THE PECULIAR TASTES OF BURNS. other works, chiefly of the same nature, and among these the Lounger. The society of Mauchline still [1800] subsists, and appeared in the list of subscribers to the first edition of the works of its celebrated associate. 31 lating all the effusions of his muse, and presiding over all his social enjoyments. But to the thousands who share the original condition of Burns, and who are doomed to pass their lives in the station in which they were born, delicacy of taste, were it even of easy attainment, would, if not a positive evil, be at least a doubtful blessing. Delicacy of taste may make many necessary labours irksome or disgusting; and should it render the cultivator of the soil unhappy in his situa tion, it presents no means by which that situation may be improved. Taste and literature, which diffuse so many charms throughout society, which sometimes secure to their votaries distinction while living, and which still more frequently obtain for them posthumous fame, seldom procure opulence, or even independence, when cultivated with the utmost attention, and can scarcely be pursued with advantage by the peasant in the short intervals of leisure which his occupations allow. Those who raise themselves from the condition of daily labour, are usually men who excel in the practice of some useful art, or who join habits of industry and sobriety to an acquaintance with some of the more common branches of knowledge. The penmanship of Butterworth, and the aritnmetic of Cocker, may be studied by men in the humblest walks of life; and they will assist the peasant more in the pursuit of independence than the study of Homer or of Shakespeare, though he could comprehend, and even imitate, the beauties of those immortal bards. The members of these two societies were originally all young men from the country, and chiefly sons of farmers-a description of persons, in the opinion of our poet, more agreeable in their manners, more virtuous in their conduct, and more susceptible of improvement, than the self-sufficient mechanics of country towns. With deference to the Conversation Society of Mauchline, it may be doubted, whether the books which they purchased were of a kind best adapted to promote the interest and happiness of persons in this situation of life. The Mirror and the Lounger, though works of great merit, may be said, on a general view of their contents, to be less calculated to increase the knowledge than to refine the taste of those who read them; and to this last object their morality itself, which is, however, always perfectly pure, may be considered as subordinate. As works of taste, they deserve great praise. They are, indeed, refined to a high degree of delicacy; and to this circumstance it is perhaps owing, that they exhibit little or nothing of the peculiar manners of the age or country in which they were produced. But delicacy of taste, though the source of many pleasures, is not without some disadvantages; and, to render it desirable, the possessor should, perhaps, in all cases, be raised above the necessity of bodily labour, unless, indeed, we should include under this term the exercise of the imitative arts, over which taste immediately presides. Delicacy of taste may be a blessing to him who has the disposal of his own time, and who can choose what book he shall read, of what diversion he shall partake, and what company he shall keep. To men so situated, the cultivation of taste affords a grateful occupation The greater part of the sacred in itself, and opens a path to many other writings themselves, which in Scotland are gratifications. To men of genius, in the more especially the manual of the poor, possession of opulence and leisure, the culti- come under this description. It may be furvation of the taste may be said to be essen- ther observed, that every human being is the tial; since it affords employment to those proper judge of his own happiness, and, within faculties, which without employment would the path of innocence, ought to be perdestroy the happiness of the possessor, and mitted to pursue it. Since it is the taste of corrects that morbid sensibility, or, to use the Scottish peasantry to give a preference the expressions of Mr. Hume, that delicacy to works of taste and of fancy (44), it may of passion, which is the bane of the temper- be presumed they find a superior gratificaament of genius. Happy had it been for our tion in the perusal of such works; and it bard, after he emerged from the condition of may be added, that it is of more cona peasant, had the delicacy of his taste sequence they should be made happy in equalled the sensibility of his passions, regu- their original condition, than furnished | These observations are not offered without some portion of doubt and hesitation. The subject has many relations, and would justify an ample discussion. It may be observed, on the other hand, that the first step to improvement is, to awaken the desire of improvement, and that this will be most effectually done by such reading as interests the heart and excites the imagination. with the means, or with the desire, of rising above it. Such considerations are, doubtless, of much weight; nevertheless, the previous reflections may deserve to be examined, and here we shall leave the subject. | Though the records of the society at Tarbolton are lost, and those of the society at Mauchline have not been transmitted, yet we may safely affirm, that our poet was a distinguished member of both these associations, which were well calculated to excite and to develope the powers of his mind. From seven to twelve persons constituted the society of Tarbolton, and such a number is best suited to the purposes of information. Where this is the object of these societies, the number should be such, that each person may have an opportunity of imparting his sentiments, as well as of receiving those of others; and the powers of private conversation are to be employed, not those of public debate. A limited society of this kind, where the subject of conversation is fixed beforehand, so that each member may revolve it previously in his mind, is perhaps one of the happiest contrivances hitherto discovered for shortening the acquisition of knowledge, and hastening the evolution of talents. Such an association requires indeed somewhat more of regulation than the rules of politeness, established in common conversation, or rather, perhaps, it requires that the rules of politeness, which in animated conversation are liable to perpetual violation, should be vigorously enforced. The order of speech established in the club at Tarbolton, appears to have been more regular than was required in so small a society; where all that is necessary seems to be the fixing on a member to whom every speaker shall address himself, and who shall in return secure the speaker from interruption. Conversation, which among men whom intimacy and friendship have relieved from reserve and restraint, is liable, when left to itself, to so many inequalities, and which, as it becomes rapid, so often diverges into separate and collateral branches, in which it is dissipated and lost, being kept within its channel by a simple limitation of this kind, which practice renders easy and familiar, flows along in one full stream, and becomes smoother, and clearer, and deeper, as it flows. It may also be observed, that in this way the acquisition of knowledge becomes more pleasant and more easy, from the gradual improvement of the faculty employed to convey it. Though some attention has been paid to the eloquence of the senate and the bar, which in this, as in all other free governments, is productive of so much influence to the few who excel in it, yet little regard has been paid to the humbler exercise of speech in private conversation-an art that is of consequence to every description of persons under every form of government, and on which eloquence of every kind ought perhaps to be founded. The first requisite of every kind of elocution, a distinct utterance, is the offspring of much time and of long practice, Children are always defective in clear articulation, and so are young people, though in a less degree. What is called slurring in speech, prevails with some persons through life, especially in those who are taciturn. Articulation does not seem to reach its utmost degree of distinctness in men before the age of twenty, or upwards; in women it reaches this point somewhat earlier. Female occupations require much use of speech, because they are duties in detail. Besides, their occupations being generally sedentary, the respiration is left at liberty. Their nerves being more delicate, their sensibility as well as fancy is more lively; the natural consequence of which is, a more frequent utterance of thought, a greater fluency of speech, and a distinct articulation at an earlier age. But in men who have not mingled early and familiarly with the world, though rich perhaps in knowledge, and clear in apprehension, it is often painful to observe the difficulty with which their ideas are communicated by speech, through the want of those habits that connect thoughts, words, and sounds together; which, when established, seem as if they had arisen spontaneously, but which, in truth, are the result of long and painful practice; and when analysed, exhibit the phenomena of most curious and complicated association. Societies then, such as we have been describing, while they may be said to put each member in possession of the knowledge of all the rest, improve the powers of utterance; and by the collision of opinion, excite the faculties of reason and reflection. To those who wish to improve their minds in such intervals of labour as the condition of a peasant allows, this method of abbreviating instruction, may, regulations, be highly useful. To the student, whose opinions, springing out of solitary observation and meditation, are seldom in the first instance correct, and which have, notwithstanding, while confined to himself, an increasing tendency to assume in his own eye the character of demonstra under proper tions, an association of this kind, where they may be examined as they arise, is of the utmost importance; since it may prevent those illusions of imagination, by which genius being bewildered, science is often debased, and error propagated through successive generations. And to men who having cultivated letters, or general science, in the course of their education, are engaged in the active occupations of life, and no longer able to devote to study or to books the time requisite for improving or preserving their acquisitions, associations of this kind, where the mind may unbend from its usual cares in discussions of literature or science, afford the most pleasing, the most useful, and the most rational of gratifications. Whether in the humble societies of which he was a member, Burns acquired much direct information, may perhaps be questioned. It cannot, however, be doubted, that by collision the faculties of his mind would be excited; that by practice his habits of enunciation would be established; and thus we have some explanation of that early command of words and of expression which enabled him to pour forth his thoughts in language not unworthy of his genius, and which, of all his endowments, seemed, on his appearance in Edinburgh, the most extraordinary. For associations of a literary nature, our poet acquired a considerable relish; and happy had it been for him, after he emerged from the condition of a peasant, if fortune had permitted him to enjoy them in the degree of which he was capable, so as to have fortified his principles of virtue by the purification of his taste; and given to the energies of his mind, habits of exertion that might have excluded other associations, in which it must be acknowledged they were too often wasted, as well as debased. [The allusions in Burns's letter, and that of his brother, to his connection with Jean Armour, afford but a vague account of that affair; and it seems necessary that some farther and clearer particulars should now be given. John Blane reports the following interesting circumstances respecting the attachment of the poet to Miss Armour :There was a singing school at Mauchline, which Blane attended. Jean Armour was also a pupil, and he soon became aware of her talents as a vocalist. He even contracted a kind of attachment to this young woman, though only such as a country lad of his degree might entertain for the D daughter of a substantial country mason. One night, there was a rocking at Mossgiel, where a lad named Ralph Sillar sang a number of songs in what was considered a superior style. When Burns and Blane were retired to their usual sleeping place in the stable-loft, the former asked the latter what he thought of Sillar's singing, to which Blane answered that the lad thought so much of it himself, and had so many airs about it, that there was no occasion for others expressing a favourable opinion-yet, he added, "I would not give Jean Armour for a score of him.” You are always talking of this Jean Armour," said Burns; "I wish you could contrive to bring me to see her." see her." Blane readily consented to do so, and next evening, after the plough was loosed, the two proceeded to Mauchline for that purpose. Burns went into a publichouse, and Blane went into the singingschool, which chanced to be kept in the floor above. When the school was dismissing, Blane asked Jean Armour if she would come to see Robert Burns, who was below, and anxious to speak to her. Having heard of his poetical talents, she said she would like much to see him, but was afraid to go without a female companion. This difficulty being overcome by the frankness of a Miss Morton-the Miss Morton of the Six Mauchline Belles-Jean went down to the room where Burns was sitting. "From that time," Blane adds very naïvely, "I had little of the company of Jean Armour." Here for the present ends the story of Blane. The results of Burns's acquaintance with Jean have been already in part detailed. When her pregnancy could be no longer concealed, the poet, under the influence of honourable feeling, gave her a written paper, in which he acknowledged his being her husband-a document sufficient to constitute a marriage in Scotland, if not in the eye of decency, at least in that of law. But her father, from a dislike to Burns, whose theological satires had greatly shocked him, and from hopelesness of his being able to support her as a husband, insisted that she should destroy this paper, and remain as an unmarried woman. Some violent scenes ensued. The parents were enraged at the imprudence of their daughter, and at Burns. The daughter, trembling beneath their indignation, could ill resist the command to forget and abandon her lover. He, in his turn, was filled with the extremest anguish when informed that she had given him up. Another event occurred to add to the torments of the unhappy poet. Jean, to avoid the immediate pressure of her father's displeasure, went about the month of May (1786) to Paisley, and took refuge with a relation of her mother, one Andrew Purdie, a wright. There was at Paisley a certain Robert Wilson, a good-looking young weaver, a native of Mauchline, and who was realising wages to the amount of perhaps three pounds a-week by his then flourishing profession. Jean Armour had danced with this "gallant weaver" at the Mauchline dancing-school balls, and, besides her relative Purdie, she knew no other person in Paisley. Being in much need of a small supply of money, she found it necessary to apply to Mr. Wilson, who received her kindly, although he did not conceal that he had a suspicion of the reason of her visit to Paisley. When the reader is reminded that village life is not the sphere in which high-wrought and romantic feelings are most apt to flourish, he will be prepared in some measure to learn that Robert Wilson not only relieved the necessities of the fair applicant, but formed the wish to possess himself of her hand. He called for her several times at Purdie's, and informed her, that, if she should not become the wife of Burns, he would engage himself to none while she remained unmarried. Mrs. Burns long after assured a female friend that she never gave the least encouragement to Wilson; but, nevertheless, his visits occasioned some gossip, which soon found its way to Mauchline, and entered the soul of the poet like a demoniac possession. He now seems to have regarded her as lost to him for ever, and that not purely through the objections of her relations, but by her own cruel and perjured desertion of one whom she had acknowledged as her hus band. It requires these particulars, little as there may be of pleasing about them, to make us fully understand much of what Burns wrote at this time, both in verse and prose. Long afterwards, he became convinced that Jean, by no part of her conduct with respect to Wilson, had given him just cause for jealousy: it is not improbable that he learned in time to make it the subject of sport, and wrote the song, "Where Cart rins rowing to the sea," in jocular allusion to it. But for months-and it is distressing to think that these were the months during which he was putting his matchless poems for the first time to press -he conceived himself the victim of a faithless woman, and life was to him, as he himself describes it, "a weary dream, * The dream of ane that never wauks." In a letter dated June 12, 1786, he says "Poor ill-advised ungrateful Armour came home on Friday last. You have heard all the particulars of that affair, and a black affair it is. What she thinks of her conduct now, I don't know; one thing I do know, she has made me completely miserable. Never man loved, or rather adored, a woman more than I did her; and, to confess a truth between you and me, I do love her still to distraction, after all, though I won't tell her so if I were to see her, which I don't want to do. * May Almighty God forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as I from my very soul forgive her." On the 9th July he writes"I have waited on Armour since her return home, not from the least view of reconciliation, but merely to ask for her health, and—to you I will confess it-from a foolish hankering fondness-very ill-placed indeed. The mother forbade me the house, nor did Jean show the penitence that might have been expected. However, the priest, I am informed, will give me a certificate as a single man, if I comply with the rules of the church, which, for that very reason, I intend to do. I am going to put on sackcloth and ashes this day. I am indulged so far as to appear in my own seat. Peccavi, pater, miserere mei." In a letter of July 17, to Mr. David Brice of Glasgow, the poet thus continues his story:-I have already appeared publicly in church, and was indulged in the liberty of standing in my own seat. Jean and her friends insisted much that she should stand along with me in the kirk, but the minister would not allow it, which bred a great trouble, I assure you, and I am blamed as the cause of it, though I am sure I am innocent; but I am very much pleased, for all that, not to have had her company,' And again, July 30-" Armour has got a warrant to throw me in jail till I find secu rity for an enormous sum. This they keep an entire secret, but I got it by a channel they little dream of; and I am wandering from one friend's house to another, and, like a true son of the gospel, 'have no where to lay my head.' I know you will pour an execration on her head, but spare the poor ill-advised girl, for my sake; though may all the furies that rend the injured, enraged lover's bosom, await her mother until her latest hour! I write in a moment of rage, reflecting on my miserable situation-exiled, abandoned, forlorn," JEAN ARMOUR'S TWIN CHILDREN. In this dark period, or immediately before it (July 22), the poet signed an instrument, in anticipation of his immediately leaving the kingdom, by which he devised all property of whatever kind he might leave behind, including the copyright of his poems, to his brother Gilbert, in consideration of the latter having undertaken to support his daughter Elizabeth, the issue of "Elizabeth Paton in Largieside." Intimation of this instrument was publicly made at the Cross of Ayr, two days after, by William Chalmers, writer. If he had been upon better terms with the Armours, it seems unlikely that he would have thus devised his property without a respect for the claims of his offspring by Jean. After this we hear no more of the legal severities of Mr. Armour-the object of which was, not to abridge the liberty of the unfortunate Burns, but to drive him away from the country, so as to leave Jean more effectually disengaged. The POEMS now appeared, and probably had some effect in allaying the hostility of the old man towards their author. It would at least appear that, at the time of Jean's accouchement, September 3, the skulking "had ceased, and the parents of the young woman were not so cruel as to forbid his seeing her. We now resume the story of John Blane. At this time, Blane had removed from Mossgiel to Mauchline, and become servant to Mr. Gavin Hamilton; but Burns still remembered their old acquaintance. When, in consequence of information sent by the Armours as to Jean's situation, the poet came from Mossgiel to visit her, he called in passing at Mr. Hamilton's, and asked John to accompany him to the house. Blane went with him to Mr. Armour's, where, according to his recollection, the bard was received with all desirable civility. Jean held up a pretty female infant to Burns, who took it affectionately in his arms, and, after keeping it a little while. returned it to the mother, asking the blessing of God Almighty upon her and her infant. He was turning away to converse with the other people in the room, when Jean said, archly, "But this is not all-here is another baby," and handed him a male child, which had been born at the same time. He was greatly surprised, but took that child too for a little into his arms, and repeated his blessing upon it. (This child was afterwards named Robert, and still lives the girl was named Jean, but only lived fourteen months.) The mood of the melancholy poet theu changed to the mirth 35 ful, and the scene was concluded by his giving the ailing lady a hearty caress, and rallying her on this promising beginning of her history as a mother. It would appear, from the words used by the poet on this occasion, that he was not without hope of yet making good his matrimonial alliance with Jean. This is rendered the more likely by the evidence which exists of his having, for some time during September, entertained a hope of obtaining an excise appointment, through his friends Hamilton and Aiken; in which case he would have been able to present a respectable claim upon the countenance of the Armours. But this prospect ended in disappointment; and there is reason to conclude, that, in a very short time after the accouchement, he was once more forbidden to visit the house in which his children and all but wife resided. There was at this time a person named John Kennedy, who travelled the district on horseback as mercantile agent, and was on intimate terms with Burns. Burns. One day, as he was passing Mossgiel, Burns stopped him, and made the request that he would return to Mauchline with a present for "his poor wife." Kennedy consented, and the poet hoisted upon the pommel of the saddle a bag filled with the delicacies of the farin. He proceeded to Mr. Armour's house, and requested permission to see Jean, as the bearer of a message and a present from Robert Burns. Mrs. Armour violently protested against his being admitted to an interview, and bestowed upon him sundry unceremonious appellations for being the friend of such a man; she was, however, overruled in this instance by her husband, and Kennedy was permitted to enter the apartment where Jean was lying. He had not been there many minutes, when he heard a rushing and screaming in the stair, and, immediately after, Burns burst into the room, followed closely by the Armours, who seemed to have exhausted their strength in endeavouring to repel his intrusion. Burns flew to the bed, and putting his cheek to Jean's, and then in succession to those of the slumbering infants, wept bitterly. The Armours, it is added by Kennedy, who has himself reported the circumstances (45), remained unaffected by his distress; but whether he was allowed to remain for a short time, or immediately after expelled, is not mentioned. After hearing this affecting anecdote of Burns, the Lament may verily appear to us as arising from "No idly feigned poetic pains." (46) |