BURNS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT.
URPRISE has been expressed in the newspapers that the cele- bration of the centenary of Sir Walter Scott should have awakened leas enthusiasm in the sister country than the Burns Commeinoration twelve years ago. There can, we think, be little 'doubt about the truth of the allegation that it has been so, even after we have subtracted from the various reports the hackneyed sayings of conventional cynicism, and removed from our minds .the impressions which such remarks, credulously accepted, are fitted to convey. To any one out of Scotland it seems, at first .blush, strange to think that Burns has a far firmer hold of his ,countrymen than Sir Walter Scott. It seems unnatural that the .peasant poet of Ayrshire, whose range in one sense was remarkably limited, should at this day hold a higher niche iu popular esteem than the historian, not only of the people's outward character, but of all that is noble and interesting in their life, than the inimitable artist not alone of his country's " brave men and beautiful women," but of those features of natural scenery which charm the eye, and that wealth of legend and story which awaken the curi-
osity and enlist the heart. Yet such is the case, and it may be worth while to consider some of the reasons why it is so. It has been said that the chief cause is a political .one, but neither the Toryism of the one memory nor the Radicalism of the other had anything to do with the " amiable :indifference" which in Scotland the other day greeted the bun- .dredth birthday of Sir Walter, or the hurricane of enthusiasm with which the usually undemonstrative Scotch twelve years ago hailed the centenary of Burns.
It has been often and truthfully said during these last few days that Scott lives and will live as a novelist, and not as a poet. Like Scott, in one sense, Burns lives as a man, but it is his poetry alone that imparts interest to his short tempestuous life. There is thus at the outset a radical difference between the positions which the two men hold in respect to their audiences, and a difference too which affects materially their relation to the public, so far as intimate personal communion is concerned, and that play- ing of spirit upon spirit which is the peculiar mission of the poet, and the influence which, more than any other, is fitted to rouse enthusiasm, to beget reverence, and awaken love. The novelist works behind the scenes; he arranges his figures and makes his puppets play their part ; and indeed, according to modern canons of criticism, the less he appears personally on the stage the more perfect his workmanship, the higher his art. The poet, however, or at least the lyrical poet, and especially such a poet as Burns, speaks face to face with the people; he comes before them glowing with the lire of his mission, burning with the zeal of his hatred or his love, weeping tears of sympathy or singing songs of hope. And so here is a reason acting altogether independently of the respective merits of the men,—an abstract reason, it may be called, which accounts in a very considerable measure for the reception given to a popular expression of regard for the memories of Scotland's two greatest men. In intimate connection with this should be observed the kind of man whose memory is fittingly commemo- rated by displays common to centenary celebrations, as also the character of those who find fitting expression to their reverence for greatness in toast-drinking and fireworks, in the discharge of cannon or the fluttering of flags. There is a kind of greatness and goodness to which such " honour " would be simply mockery —we do not say this of either Sir Walter or Burns—and there comes a time in one's culture and experience when gaudy trap- pings, however gay, when thunders of artillery, however loud, when the popular hurrah, however hearty, fails altogether to utter one's gratitude and pride, or one's reverence for greatness " gone before." While iu Berlin a few months ago, thousands were carried away in a tumult of enthusiasm by the memory of recent victory brought vividly before them by an imposing martial dis- play, there must have been many thoughtful minds among "the proud and patient folks "—other than those to whom the pageant had been bought by bereavement—who failed to find in this gorgeous panorama anything like an adequate expression of their joy that a united Germany had been brought one step nearer completion, or that a sad and disastrous war had been brought to a close. We think it will be found on examination that those who swelled the applause in the case of Burns belong to a some- what different and more demonstrative class than those who read and appreciate Sir Walter Scott. It must be confessed that, not- withstanding the still extensive sale of Scott's novels, they are not largely read by the less intelligent workmen, a considerable majority in all communities, and who, like the occupants of the gallery in a theatre, are always most liberal in demonstrative applause. All classes know Burns ; there can be no doubt of that ; all classes and the most demonstrative class do not know Scott as a living, strug- gling, human being like themselves. The ploughman behind his team is far more to many of these than the man of law at his desk. The king of a jovial crew in Poosie Nancy's has more pegs about him on which they can lay hold of than the kind-hearted, loveable, literary man of whom all his contemporaries spoke well. And, moreover, the leading tales in penny newspapers have effectually put a stop to the reading of novels in book form by a very large proportion of the working-classes. The matter of these they find more suited to the times ; the sensation is decidedly more peppery, the supply is so exhaustless, the penny visitor is so persistent and so popular, that he is seldom sent empty away. We suspect that even in Scotland many of the working-classes know more about tales with titles like " The Factory Girl" or " The Gipsy'a Revenge," than they do about "Rob Roy " or " Waverley."
Again, the works of Burns are very complete in themselves. His poems give complete and concise expression to the thoughts and feelings of the entire round of Scottish life. " Did not Scott do this?" it may be asked. " Did he not do more ? Did he not call Scotland iuto being even? Has he not shown to all nations Scotch character, living and moving ; Scotch scenery terrible iu its rugged grandeur, tender iu its simple beauty, various in its light and shade ?" Yes, he did all this, and, as remarked years ago by the late Alexander Smith, and revived the other day by Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, added pecuniary value to each spot of soil that he touched with his magic pen. But he did it as a novelist, and not as a poet. Were it possible for a shrewd Scotchman never to have read any of the Waverley Novels until ho was twenty-five years of age, we venture to assert that by no other means could he get such a good idea of the real excellence of Scott. He would find in him the germs, often the exact words, of Scotch proverbs and wise sayings with which he had been familiar since his childhood, lie would find there represented, rippling from the lips of real men and women, the pawky humour of his native laud, the shrewd caution of his countrymen iu the doings of genuine Borderers, or the chivalry of that by no means ancient time before " the days of chivalry were gone." But the personality of Scott has at present little hold of the demonstrative public mind ; some of his own characters, where
known, might sooner evoke popular enthusiasm than himself. Burns gave no artistically wrought-out illustration of prin- ciples ; be caught up and expressed the scattered fragments of thought and feeling which he found floating about in the minds of the people,—seeds these were that came to flower in himself ; "forms of beauty smiling at the hearts" of his homely associates were set into " cadenced rhyme " by his genius, and lie ready to be appropriated by the simplest mind and used by the most unlettered tongue. His couplets have been, and are still, current coin in Scotland, "a circulating medium " of thought and feeling for all relationships of life. His poems are a perpetual expression of those primitive elements of ideal nobility, of those hopes and fears which form the sole heritage often of the simple heart untroubled by the mazy complications of subtle speculation or the revellings of luxurious fancy which appeal to the sympathies of a refined and educated people, and link the tastes of a cultivated age. He wrote to his own heart, and be will never want an audience. It is, however, this coining of happy thoughts, this bringing into a focus of their aspirations, that makes him so personally popular among the uneducated portion of the people, while his genius commends him to the most gifted and widely read. At first sight it seems he did more for Scotland than Moore did for Ireland, more than Beranger did for France. But this generalization will be modified after a little thought. As in nature the mind finds a counterpart to its various moods, so in Burns the simple Scotchmau finds expression to nearly all that can be expressed of his aspirations and needs. Does he wish to tell of the happy cottage life of his country, then he knows ho can turn to the page where the heart-felt rapture, bliss beyond compare of a guiltless 'Scottish home is painted in the most exquisite colouring. Does he turn with honest wrath at hypocrisy, and does his blood boil within him at the self-sufficient tyranny of the " unto guid "? Then where shall he go better for expres- sion than to the pages of the Ayrshire ploughman, where satire with flaming tongue licks mercilessly the writhing hypocrite at the stake ? Has the demon despondency taken hold of him, then where does he find more fitting .expression to his feelings than in the immortal " Ode," or heartier encouragement than in some of the poetical " Epistles "? Is he oppressed by the tyranny of riches,—" A man's a man for a' that." Has the tenderest of all human ties been suddenly so apt, and does he look broodingly over the verge and wistfully away into the vast beyond ? Then the exquisite poem, " To Mary in Heaven," is surely no inapt expression of his hungry heart. Is love or friendship the theme in any form, the pages of the Scottish bard are a never-failing resort.
It might have been well, indeed, had Burns been less truly representative than he was, since the vices of his time find such enduring and charming expression in his pages. But hero is another clue to the hold he has upon the popular mind. Although it seems setting down a paradox, yet " Frailty thy name is Barns " might be inscribed on the title-page of " the brave man's book." But it is, after all, greatly because of their frailties that we love people, and here again is another clue to the popular sympathy with Burns. Our model men, our completely-rounded, bard-visaged, always-successful men are hateful in the extreme to struggling humanity. There are no gateways of approach to them; there is no " human nature " in them; there was a plenty of all those in Burns. " A hair-brained sentimental trace," a good dash of aggression in his writing and character, heresy in theology, slips in life, all tend to rouse and keep alive that kind of popular sympathy which makes a good display at carnivals. The enthu- siasm is and was greater too because, rightly or wrongly, a notion prevails that Burns was neglected in life, and therefore it is a duty to bellow appreciation over his grave. Sir Walter Scott possessed none of these attractions, and although it may not agree well with generally entertained notions of Scotch character to find the " douce " people paying tribute to such qualities as these, yet that they do is a very patent fact, and not to be gainsaid by theory.
A.
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