is worthy of remark, to show the nature of the man, that in the spring before the autumn when Jean's first children were born. Burns was pledging his faith in bibles to Highland Mary; and in the year when Jean's second children were born, he was writing his celebrated letters to Clarinda. Whatever may have been his poetic genius, his moral nature was ruined by licentiousness.
We have now shortly to trace Burns' literary career. This he explains in a few words in the fragment of his autobiography. "The first eminent composition that I recollect taking pleasure in was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's. . . . The two first books I ever read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were the Life of Hannibal, and the History of Sir William Wallace. . . Polemical divinity, about this time, was putting the country half mad, and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays between sermons, at funerals, &c., used, a few years afterwards, to puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion, that I raised a hue and cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour." He here condenses his literary life into the smallest possible compass—poetry, patriotism, and opposition to the ecclesiastical system which prevailed in his time, and which, by the concurrent opinion of all present authorities, was sufficiently deplorable. He was a poet, a patriot, and "a heretic." But he tells us, also, that when he was a boy, an old woman resided in the family who had an extraordinary collection of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, &c. To poetry, patriotism, and "heresy," therefore, must be added the popular demonology of his youth. "But far beyond all other impulses of my heart," says Burns, "was un penchant à l'adorable moitié du genre humain. My heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other." Add to these a passionate love of nature, and the marvellous power of description with which he could convey his appreciation of nature's loveliness, and we see at once the origin of all that Burns ever wrote, and how it was that the author of the "Cotter's Saturday Night "should also be the author of the merciless, but truthful satire, "The Holy Fair;" how the hand that could write verses "To a Mouse," or "To a Mountain Daisy," could pen also "Scots wha hae;" how the wonderful epic, "Tam o' Shanter," sprang from the witch and warlock teachings of the old woman who dwelt in his father's house, and how, above all, his first song and his last were devoted to beauty, to woman, and to love.
At Lochlea Burns had not written much. It was at Mossgiel in 1784, 1785, and 1786, that he laid the foundation of his fame, and resolved to publish his first volume. The publication fell out in this wise. When Jean jilted him in 1786, he resolved to go to the West Indies, and actually accepted the office of bookkeeper on a slave estate. But he was poor—that being the reason that Jean did jilt him. He therefore applied to his landlord, who advised him to publish his poems by subscription, and Burns, acting on this advice, had subscription papers thrown off, and circulated among his friends, whose fancy had probably been more tickled by his satires than attracted by his poetic powers. All this he tells us in his own concise way—"I have tried often to forget her; I have run into all kinds of dissipation and riots, mason meetings, drinking matches, and other mischief, to drive her out of my head, but all in vain. And now for a grand cure; the ship is on her way home that is to take me out to Jamaica; and then, farewell dear old Scotland, and farewell dear ungrateful Jean, for never, never will I see you more. You (the correspondent to whom he is writing) will have heard that I am going to commence poet in print, and to-morrow, June 13, 1786, my works go to the press. I expect it will be a volume of about two hundred pages; it is just the last foolish action I intend to do, and then turn a wise man as fast as possible." At this time Highland Mary had gone home to her friends to make preparations for her marriage with Burns; one of his songs being, "Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary." A bookseller in Kilmarnock, afterwards the founder of the Ayr Advertiser, undertook the business of publication, and the volume appeared in July, under the title, "Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, by Robert Burns," with the motto—
" The simple bard, unbroke to rules of art,
He pours the wild effusions of the heart;
And if inspired, 'tis nature's powers inspire—
Hers all the melting thrill, and hers the kindling fire."
It contained "The Twa Dogs," "Scotch Drink," "The Author's earnest Cry and Prayer," "The Holy Fair," "Address to the Deil," "Mailie," "To T. S.," "A Dream," "The Vision," "Halloween," "The Auld Farmer's New Year Morning's Salutation," "The Cotter's Saturday Night," "To a Mouse," '" Epistle to Davie," "The Lament," "Despondency, an Ode," "Man was made to Mourn," "Winter," "A Prayer in prospect of Death," "To a Mountain Daisy," "To Ruin," "Epistle to a Young Friend," "On a Scotch Bard gone to the West Indies," "A Dedication to G. H., Esq.," "To a Louse," "Epistle to J. L.," "To the same," "Epistle to W. S.," "Epistle to J. R.," Song—"It was upon a Lammas Night," Song—"Now Westlin' Winds," Song—"From thee, Eliza, I must go," "Farewell to the Brethren of St. James' Lodge, Tarbolton," "Epitaphs and Epigrams, and a Bard's Epitaph." The speculation produced twenty pounds of profit to the poet, and immediate popularity. "Even ploughboys and maid-servants would have gladly bestowed the wages they earned most hardly, and which they required to purchase necessary clothing, if they might but procure the works of Burns."
But not only did "ploughboys and maid-servants" discover that there was merit in the "Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect." A copy had reached Edinburgh, and had elicited the favourable criticism of those who, at that time, were supposed capable of judging. Within three months of the publication of the volume at Kilmarnock, Burns resolved to go to Edinburgh, and try his fortune there with a second edition, instead of going to the West Indies, although it appears that his passage was actually taken. He went to Edinburgh, and was received into society—was feasted, admired, and, above all, patronized. He saw the aristocracy of the land, and the aristocracy saw him—Robert Burns, the ploughman from Ayrshire, whose name will still be familiar as a household-word, when all with whom he came in contact will be consigned to oblivion, or only remembered as having been once seen in the presence of the Scottish bard who sung the requiem of lowland Scotland. Scotland, which has the most unlimited faith in its own opinions, has little or no confidence in its own judgment, and seldom ventures to form an opinion, except in theology, and even that was borrowed from a Frenchman. When once the opinion is formed, however, be it begged, borrowed, or stolen, it will be adhered to, to the death. Thus, no man recognized Burns as a great poet. Thoughts the most exquisite, clothed in inimitable language, poetry in fact of the highest order, was thrown down before the literary people of Edinburgh; but neither man nor woman could see that the gems were of the first water, or that there had been born to Scotland such a poet as Scotland had never seen before, and never can see again. Nor does it appear that any Scotsman during Burns' lifetime ever recognized his true rank. That, in fact, was reserved for an Englishman, William Pitt, who, on reading Burns, named Shakspeare. But, nevertheless. Burns was feasted and patronized, "glowered at," and thought a wonder of some kind, but of what particular kind the ladies and gentlemen with whom he came in contact were not particularly certain. He was a "phenomenon," and as a phenomenon he was treated and was lionized accordingly, and in that manner. His appearance in Edinburgh is the most melancholy part of his career. His country life, with all its errors and all its sufferings, was at least natural. It belonged to the man himself, like the gnarls upon the oak. But his Edinburgh life was unnatural; it was the oak cut into the upholstery of life. His wild revelry and unbridled passions were, at least, human, when the man was at home; they were conventional and artificial when he drank with gentlemen, or attempted to persuade himself that he was in love with an indifferent specimen of a modern fine lady. However he may have preserved the independence of his bearing, he was false to the integrity of his own nature; and, accordingly, we find him writing verses to be placed below an earl's portrait, epistles to
