The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1896-01-25
SSi1g peasant, whose queens and ladies'.
the black-eyed lassies and whose
\ N iEhts were the sturdy hearted village

SsNSEH the DldcK-eyea laSSleS ana whose
nights were the sturdy hearted village
Syeomen. .s.s.
IT was this simplicity which has made
4 Scots. They have neglected Walter
Scott buried Bruce and Wallace in his
tory and story, but there is not a son Of
the heather isle who does not bring fresh
q laurels once a year to the monument of
4 this plodding man Of earth. He is their
king, their singer, their immortal. He
!. lived one Of them. He wrote no lines
which do not stand to this day for some
I trait, good Or bad, of the national charac-
I ter. He measured not a Verse which the
ScOtchmen of the day do not know and
cherish as honely picture OF spirit OF
4 the clans. His poems were wild flowers,
i true heather, natural, and in them and
their plebe1anism his glory will endure
4 longer than it will take the bleak winds
and Inists to.-whip away the towering
granite slab in AlloWay.
1t has been q doleful task for the
.schurchmen, and many ScOtchmen are
churchmen, to accept Burns greatness
without reservation. They objected to
his philosophy and his creed, or his lack
q OF either or both. This worried them
more century ago than it does now. His
realism shocked many tinlid ,sou1, and
in his day the preachers put him upon
the repentance block for some OF his
lines. His bluntness always natlrll,
would not be tolerated by the few at this
day but for the softened judgment which
the years have created. People have
learned to see that he was never in the
muck for the mucl's sake. He found
some bad, men, was a. rather bad one
himself, and the world knows now that
in writing human nature he was too
Scotch and too honest to be a hypocrite.
He neither preached that all the world
was all good nor all the world all bad
He found the gross and coarse and told
it side by side with the gentle and the
true.
It is hardly probable the time will ever
come when Scotch fathers will tell their
sons to follow the example Of Robert
Burns: His biographers We're not ac-
costumed to writing eXpurgated lives
The fathers tell the boys of the poet, and
not the man. They know him as he
knew himself-a wind harp tuned and
struck by.every gale that blew his way
uncertain and nndeciding--a drifter and
never an oarsman. He had no purpose
he lived the day out and was happy
with the roisterers until the mex one
came. The single thing he did with per-
sistency was to plod. He worked Us
child from compulsion as man to earn
not of toddy He had no time to work
as poet. or to build for himself poetic
surroundings He never would have had
the tenacity to be poet had he not found
the instinct within himself and sung for
the reason that lark sings. 1t was no
credit of his own invention that he has
survived the century, 1t is wholly be-
ceuse his inheritance kept him close to
men and his inclination saw the modest
Doom as worthy a rhyme as the Atlantic,
or the Highland Marys as the JOsephines
or the Dumptries volunteers as the pa
gan armies, or the country lass as the
woman of state.
Robert Burns education was a fzzle--
fortunate tiZzle. He was sent down
the AlloWay road to his first school, The
pedagogue complained of the child's pen
manship and sat him upon a Ounce block.
. This mans name has not been heard in
Ayrshire from that day to this. He left
before his term expired, telling the
father of the little scrbbler that it was
waste of half hand to keep Burns, the
son called Robert, at the multiplication
tables. The wise young teacher folded
his bag and was lost; the dullard OF a
pupil was taken home and learned his
next lesson under the straw roof. His
hooks were the songs of David, the Life
of Wallace and the wars OF Hannibal
The library was scanty but Scottish, and
from it's prejudices the boy drew a love
of country which he said in later days
SHOULD boil in his veins till the flood
gates of life should shut in eternal rest. !"
He made other sips at the spring. He
did not like the taste. He ait last con-
Guided he could not fight poverty and
scholastic ignorance on a diet of por-
ridge and resolved to concentrate his
energies against the former.
John Murdoch seems to have been the
first man who gave the youths genius
any encouragement. He was the second
Of the lads schoolnasters, and received
e into his. care the boy of Is for three
weeks. picked from the summer 50 that
e the loss of time might not compel the
employment of an extra hand in harvest.
2 This period was divided between gram
mar and French. 1t did not bring any
especial benefit beyond mere peep at
the foreign language, and it was, like
the others. cut very short by the ever
lasting bounding of the factor who in
sisted on prompt rent for the seven acres
of ground which supported the family.
1t was again necessary for Burns to pillow.
He began about this time to have love
SilutES t114u oSAuo pfAohiAAA e'AAo WIN w ~ ~
they were full Of the real sentiment. He
was honestly in love and Handsome
Nell' came in the first hour of heart
ache. This courtship led to others, aud
for time his talents were rusting while
he was busy only with the controversies
between the rustics over Lochlea bellies.
u This new diversion demanded more
money than the sum which had hitherto
been equal to mere subsistence. The
situation added to his discomfort, and he
was getting desperate that he had never
yet been able to save as much as penny
a year. He was worse Off than his COM
panions, and he grew to envy the excise
man his pomp and his luxury. He need
} ed a new education for this calling. He
determined to get it, and the next
glimpse of the great soul is the strange
and inharmonious role Of a student of
mensuration and capacities in the parish
school of Kirkoswald. An uncle kept
him fed. The boy worked the days at
his dry task--spent the nights in making
rhymes or in revelry with the coast folk,
who fought and quarreled and killed
when the disputes over the division OF
smuggling booty reached an excess.
I4oohlea was the. next point. He was
still young in years and went there as
he went; everywheae-in obedience to q
fancy born OF inability to make anything
financial success. The first thing he
ss = Z. sr,