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could deduce the most important conclufions-who had always fomething truly valuable in profpe&and whofe touch converted every meaner material to gold.

"It is not, then, merely the fpecies of ftudy, but the mind and fpirit with which it is purfued, that should regulate our estimate of the intellectual powers of the tudent. Folly often conceals herfelf under the mafk of ferioufnefs,

and wifdom is sometimes light and playful. The latter knows he hazards nothing by occafionally defcending from her dignity; whereas folly lofes all by loling appearances. A great latitude of mental occupation may be admitted, provided good fenfe prefides over all

that quality which truly is, as our ethical poet afferts, Though no fcience, fairly worth the feven. Farewell!"

CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS on the LYRIC PRODUCTIONS of ROBERT

BURNS.

[From Dr. CURRIE'S ACCOUNT of the LIFE and WRITINGS of that POET, prefixed to the first Volume of his Works.]

"HIS compofitions of this his models.

kind are chiefly fongs, generally in the Scottish dialect, and always after the model of the Scottish fongs.

"Of the historic or heroic ballads of Scotland, it is unneceffary to speak. Burns has no where imitated them, a circumstance to be regretted, fince in this fpecies of compofition, from its admitting the more terrible as well as the fofter graces of poetry, he was eminently qualified to have excelled. The Scottish fongs which ferved as a model to Burns are almoft without exception paftoral, or rather rural. Such of them as are comic, frequently treat of a ruftic courtship, or a country wedding; or they defcribe the differences of opinion which arife in married life. Burns has imitated this fpecies, and furpafed

The fong beginning Hufband, hufband, ceafe your ftrife,' may be cited in fupport of this obfervation *. His other comic fongs are of equal merit. In the rural fongs of Scotland, whether humorous or tender, the fentiments are given to particular characters, and very generally the incidents are referred to particular scenery. This laft circumstance may be confidered as the distinguishing feature of the Scottish fongs, and on it a confiderable part of their attraction depends. On all occafions the fentiments, of whatever nature, are delivered in the character of the perfon principally interested. If love be defcribed, it is not as it is obferved, but as it is felt; and the paffion is delineated under a particular afpect. Neither is it the fiercer

"The dialogues between husbands and their wives, which form the fubjects of the Scottish fongs, are almost ail ludicrous and fatirical, and in thefe contefts the lady is generally victorious. From the collections of Mr Pinkerton we find that the comic mufe of Scotland delighted in fuch reprefentations from very early times, in her rule dramatic efforts, as well as in her ruftic fongs."

I 4

impulfes

impulfes of defire that are exprefsed, as in the celebrated ode of Sappho, the model of fo many modern fongs; but thofe gentler emotions of tenderness and affection, which do not entirely absorb the lover, but permit him to affociate his emotions with the charms

of external nature, and breathe the accents of purity and innocence as well as of love. In thefe refpects the love-fongs of Scotland are honourably diftinguished from the most admired claffical compofitions of the fame kind; and by fuch affociations a variety, as well as liveliness, is given to the reprefentation of this paffion, which are not to be found in the poetry of Greece or Rome, or perhaps of

any other nation. Many of the love fongs of Scotland defcribe fcenes of rural courtship; many may be confidered as invocations from lovers to their miftreffes. On fuch occafions a degree of interest and reality is given to the fentiments, by the fpot destined to these happy interviews being particular ifed. The lovers perhaps meet at the Bush aboon Traquair, or on the Banks of Etrick; the nymphs are invoked to wander among the wilds of Rollin, or the woods of Invermay. Nor is the fpot merely pointed out; the scenery is often described as well as the characters, fo as to prefent a complete picture to the fancy. Thus the maxim of Horace, ut pictura poefis, is

"One or two examples may illustrate this observation. A Scottish fong, written about a hundred years ago, begins thus:

On Etrick banks, on a fummer's night,

At gloaming, when the fheep drove hame,

I met my laffie, braw and tight,
Come wading barefoot a' her lane;

♦ My heart grew light, I ran, Iflang

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My arms about her lily neck,

And kits'd and clafped there fu' lang,

My words they were nay mony feckt.'

"The lover, who is a Highlander, goes on to relate the language he employed with his Lowland maid to win her heart, and to perfuade her to fly with him to the High and hills, there to fhare his fortune. The fentiments are in themselves beautiful. But we feel them with double force, while we conceive that they were addreffed by a lover to his mistress, whom he met all alone, on a fummer's evening, by the banks of a beautiful fream, which fome of us have actually feen, and which all of us can paint to our imagination. Let us take another example. It is now a nymph that fpeaks. Hear how the expreffes herself:

How blythe each morn was I to fee

My fwain come o'er the hill!
He fkipt the burn, and flew to me,

I met him with gude will.'

"Here is another picture drawn by the pencil of nature. We fee a fhepherdess standing by the fide of a brook, watching her lover as he defcends the oppofite hill. He bounds lightly along; he approaches nearer and nearer; he leaps the brook, and flies into her arms. In the recollection of these circumftances, the furrounding scenery becomes endeared to the fair mourner, and the bursts into the following excla mation.

O the broom, the bonnie bonnie broom,
The broom of the Cowden-Knowes!
I wish I were with my dear fwain,
With his pipe and my ewes.?

"Thus the indiv.dual fpot of this happy interview is pointed out, and the picture is completed.

"Na mony feck, not very many.

faithfully

faithfully obferved by these ruftic bards, who are guided by the fame impulfe of nature and fenfibility which influenced the father of epic poetry, on whose example the precept of the Roman poet was perhaps founded. By this means the imagination is employed to intereft the feelings. When we do not conceive distinctly, we do not fympathize deeply in any human affection; and we conceive nothing in the abstract. Abftraction, fo ufeful in morals, and fo effential in fcience, must be abandoned when the heart is to be fubdued by the powers of poetry or of elo. quence. The bards of a ruder condition of fociety paint individual objects; and hence, among other causes, the eafy accefs they obtain to the heart. Generalization is the vice of poets whofe learning overpowers their genius; of poets of a refined and fcientific age.

The dramatic ftyle which pre

vails fo much in the Scottish fongs, while it contributes greatly to the intereft they excite, alfo fhows that they have originated among a people in the earlier ftages of fociety. Where this form of compofition appears in fongs of a modern date, it indicates that they have been written after the ancient model *.

"The Scottish fongs are of very unequal poetical merit; and this inequality often extends to the different parts of the fame fong. Thofe that are humorous, or characteriftic of manners, have in general the merit of copying nature; those that are ferious, are tender, and often fweetly interesting, but seldom exhibit high powers of imagination, which indeed do not easily find a place in this fpecies of compofition. The alliance of the words of the Scottish fongs with the music has in fome inftances given to the former a popularity,

"That the dramatic form of writing characterizes the productions of an early, or, what amounts to the fame thing, of a rude ftage of fociety, may he illuftrated by a reference to the most ancient compofitions that we know of, the Hebrew Scriptures and the writings of Homer. The form of dialogue is adopted in the old Scottish ballads even in narration, whenever the fituations defcribed become interefting. This fometimes produces a very striking effect, of which an infiance may be given from the ballad of Edom o' Gordon, a compofition apparently of the fixteenth century. The ftory of the ballad is fhortly this-The caftle of Rhodes, in the absence of its lord, is attacked by the robber Edom o' Gordon. The lady ftands on her defence, beats off the affailants, and wounds Gordon, who in his rage orders the caftle to be fet on fire. That his orders are carried into effect, we learn from the expoftulation of the lady, who is represented as standing on the battlements, and remonstrating on this barbarity. She is interrupted.

"O then befpak hir little fon,

Sate on his nourice' knee;

Says, Mither dear, gi' owre this house,

For the reek it (mithers me.'

I wad gie a' my gowd, my childe,
Sae wad I a' my fee,

For ae blast o' the weftlin wind,

To blaw the reek frae thee.'

"The circumftantiality of the Scottish love-fongs, and the dramatic form which prevails fo generally in them, probably arifes from their being the defcendents and fucceffors of the ancient ballads. In the beautiful modern fong of Mary of Cafle-Gary, the dramatic form has a very happy effect. The fame may be faid of Donald and Flora, and Come under my plaidie, by the fame author, Mr. Macniel.

which otherwife they would not have obtained.

"The association of the words and the mufic of thefe fongs with the more beautiful parts of the fcenery of Scotland contributes to the fame effect. It has given them not merely popularity, but permanence; it has imparted to the works of man some portion of the durability of the works of nature. If, from our imperfect experience of the paft, we may judge with any confidence refpecting the future, fongs of this defcription are of all others least likely to die. In the changes of language they may no doubt fuffer change; but the affociated train of fentiment and of mufic will perhaps furvive, while the clear ftream fweeps down the vale of Yarrow, or the yellow broom waves on the CowdenKnowes.

"The first attempts of Burns in fong-writing were not very fuc. cefsful. His habitual inattention to the exactnefs of rhymes, and to the harmony of numbers, arifing probably from the models on which his verfification was formed, were faults likely to appear to more difadvantage in this fpecies of compofition than in any other; and we may alfo remark, that the ftrength of his imagination, and the exuberance of his fenfibility, were with difficulty reftrained within the limits of gentleness, delicacy, and tenderness, which feemed to be affigned to the love-fongs of the nation. Burns was better adapted by nature for following in fuch compofitions the model of the Grecian, than of the Scottish mufe. By ftudy and practice he, however, furmounted all thefe obftacles. In his earlier fongs there is fome ruggedness; but this gradually dis

appears in his fucceffive efforts; and fome of his latter compofitions of this kind may be compared, in polified delicacy, with the finest fongs in our language; while in the eloquence of fenfibility they furpaffed them all.

The fongs of Burns, like the models he followed and excelled, are often dramatic, and for the greater part amatory; and the beauties of rural nature are every where affociated with the paffions and emotions of the mind. Dis. daining to copy the works of others, he has not, like fome poets of great name, admitted into his defcriptions exotic imagery. The landscapes he has painted, and the objects with which they are embellished, are, in every single inftance, fuch as are to be found in his own country. In a mountainous region, especially when it is com. paratively rude and naked, the most beautiful fcenery will always be found in the valleys, and on the banks of the wooded streams. Such fcenery is peculiarly interefting at the clofe of a fummer-day. As we advance northward, the number of the days of fummer indeed diminishes; but from this caufe, as well as from the mildness of the temperature, the attraction of the feafon increafes, and the fummer.night becomes ftill more beautiful. The greater obliquity of the fun's path on the ecliptic prolongs the grateful feafon of twilight to the midnight hours, and the thades of the evening feem to mingle with the morning's dawn. The rural poets of Scotland, as may be expected, affociate in their fongs the expreflions of paffion with the most beautiful of their scenery, in the faireft feafon of the year, and generally in thofe hours of the

evening

evening when the beauties of nature are most interesting *.

"To all these adventitious circumftances, on which fo much of the effect of poetry depends, great attention is paid by Burns. There is fcarcely a fingle fong of his in which particular fcenery is not defcribed, or allufions made to natural objects, remarkable for beauty or intereft; and though his defcriptions are not fo full as are fometimes met with in the older Scottish fongs, they are in the higheft degree appropriate and inter. efting. Inftances in proof of this might be quoted from the Lea Rig, Highland Mary, the Soldier's Return, Logan Water; from that beautiful paftoral Bonny Jean, and a great number of others. Occafionally the force of his genius carries him beyond the ufual boundaries of Scottish fong, and the natural ob jects introduced have more of the character of fublimity. An inftance of this kind is noticed by Mr. Syme, and many others might be adduced.

Had I a cave on fome wild diftant

fhore,

Where the winds howl to the wave's

dafhing roar:

There would I weep my woes,
There seek my loft repofe,
'Till grief my eyes fhould close,
Ne'er to wake more.'

"In one fong, the scene of which is laid in a winter-night, the

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wan moon' is decribed as " fet

ting behind the white waves;' in another theftorms' are apoftrophized, and commanded to reft in the cave of their flum'bers.' On several occations the genius of Burns lofes fight entirely of his archetypes, and rifes into a ftrain of uniform fublimity. Inftances of this kind appear in Libertie, a Vifion, and in his two war-fongs, Bruce to his Troops, and the Song of Death. Thefe laf are of a description of which we have no other in our language. martial fongs of our nation are not military, but naval. If we were to feek a comparison of these fongs of Burns with others of a fimilar nature, we must have recourse to the poetry of ancient Greece, or of modern Gaul.

The

"Burns has made an important addition to the fongs of Scotland. In his compofitions the poetry equals and fometimes furpaffes the mufic. He has enlarged the po

*"A lady, of whofe genius the editor entertains high admiration, (Mrs. Barbauld) has fallen into an error in this respect In her prefatory addrefs to the works of Collins, fpeaking of the natural objects that may be employed to give intereft to the defcriptions of paffion, the obferves, they prefent an inexhaustible variety, from the Song of Solomon, breathing of caffia, myrrh, and cinnamon, to the Gent'e Shepherd of Ramfay, whofe damfels carry their milking-pails through the frofts and faows of their leis genial but not lefs paftoral country.' The damfels of Ramfy do not waik in the midft of froft and fnow. Almost all the fcenes of the Gentle Shepherd are laid in the open air, amidst beautiful natural objects, and at the most genial feafon of the year. Kamlay introduces all his acts with a prefatory defeription to affure us of this. The fault of the climate of Britain is not that it does not afford us the beauties of fummer, but that the season of fuch beauties is comparatively fhort, and even uncertain. There are days and nights, even in the northern divifion of the ifland, which equal, or perhaps furpafs, what are to be found in the latitude of Sicily or of Greece. Buchanan, when he wrote his exquifite ode to May, felt the charm as well as the tranfientuefs of thefe happy days.

Salve fugacis gloria fecuii,

Salve fecunda digna dies nota,

Salve vetuftæ vitæ imago,

Et specimen venientis ævi!

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