The Press. — London, England, 1856-09-27 00:00:00

SEPT. 27, 1856 iittraturt. The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. Edited by the Rev. Robert Aria Wilmott, Incum bent of Bear Wood. London : Routledge. Mucu discussion has taken place of late about the position and emoluments of a clergyman in England. We have been treated to copious illustrations of the social condition of the clerical order ; its status, its burdens, and its gains have all been commented upon at great length. We have not yet seen any epistles purporting to expatiate on the peculiar species of " the literary clergyman." In the last century several specimens were to be found, but of late years, although society has de manded a large amount of culture from the clerical body, there has been a distaste in ecclesiastical quarters to " a literary clergy man." Formerly, when education was con fined, and when there was even more inequality than now amongst the rewards of the Church, it was a common thing for clergymen to keep a keen eye on Paternoster-row. We are afraid that the annals of Grub-street bear witness to a considerable number of fallen clergymen, who compiled school-books in place of com posing sermons . for congregations. When the age became violently political, the literary clergymen turned pamphleteers, and some of them were certainly obnoxious to the charge of having tried to write themselves up. A re action took place, for amateur writers had no chance against the wiry strength and prac tised skill of bona•fide literary adventurers; and episcopal personages and prime ministers conceived a prejudice against the class of clerical gentlemen who wrote de omnibus, and applied their talents to tea-table literature. Practical people felt that the Establishment was in danger of becoming too literary, and that a Della Crusean school of divines would be the necessary result of a race of reverend dabblers in the mere elegant trivialities of literature. Mr. Willmott, the editor of this new edition of Burns, is favorably known by his graceful accomplishments. Ushered before the public notice with powerful voices in his favour, we do not think that Mr. Willmott keeps up the promise of his early days, for we confess that we expected more from him. Surely the worthy " Incumbent of Bear Wood" might do better things than supply Mr. Routledge with nice little essays about poets and authors. Are there no subjects in this busy age upon which Mr. Willmott could exercise his pen to more advantage than the biographic topics which he loves to select? If Mr. Willmott brought forward original facts about the per sonages on whom he writes, we would not be surprised at his " editing" so many small volumes of great authors. But his " editing " consists generally of a tasteful essay, such as may be written by any !accomplished gentle man for a literary society in any provincial town. " Editing" of books, however, by a " literary clergyman" might, in our opinion, be something better than that. We are living in days when critical book-editors (worthy of the name) have attained considerable distinc • tion, like the Rev. Alexander Dyce, Mr. Payne Collier, and Mr. Robert Bell. We shall allow Mr. Willmott to speak for himself. Here is his " editorial" preface : The poems of Burns have been edited, and his life has been written by eminent countrymen, with a copiousness of illustration and a minuteness of inquiry altogether be yond my abilities and my limits. Perhaps an English reader sometimes thinks the work slightly overdone, and even feels a very languid curiosity about the character of " Poosie Nansie," or the politics of Dumfries. I have not, however, intentionally underrated the interest of my subject. Surely that acknowledgment reads weakly. Cut bond Mr. Willmott's supervision of the volume, after his own confession? He thus begins his biographical essay : Upon a winter day of 17843-7, the boy Jeffrey stopped in the High -street of Edinburgh to stare at a man whose ap rarance greatly struck him. A shopkeeper, standing at his door and observing the boy's look of wonder, tapped him on the shoulder, saying, " Aye, laddie, ye may weel look at that man—he is 'Hobert Burns." Since that day, admiration has shown itself in every shape, the moat touching and the most grotesque, from the panegyric of NVordsworth to the frenzy of Wilson, rolling himself on the spot where Tam o'Shanter" was composed. THE PRESS. Commencing an essay with an anecdote is a peculiarity common to many of our modern writers, and is borrowed from Mr. Macaulay, who largely indulges in the practice. But Mr. Macaulay's anecdotes are connected with the se quel; and we confess that we should prefer the older method of beginning either with " Robert " Burns was born &e.," or else with a general remark. "A winter day," and "the boy Jeffrey," mark the style of the artificial littera teur. There is one shape in which " admira tion" has not shown itself upon Burns. There have been anecdotes, general observations, and illustrative notes of Burns, but in an exact sense his songs have never been criti cally examined ; and one conversant with modern poetry would have a rich harvest of critical remark in examining the way in which Burns sings of nature and love, as contrasted with other lyric poets throughout Europe. Mr. Wilmott then proceeds : Robert Burns was born January 25th, 1759, the eldest child of William and Agnes Burns, or harness, as they were accustomed to spell the name. His father, bailiff and gardener of a country gentleman, Mr. Ferguson, rented a few acres of land, on which he had built a small hovel of clay and straw. What race] did Burns belong to ? Was he of Highland extraction or was he a Lowlander? Or is it true, as has been asserted, and argued with eminent ability, that Burns belonged to the descendants of those Irish " Byrnes," or " O'Byrnes," who settled in Scotland? Mr. Willmott might have glanced at this in teresting question. He should have also stated that his father is immortalised in • the " Cotter's Saturday Night." It is true that Mr. Willmott supplies a note (page 96) from the letter of Gilbert Burns to Dr. Currie, in which the fact is incidentally stated, but so im portant a fact should have been stated in the sketch of the poet's life. The essay then pro ceeds, and, like nearly all that comes from Mr. Willmott's pen, it is pleasing and graceful, but smacking everywhere of the amateur. There is not enough in his essay on the man Burns, and rather too much upon the author. It would have been better to have marked his individualism morb distinctly. For example, Mr. Willmott might have easily accumulated a page of interesting detail about Burns, in addition to what is recorded here Few faces are more familiar to poetical readers than the broad, massive, earnest countenance of Burns. A plain spoken and rough acquaintance said that he was a good looking, fine fellow, " rather black an' ill-coloured; " and Professor Walker recognised the weather-beaten features of a master of a trading vessel. His black hair, slightly sprinkled with grey, was spread over his forehead, and suited the large dark eye, which really glowed under the impulse of pleasure or anger. "I have seen," wrote Scott, " the most distinguished men of my time ; and I never saw such another eye in a human head." His figure was tall—nearly five feet ten inches—but an un graceful stoop diminished his height to the observer. Like many poets, he was not captivated by science, or skill in music. An old strathspey awoke exquisite pleasure, and " Rothemurche's Rant " put him in raptures. In this feeling he resembled Scott, who was melted by the simplest tune, while a complicated harmony seemed to be a babble of sounds. The famous Duchess of Gordon recorded her admiration of Burns's conversational power in a saying that cannot be quoted in the present age, and we thihk that there is evidence to show that (with the exception of Professor Wilson) no other mau of literary genius in the last seventy years was so rivetting in social intercourse. His sentiments on religion deserve notice, because, though heterodox, his opinions were most favorably contrasted with those of the cold literary Deists of the last century. Thus, he wrote : That there is an incomprehensibly great Being, to whom I owe my existence, and that he must be intimately ac quainted with the operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature which he has made—these are, I think, self evident propositions. That there is a real and eternal dis tinction between virtue and vice, and consequently that I am an accountable creature—that from the seeming natare of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfec tion, nay, positive injustice, in the administration of affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave— must, I think, be allowed by every one who will give him self a moment's reflection. I will go farther, and affirm, that from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of his doc• trine and precepts, unparalleled by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of many preceding ages, though, to appearance, he himself was the o►ecureat and most illiterate of our species, therefore, Jesus Christ was from tiod. 927 There is the glow of moral feeling as well as force of perception in that passage, which takes it away from the frigidity of Blair or the heartless levity of a French infidel. Burns emphatically was a man, and as such must have adorel. Mr. Willmott gives his pen much liberty in his severe strictures on the Presbyterian Church of Scotland : Born and brought up a Presbyterian, the Gospel came to him in the roar of black Russell and the invectives of Father Auld. In no dress could the creed look fair or en gaging. A man of taste, in a kirk, has a feeling of being snowed up in an unfurnished house, without a fire. A chill strikes him from the cold building and the colder worship. In one of the poet's journals, we hear him pour ing out his intense disgust :—" What a poor, pimping business is a Presbyterian place of worship: dirty, narrow, squalid, stuck in a corner of old Popish grandeur, such as Linlithgow, and, much more, Melrose. His greatest countrymen have shared his dislike : Byron remembered the fiery Calvinism of his boyhood with a sense of personal injury; the heart of Scott yearned for that nobler and purer ritual which has breathed into its prayers the devotion and the language of the Apostles ; and the sentiments of Jeffrey are kuown to have been of the same kind. Presbyterianism in Burns's time Was coarser and fiercer than m ours. Vulgar in attire, wrathful in look, menacing in speech—it combined in its visage the most repulsive features of •he faith. Nor had it always inward virtue to atone for the outward offence. The elders frequently showed the curiosity of the Inquisition; and in some of the ministers might be seen the tyranny of the cowl, with out the romance. " Vulgar in attire " is an odd reproach from a clergyman of the Church of England against the spirit and practices of another Church; and on the next page Mr. Willmott says : But the vulgar and rabid fanaticism by which the poet was surrounded, had taken olit of religion the beauty and the love. Her clothing was not "of wrought gold," and she never appeared in raiment of needlework, nor in the company of beautiful attendants. Again harping on the " vulgar " character of Presbyterianism. Mr. Willmott might recol lect that Scotland was not so overrun with " vulgar " infidelity, and with Tom Paineism as our own country sixty years ago. But his logic is often rather feeble. He continues : Perhaps in no men of his age would the religious life, fitly planted and nurtured, have found a fruitfuller home. The soil was rich and deep. He wrote—" My great con stituent elements are pride and passion. The first I have endeavoured to humanise into integrity and honour ; the last makes me a devotee, to the warmest degree of en thusiasm, in love, religion, or friendship—either of them, or all together, as I happen to be inspired. " " Pride and passion " are difficult elements to subdue ; and the assertion that "no man of " his age " (!) would have given religion " a fruitfuller home " than Burns, seems rather strange after the poet's own confession The proviso, " if fitly planted and nurtured," proves nothing. Any question can be solved to a superficial mind, with a proper allowance of " ifs and " perhapses." Mr. Willmott might with advantage have quoted the opinions of great minds on Burns The poet himself wrote an " Elegy on the Year 1788" : For Lords or Kings I dinna mourn, E'en let them the—for that they're born : But oh ! prodigious to refiec' ! A Towmont, Sirs, is gene to wreck ! 0 Eighty-eight, in thy sma' space What dire events hae taken place ! Of what enjoyments thou haat reft us ! In what a pickle thou bast left us ! Little could Burns have guessed that in 1788 should have been born such a master-poet as Byron, a nature in many respects similar to his own fiery compound of " pride and passion." One was a peer, and the other (poetically) an " Ayrshire ploughman " Both shone with astounding splendour; one died at thirty-six, and the other at thirty-eight. We feel interest in knowing that Byron said— " Fight who will about words and forms, " Burns's rank is in the first class of his art. Mr. Willmott does not cite the remark, as possibly he thinks, like Mr. Lockhart, " that "to accumulate all that has been said of " Burns, even of men like himself, of the first " order, would fill a volume." Yet we should like to see a cento of these dicta. Thus, in his note on " The Jolly Beggars," Mr. Willmott writes:— Sir Walter Scott was unable to conceive any good reason why Dr. Currie did not introduce this cantata into his collection. For humorous description and nice discrimi nation of character, he thought it inferior to no poem of the same length is the whole range of English verse ; and the mirth of the songs, combined with the vividness of the pictures, he considered to be unequalled. This is very ex • aggerated praise; and few readers, I should suppose, will