ROBERT BURNS

[1]3.Eke; also.

[2]11.Edmontonis a suburb a few miles directly north of London.

[3]16.After we.John Gilpin's wife does not hesitate to sacrifice grammar for the sake of rime.

[4]23.Calender; one who operates a calender, a machine for giving cloth or paper a smooth, glossy surface.

[5]39.Agog; eager.

[6]44.Cheapsidewas one of the most important of the old London streets.

[7]49. Thesaddletreeis the frame of the saddle.

[8]115.Carries weight.The bottles seem to resemble the weights carried in horse races by the jockeys.

[9]133.Islington, now part of London, was then one of its suburbs.

[10]152.Wareis a town about fifteen miles north of London.

[11]178.Pin; mood.

[12]222.Amain; at full speed.

[13]236.The hue and cry; a term used to describe the rousing of the people in pursuit of a rogue.

Robert Burns was born of peasant parentage near Ayr, Scotland, on January 25, 1759. Up to the time when he was twenty-five years old he lived and worked on his father's farm, except for two short absences in near-by towns. While he was very young, he formed bad habits, from which he could never free himself, and which eventually wrecked his career. He was frequently in love, and many of the resulting entanglements brought him little but sorrow. In 1786, as a result of an unfortunate affair with Jean Armour, he determined to sail for America, and in order to raise the necessary money, published a volume of poems for which he was paid twenty pounds. The book was received with enthusiasm and so elated Burns with his success, that he decided to remain in Scotland. He accepted an invitation to Edinburgh, where he was entertained royally by literary circles. However, he was compelled to return to farming, and after marrying Jean Armour took a tenancy at Ellisland in 1788. A little later he was appointed exciseman, but his convivial tendencies were undermining his health, and he found his duties hard to attend to. He moved to Dumfries, where he died in poverty in 1796.

Burns as a writer of songs, especially of love lyrics, is unsurpassed. He touched the depths of human passion as few have ever done, and has made his poetry live in the hearts of the people. He is also the poet of Scottish peasant life, the enemy of oppression and tyranny, and the supporter of patriotism. Failure though he was from a worldly point of view, he was more unfortunate than culpable, and deserves our pity rather than our censure.

Carlyle'sEssay on Burnsgives an excellent idea of the character and work of the poet.

Written in 1790 in a single day and first published in 1791 as a contribution to Grose'sAntiquities of Scotland, it has been called "a masterpiece of Scottish character, Scottish humor, Scottish witch-lore, and Scottish imagination." Burns himself considered it to be his finest poem.

[14]1.Chapman billies; pedlar fellows.

[15]2.Drouthy; thirsty.

[16]4.Tak the gate; take the road.

[17]5.Nappy; liquor.

[18]6.Fou; tipsy.

[19]6.Unco; very.

[20]8.Slaps; gates in fences.

[21]14.Frae; from.

[22]14.Ayr; a town in Ayrshire, Scotland, on the west coast about thirty miles south of Glasgow. Near it is the birthplace of Burns.

[23]19.Skellum; ne'er-do-well.

[24]20.Blethering; talking nonsense.

[25]20.Blellum; babbler.

[26]23.Ilka; every.

[27]23.Melder; corn or grain sent to the mill to be ground.

[28]25.Ca'd; driven.

[29]30.Doon; a river near Ayr immortalized in Burns's song, "Ye banks and braes of bonny Doon."

[30]31.Warlocks; wizards.

[31]31.Mirk; dark.

[32]32.Alloway; a small town near Ayr, Scotland.

[33]32.Kirk; church.

[34]33.Gars me greet; makes me weep.

[35]38.Planted; fixed.

[36]39.Ingle; fireside.

[37]40.Reaming swats; foaming new ale.

[38]41.Souter; shoemaker.

[39]68.Maun; must.

[40]78.The Deil; the Devil.

[41]81.Skelpit; hurried.

[42]81.Dub; puddle.

[43]86.Bogles; bogies or goblins.

[44]88.Houlets; owls.

[45]90.Smoored; smothered.

[46]91.Birks; birches.

[47]91.Meikle stane; huge stone.

[48]93.Whins; furze bushes.

[49]93.Cairn; pile of stones.

[50]94.Bairn; child.

[51]102.Bleeze; blaze.

[52]103.Bore; hole.

[53]105.John Barleycorn; a Scotch term for whiskey.

[54]108.Usquebae; whiskey.

[55]110.Boddle; farthing.

[56]116.Brent; brought.

[57]117.Strathspeys.The strathspey was a Scottish dance.

[58]119.Winnock-bunker; window-seat.

[59]121.Towzie tyke; shaggy dog.

[60]123.Gart them skirl; made them shriek.

[61]124.Dirl; ring.

[62]127.Cantrip slight; magic charm.

[63]134.Gab; throat.

[64]147.Cleekit; took hold.

[65]148.Carlin; witch.

[66]149.Coost her duddies; threw off her clothes.

[67]150.Linket; tripped.

[68]150.Sark; shirt.

[69]151.Queans; young women.

[70]153.Creeshie flannen; greasy flannel.

[71]154.Seventeen-hunder linen; fine linen. Technical weaving terms were familiar to the hand-loom workers of Burns's district.

[72]157.Hurdies; hips.

[73]158.Burdies; maidens.

[74]159.Beldams; hags.

[75]160.Rigwoodie; ancient.

[76]160.Spean; wean.

[77]161.Crummock; a short staff.

[78]163.Brawlie; perfectly.

[79]164.Walie; large.

[80]165.Core; corps.

[81]169.Bear; barley.

[82]171.Cutty-sark; short shirt.

[83]171.Paisley harn; a coarse cloth, made in Paisley, a Scotch town famous for its cloth-making industry.

[84]174.Vauntie; proud.

[85]176.Coft; bought.

[86]181.Lap and flang; leapt and capered.

[87]184.E'en; eyes.

[88]185.Fidged fu' fain; fidgeted with eagerness.

[89]186.Hotched; jerked his arm while playing the bagpipe.

[90]187.Syne; then.

[91]188.Tint; lost.

[92]193.Fyke; fret.

[93]194.Byke; hive.

[94]200.Eldritch; unearthly.

[95]201.Fairin'; reward.

[96]208. According to an old superstition, witches are unable to pursue their victims over running water. Compare the story of the Headless Horseman in Irving'sThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

[97]213.Ettle; aim.

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1771, of an old Border family. Up to the age of four he was rather feeble, an attack of fever having left him with a shrunken right leg. This disability, though it did not prevent his becoming a strong, sturdy man, still gave him ample leisure forwide reading while he was young. In high school and at the University of Edinburgh he was not known as a scholar, though he was popular with his companions, especially as a storyteller. In obedience to his father's wishes he took up law and toiled unenthusiastically at this profession for some years. Some trips of his into the Scotch Highlands led him to make a collection of old ballads, published inBorder Minstrelsy(1802). From this time on he devoted himself exclusively to literature. His first important original poem,The Lay of the Last Minstrel, came out in 1805, followed byMarmion(1808),The Lady of the Lake(1810),The Vision of Don Roderick(1811), and others of less merit. He had about this time become a silent partner in the printing firm of Ballantyne Brothers, contributing largely to the capital. In 1812 he purchased a farm on the river Tweed and built the famous house Abbotsford. The estate was an unprofitable investment, as it led him into extravagances apparently justified by an increasing income but really based on a false optimism.

In 1814 Scott wroteWaverley, the first of the long series of novels which made him distinguished as a prose-writer. From this time on his major work was in prose. He recognized without envy that Byron was beating him on his own ground in poetry, and accordingly changed to a field where success was surer. He was apparently prospering financially when, in 1827, the firm of which he was a member went into bankruptcy, largely because of poor business management, and he was left shouldered with a debt of about $600,000. Undaunted he set to work at the age of fifty-five to satisfy his creditors, and book after book poured from his pen until in four years he had paid off $270,000. The effort, however, was too much for his health; he broke down, and, after a short visit to Italy, died at Abbotsford in 1832.

Scott's character was almost wholly admirable. He wasmanly, courageous, faithful, and generous. Always popular, he was a lavish entertainer in his prosperous days. He did his work cheerfully and bore up without complaint against misfortune and suffering such as few men are called upon to endure.

As a poet he was fluent, vigorous, and spirited, but usually paid little attention to form and polish. He made no effort to become a careful writer; but this is sometimes compensated for by a certain robustness which most of his verses possess. His poetical genius is best shown in narrative, where the movement is rapid and the action full of exciting moments. If his poems lack intense passion and deep meditation, they are at least picturesque and interesting.

J. G. Lockhart, Scott's son-in-law, is the author of the most complete biography. A good shorter life is that by R. H. Hutton in the English Men of Letters Series.

Published first inMarmion(1808) as "Lady Heron's Song."

[98]2.Border; the country on the border between England and Scotland, a region of warfare and strife for many centuries.

[99]8. TheEskRiver is in southwest Scotland, and flows into Solway Firth.

[100]32.Galliard; a lively dance of the period.

[101]41.Scaur; a steep bank of rock.

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth on the borders of the beautiful English lake country. During a boyhood spent largely out of doors, rowing, walking, and skating, he imbibed a love for nature which had a broadermanifestation in his later life and poetry. After a short period at Hawkshead School, he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took a degree in 1791. He then resided for a time in France; but was driven from there in 1793 by the Reign of Terror, and passed a few years in a rather idle way in the vicinity of London. His real poetic awakening came in 1797, when he and Coleridge lived near each other at Alfoxden among the Quantock Hills in Somerset. Here, in 1798, the two young men publishedLyrical Ballads, a collection of poems written for the most part by Wordsworth, though Coleridge contributedThe Rime of the Ancient Marinerand a few others. This book, especially in its treatment of nature, was a reaction against the stilted formalism which had characterized much of the English poetry of the eighteenth century, and as such it was the real stimulus for the revival of Romanticism which followed its appearance. After a year in Germany with his sister Dorothy, Wordsworth returned to the lake region now associated with his name, living at Grasmere until 1813, and after that at Rydal Mount. He married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, in 1802. Among his later important works wereThe Prelude(1805),The Excursion(1814), and many shorter poems and sonnets. He was made poet-laureate in 1843, and died seven years after in 1850.

Wordsworth, though a radical in his youth, became more conservative in later years. He was a man of quiet tastes, and deliberately chose to live where he could be among simple people. As a poet, he was first of all an interpreter of nature, endowed with extraordinary keenness of observation and delighting in all her phases. In humanity, too, he had a sympathetic interest, especially in the everyday emotions and occupations of the plain men and women around him. And influencing his attitude toward both nature and humanity was a sort of religious mysticism which conceived the spirit ofGod as permeating all things, flowers and trees as well as the human heart.

Written in 1800 and published in the same year. Wordsworth's own note on the poem is as follows: "Written at Town-end, Grasmere, about the same time as 'The Brothers.' The Sheepfold, on which so much of the poem turns, remains, or rather the ruins of it. The character and circumstances of Luke were taken from a family to whom had belonged, many years before, the house we lived in at Town-end, along with some fields and woodlands on the eastern shore of Grasmere. The name of the Evening Star was not in fact given to this house, but to another on the same side of the valley, more to the north."

[102]2.Greenhead Ghyll; a ravine near Grasmere.

[103]134.Easedale; a small lake near Grasmere.

Written in 1799 and published first in 1800. Wordsworth says of it: "Written at Goslar in Germany. It was founded on a circumstance told me by my Sister, of a little girl, who, not far from Halifax, in Yorkshire, was bewildered in a snowstorm. Her footsteps were traced by her parents to the middle of the lock of a canal, and no other vestige of her, backward or forward, could be traced. The body, however, was found in the canal."

Thomas Campbell was born at Glasgow, Scotland, July 27, 1777. He was educated at the University of Glasgow, where he made somewhat of a reputation as a versifier and translator.After some desultory attempts at tutoring, he published in 1799,The Pleasures of Hope, a long didactic poem which brought him real fame and a considerable financial reward. Soon after he travelled on the continent, where many of his war ballads were written. In his later days he was a figure in literary circles and was given a pension by the crown. He died in 1844 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Much of Campbell's longer poetic work is dull and unequal. However, in his own field of the vigorous patriotic ballad, he is without a rival. Saintsbury says of him, "He holds the place of best singer of war in a race and language which are those of the best singers, and not the worst fighters, in the history of the world."

Written in 1800, after the author had visited the battlefield.

In the battle of Hohenlinden (December 3, 1800), the French under General Moreau defeated the Austrians and compelled the Austrian Emperor to sue for peace. The treaty of Luneville, which followed, extended French territory to the Rhine.

[104]4. TheIseris a river rising in northern Switzerland and flowing into the Danube.

Written in 1809.

The battle of the Baltic took place in the Baltic Sea before Copenhagen, April 2, 1801, between the English and the Danish fleets. England had accepted a declaration of the Armed Neutrality League (Russia, Denmark, and Sweden) as being really in the interests of her enemy, France, and the English fleet under Lord Parker was sent to the Baltic. Under Lord Nelson, the second in command, a decisive victory was gained,largely through the fact that Nelson refused to obey the orders of his superior officer.

[105]67.Riouwas one of Nelson's officers.

Charles Wolfe was born at Dublin, Ireland, in 1791 and died at Queenstown in 1823. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1814 and became curate of Donoughmore, Ireland. HisRemains, with a brief memoir, were published in 1825.

His only poem of any distinction is the one here printed,The Burial of Sir John Moore.

First published in theNewry Telegraph, an Irish paper, in 1817, under the initials C. W.

Sir John Moore (1761-1809) was commander of an English army of twenty-four thousand men in Spain against a French force of eighty thousand under Soult. At the battle of Corunna, January 16, 1809, the English army won a doubtful victory in which their leader was killed. After burying him at dead of night, the English troops embarked for their own country.

[106]Corunnais a city in northwest Spain.

George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in London, January 22, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, April 19, 1824, at the age of thirty-six. Byron's father, a captain in the guards, after a romantic first marriage, wedded Catharine Gordon, a wealthy girl, of Aberdeenshire, whom, after squandering her fortune,he deserted shortly after young Byron's birth. Byron's mother was a quick-tempered, impulsive woman, ill-fitted to bring up a son who had a temperament almost exactly like her own. Once when a companion said to Byron, "Your mother's a fool," the boy answered, "I know it."

As a boy at school Byron formed passionate attachments, entered into the games he played with an unusual fierceness of spirit, and exhibited that sensitive pride which was the cause of much of his posing there and in later life. He was club-footed, a deformity about which he was extremely sensitive. Before entering Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1805, he had attended Harrow for five years. At Cambridge he remained less than three years, but in that time made some close friends and took an active part in all sorts of sports, especially riding and swimming. His vacations he spent at London or Southwell, generally quarrelling violently with his mother.

His first published poetry wasHours of Idleness, which appeared in 1807, and which was attacked by theEdinburgh Reviewso strenuously that Byron replied in 1809 withEnglish Bards and Scotch Reviewers. In the same year he took his seat in the House of Lords, but he had no interest in politics, and, accordingly, left England for two years' travel on the continent. This tour was the occasion of the first two cantos ofChilde Harold. This poem was received so warmly that Byron remarked that "he awoke one morning to find himself famous." From now till the separation from his wife in 1816, after a year of wedded life, he was the lion of British society, but society took sides on this family difference, and as most of them sympathized with Lady Byron, Byron himself left England. He spent some time on Lake Geneva, where the Castle of Chillon is situated. He then went to Italy, where, amid his usual life of dissipation, he became interested in the Italian Insurrection. Among his friends and companions inItaly were Shelley and Leigh Hunt. In 1823, becoming attracted by the attempts of the Greeks to overthrow Turkish rule, he went to Greece as a leader, but he contracted a fever at Missolonghi, where he died, April 19, 1824.

As a poet Byron appeals especially to youth. His tales are so interesting that Scott made the remark that Byron beat him at his own game. Rapidity and force of movement, intensity and passion, excellent description, and a great, though not fine, command of poetic sound are the chief characteristics of his poetry. The romantic tale,Childe Harold, and the satire,Don Juan, are perhaps his best-known works.

The castle of Chillon is situated near Montreux at the opposite end of Lake Geneva from the city of Geneva. It is a large castle, built on an isolated rock twenty-two yards from the shore of the lake. Beneath this castle, but some nine or ten feet above the surface of the lake, supported by seven detached pillars and one semi-detached, is a vaulted chamber, which was formerly used as a prison. Here, from 1530 to 1536, was imprisoned Francis Bonnivard.

Bonnivard, the son of the Lord of Lune, was born in 1496. When sixteen years old, he inherited from his uncle the priory of St. Victor, near Geneva. Later he allied himself with this city against the Duke of Savoy, but was captured and imprisoned for two years in Grolée. In 1530 he again fell into the hands of the Duke of Savoy, who this time confined him for six years in Chillon castle. At the end of this period he was liberated by the Bernese and Genevese and returned to Geneva to live a brilliant but wild life until 1570.

Byron takes no pains to stick to the facts of Bonnivard'simprisonment or life, or even to the facts about the prison itself. Notice, however, that he calls the poem "A Fable."

Byron and Shelley made a visit to Chillon in June, 1816, and while delayed for two days at Ouchy, a village on Lake Geneva, Byron wrote this poem.

Byron and Shelley belonged to a group of poets who were influenced by the French Revolution. Byron's love of freedom was so great that he aided Italy, and finally died from a fever contracted at Missolonghi, where he had gone to aid the Greek revolutionists. The following sonnet, which was prefixed toThe Prisoner of Chillon, gives an idea of Byron's love of liberty.

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