PERSONAL REPUTE OF BURNS. 175 was only a variance of remark or report upon the subject, according as individuals were qualified or inclined to judge. In certain circles, a candid stranger might have heard of the overfrequent indulgences of our poet in gay company-of his being dangerously attractive to young men of his occasionally descending into society utterly unworthy of him, and which no man can approach without contamination. It would have been found that some young women, who enjoyed the acquaintance of the amiable wife of the poet, were only able to visit her in a manner by stealth, their fathers deeming it unadvisable that they should see much of Burns. It was little, after this, that some should inveigh against his arrogance in conversation, or point out that a worthy member of society, who disliked his habits or opinions, was as sure of his satire as if he had been, from any cause, really obnoxious to public odium. Again, while Burns was spoken of coldly in some families of the middle class, cultivators of the sober respectabilities proper to their grade, he might have been found a favourite in higher circles, which he visited only under such an awe as to keep his wilder nature in check. It is a most perplexing subject among his various biographers, but only because of the very various and incoherent conduct of the bard himselfthe quiet Mr Burns' in some eyes, the wild bacchanal at times in others—the generous sentimentalist at some moments, and not long after, the very high-priest of the sensual and the ridiculous. We have seen this variableness of character even in what appear the most painful crises of his life. He wrote a lively epistle in Scotch verse the day after To Mary in Heaven was wrung from his anguished heart; and ere many days had elapsed from the humiliating censure of the Excise-board, he carried on a merry dinnerparty till eleven o'clock next day. Men now sympathise with the unworthiness of his fate, and certainly it was far below his deserts; but it is highly questionable if Burns took, except transiently, the same views of it himself. No 'A towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa', This is Burns's own view of his life, and it is in some measure true to his ordinary feelings and practice.1 In the autumn of 1795, Burns suffered much in mind from the protracted illness of his infant daughter, who at length died at such a distance as to prevent him from paying her the last duties.2 1 See Appendix, No. 13. 2 This infant died and was buried at Mauchline. According to Dr Currie, the poet's health had for upwards of a year before his death—that is, from early summer of 1795—begun to give way. This would appear to be quite true, for a gentleman informs me that, calling for Burns in spring 1795, he found him ailing. He rubbed his shoulders slightly, and said: 'I am beginning to feel as if I were soon to be an old man.' But, indeed, we have his own testimony in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, of 25th June 1794, that he was even then threatened with a punishment for the follies of his youth, in the form of a flying gout, though he hoped that his medical friends were mistaken in their surmises. The fact is, that Burns had lived too fast to be what most men are at seven-and-thirty. According to Dr Currie, who had access to the best information on the subject, the poet was confined with an accidental complaint,' from October 1795 till the January following. The fact of the ailment and its date may be admitted; but it would appear that the confinement was at least not constant, or such as to interfere with the performance of duty. Professor Walker passed two days with him in November, and observed no unfavourable change in his looks, his spirits, or his appetite. 'Circumstances,' says the professor, 'having at that time led me to Scotland, after an absence of eight years, during which my intercourse with Burns had been almost suspended, I felt myself strongly prompted to visit him. For this purpose, I went to Dumfries, and called upon him early in the forenoon. I found him in a small house of one storey.1 He was sitting on a windowseat reading, with the doors open, and the family arrangements going on in his presence, and altogether without that appearance of snugness which a student requires. After conversing with him for some time, he proposed a walk, and promised to conduct me through some of his favourite haunts. We accordingly quitted the town, and wandered a considerable way up the beautiful banks of the Nith. Here he gave me an account of his latest produċtions, and repeated some satirical ballads which he had composed, to favour one of the candidates at the last borough election.2 He repeated also his fragment of an Ode to Liberty, with marked and peculiar energy, and shewed a disposition, which, however, was easily repressed, to throw out peculiar remarks, of the same nature with those for which he had been reprehended. On finishing our walk, he passed some time with me at the inn, and I left him early in the evening, to make another visit at some distance from Dumfries. 1 The house is one of two floors. 2 The ballads on the Kirkcudbright election; vide supra. VISIT OF MR JOSIAH WALKER. 177 'On the second morning after,' continues the professor, 'I returned with a friend, who was acquainted with the poet, and we found him ready to pass a part of the day with us at the inn. On this occasion, I did not think him quite so interesting as he had appeared at his outset. His conversation was too elaborate, and his expression weakened by a frequent endeavour to give it artificial strength. He had been accustomed to speak for applause in the circles which he frequented, and seemed to think it necessary, in making the most common remark, to depart a little from the ordinary simplicity of language, and to couch it in something of epigrammatic point. In his praise and censure, he was so decisive as to render a dissent from his judgment difficult to be reconciled with the laws of good-breeding. His wit was not more licentious than is unhappily too venial in higher circles, though I thought him rather unnecessarily free in the avowal of his excesses. Such were the clouds by which the pleasures of the evening were partially obscured, but frequent coruscations of genius were visible between them. When it began to grow late, he shewed no disposition to retire, but called for fresh supplies of liquor, with a freedom which might be excusable, as we were in an inn, and no condition had been distinctly made, though it might easily have been inferred, had the inference been welcome, that he was to consider himself as our guest; nor was it till he saw us worn out that he departed, about three in the morning. . . Upon the whole, I found this last interview not quite so gratifying as I had expected; although I had discovered in his conduct no errors which I had not seen in men who stand high in the favour of ́society, or sufficient to account for the mysterious insinuations which I had heard against his character. He on this occasion drank freely without being intoxicated, a circumstance from which I concluded, not only that his constitution was still unbroken, but that he was not addicted to solitary cordials; for if he had tasted liquor in the morning, he must have easily yielded to the excess of the evening.' It is proper to state the remark which a friend of Professor Walker has made to us respecting these anecdotes of Burnsnamely, that the learned gentleman was unconscious of the fastidiousness which eight years of refined life in England had created in his own mind, and thus unintentionally judged of Burns's manners more severely than was strictly just. The de haut en bas style in which the professor treats Burns is also obvious to remark. The poet, in his own time, was too apt to be regarded in this manner by well-wishers, as well as enemies or the merely indifferent. And one cannot resist the feeling that, if Burns had not been looked upon in his life and for some years after his death as only a poor man who had attracted some attention by clever verses, more tenderness would have been shewn towards frailties which we every day see overlooked in men that have attained or been born to an elevated place in the merely social scale. At this time the young actress, Miss Fontenelle, for whom the poet had written an address three years before, was again performing in the Dumfries theatre, and he was once more persuaded to pen some lines for her service. They are introduced by himself in a letter of dolorous tone to Mrs Dunlop. TO MRS DUNLOP. 15th December 1795. MY DEAR FRIEND-As I am in a complete Decemberish humour, gloomy, sullen, stupid, as even the Deity of Dulness herself could wish, I shall not drawl out a heavy letter with a number of heavier apologies for my late silence. Only one I shall mention, because I know you will sympathise in it: these four months, a sweet little girl, my youngest child, has been so ill, that every day, a week or less threatened to terminate her existence. There had much need be many pleasures annexed to the states of husband and father, for, God knows, they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. I see a train of helpless little folks; me and my exertions all their stay; and on what a brittle thread does the life of man hang! If I am nipt off at the command of fate, even in all the vigour of manhood, as I am-such things happen every day-Gracious God! what would become of my little flock? 'Tis here that I envy your people of fortune. A father on his death-bed, taking an everlasting leave of his children, has indeed wo enough; but the man of competent fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and friends; while I- But I shall run distracted if I think any longer on the subject! To leave talking of the matter so gravely, I shall sing with the old Scots ballad O that I had ne'er been married, I would never had nae care; Crowdie ance, crowdie twice, Ye'll crowdie a' my meal away. 24th December. We have had a brilliant theatre here this season; only, as all other business does, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the epidemical MISS FONTENELLE'S ADDRESS. 179 complaint of the country-want of cash. I mentioned our theatre merely to lug in an occasional Address, which I wrote for the benefitnight of one of the actresses, and which is as follows: ADDRESS, SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT-NIGHT.1 Still anxious to secure your partial favour, Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land?' I could no more-askance the creature eyeing, I also think-so may I be a bride! That so much laughter, so much life enjoyed. Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh, 1 December 4, 1795. |