Chapter V: Part II: Courtship (1)

Sonnets and serenades,
Sighs, glances, tears and vows,
Gifts, tokens, souvenirs, parades,
And courtesies and bows.

A purpose, and a prayer:
The stars are in the sky,--
He wonders how e'en hope should dare
To let him aim so high!

Still hope allures and flatters,
And doubt just makes him bold:
And so, with passion all in tatters,
The trembling tale is told!

Apologies and blushes,
Soft looks, averted eyes,
Each heart into the other rushes,
Each yields, and wins, a prize.

{234} Part III.--MARRIAGE.

A gathering of fond friends,--
Brief, solemn words, and prayer,--
A trembling to the fingers' ends,
As hand in hand they swear.

Sweet cake, sweet wine, sweet kisses,--
And so the deed is done:
Now for life's woes and blisses,--
The wedded two are one.

And down the shining stream
They launch their buoyant skiff,
Bless'd, if they may but trust Hope's dream,--
But ah! Truth echoes--_If!_

THE SEQUEL.--IF.

If health be firm,--if friends be true,--
If self be well controlled,--
If tastes be pure,--if wants be few,--
And not too often told,--

If reason always rule the heart,--
And passions own its sway,--
If love for aye to life impart
The zest it does to day,--

If Providence with parent care
Mete out the varying lot,--
While meek Contentment bows to share
The palace or the cot,--

And oh! if Faith, sublime and clear,
The spirit upward guide,--
Then bless'd indeed, and bless'd fore'er,
The Bridegroom, and the Bride!

WILLIAM CUTTER.

_P------d_.

READINGS WITH MY PENCIL.

NO. II.

Legere sine calamo est dormire.--_Quintilian_.

8. "A drayman is probably born with as good organs as Milton, Locke, or Newton: but by culture they are as much above him, almost, as he is above his horse."--_Chesterfield_.

Chesterfield, it would seem, was a Phrenologist, in fact.

9. "In matters of consequence, have nothing to do with secondary people: deal always with principals."--_Edgeworth_.

Good advice. In matters of state, deal never with a clerk,--he has no discretion. In matters of trade deal never with an agent, if you can come near the principal, for the same cause,--he lacks the discretion that the latter has. But for a different cause than this, in matters of love, deal never with parents, but with the child: it is true, she has less discretion, but in this matter she is still _the principal_.

10. "Women may have their wills while they live, for they may make none when they die."--_Anon._

The author of that, whoever he be, was a kind soul: he found an apology for that which husbands, lovers, and fathers are apt to think a grievous fault in the sex. But the thought that strikes me most forcibly upon reading that passage is, the injustice of the law's treatment of women in this regard. Why should a woman's property, upon her marriage, become, _ipso facto_, another's? I take it that is a question which neither casuists nor gownsmen can answer. I knew an old woman who could give the true reply, and it was one that she gave as a reason for every query, puzzling or plain,--and that was "_'Cause!_"

11. "A soul conversant with virtue resembles a fountain: for it is clear, and gentle, and sweet, and communicative, and rich, and harmless and innocent."--_Epictetus_.

Beautiful because true. Such a soul is _clear_; one can see deeply into its crystal purity: it is _gentle_, and no waves disturb the spectator as he gazes: it is _sweet_, and he who drinks of it is refreshed and renovated in mental and intellectual health. _Communicative_ is it, and throws out its _jets_ in affluent profusion, making the atmosphere delicious to those who come within its reach. _Rich_, too, abundantly, overflowingly _rich_, full of jewels beyond price, ready for those who will gather them up from the inexhaustible bed of that fountain: _harmless_, moreover, and _innocent_, diffusing influences of a healthful and inspiring force, which turns mere sense to soul, mere mortality to immortality!

12. "The suspicion of Dean Swift's irreligion proceeded, in a great measure, from his dread of hypocrisy: instead of wishing to seem better, he delighted in seeming worse than he was."--_Dr. Johnson_.

That is a queer apology for a great Moralist to make for a Dean of the Church! It makes out Swift to be the worst of rascals: for it makes him more regardful of other men's opinions than of his own. It exhibits him as contravening conscience with _seeming_. Now, to my mind, the mere suspicion of hypocrisy is a far less evil than the positive conviction of it. He was, according to Johnson, afraid of being thought a hypocrite, and so he actually became one!

13. "As much company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better; and would rather be employed in reading, than in the most agreeable company."--_Pope_.

It is but a choice of company after all. For my part I verily believe the poet loved both well enough, although the world of books he most affected. He never wrote the "Essay on Man" or the "Dunciad" from the experience of the study, however: men's hearts were the 'books' he read from when he gave those splendid poems birth. The "world of books"--reminds me of

14. "Books are a real world, both pure and good,
Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness may grow."
_Wordsworth_.

15. "Oh! who shall tell the glory of the good man's course, when, as his mortal organs are closing upon the world, he is looking forward to the opening brightness of that sun which never sets, shining from out the sapphire gates of Heaven! What earthly simile can your poet or your rhapsodist furnish, to carry to the spirit so rapturous a conception?"--_Chalmers_.

The simplest similes for such purposes are the best. And it is a beautiful order of our nature, that it furnishes them abundantly for the improvement of the reflective mind. And thus would I assimilate an earthly scene to the rapturous conception of the eloquent divine whom I have quoted. A most beautiful autumn day, free from clouds,--when the varied colored leaves _seem willing to fade_, with so bright, so warm, so cheerful a sun upon them,--is to me an emblem of the beaming of the sun of {235} righteousness, which, growing brighter as their bodies decay, makes the happiest and holiest spirits _willing to die_, under an influence so benign.

16. "I walked, I rode, I hunted, I played, I read, I wrote, I did every thing but think. I could not, or rather I would not think. Thinking kept me too long to one point. I could not bear that turning my face to a dead wall. In self defence, to keep me from my thoughts, I flitted from one occupation to another in which my mind could not, if it would, find the least employment or permanent satisfaction. But the world called me a very happy man!"--_Bulwer_, (I believe.)

Every man has those moments, I imagine, of struggling with his own mind, endeavoring, yet almost impossibly, to fix it upon a single object for any length of time: when it is like a bird in a storm, attempting to alight upon a waving, trembling spray.

17. "But Thomas Moore, albeit but an indifferent biographer, is one of the greatest masters of versification the world has ever known, while in song-writing he is perfectly unrivalled."--_Quarterly Review_.

Perhaps in a peculiar, refined style of song-writing he may be: but while his are the music of the fancy, _Burns_ speaks the melodies of the soul.

18. "The Creator has so constituted the human intellect, that it _can_ grow only by its own action, and by its own action it _will_ most certainly and necessarily grow. Every man must, therefore, in an important sense, educate himself. His books and teachers are but aids, _the work_ is his."--_Daniel Webster_.

The great statesman spoke this from the lessons of his own experience, and it is true. Yet how many moments there are in a scholar's life, when his progress seems so slow that he languishes over every task; and, because he cannot attain every thing at once, forgets, that every thing worth gaining is obtained after many struggles: and, if one foot slips back a little, yet, if he gain _at all_ on his way, that it is better to persevere! Besides, it is not only _the ends_ of study which are delightful--for so also are its _ways_: and, if we are not advancing rapidly, there is yet a pleasure in exercise, even when much of it fails.

19. "The preacher, raising his withered hands as if imparting a benediction with the words, closed his discourse with the text he had been enforcing,--'It is good that a man bear the yoke in his youth.'"--_Lights and Shadows_.

I do believe that text most implicitly. I myself feel that it is true: for I am one of those who are best when most afflicted. While the weight hangs heavily, I keep time and measure, like a clock; but remove it, and all the springs and wheels move irregularly, and I am but a mere useless thing.

20. "Fair and bright to day, but windy and cold."--_My Old Journal_.

------like a satirical beauty!

J. F. O.

HALLEY'S COMET.

And who art thou amid the starry host,
Shedding thy pale and misty light,
Like some lone pearl, unseen and lost,
Amid the diamonds of a gala night.

Thou comest from the measureless abyss,
Where God hath made his glory known;
Is it with mystic cord, to this
To bind some system yet unseen, unknown.

Art thou the ship of heaven, laden with light,
From the eternal glory sent,
To feed the glowing suns, that might
In ceaseless radiance but for thee be spent?

Or art thou rolling on thy way, a car,
Bearing from God some angel band,
Sent forth from world to world afar,
To regulate the fabric of his hand?

Oh! if thou art on some such errand sent,
Forth from the throne of Him we love,
May not thy homeward path be bent
By our poor earth, to bear our souls above?

_Prince Edward_.

EPIMANES.

BY E. A. POE.

Chacun a ses vertus.--_Crebillon's Xerxes_.

Antiochus Epiphanes is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ--his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus--his implacable hostility to the Jews--his pollution of the Holy of Holies, and his miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore more generally noticed by the historians of his time than the impious, dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which make up the sum total of his private life and reputation.

* * * * *

Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few minutes, imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man, the remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and other countries, sixteen cities of that name besides the one to which I more particularly allude. But _ours_ is that which went by the name of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its vicinity to the little village Daphne, where stood a temple to that divinity. It was built (although about this matter there is some dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of the country after Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus, and became immediately the residence of the Syrian monarchy. In the flourishing times of the Roman empire, it was the ordinary station of the Prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of the emperors of the queen city, among whom may be mentioned, most especially, Verus and Valens, spent here the greater part of their time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself. Let us ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes around upon the town and neighboring country.

What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way with innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally through the wilderness of buildings?

That is the Orontes, and the only water in sight, {236} with the exception of the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad mirror, about twelve miles off to the southward. Every one has beheld the Mediterranean; but, let me tell you, there are few who have had a peep at Antioch. By few, I mean few who, like you and I, have had, at the same time, the advantages of a modern education. Therefore cease to regard that sea, and give your whole attention to the mass of houses that lie beneath us. You will remember that it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty. Were it later--for example, were it unfortunately the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-six, we should be deprived of this extraordinary spectacle. In the nineteenth century Antioch is--that is, Antioch _will be_ in a lamentable state of decay. It will have been, by that time, totally destroyed, at three different periods, by three successive earthquakes. Indeed, to say the truth, what little of its former self may then remain, will be found in so desolate and ruinous a state, that the patriarch will remove his residence to Damascus. This is well. I see you profit by my advice, and are making the most of your time in inspecting the premises--in

------satisfying your eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That most renown this city.

I beg pardon--I had forgotten that Shakspeare will not flourish for nearly seventeen hundred and fifty years to come. But does not the appearance of Epidaphne justify me in calling it _grotesque_?

It is well fortified--and in this respect is as much indebted to nature as to art.

Very true.

There are a prodigious number of stately palaces.

There are.

And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear comparison with the most lauded of antiquity.

All this I must acknowledge. Still there is an infinity of mud huts and abominable hovels. We cannot help perceiving abundance of filth in every kennel, and, were it not for the overpowering fumes of idolatrous incense, I have no doubt we should find a most intolerable stench. Did you ever behold streets so insufferably narrow, or houses so miraculously tall? What a gloom their shadows cast upon the ground! It is well the swinging lamps in those endless collonades are kept burning throughout the day--we should otherwise have the darkness of Egypt in the time of her desolation.

It is certainly a strange place! What is the meaning of yonder singular building? See!--it towers above all the others, and lies to the eastward of what I take to be the royal palace.

That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under the title of Elah Gabalah. Hereafter a very notorious Roman Emperor will institute this worship in Rome, and thence derive a cognomen Heliogabalus. I dare say you would like a peep at the divinity of the temple. You need not look up at the Heavens, his Sunship is not there--at least not the Sunship adored by the Syrians. _That_ Deity will be found in the interior of yonder building. He is worshipped under the figure of a large stone pillar terminating at the summit in a cone or _pyramid_, whereby is denoted Fire.

Hark!--behold!--who _can_ those ridiculous beings be--half naked--with their faces painted--shouting and gesticulating to the rabble?

Some few are mountebanks. Others more particularly belong to the race of philosophers. The greatest portion, however--those especially who belabor the populace with clubs, are the principal courtiers of the palace, executing, as in duty bound, some laudable comicality of the king's.

But what have we here? Heavens!--the town is swarming with wild beasts! What a terrible spectacle!--what a dangerous peculiarity!

Terrible, if you please; but not in the least degree dangerous. Each animal, if you will take the pains to observe, is following, very quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure, are led with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the lesser or more timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are entirely without restraint. They have been trained without difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the capacity of _valets-de-chambre_. It is true, there are occasions when Nature asserts her violated dominion--but then the devouring of a man-at-arms, or the throtling of a consecrated bull, are circumstances of too little moment to be more than hinted at in Epidaphne.

But what extraordinary tumult do I hear? Surely this is a loud noise even for Antioch! It argues some commotion of unusual interest.

Yes--undoubtedly. The king has ordered some novel spectacle--some gladiatorial exhibition at the Hippodrome--or perhaps the massacre of the Scythian prisoners--or the conflagration of his new palace--or the tearing down of a handsome temple--or, indeed, a bonfire of a few Jews. The uproar increases. Shouts of laughter ascend the skies. The air becomes dissonant with wind instruments, and horrible with the clamor of a million throats. Let us descend, for the love of fun, and see what is going on. This way--be careful. Here we are in the principal street, which is called the street of Timarchus. The sea of people is coming this way, and we shall find a difficulty in stemming the tide. They are pouring through the alley of Heraclides, which leads directly from the palace--therefore the king is most probably among the rioters. Yes--I hear the shouts of the herald proclaiming his approach in the pompous phraseology of the East. We shall have a glimpse of his person as he passes by the temple of Ashimah. Let us ensconce ourselves in the vestibule of the Sanctuary--he will be here anon. In the meantime let us survey this image. What is it? Oh, it is the God Ashimah in proper person. You perceive, however, that he is neither a lamb, nor a goat, nor a Satyr--neither has he much resemblance to the Pan of the Arcadians. Yet all these appearances have been given--I beg pardon--_will be_ given by the learned of future ages to the Ashimah of the Syrians. Put on your spectacles, and tell me what it is. What is it?

Bless me, it is an ape!

True--a baboon; but by no means the less a Deity. His name is a derivation of the Greek _Simia_--what great fools are antiquarians! But see!--see!--yonder scampers a ragged little urchin. Where is he going? What is he bawling about? What does he say? Oh!--he says the king is coming in triumph--that he is dressed in state--and that he has just finished putting {237} to death with his own hand a thousand chained Israelitish prisoners. For this exploit the ragamuffin is lauding him to the skies. Hark!--here come a troop of a similar description. They have made a Latin hymn upon the valor of the king, and are singing it as they go.

Mille, mille, mille,
Mille, mille, mille,
Decollavimus, unus homo!
Mille, mille, mille, mille, decollavimus!
Mille, mille, mille!
Vivat qui mille mille occidit!
Tantum vini habet nemo
Quantum sanguinis effudit![1]

which may be thus paraphrased.

A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
We, with one warrior, have slain!
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
Sing a thousand over again!
Soho!--let us sing
Long life to our king,
Who knocked over a thousand so fine!
Soho!--let us roar,
He has given us more
Red gallons of gore
Than all Syria can furnish of wine!

[Footnote 1: Flavius Vopiscus says that the Hymn which is here introduced, was sung by the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in the Sarmatic war, having slain with his own hand nine hundred and fifty of the enemy.]

Do you hear that flourish of trumpets?

Yes--the king is coming! See!--the people are aghast with admiration, and lift up their eyes to the heavens in reverence. He comes--he is coming--there he is!

Who?--where?--the king?--do not behold him--cannot say that I perceive him.

Then you must be blind.

Very possible. Still I see nothing but a tumultuous mob of idiots and madmen, who are busy in prostrating themselves before a gigantic cameleopard, and endeavoring to obtain a kiss of the animal's hoofs. See! the beast has very justly kicked one of the rabble over--and another--and another--and another. Indeed, I cannot help admiring the animal for the excellent use he is making of his feet.

Rabble, indeed!--why these are the noble and free citizens of Epidaphne! Beast, did you say?--take care that you are not overheard. Do you not perceive that the animal has the visage of a man? Why, my dear sir, that cameleopard is no other than Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus the Illustrious, King of Syria, and the most potent of the Autocrats of the East! It is true that he is entitled, at times, Antiochus Epimanes, Antiochus the madman--but that is because all people have not the capacity to appreciate his merits. It is also certain that he is at present ensconced in the hide of a beast, and is doing his best to play the part of a cameleopard--but this is done for the better sustaining his dignity as king. Besides, the monarch is of a gigantic stature, and the dress is therefore neither unbecoming nor over large. We may, however, presume he would not have adopted it but for some occasion of especial state. Such you will allow is the massacre of a thousand Jews. With what a superior dignity the monarch perambulates upon all fours. His tail, you perceive, is held aloft by his two principal concubines, Elline and Argelais; and his whole appearance would be infinitely prepossessing, were it not for the protuberance of his eyes, which will certainly start out of his head, and the queer color of his face, which has become nondescript from the quantity of wine he has swallowed. Let us follow to the Hippodrome, whither he is proceeding, and listen to the song of triumph which he is commencing.

Who is king but Epiphanes?
Say--do you know?
Who is king but Epiphanes?
Bravo--bravo!
There is none but Epiphanes,
No--there is none:
So tear down the temples,
And put out the sun!
Who is king but Epiphanes?
Say--do you know?
Who is king but Epiphanes?
Bravo--bravo!

Well and strenuously sung! The populace are hailing him 'Prince of Poets,' as well as 'Glory of the East,' 'Delight of the Universe,' and 'most remarkable of Cameleopards.' They have _encored_ his effusion--and, do you hear?--he is singing it over again. When he arrives at the Hippodrome he will be crowned with the Poetic Wreath in anticipation of his victory at the approaching Olympics.

But, good Jupiter!--what is the matter in the crowd behind us?

Behind us did you say?--oh!--ah!--I perceive. My friend, it is well that you spoke in time. Let us get into a place of safety as soon as possible. Here!--let us conceal ourselves in the arch of this aqueduct, and I will inform you presently of the origin of this commotion. It has turned out as I have been anticipating. The singular appearance of the Cameleopard with the head of a man, has, it seems, given offence to the notions of propriety entertained in general by the wild animals domesticated in the city. A mutiny has been the result, and as is usual upon such occasions, all human efforts will be of no avail in quelling the mob. Several of the Syrians have already been devoured--but the general voice of the four-footed patriots seems to be for eating up the Cameleopard. 'The Prince of Poets,' therefore, is upon his hinder legs, and running for his life. His courtiers have left him in the lurch, and his concubines have let fall his tail. 'Delight of the Universe,' thou art in a sad predicament! 'Glory of the East,' thou art in danger of mastication! Therefore never regard so piteously thy tail--it will undoubtedly be draggled in the mud, and for this there is no help. Look not behind thee then at its unavoidable degradation--but take courage--ply thy legs with vigor--and scud for the Hippodrome! Remember that the beasts are at thy heels! Remember that thou art Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus, the Illustrious!--also 'Prince of Poets,' 'Glory of the East,' 'Delight of the Universe,' and 'most remarkable of Cameleopards!' Heavens! what a power of speed thou art displaying! What a capacity for leg-bail thou art developing! Run, Prince! Bravo, Epiphanes! Well done, Cameleopard! Glorious Antiochus! He runs!--he moves!--he flies! Like a shell from a catapult he approaches the Hippodrome! He leaps!--he shrieks!--he is there! This is {238} well--for hadst thou, 'Glory of the East,' been half a second longer in reaching the gates of the Amphitheatre, there is not a bear's cub in Epidaphne who would not have had a nibble at thy carcase. Let us be off--let us take our departure!--for we shall find our delicate modern ears unable to endure the vast uproar which is about to commence in celebration of the king's escape! Listen! it has already commenced. See!--the whole town is topsy-turvy.

Surely this is the most populous city of the East! What a wilderness of people! What a jumble of all ranks and ages! What a multiplicity of sects and nations! What a variety of costumes! What a Babel of languages! What a screaming of beasts! What a tinkling of instruments! What a parcel of philosophers!

Come let us be off!

Stay a moment! I see a vast hubbub in the Hippodrome. What is the meaning of it I beseech you?

That? Oh nothing! The noble and free citizens of Epidaphne being, as they declare, well satisfied of the faith, valor, wisdom, and divinity of their king, and having, moreover, been eye witnesses of his late superhuman agility, do think it no more than their duty to invest his brows (in addition to the Poetic Crown) with the wreath of victory in the foot race--a wreath which it is evident he _must_ obtain at the celebration of the next Olympiad.

TO HELEN.

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfum'd sea,
The weary wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the beauty of fair Greece,
And the grandeur of old Rome.

Lo! in that little window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The folded scroll within thy hand--
Ah! Psyche from the regions which
Are Holy land!

E. A. P.

ON THE POETRY OF BURNS.[1]

BY JAMES F. OTIS.

[Footnote 1: This paper was written at the request of a literary society of which the author was a member, and the facts are gathered principally from Currie. Some extracts from the poet's own letters, and from an eloquent review of Lockhart's Burns, which appeared a few years since in the Edinburgh Review, are interwoven, and the whole made up as an essay to be "read not printed."]

If we take the different definitions of the term "Poetry," that have been given this beautiful and magical art by the various writers upon its nature and properties, as _each_ supported by reason and fact, we shall hardly arrive at any degree of certainty as to its _real_ meaning. It has been called "the art of imitation," or mimickry. Aristotle and Plato characterize it as "the expression of thoughts by fictions;" and there are innumerable other definitions, none of which are more satisfactory to the student than is that of the celebrated "Blair." He says, "it is the language of Passion,--or enlivened Imagination, formed, most commonly, into regular numbers. The primary object of a poet is to _please_, and to _move_; and therefore it is to imagination and the passions that he speaks. He may, and he ought to have it in his view to _instruct_ and _reform_; but it is _indirectly_, and by _pleasing_, and _moving_, that he accomplishes this end. His mind is supposed to be animated by some interesting object which fires his imagination or engages his passions: and which, of course, communicates to his style a peculiar elevation, suited to his ideas, very different from that mode of expression which is natural to the mind in its calm, ordinary state." And this definition will allow of being yet more particularly and minutely understood: it is susceptible of being analyzed still farther, and described as "a language, in which fiction and imagination may, with propriety, be indulged beyond the strict limits of truth and reality."

Who is there that has not felt the power of Poetry? For it is not essential that it be embodied in regular and finely wrought periods, and conveyed to the ear in alternate rhyme, and made to harmonize in nicely-toned successions of sounds. Who is there that has not felt its power? It originated with the very nature of man; and is confined to no nation, age, or situation. This is proved by the well-attested fact, that Poetry ever diminishes in strength of thought, boldness of conception, and power of embodying striking images, in proportion as it becomes polished and cultivated. The uncivilized tenant of our forests is, _by nature_, a Poet! Whether he would lead his brethren to the field of warfare, or conclude with the white man a treaty of peace and future amity, still his style evinces the same grand characteristic,--_the spirit of true Poetry_. The barbarous Celt, the benighted Icelander, and the earliest and most unenlightened nations of the world, as described on the page of history, are proofs of the principle we have been considering; and it was not, indeed, until society became settled and civilized, that poetical composition ceased to embrace _every_ impulse of which the human soul is susceptible. It was not till _then_, that, in the language of a distinguished writer, "Poetry became a separate art, calculated, chiefly, to _please_; and confined, generally, to such subjects as related to the imagination and the passions." Then was it that there arose, naturally, divisions in the classes or schools of Poetry,--as Lyric, Elegiac, Pastoral, Didactic, Descriptive, and Dramatic. A consideration of _each_ of these classes might furnish us with _materiel_ for an interesting examination of their individual peculiarities: but time will not permit so wide a range.

ROBERT BURNS was born on the 25th of January, 1759, in the town of Ayr, in Scotland. His pretensions by birth, were a descent from poor and humble, but honest and intelligent parents; and a title to inherit all their intelligence and virtue, as well as all their poverty. Upon the nature of these pretensions, Burns, in a letter to a friend, dated many years after, takes occasion to say: "I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character, which the pye-coatcd guardians {239} of escutcheons call a gentleman. When at Edinborough last winter, I got acquainted in the Herald's Office; and looking through that granary of honors, I there found almost every name in the kingdom: but for _me_,--

'My ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.'"

His father was a native of the north of Scotland, but he was driven by various misfortunes to Edinborough, and thence still farther south to Ayrshire, where he was first employed as a gardener in one of the families in that vicinity, and afterwards, being desirous of settling in life, took a lease of a little farm of seven acres, on which he reared a clay cottage with his own hands, and soon after married a wife. The first fruit of this union was our poet, whose birth took place two years thereafter. Robert, during his early days, was by no means a favorite with any body. He was remarkable, however, for a retentive memory, and a thoughtful turn of mind. His ear was dull, and his voice harsh and dissonant, and he evinced no musical talent or poetical genius until his fifteenth or sixteenth year. It is pretended by his biographers, (of whom there have been several, and who all agree in this opinion,) that the seeds of Poetry were very early implanted in his mind, and that the recitations and fireside chaunts of an old crone, who was familiar in his father's family, served to cherish their growth, and strengthen their hold upon his memory. This "auld gudewife" is said to have had the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning fairies, witches, warlocks, apparitions, giants, dragons, and other agents of romantic fiction. Speaking of these tales and songs, he says, in his later years, "so strong an effect had they upon my imagination, that even to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I am fain to keep a sharp look out in suspicious places; and, though nobody can feel more sceptical than I have ever done in such matters, yet it often requires an effort of Philosophy to shake off these idle terrors."

When Robert was in his seventh year, his father quitted the birth-place of the poet, and took a lease of a small farm on the estate of Mr. Fergusson, called Mount Oliphant. He had been, for a year or two previous to this event, a pupil of Dr. Murdoch, who is represented as being a very worthy and acute man, and who took much pains with the education of the future poet. In fact, his _father_ had previously taught him arithmetic, and whatever of lore could be gathered from the "big ha' bible," as they sat by their solitary candle; and he had been sent, alternately with his brother, a week at a time during a summer's quarter, to a writing master at the parish school at Dalrymple. But Dr. Murdoch, his faithful friend in youth and age, instructed him in English Grammar, and aided him in the acquisition of a little French. After a fortnight's instruction in the latter language, he was able to translate it into English prose, but, farther than this, his new attainment was never of much advantage to him. Indeed, his attempts to speak the language were ridiculously futile at times. On one occasion, when he called in Edinborough at the house of an accomplished friend, a lady who had been educated in France, he found her conversing with a French lady, to whom he was introduced. The French woman understood English; but Burns must need try his powers. His first sentence was intended to compliment the lady on her apparent eloquence in conversation; but by mistaking some idiom, he made the lady understand that she was too fond of hearing herself speak. The French woman, highly incensed, replied, that there were more instances of vain poets than of talkative women; and Burns was obliged to use his own language in appeasing her. He attempted the Latin, but his success did not encourage him to persevere. And, in fine, with the addition of a quarter's attendance to Geometry and Surveying, at the age of nineteen, and a few lessons at a country dancing school, I have now mentioned all his opportunities of acquiring a scholastic education. He says of himself, in allusion to his boyish days, "though it cost the schoolmaster many _thrashings_, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs and particles."

As soon as young Burns had strength to work, he was employed as a laborer upon his father's farm. At twelve he was a good ploughman; a year later he assisted at the threshing-floor; and was his father's main dependance at fifteen, there being no hired laborers, male or female, in the family at the time. In one of his letters, (and it is by extracting copiously from them, that I propose chiefly to narrate his history,) he remarks upon this subject--"I saw my father's situation entailed on me perpetual labor: the only two openings by which I could enter the temple of fortune, were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little, chicaning bargain-making. The _first_ is so contracted an aperture, I never could squeeze myself into it; the _last_ I _always_ hated--there was contamination in the very entrance!" And it was this kind of life,--the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing toil of a galley-slave, that brought him to his sixteenth year, at about which period he first perpetrated the sin of rhyming. Of this you shall have an account in the author's own language.

"You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labors of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language; but you know the Scottish idiom,--_she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass_. In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, rigid prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below! How she caught the contagion I cannot tell. You medical people--(he was addressing the celebrated Dr. Moore) you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, &c.; but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an Eolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I plucked the cruel nettle-stings and thistles from her little white hand. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly; and it was her favorite reel, to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin: but my girl sung a song, which was said to have been composed by a country laird's son upon a neighboring maiden with whom he was in love! and I saw; no reason why I might not rhyme as well as _he_; for, excepting that he could shear sheep and cast peats, (his father living in the moorlands,) he had no more _scholar_ craft than myself."

Thus, with Burns, began Love and Poetry. This, his first effort, is valuable, more from the promise it {240} gave of his future excellence as a poet, than for any intrinsic merit which it possessed as a performance of so gifted a genius. I have been the more particular in describing the circumstances attending the composition of these, his earliest verses, for the proof they afford of the truth of the general remark, that of all the poetical compositions of Burns, his love-songs, and amatory poetry are far the best. His feelings predominated over his fancy, and whenever the latter is introduced we are forced to deem it an intrusion for the strong contrast it presents with the native and characteristic simplicity of his more natural and heartfelt effusions.

Referring to the predilections which I have said gave a character to so large a portion of his poetical writings, he says,--"My heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other: and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes I was received with favor, and sometimes I was mortified with a repulse." And in another letter he says farther, "Another circumstance in my life which made some alterations in my mind and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c. in which I made a pretty good progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. Scenes of riot and roaring dissipation were, till now, new to me; but I was no enemy to social life. For all that, I went on with a high hand in my geometry till the sun entered _Virgo_, (a month, which is always a carnival in my bosom,) when a charming fair one, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my duties. I, however, struggled on with my _sines_ and _co-sines_ for a few days more, but stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel,

'Like Proserpine, gathering flowers,
Herself, a fairer flower.'

It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The remaining weeks I staid I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet her. And the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless."

This brings us to a period, which the poet calls an important era in his life--his twenty-third year; and he explains this in the following näive and characteristic style. "Partly through whim, and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a flax-dresser in the neighboring town of Irvine to learn his trade. This was an unlucky affair; as we were welcoming in the new year with a carousal, our shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left like a true poet, not worth a sixpence." About this time the clouds of misfortune thickened around his father's head, who, indeed, was already far gone in a consumption; and to crown the distresses incident to his situation, a girl, to whom he was engaged to be married, jilted him with peculiar circumstances of mortification.

During his residence at Irvine, our poet was miserably poor and dispirited. His food consisted chiefly of oat meal, and this was sent to him from his father's family; and so small was, of necessity, his allowance, that he was obliged to borrow often of a neighbor, until he should again be supplied. He was very melancholy with the idea, that the dreams of future eminence and distinction which his imagination had presented to his mind, were _only_ dreams; and to dissipate this melancholy his resource was society with its enjoyments. The incidents to which I have alluded took place some years before the publication of his poems. About this time William Burns removed from Mount Oliphant to Lochlea, and later still, to the parish of Tarbolton, where, as we are informed by a letter from Dr. Murdoch, written in 1799, that "Robert wrote most of his poems." It was in Tarbolton that Burns established a debating club, which consisted of the poet, his brother Gilbert, and five or six other young peasants of the neighborhood--the laws and regulations for which were furnished by the former. Among these members was David Sillar, to whom the two beautiful poems, entitled "Epistles to Davie, a brother poet," were addressed. Some of the rules and regulations of this club are so peculiar, and bespeak so forcibly the character of their author, that I cannot resist the temptation to transcribe some of them. The eighth is in the following words:

"Every member shall attend at the meetings, without he can give a proper excuse for not attending. And it is desired, that every one who cannot attend will send his excuse with some other member: and he who shall be absent three meetings without sending such excuse, shall be summoned to the club night, when if he fail to appear, or send an excuse, he shall be excluded."

And the tenth and last rule is worthy of particular notice, and a part of it of incorporation into the code even of more extensive and more pretending societies: it is as follows:

"Every man proper for a member of this club, must have a frank, honest, open heart--above any thing low or mean, and must be a professed lover of the female sex. No haughty, self-conceited person, who looks upon himself as superior to the rest of the club--and especially no mean spirited, worldly mortal, whose only will is to heap up money, shall, upon any pretence whatever, be admitted. In short, the proper person for this society, is a cheerful, honest-hearted lad--who, if he has a friend that is true, a mistress that is kind, and as much wealth as genteely to make both ends meet, is just as happy as this world can make him."

But I must, however reluctantly, omit many interesting particulars in the earlier, and more private life of our poet, and hasten to his visit to Edinborough in the winter of 1786. The celebrated Dugald Stewart, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Edinborough, in a letter to Dr. Currie, alludes to several of Burns's early poems, and avers, that it was upon _his_ showing a volume of them to Henry McKenzie, (the celebrated author of "The Man of Feeling,") that this gentleman introduced the rustic bard to the notice of the public, in the xcvii No. of The Lounger, which justly famous periodical paper was then in the course of publication, and had long been a favorite work with the young poet.

Depressed by poverty, and chagrined with the contrasts which fate seemed malignantly bent upon opposing to his ambitious aspirations, his only object, at last, had been to accumulate the petty sum of nine guineas, (which he did by the publication of a few of his poems,) and to take passage in the steerage of a ship bound to the West Indies, determined to become a negro driver, or any thing else, so that he could escape the fangs of that merciless pack, the bailiffs; for, said he,

"Hungry ruin had me in the wind."

He had taken leave of his friends--had despatched _his_ {241} _single chest_ to the vessel--had written his Farewell Song, which he sang to the beautiful air of "Roslin Castle," and which closes with,

"Adieu, my friends!--Adieu, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those:
The bursting tears my heart declare,
Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr!"

when a letter from Dr. Blacklock, elicited by a perusal of the volume to which I have just now alluded, opened for him new prospects to his poetic ambition, by inviting him to Edinborough. Thither, then, he went--and his reception by all classes, ages and ranks, was as flattering as, in his most sanguine aspirations, he could have desired. Dr. Robertson, the celebrated historian, Dr. Blair, Dr. Gregory, Professor Stewart, Mr. McKenzie, and many more men of letters were particularly interested in his reception, and in the cultivation of his genius. He became, from his first entrance into Edinborough, the object of universal attention, and it seemed as if there was no possibility of rewarding his merits too highly. Mr. Lockhart, the latest and most eloquent of the numerous biographers of Burns, has a note, containing an extract from a letter of Sir Walter Scott, and furnished by the latter for his work, which is too interesting to be passed over. It relates to a personal interview of Sir Walter with our poet, during his first visit to Edinborough.

"As for Burns," writes he, "I may truly say, 'Virgilium vidi tantum.' I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinborough, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him: but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented." ... "As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Fergusson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked, and listened. The only thing I remember, which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print, with the ideas suggested to his mind upon reading the story whereof, (written under it) he was moved even to tears. He asked whose the lines were? and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half forgotten poem of Langhorne's. I passed this information to Burns by a friend, and I was rewarded with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure." ... "His person," continues Sir Walter, "was strong and robust: his manners rustic, not clownish, a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments: the _eye_, alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed, (I say literally _glowed_,) when he spoke with feeling or interest." ... "I never saw another such eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption."

After making a few more observations with relation to the poet's conversation and manner, the writer I have been quoting concludes his reminiscence as follows:

"This is all I can tell you about Burns. I never saw him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer, dressed in his _best_, to dine with the laird. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I do not know that I can add any thing to these recollections of forty years since."

These are extracts, that, one day or other, will be looked upon as curiosities in literature, and will be inestimably precious: at present, I fear me, an apology should follow their introduction, at such length: but I shall only say in the language of another, in excuse for dwelling so long on this incident in the life of Burns, that it forms "the most remarkable phenomenon in the history of modern literature."

But if this, his first winter in Edinborough, produced a favorable effect upon the future fame of Robert Burns, as a poet, it was also the source of vast unhappiness to him, during his after life. Not only was he admitted to the company of men of letters and virtue, but he was pressed into the society of those, whose social habits, and love of the pleasures of life were their chief attractions. When among his superiors in rank and intelligence, his carriage was decorous and diffident: but among others, his boon companions, he, in his turn, was lord of the ascendant: and thus commenced a career, which, had its outset been a more prudent one, would probably not have closed until a later period, nor without a much greater measure of glory and honor to him, who was thus unfortunately misguided.

During the residence of Burns at Edinborough, he published a new and enlarged edition of his poems, and was thus enabled to visit other parts of his native country, and some parts of England beside. Having done this, he returned, and during most of the following winter, we find him again in the gay and literary metropolis, much less an object of novelty, and, of course, of general attention and interest, than before. Unable to find employment or occupation of a literary nature, he quitted Edinborough in the spring of 1788, and took the farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries: besides advancing 200_l._ for the liberation of his brother Gilbert from some difficulties into which certain agricultural misfortunes had involved him. He was, soon after, united to his "bonnie Jean," the theme of so much of his delightful verse, and employed himself in stocking and cultivating his farm, and rebuilding the dwelling house upon it. There is an anecdote of him in the history furnished by Dr. Currie, the truth of which Mr. Lockhart seems disposed to question: his doubts originate from a consideration of the absurd costume in which the older biographer has seen fit to invest the poet in his narration. As this is the only exception taken to it, and as it is certainly illustrative of Burns's character and manners in other respects, and as it is related, too, upon so good authority, I shall venture to introduce it in this, its proper place, in point of time.