The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, -TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 25, 1859.

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BURNS.

-
Among the many and sore troubles which em-
bittered Burns' decline, the sorest (by his own ac-
count) was the dread of an unfavourable posthu-
mous reputation. He apprehended that his faults
would be the most conspicuous features of his
character, as they were to himself at the.moment ;
and that the world could not fully sympathise in
his lofty democratic view of Man in Society. Never
was a last estimate of self and one's kind more mis-
taken The veriest pedant and puppy, who dies
pitying the world for the struggle' it will have to
get on without him, is not more deluded in one
direction than Burns was in the opposite. He was
not irrational in his view, however, though wholly
mistaken. Those who surrounded him were much
engrossed with his faults towards the close of his
life ; and his views and his opinions were treated
by his employers, as well as others, with not only
displeasure but contempt. It was intimated to him
that " his business was to act, not to think." And
this was said, not as a check upon political agita-
tion, or any extreme demonstration of any kind,
but in reply to a statement of his views which
had been drawn from him by accusation.
He did not desire a republic in Great Britain,
he said, because Britons have all the means of ra-
tional liberty and social welfare. He wished for no
change in our form of government, but for a reform
of the " system of corruption between the execu-
tive power and the representative part of the legis-
lature, which boded no good to our glorious con-
stitution, and which every patriotic Briton must
wish to see amended." After this, his " superiors"
could not denounce him as a republican, so they in-
formed him that his business was to act and not to
think ; and he, valuing his thought, feared that
there would be no sympathy with it or him after
he was gone, and that he would be known by his
infirmities, if at all. On this day, the centenary of
his birth, the whole world that speaks or reads our
language is rejoicing because he lived and thought,
and told what he thought. The homage of united
kingdoms, of clusters of colonies, and of several
foreign nations is paid to his memory to-day. So
much for his posthumous reputation. As to his
being remembered by his faults, the most touching
and glorious tribute of all is, perhaps, the teetotal
celebration of the day. If he could but have fore-
known it in his hour of deepest remorse, what a
solace would this have been !—what a pregnant
reply to his worst misgivings ! There is to be a
" tea banquet " in the Edinburgh Corn Exchange
to-day, " under the auspices of the Total Abstinence
Society." We hear it with gratitude and glee. So
much for his being remembered only by his faults !
There could not have been a better conjunction
between the date and public affairs than that which
we witness. It could not have happened better as
an express reply to Burns' yearning after sympathy
in his aspirations for society. The festival would,
no doubt, have been held under any condition of
public affairs. The man binds us to him by so many
ties that we should have been ready with our hom-
age in the midst of a war, or under a Pitt and
Eldon Government, or under a return of the Stuarts,
or under a Republic—whether amidst the deepest
adversity, or in a condition without a care.
The response of men's passions, sympathies, senti-
ments, to his song would have been loud and clear
amids any turmoil of conflict, or merry-making in
peace and prosperity. But there is a peculiar apti-
tude in the spirit of the hour for honouring Burns.
His irrepressible thought about the mutual relations
of men in society, and his clear view of the neces-
sity of making their representation in Parliament
an honest one, are the very thought and the very
view which our minds are now occupied with, and
on which we are at present daily called upon to
speak. So much for the sympathy which he dared
not anticipate !
Far be it from us to dwell exclusively on the
Poet's darkest hours, or on the controversies which
embittered them. ben men talk of Burns they
do not (except, very naturally, in the United States)
consider whether he was a Republican, or a Whig,
or a Tory. They think of the Cottar's Saturday
Night, or of Highland Mary, or of Tam o'Shanter.
They think of the dirge, the reaping-song, the war
hymn, the prayer, and personal penitence. They
think of the plea for the weak, and the rebuke of
the haughty. They regard him as the poet, the
lover, the mourner, the wit, the comrade, the
sinner, the sufferer, rather than as the politician.
Yet, the chief bond between him and ether men—
the grand security for his possession of the sym-
pathies of all generations, is his estimate of Man as
Man, under all conditions.
Some may praise his " Republican boldness" of
speech, and others, may exalt his generosity to-
wards the lowest and most helpless : his employers
might call him dangerous, and his fine acquaint-
ance might caution him against noticing the vulgar:
they have all agreed from the beginning, and all
men will agree to the end, in feeling to their hearts'
core his estimate of what is due to Man as Man.
One morning he shook hands with a peasant on the
Leith road, and talked with him some time, in the
presence of a fop, who afterwards rebuked him for
showing his friendship for a man dressed in home-
spun. " Why you fantastic gomeril," cried Burns,
" it was not the grey coat, or the scone-bonnet,
or the boot hose, that I spoke to, but the man
that was in them :" and he proceded to de-
velop his view of the comparative quality of the
three men who composed the group. His song, "Is
there for honest poverty," is the expression of his
daily habit of mind throughout his life.
Tho rank is but the guinea stamp :
The man's the gowd for a' that,
is the doctrine and the sentiment by which he lived,
and which made him the immortal poet he is. That
song is certainly the most widely known of his
pieces at present. Familiar as we all are with half-
a-hundred of his strains which range from lofty de-
voutness, through the whole series of affections and
passions, to the mosthomely fun, we all feel that that
song is the truest exponent of the man to the
greatest number of his kind. Under the virtual cen-
sorship of his day, it was not permitted to be sung
in the streets of our northern- towns—a strange fact
to us now ! But it was sung in the reaping-field
and in the cottage ; and now it is known by heart
wherever our language is spoken and Lowland
Scotch is read. He made no secret of his having
achieved a personal discovery on the subject of that
song. He said, " I remember in my ploughboy
days, I could not conceive it possible that a noble
lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a
knave. How ignorant ploughboys are !" In the
same way, the high-born and the pious (self-called)
could not, in those days, conceive of a peasant as
being wise, or a poor man dignified. This song is
an admonition as valuable for the one mistaken class
as for the other ; and who can say how much it may
have done towards bringing them into the happier
understanding of our day ?
One of Burns' long-standing regrets was that he
could not enter Parliament. He had much to tell
there, and much to ask ; and it might have been of
advantage to us in several ways if he could have
had the opportunity. That wish of his, and the rea-
sons for it, are natural recollections for us to-day,
when we are in the midst of an enterprise to obtain
a voice and a hearing in the House of Commons for
men of Burns' class .He had perceived that, in our
country, while there is no obstacle to' the entrance of
the low-born rich into society, and into Parliament,
there is great jealousy of the low-born who rise, or
are qualified to rise, by other powers than that of
wealth. The owners of boroughs in those days were
great men, whether they were born in the mansion
or the cottage ; but the poet, the scholar, the politi-
cian, was repressed by an insolent or a timid aristo-
cracy. Burns had keen reason to know this, and
his craving for an opportunity of utterance in Par-
liament was a natural consequence. We live in an
improved age, when there is a fairer field for desert,
without any fatal inquisition into origin. We live,
accordingly, under a growing necessity of admit-
ting to the representation men whom Burns would
have called his equals before the law and the
throne ; and whatever Burns said about the claims
of such men is valuable to us, not only on this day,
but on every other. •
We have no right to appropriate it, however,
without being clear as to what he meant by peasant
life, when he asserted its claims. Its poverty was
obvious enough. On this day hundred years, he
tesdd
did
duf ttne
into af re
tdl
hlse,owswttohhreamnt
thisflri
oe ma amongnd
peasantl iis
was born in a ricketty clayhovel, which was blown
down
oethr anws
.o fewreßo
nadrt days
mth
family would, like some of our country neighbours at
this day, ask whose son the Prince of Wales is, or
demand wages which will rise with the price of
bread, or insist that the Queen should " do some-
' thing" for everybody who is badly off. Burns had

-a father who read with him, and a mother who
Sing to him—sang songs which brought out the
ioat.and patriot elements in him. The Scotch pea-
santry then were at least as intelligent as our shop-
keeping or best artisan class now,. When we see
that our rural neighbours are. as intelligent, we
shall delight in expressing their aspirations in
Burns' words. Meantime,-the way is more open
now than it was then, while we have not a pea-
an try capable of his ambition. When he died it
was asked, in all simplicity, by those about his
door, " And 'who will be our poet now ?" This need
never be asked by. the peasantry of a later century.
As sure as they rise into a capacity for seeing that
The pith of sense and. pride of worth
Are higher ranks than a' that, •
and show their claim to equality before the law and
the government—the answer will be, " Burns shall
be your poet now."—Dyila. News.

ITALY-PAST AND. PRESENT.

It has probably occurred to more than one reader
to inquire the source of that repugnance with which
the Italians regard the dominion of Austria, seeing
that for so many centuries/ a German Government
has been the only Government known to them, and
that the independent Italy of which patriots now
talk never had any real existence. -If Italy had
been denationalised and partitioned like Poland
the case would be different, for everybody under-
stands the aspirations of the Poles, however im-
practicable they may consider them. But the
Italians of Lombardy cannot appeal to any prece-
dents of modern history for their political inde-
pendence. They were not reduced to subjection
by the sword, and the dominion of the Germans
has certainly been naturalised as far as time and
prescription can produce such a result. Where,
then, lie the springs of that disquiet which for some
years past has been so remarkable ? The answer
will be found, we think, in the following con-
siderations. _

demands of the lonians, and we saw it exemplified
in some of the disturbances ten years ago; but no
statesman can say that he comprehends its true
purport; or its true power. If it could be estab-
lished in actual ascendancy it would revolutionise
Europe. The end might be for better or worse, but
it would be revolution still. All we can say at
present is, that the worst governed States of Italy
are those under native Governments ; and if we
revert from the facts of the present .time to the
lessons of the past we search the pages of history
in vain for any period'when Italy has shown itself
capable of unity or independence.—Times.