CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns. Edited by Andrew Lang, assisted by W. A. Craigie. (Methuen and Co.)—This is, indeed, one of the most handy and useful editions of Burns that even the present year has produced. The book looks bulky, but it is light ; the paper is good; and the type is large and easily read. The general work of editing, too, has been well done by Mr. Lang and Mr. Craigie ; in other words, the glossary will please all but the hypercritical, and the notes to the different poems are tolerably satisfactory, if occasionally a little flippant. Yet they are not free from sins both of omission and of commission. Thus when Mr. Lang has, in connection with one of the minor poems of Burns, in which occur the four fine lines beginning "Here's freedom to him that wad read," to explain who a certain "Maitland and Wycombe" are, he alludes to them simply as "two noted Liberals," following Scott Douglas and other editors. One wonders who "Maitland and Wycombe" were. Were they commoners or Peers ? Again, Mr. Lang in annotating "Death and Doctor Hornbook" repeats the old story that the unfortu- nate amateur doctor satirised in it had to give up schoolmastering on account of the gibes and flouts and jeers to which he was sub- jected. But no editor of Burns ever satisfied everybody, and Mr. Lang is not an exception to the general rule. He commits a more serious error when, in his introductory biographical " study," he says, " Amours which are not to the credit of Burns's heart or taste, vulgar intrigues to which he gave publicity by scratching songs to his mistress on the window of the tavern where she lived, are said to have embittered his life in Dumfries." It would seem from the allusion to the scratching of songs on a tavern window that Mr. Lang here alludes to Burns's liaison with Anne Park, bar- maid of the Globe Inn,' which resulted in the birth of a child, that, ac3ording to tradition, was adopted by his wife. But the liaison occurred while Burns lived in Ellisland and before he went to Dumfries. Indeed, Anne Park was dead by that time. Mr. Lang's introductory estimate of Burns as a man and a poet is marked by more than his usual grace of style and soundness of judgment, and less than his usual fantastic capriciousness. In it he says such things as : " Burns was born to revive and reassert the Scotch spirit as it would have been but for Puritanism. In him lives all the mirth, the sensuousness, the joy in mundane exist-
ence, which the Reformers did their best to stamp out He had probably about as much schooling as Shakespeare ; he
had the best education for his genius Had Burns been the contemporary of Sophocles, fancy can hardly picture him as 'tranquil ; stirring he would have been ; a reveller, a leader of the Demos, a friend of the new heretical ideas, in society an Alci- biades, in politics a Cleon, in religion and literature an Euripides, never a man who, like Sophocles, 'saw life steadily, and saw it whole.'" Mr. Lang's views may not please fanatical Burnsians, but they should make all sensible Burnsians think, d Primer of Burns. By W. A. Craigie. (Methuen and Co.)— Mr. W. A. Craigie, Mr. Andrew Lang's collaborator, has also produced on his own account a useful and handy little book which he has termed A Primer of Burns, and which goes upon much the same lines as a previous primer of Tennyson. It gives a short but adequate biography of the poet, treats sufficiently of his poems, letters, and language, and concludes with a truly excellent bibliography. Mr. Craigie takes a tolerant view of the poet's life, and falls into fewer blunders than most biographers. He gives rather too much credence, perhaps, to the tales of Currie, who has of late been much discredited. This is the more curious, as he says expressly in a note, "Mrs. Dunlop's sins of omission, wilful or not, were concealed by Gilbert Burns and Carrie, who gave wrong dates to several of the poet's letters to her." Mr. Craigie falls, however, into surprisingly few errors ; one of these is rather curious. Referring to one of the most remarkable epistles written by Burns before his marriage, he describes it as "to Mr. John Arnot, of Dalquhatswood, who was not even an acquaintance of his." How comes it, then, that Burns, transcribing this letter for what is known as the Glenriddel collection, prefaced it with these words, " The following was to one of the most accomplished of the sons of men I ever met with—John Arnot, of Dalquhatswood, in Ayrshire —alas? had he been equally prudent " ? On the whole this is
one of the best, most accurate, and least pretentious books upon Burns that the centenary year has produced.
Previous page
