“Dear Mr. Edward Bartine,—I have thought of you a great many times since I wrote those few lines to you, which you must have considered very strange. My father made me write them, for he does not know you, or I am sure he would never have done so. You will forgive him, wont you? If you would like to come here during the vacation, as you said you should, I shall be very happy to see you, and I dare say my dear father will like you very much; I don’t see how he can help it. If you have a wish to come, please take a hint from the enclosed letter to my Cousin Reuben Richards.“Lucy Leyton.”“P. S. If you have no use for the enclosed, please forward it to the address.”
“Dear Mr. Edward Bartine,—I have thought of you a great many times since I wrote those few lines to you, which you must have considered very strange. My father made me write them, for he does not know you, or I am sure he would never have done so. You will forgive him, wont you? If you would like to come here during the vacation, as you said you should, I shall be very happy to see you, and I dare say my dear father will like you very much; I don’t see how he can help it. If you have a wish to come, please take a hint from the enclosed letter to my Cousin Reuben Richards.
“Lucy Leyton.”
“P. S. If you have no use for the enclosed, please forward it to the address.”
Just think, now, of Lucy Leyton writing such a letter—but she did! And then she neatly folded it, and enclosing the one designed for Mr. Reuben Richards, with a glowing cheek, and palpitating bosom, she directed it to Mr. Edward Bartine, Yale College, New Haven, and putting on her bonnet and shawl, tripped fleetly to the office and deposited it.
“Ah, she’ll come round—all right yet!” said Mr. Leyton, a few days after, as he overheard Lucy caroling one of her lively songs.
In due time, allowing for the speed of steam-boats, rail-cars, and stages all the way from the Ohio, a young man, with a ponderous leather trunk, alighted at Mr. Leyton’s gate. It was after dinner, and the farmer was enjoying his afternoon pipe, while Lucy, sitting very quietly by his side, was reading the village news. But all of a sudden, as she saw the young man approaching, she sprung up in the strangest confusion and ran into the house. Mr. Leyton rose up, put down his pipe, and hastily advanced to meet the youth.
“This must be my dear nephew, Reuben!” he said, extending his hand; “I know the true Leyton look. I am glad to see you, my lad!”
“Thank you, Uncle Leyton, how are you—how is Lucy?” replied the stranger, warmly shaking hands.
“She is well, Reuben, and will be very glad to see you; come into the house—you must be weary after such a long journey. Lucy! Lucy! why where has she flown to? Lucy! O, here she comes. Well Lu, we have got him at last—this is your Cousin Reuben—give her a kiss—that’s right.”
Lucy turned very pale when she first cast her eyes upon her cousin, who, with very red hair and a somewhat limping gait, advanced to salute her, then a rosy blush, and an arch smile, but half suppressed, stole over her pretty face. But she blushed still deeper, and drew back timidly from the tender embrace her young relative would fain have bestowed upon her.
“My own, dear Lucy!” was softly whispered in her ear.
“So your mother wouldn’t venture with you,” said Mr. Leyton, “well, I am sorry, for it is many a long year since we met; I hope she is strong and healthy, Reuben.”
“Not very, she is greatly troubled with the rheumatism.”
“That’s bad. And how are all the rest of the folks—how is Uncle Bill, and Deacon Gracie?”
“Dead.”
“Bless me, dead! you don’t say your poor Uncle Bill is dead!” exclaimed Mr. Leyton, aghast at such news of an only brother.
“N—not exactly dead—half killed with the rheumatism, I mean, and the deacon, O, the deacon has gone to California.”
“What! Deacon Gracie gone to California—well that beats all! I’ll warrant old Mr. Stubbs is living!”
“Dead, a year ago.”
“Dead, is he? what killed him? I should like to know, for I thought him good for a hundred years.”
“Rheumatism, uncle.”
“Rheumatism again! what in the world do you live in such a climate for? Well, Reuben, how do you like your Cousin Lucy’s looks? I think she is some like your mother, who resembled the Darlings more than the Leytons.”
“I think Lucy is a decided Darling!” replied Cousin Reuben, with a mischievous glance at the fair object in question.
“But you look more like the Leytons, all but your hair; none of the Leytons ever had red hair!” continued the farmer, “and, excuse me, but I must say I could never abide it; however, I guess you will reconcile me to it. What makes you limp so, nephew, nothing serious I hope.”
“O, no, nothing but rheumatism, Uncle Andrew.”
“Good gracious, rheumatism again! Now make yourself at home, will you, for I must go and look after my men. Lucy take good care of your cousin, I will soon be back.”
“Don’t hurry, uncle, I am quite at home!” and as Mr. Leyton closed the door, Cousin Reuben sprung to the side of Lucy, and stealing his arm around her waist, imprinted a kiss upon her blushing cheek.
“I say, nephew, we must bathe your rheumatics in beef-brine,” said Mr. Leyton, re-opening the door. Then hastily closing it again, he snapped his fingers, exclaiming, “Ah, it will do! it will do! he is a fine young fellow, I see, only that confounded red hair—he got that from the Richards.”
A week and more passed on. Lucy and her cousin agreed wonderfully, and Mr. Leyton was in perfect ecstasy at the recovered bloom and spirits of his daughter.
“Ah, Lu,” said he one day, slyly pinching her cheek, “what do you think of Cousin Reuben now; a’nt he worth a dozen of your college fellows?” and Lucy protested she really liked Reuben just as well as she had ever done Mrs. Tracy’s nephew.
Cousin Reuben, who was now perfectly domesticated, made himself not only very agreeable, but useful to his Uncle Leyton in various ways, and the farmer regretted more and more every day that he had not known him before. Reuben was a geologist, and he explained to Mr. Leyton how some portions of his farm, which he had thought the most unproductive, might be made to yield good crops; he was an architect, and he drew the plan of the new house which Mr. Leyton designed to erect in the spring. He was a botanist, a geometrician, an astromer,
“And Latin was no moredifficile,Than for a blackbird ’tis to whistle.”
“And Latin was no moredifficile,Than for a blackbird ’tis to whistle.”
“And Latin was no moredifficile,Than for a blackbird ’tis to whistle.”
“And Latin was no moredifficile,
Than for a blackbird ’tis to whistle.”
“Why, how in the world did you pick up so much learning out West? I should think you had been to college by the way you talk!” said Mr. Leyton, one evening, addressing his nephew, who had just been expounding some knotty point.
“Yes, uncle, and I have just taken my degree,” replied Reuben, looking at Lucy.
“You, the deuce you have. Why where did your mother raise the money to send you to college?”
“My education was provided for by my grandfather’s will.”
“It was, eh! well, I am glad of it, and so the Richards family were a good stock after all. I am sure I never dreamed you had been to college, though I thought from the first you knew considerable for your years.”
“Thank you, Uncle Andrew.”
“And what are you going to do now?”
“My dear uncle, I shall soon receive my diploma for the practice of medicine; then, if you will give me dear Lucy for a wife, I will buy that pretty cottage at the foot of the hill, and commence business.”
“You buy it! No, no, I am able to buy it myself, and give it to Lucy on her wedding-day. I am sorry you don’t like the farm better, for I had set my heart upon seeing you settled upon the old family estate, but no matter. Come here Lu, will you marry your Cousin Reuben? Ah, I see you will; here take her nephew she is yours—God bless you!”
Lucy burst into tears, and for a moment her lover also appeared much agitated. He then took Mr. Leyton’s hand:
“Then you really like me, uncle?”
“First rate, lad.”
“And you don’t know of any one else whom you would prefer for a son-in-law!”
“Always had my eye upon you, Reuben.”
“But suppose you have been imposed upon; suppose that I am not your nephew after all!”
“Ho, ho! imposed upon—not my nephew! don’t talk to me—imposed upon, pooh, don’t I know the Leyton look—all but the red hair—I wonder where you got that from!”
“I bought it of Frizeur and Frizette, French barbers, Broadway, New York, it is a capital wig, don’t you think so?” replied the young man, coolly taking it off, and handing it for the inspection of Mr. Leyton.
“Hey! why, what’s all this—who are you—what does this mean?” exclaimed Mr. Leyton, starting up in astonishment, wig in hand, and staring at the fine looking youth with dark-brown locks, who was now bending so tenderly over Lucy.
“Mr. Leyton, why should I hesitate to confess who I am,” was the answer, “since you have already assured me of your affection, and of your willingness to bestow upon me this dear hand. My name is Edward Bartine.”
“Bartine—Bartine—why, that is the same fellow—”
“That you was going to try your new raw-hide upon, my dear sir!”
“Hum, and if I had it here I would try it now!”
“O, no, you wouldn’t, father!” interposed Lucy.
“Grant me your patience a moment, Mr. Leyton,” resumed Edward, “with your prejudice against me, I was very certain you would never allow me to visit Lucy. You must believe me, when I assure you that the imposition I have practiced upon you has been most repugnant to me, and nothing but the hope of gaining your favor, under the guise of your nephew, could have tempted me to act the part I have.”
“My nephew! but how did you know any thing about my nephew? Lucy, did you—”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say, Mr. Leyton, will you forgive me, will you still confer upon me your dear Lucy, may I, as Edward Bartine, again receive the priceless gift you but now bestowed upon ‘Cousin Reuben?’”
“You have deceived me, young man,” replied Mr. Leyton, “although I acknowledge I was wrong to harbor such prejudice against a stranger. Would there was not so much depravity in the world as to warrant my suspicions—but so it is, and upright, noble-minded young men must sometimes suffer for the unprincipled libertinisms of those who best serve the devil by beguiling the purest and fairest of God’s creatures! But I forgive the deception. You were no less a stranger to me as Edward Bartine than as Reuben Richards, and I have learned to love you. Yes, you shall have Lucy, and the pretty white cottage to boot. Once more I give her to you, and again I say, God bless you and make you both happy, my dear children!”
In a few moments Lucy raised her head from her father’s shoulder, and looking archly in his face, said:
“Dear father, here is that letter for Cousin Reuben, shall we send it?”
“Ah, you little jade, now I understand! send it, yes, and we will have them all here to the wedding; if—the rheumatism will permit! ha, ha, what a lame concern you made of them,eh!”
“Yes, my dear sir, but the plot has not proved a lame one!” replied Edward, laughing.
Dr. Bartine and the charming Lucy, reside in the beautiful villa noticed in the commencement of this sketch, which, however, Edward insisted upon purchasing himself.
Mrs. Richards, and her son Reuben, accepted the invitation of Andrew Leyton, and now reside altogether at the farm. Reuben is a great favorite with his uncle, who, however, acknowledges that Edward pleases him best for a son-in-law. It is said Reuben will soon be married to a pretty girl in the neighbourhood, and will, without doubt, succeed to the Leyton farm.
TO JENNY LIND:
ON SEEING HER PORTRAIT FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
———
BY J. R. FRY.
———
World-worshiped Jenny! if this counterfeitOf woman be not only Art’s ideal;If when in ecstasy we gaze on itWe know that all its loveliness is real—That in this face, by guileless rapture lit,We see the reflex of thy living features;And if thy voice this seraph-face befit,No marvel ’tis that over genial naturesThy power is felt as more than of the earth—A gift, among the myriads of God’s creatures,To prove how much may spring from human birthOf attributes, which faith or fancy blendethWith visions only of celestial worth!Not impiously then the warm heart bendethIn homage at the altar of thy fame,Where Virtue jealous of thy smile attendeth,To watch the burning of its vestal flameAnd share with Art the honors of thy name!
World-worshiped Jenny! if this counterfeitOf woman be not only Art’s ideal;If when in ecstasy we gaze on itWe know that all its loveliness is real—That in this face, by guileless rapture lit,We see the reflex of thy living features;And if thy voice this seraph-face befit,No marvel ’tis that over genial naturesThy power is felt as more than of the earth—A gift, among the myriads of God’s creatures,To prove how much may spring from human birthOf attributes, which faith or fancy blendethWith visions only of celestial worth!Not impiously then the warm heart bendethIn homage at the altar of thy fame,Where Virtue jealous of thy smile attendeth,To watch the burning of its vestal flameAnd share with Art the honors of thy name!
World-worshiped Jenny! if this counterfeit
Of woman be not only Art’s ideal;
If when in ecstasy we gaze on it
We know that all its loveliness is real—
That in this face, by guileless rapture lit,
We see the reflex of thy living features;
And if thy voice this seraph-face befit,
No marvel ’tis that over genial natures
Thy power is felt as more than of the earth—
A gift, among the myriads of God’s creatures,
To prove how much may spring from human birth
Of attributes, which faith or fancy blendeth
With visions only of celestial worth!
Not impiously then the warm heart bendeth
In homage at the altar of thy fame,
Where Virtue jealous of thy smile attendeth,
To watch the burning of its vestal flame
And share with Art the honors of thy name!
EDITOR OF GRAHAM’S MAGAZINEGeo. R. GrahamEngraved by W.G. Armstrong from a painting by T.B. Read
EDITOR OF GRAHAM’S MAGAZINEGeo. R. GrahamEngraved by W.G. Armstrong from a painting by T.B. Read
GEORGE R. GRAHAM
[WITH A PORTRAIT.]
———
BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.
———
When a man, left a friendless orphan in boyhood, overcomes every obstacle of fortune, and rises to wealth and station, we justly conclude that he is possessed of no common abilities. But when the same individual, beggared by unforeseen events, retains still the confidence of his fellow men, and finally conquers fate a second time, and resumes his lost position, we do not exaggerate if we call him an extraordinary man. Yet such, unless the partiality of friendship deceives us, is George R. Graham.
The father of Mr. Graham was a gentleman of education and fortune, resident in Philadelphia, where he was known, about thirty years ago, as an enterprising shipping merchant. At one period he was a partner of the late Robert Fleming, then carrying on an active trade between Charleston and Ireland. Subsequently he entered largely into commerce on his own account, but disastrous times approaching, he shared in the general ruin, and ultimately, not only his fortune, but his life sunk under the blow. He left two children, of whom the eldest, the subject of our memoir, was born on the 18th of January, 1813. The early death of the father materially affected the interests of the son. Mr. Graham had been designed for the bar, and all his studies were directed to that end; the preliminary arrangements had even been made for him in the office of the Hon. Charles Jared Ingersoll; but the reverses and death of the parent frustrated the scheme, and the young orphan, who had been born apparently to a life of comparative ease, was left penniless and almost friendless, to carve his way to distinction alone.
But, even at this early age, he did not despair. Of a sanguine temperament and determined will, he resolved to re-construct the shattered fortunes of his family. He had been placed, on his father’s death, and when only fifteen years of age, with his maternal uncle, Mr. George Rex, an opulent farmer of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, after whom he had been named; and with this gentleman, and in the country he remained until he was nineteen. The time, however, was not lost. On the contrary, it was to this period of his life he is indebted for that robust constitution which afterward enabled him to endure the severe application to which he addressed himself. During these four years he omitted no opportunity to improve his mind. He read every thing that came in his way. But books, fortunately, were not so abundant then as now, so that what he read he digested, and thus acquired habits of correct thought, so rare among the hasty students of the day.
In 1832, Mr. Graham returned to the city, and commenced to learn the trade of a cabinet-maker. But he had already resolved that he would yet be a lawyer, as his father had intended; and accordingly, to effect this object, he now addressed himself with that untiring energy which has ever characterised him. His first object was to discipline his mind, to improve his tastes, and to enlarge his stores of knowledge. For this purpose he began a course of literary study, and, for three years, prosecuted it with undiminished ardor, exhibiting, during the entire period, a perseverance amid difficulties which entitles him to a high place among self-taught men. His trade requiring his attention for ten or twelve hours daily, he had but a short interval to spare for recreation and sleep, but having resolved to devote six hours out of the twenty-four to literary pursuits, he rigidly adhered to his plan, gaining the time, when necessary, by rising before dawn.
At the age of twenty-two he made the acquaintance of a son of the late Judge Armstrong, of Philadelphia, and by him was introduced to the judge, who at once arranged to receive him as a student. For the three years, during which he studied law, he continued laboring at the bench, devoting the early morning hours and the evening to Coke and Blackstone. By the regulations of the Pennsylvania courts, the last year of a student’s course has to be spent in the office of some practicing attorney; and this he was enabled to effect by rising at four o’clock in the morning, laboring until nine, then visiting the office, and often returning to the bench in the evening. The writer of this happened to be a student with the same preceptor at this period, and writes of facts to which he was an admiring eye-witness.
The natural bent of the mind, in all well-balanced natures, triumphs in the end over the plans of parents and the exigencies of circumstances alike. Under the influence of a commendable pride, Mr. Graham had resolved notwithstanding his early misfortunes, to fulfill his father’s wish, and become a member of the bar; but now, he discovered that his tastes led him toward a literary life. He accordingly began to contribute a series of papers to the Philadelphia press, which, at once attracted attention by the vigor of their thought, not less than the freshness of their style. He persisted, however, in his intention of entering the bar, and, in 1839, was admitted to practice.
His inclination for literature continuing instead of diminishing, he resolved to abandon the active pursuits of his profession, and embark in avocations more suitable to his tastes. Accordingly, in the same year he became editor of the Saturday Evening Post, a well-known weekly journal, at that time published by Samuel C. Atkinson. In the following year, he became joint proprietor as well as editor.He continued, in connection with his partners, to publish this journal for several years, but finally, in 1846, parted with his entire interest in it.
It is as a magazine editor and publisher, however, that Mr. Graham has made himself especially famous. In 1839, at the time he became editor of the Post, he purchased of Mr. Atkinson the Casket, a monthly magazine of respectable ability and circulation. This periodical he continued to publish, under its old name, until December, 1840, when he bought the list of the Gentleman’s Magazine, and united the two monthlies as Graham’s Magazine, issuing the first number in January, 1841. The success of this new enterprise was unprecedented. Having spared no expense to procure able writers and elegant embellishments, the result was that he produced a periodical of unexampled merit and beauty; and, at once, thousands were added to his list. A new spirit was infused into magazines. Before this period, the monthlies had been filled with second-hand English stories, or indifferently written original tales; while their poetry, except what was taken from well-known authors, was such as “both gods and men abhor.” The illustrations were few and indifferent.
The freshness, beauty, and ability of Graham’s Magazine at once placed it before all others in the popular favor, and though its rivals hastened to imitate the example it had set, it continued to maintain, and maintains to this day, the supremacy.
The success of Mr. Graham’s Magazine was such, that, by January, 1842, it had attained a circulation of more than thirty thousand. Meantime no expense was spared to increase its excellence, both literary and pictorial. Mr. Sartain, the celebrated engraver, was kept busily employed in furnishing mezzotints for it: and some of the engravings then executed by that artist, and by Smillie, Rawdon and Tucker, have certainly never been since surpassed. The most eminent authors in the United States were, at the same time, sought for its pages. At first, these writers were incredulous that any American magazine could afford them adequate remuneration; but the success which had already attended Mr. Graham’s improvements convinced him that the public would sustain him in his effort to raise the character of our periodical literature, and accordingly he persevered in his design. No sooner were Longfellow, Bryant, Cooper, and others of our leading authors, discovered to be permanent contributors to Graham’s Magazine, than thousands, who had heretofore looked with contempt on an American monthly, hastened with their subscriptions, to encourage the enterprising publisher. The benefit thus done to popular literature cannot be calculated. But it was such that it will be long, perhaps, before any one man will have it in his power to do again as much.
The demand of a large business, and the watchfulness necessary to keep the lead, left Mr. Graham but little time for literary composition. He had, however, increased his own reputation as a writer, of occasional articles contributed to his newspaper and magazine, but principally to the latter. Thoroughly read in Bolingbroke, Addison, Burke, and others of the classic authors of the language, his style was distinguished by a finish, yet an idiomatic force such as is rarely found among the careless writers of the day. A clear, sound thinker; with a fervid imagination; possessing a keen sense of the ridiculous; and having a great command over the resources of language, he always wrote to the point, in a racy, nervous style, mingling eloquence and satire by turns, and never, as hackneyed writers so often do, drowning the idea with “excess of words.” His choice of terms was singularly felicitous. He wrote the language as the translators of the Bible wrote it, with a large mixture of Saxon derivations, yet with purity. In invective, as in sarcasm, he was especially powerful. A series of editorial articles contributed to the newspaper under his management, and still remembered, are instances of the former: his letters to Jeremy Short, are examples of the latter. In a word, as a terse, and even eloquent writer, Mr. Graham holds a high rank. As a critic his judgment is always generous, but just.
In 1846, Mr. Graham purchased the North American, a daily newspaper of standing and influence in Philadelphia. He had no sooner embarked in this new enterprise than it exhibited proofs of his energy and tact: and, in a very short while, the ability with which the journal was conducted made it a name throughout the entire Union. In 1847, he still further extended the influence and reputation of his newspaper, by purchasing, in connection with his partners, the United States Gazette, and consolidating it with the North American. But he had now attained, at least for awhile, the summit of his successes. Having been induced to engage in certain stock speculations, he entered into them with all the ardor of his character, and though for a time successful, eventually impaired his fortune to such a degree that he was forced to part temporarily with the Magazine and North American. This misfortune happened in July, 1848. A man of his energy, however, could not be kept down: fortune might depart, but failed to overcome him. He continued to edit his Magazine, even after parting with the proprietorship of it, until March, 1850, when circumstances having induced the retirement of Samuel D. Patterson, he succeeded in regaining his interest in his favorite periodical; and from that period has added the duties of publisher to those of editor. This restoration to his old position is the result of indomitable energy, which he possesses in a degree that is as rare as it is praiseworthy. With men of his stamp nothing is impossible.
As a man Mr. Graham inspires general affection. The warmth of his heart, and the frankness of his manners make for him friends wherever he goes. Generous to a fault, forgetful of injuries, conciliating in his deportment, he is one to be alike popular with the many and loved by the few. His faults, where he has them, are those of a noble nature. His sense of honor is keen. He could do no man wrong intentionally. In all his actions, even to the most trivial, the energy of his character, and the kindness of his heart are equally discernible.
THE GENIUS OF BURNS.
———
BY HENRY GILES.
———
In a cottage on the banks of Doon, near the town of Ayr, in Scotland, in 1759, Robert Burns, one of the world’s sweetest poets, first saw the light of life. The peasant-child soon learned to know existence in toil and sorrow; torn at an early age from study to labor, grief went hand in hand with glory through his remaining years. We find him amidst the wild eccentricities of an irregular youth, without any settled aim, as he himself declares, but with some stirrings of ambition, that were only as the blind gropings of Homer’s Cyclops around the walls of his cave. With characteristic ardor, and with more zeal than wisdom, he mingled in the theological and political squabbles of the times, and by the destructive boldness of his satire, and the shafted power of his ridicule, he created many enemies whom it was easier to provoke than to propitiate. Nor must we hold him blameless. In the prodigality of wit, and the wildness of laughter; in the madness of merriment, and the pride of genius, he treated opinions and persons with an unsparing levity which a more thoughtful experience would have taught him to regard with reverence or forbearance. That his genius went too frequently in company with his passions, and that the glory of the one was sometimes wrecked in the delirium of the other, it is not allowed us to deny; but these follies had their penalties; and if it were possible, they were better now forgotten in the ashes of his early grave. Burns was a man that sinned, and one that suffered; but he was not a man that sinned callously, or that suffered meanly; and it is not for the living to write in marble errors which the departed repented in tears.
Incidents of romance and anguish checker the opening of his poetic fame with sadness as well as sunshine. His “Highland Mary,” the love of his youth, and the dream of his life is wrenched from his heart by death. Then comes the melancholy episode of his attachment to Jean Armor, with its heavy retribution of wretchedness. His name has begun to gather honor among his native hills; the small provincial edition of his poems is hailed with proud enthusiasm; but yet, with poverty and a bleeding spirit, he looks across the ocean to foreign exile. Suddenly his purpose is turned aside, and we behold him in Edinburgh among the exclusives and magnates of the land. There, as at the plough, we find him still the true and sturdy man. In the throng of Highland chieftains and border barons, in the full blaze of pride and beauty, he felt within him a humanity beyond the claim of titles; genius had given him a superscription more impressive than device of heraldry; the patent of nobility was written with fire in his heart, and the proud ones of earth became poor before the aristocrat of heaven. In that day of classic propriety, a poet from the plough, full of passionate earnestness, must have been in Edinburgh a startling phenomenon. But nature made herself heard in the very citadel of art; cavil was silent, and admiration offered willing homage. The wealthy marveled at the inspired peasant; and wherever the eloquent ploughman appeared, there were the nobles collected together. Dukes gave him their silken hands; duchesses received him with sweetest smiles; earls pledged him in the wine-cup; and for the moment, the haughty and the high-born recognized the presence of a greatness superior to their own. But Burns was not a man to hold popularity long in circles such as these. He was too stoutly individual for the apathy of elegant mediocrity, and he was too sternly independent for the sensibility of patronizing grandees: he saw nothing to venerate in a title when it was but the nickname of a fool; and he was undazzled by a star when it glittered on the breast of a ruffian or a dunce. But though Burns escaped the danger of aristocratic delusion, he did not escape the danger of aristocratic feasts. These were the times of night-long carousals, and pottle-deep potations. Burns had neither the firmness to resist such dissipation, nor the constitution to endure it; and he carried from it impaired health and impaired habits—an irritable discontent with his condition, and an instability of purpose fatal to a life of labor. Having placed a tomb over the neglected remains of poor Ferguson, the poet, he retired to the country, shared his success with his brother Gilbert, met his mother steeped in tears of honest joy, married his Jean, and gave peace to a wounded spirit.
From this era of light in his course; from this day, bright with fame and conscious virtue, we trace him along a path devious and clouded. We follow him through the toil of a profitless farm, to the struggles of a countrygauger, and from these to a destitute death-bed. In all his follies and his sufferings, we behold him true to a manly nature, loyal to noble principles; and however seamed and deformed may have been the surface of his life, virtue remained unshaken in the centre of his soul. With a large family, and only seventy pounds a year, he had an open hand for the poor, and a hospitable roof for stranger and for friend; and although he died owing no man any thing, yet he has been stigmatized as a prodigal and a spendthrift. He gave the world his immortal songs without money and without price; and with the generosity of benignant genius, he sympathized with every effort of the humble men around him for a nobler life, he ministered to their intellectual wants, and he aided their intellectual struggles. Accordingly, we observe him at a time when he washarassed with cares and overcome with toilon a barren farm, establishing a book club in his neighborhood, forming its rules, and directing its operations. To estimate this in the true spirit, we must remember that it was sixty years ago, when as yet there had been no “Mechanics’ Institutions” in the land, and when Lyceums were not; when cheap editions of standard works had not arisen even on a printer’s dream, and “Societies for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” were enfolded, as the poets say, in the mighty womb of futurity. Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, a genial and eloquent (though patronizing) biographer of Burns, in narrating this portion of his life, questions the utility of literary studies for the great masses of the people. Strange questioning this, in a life of Burns—the cottage-boy, whom the little knowledge of a rustic school awakened for eternity; raised from the clods of the valley to a place among the stars, a burning and imperishable light; and who, but for that little knowledge, might have been as nameless clay as any that nurtures the grass of a village church-yard.
The ideas of Currie have almost vanished with his times; still even yet we occasionally hear some small-souled cynic, some snail-shell philosopher, who thinks himself of those sages with whom wisdom is to perish, sneer scornfully at popular knowledge. Popular knowledge, it is true, is not the wisdom of Solomon; it has not the depth of Bacon, or the sublimity of Newton; still, so far as it goes, it is a good, and though the pedant may deride, the philanthropist will rejoice. And what, after all, is the ground of Mr. Pedant Wiseacre’s pride? Perhaps some learned investigation on the contraction of the Greek kai, or the tail of the Greek gamma. Seriously, the critic and the scholar, when true to their noble office, deserve our admiration and our gratitude; but those who grub merely for withered roots, which never produce either fruits or flowers; and, then, with insect vanity, give themselves airs of scorn, are themselves saved from contempt, only because all creatures have their uses. It is well for society that there should always be men of great and solid learning; and evil would be the day when slight acquirement should be a substitute for laborious thought; but it is also desirable that these accumulated treasures should be widely and bountifully distributed. It is good to have deep fountains in our munitions of rocks, but it is not good that these fountains should waste themselves in darkness; it is not good that they should merely feed the gorgeous river, and the mighty cataract, they should also steal along in the sunny streamlet, and give beauty to the secluded nook. Let there be rich men, and let them rejoice in their riches; let there be great men, and let them exult in their greatness; let there be men of strong intellect, but let them in their strength be merciful; it is not, however, the great, the noble, or the strong, that are ever of destructive nature; it was the lean kine of Egypt that became the devourers—and yet were as skinny as before; so there are poor, lean, hungry animals of the critic species—unproductive as they are voracious, that are naturally the most unsparing and the most ferocious.
When Burns went first to Edinburgh he was the rage, and homage to him became the cant of certain circles. But it is seldom that such homage survives a season. Poor Burns lived not long; but he lived long enough to understand in bitterness the hollowness of drawing-room applause. On a second visit to the Scottish metropolis, the enthusiasts of the first had disappeared. It is ridiculous enough now to us to think of any lord or lady of bedizened mediocrity supposing they could do honor by their notice to such a man as Robert Burns; but ridicule deepens to contempt, when we read of paltry provincials in Dumfries looking ascant at their mighty townsman, our indignation chokes our laughter at the record of treatment which small fashionables could offer to a great poet. Mr. Lockhart gives an anecdote from a gentleman who told him that he was seldom more grieved than when riding into Dumfries, one fine summer’s evening, to attend a country ball, he saw Burns walking alone on the shady side of the principal street of the town, while the opposite side was gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the night—not one of whom appeared willing to recognize him. The horseman dismounted and joined Burns, who, on his proposing to him to cross the street, said, “Nay, nay, my young friend, that’s all over now,” and quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady Grizzle Baillie’s pathetic ballad.
Burns, amidst poverty and sorrow, when needful comforts had almost failed him in his sickness, and his children nearly wanted bread, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, quitted a world that was not soon to look upon his like again. Burns, the gladdener of so many hearts, was at last outwrestled, and the mighty fell—Burns, who had so deeply felt the rapture of genius, and the misery of life.
The retribution with which the errors of Burns chastised him, holds out impressive warning to all who are capable of drawing wisdom from example. If happiness could have found a resting-place in one of the most honest hearts that ever struck against a manly bosom; if happiness had been with noble poetry, with an eloquence that never failed, with an imagination rich as the breast of nature, and bright as the stars in heaven; if happiness could have been brought down from the sky by lofty and aspiring sentiments, or fixed upon earth by generous and gentle affections; then happiness would have been the lot of Burns. But Burns had contracted habits to which peace soon becomes a stranger; and he who has such habits, be he bard, or be he beggar, has already entered on the evil day; he may say in all the bitterness of his soul, “Farewell the tranquil mind.” It would seem as if Burns pictured by anticipation his own sad fate when he wrote the Bard’s Epitaph. “Whom did the poet intend?” asks Wordsworth, as quoted by Allan Cunningham, “who but himself—himself anticipating the too probable termination of his own course. Here is a sincere and solemn avowal—a public declaration from his own will—a confession at once devout, poetical and human—a history in the shape of a prophesy!” Whatmore was required of the biographer than to have put his seal to the writing, testifying that the foreboding had been realized, and the record was authentic.
Is there a whim-inspired fool,Owre fast for thought, or hot to rule,Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,Let him draw near;And owre this grassy heap sing dool,And drap a tear.Is there a bard of rustic song,Who, noteless, steals, the crowds among,That weekly this area throng,O, pass not by,But with a frater-feeling strong,Here heave a sigh.Is there a man whose judgment clear,Can others teach the course to steer,Yet runs himself life’s mad career,Wild as the wave;Here pause, and through the starting tear,Survey this grave.The poor inhabitant belowWas quick to learn, and wise to know,And keenly felt the friendly glow,And softer flame,But thoughtless follies laid him low,And stained his name.Reader, attend, whether thy soulSoars fancy’s flights beyond the pole,Or darkly grubs this earthly hole,In low pursuit,Know prudent, cautious, self-controlIs wisdom’s root.
Is there a whim-inspired fool,Owre fast for thought, or hot to rule,Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,Let him draw near;And owre this grassy heap sing dool,And drap a tear.Is there a bard of rustic song,Who, noteless, steals, the crowds among,That weekly this area throng,O, pass not by,But with a frater-feeling strong,Here heave a sigh.Is there a man whose judgment clear,Can others teach the course to steer,Yet runs himself life’s mad career,Wild as the wave;Here pause, and through the starting tear,Survey this grave.The poor inhabitant belowWas quick to learn, and wise to know,And keenly felt the friendly glow,And softer flame,But thoughtless follies laid him low,And stained his name.Reader, attend, whether thy soulSoars fancy’s flights beyond the pole,Or darkly grubs this earthly hole,In low pursuit,Know prudent, cautious, self-controlIs wisdom’s root.
Is there a whim-inspired fool,Owre fast for thought, or hot to rule,Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,Let him draw near;And owre this grassy heap sing dool,And drap a tear.Is there a bard of rustic song,Who, noteless, steals, the crowds among,That weekly this area throng,O, pass not by,But with a frater-feeling strong,Here heave a sigh.Is there a man whose judgment clear,Can others teach the course to steer,Yet runs himself life’s mad career,Wild as the wave;Here pause, and through the starting tear,Survey this grave.The poor inhabitant belowWas quick to learn, and wise to know,And keenly felt the friendly glow,And softer flame,But thoughtless follies laid him low,And stained his name.Reader, attend, whether thy soulSoars fancy’s flights beyond the pole,Or darkly grubs this earthly hole,In low pursuit,Know prudent, cautious, self-controlIs wisdom’s root.
Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, or hot to rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.
Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals, the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by,
But with a frater-feeling strong,
Here heave a sigh.
Is there a man whose judgment clear,
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs himself life’s mad career,
Wild as the wave;
Here pause, and through the starting tear,
Survey this grave.
The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn, and wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame,
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stained his name.
Reader, attend, whether thy soul
Soars fancy’s flights beyond the pole,
Or darkly grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit,
Know prudent, cautious, self-control
Is wisdom’s root.
Thus much I thought I might venture on our poet’s life; I shall now proceed to offer some remarks upon his genius.
Burns was a true child of nature; thence his growing power, and thence the promise of his lasting fame. But though the child of nature, he was not the offspring of mere rude or uncultivated nature. The Scottish peasantry were a class of men among whom such a mind as that of Burns could perhaps receive its most fitting development. Without the refinement which tends to repress spontaneous expression, they had sufficient of moral and intellectual education to give that expression variety and strength. Their country, their history, and their religion, were all such as to train a serious and reflective imagination. Therefore it is that no peasantry have furnished so much to national literature as the Scottish, and especially to national poetry. Within a period by no means extensive in their annals, they have given to the world such writers as Ferguson, simple and full of music; Allan Ramsay, in his “Gentle Shepherd,” the very genius of pastoral poetry; Tannahill, a lowly spirit of melody and pathos, a sweet voice of truth and tenderness; Hogg, the glorious wizard of the mountains, coming down from his shepherd’s wilderness, his memory peopled with all olden legends, and his fancy teeming with all fairy dreams. Burns, then, though mightiest, is but one of an honorable family; though greatest and grandest among them, they are his kindred; of some he is the heir, of others, he is the progenitor.
Burns is a poet true, as I have said, to nature, and therefore true to art. Burns is not mechanically artificial, but he is patiently artistical. He had none of that indolent vanity which shrinks from careful preparation, which trusts all to sudden excitement, and undigested emotions. He looked, as every man of genius does, to the ideal; he knew it was not to be comprehended in a passing glance, or reached in a rapid bound, or embodied in a single effort; and he knew that in the endeavor to unfold it, no execution could be too thoughtful, and no labor too great. It is not the consciousness of power, but the conceit of vanity, which relies presumptuously upon momentary impulse, which mistakes the contortions of a delirious imbecility for the movements of celestial agitation. The very creation of God, which required but the will and word of Omnipotence for instant and perfect existence, has been gradually constructed—the earth on which we stand, so fair to look upon, so robed with beauty, so radiant with life and light, has been evolved from chaos through innumerable formations and even the thunder so astounding in its crash, and the lightning so sudden in its stroke, have long been generating in the womb of heaven. The man of genius, the man of creative power, is at once inspired and industrious; at once a man of passion and a man of patience; at once a constructor and analyser, a man of enthusiasm, but also a man of wisdom. Genius is not intoxication, and it is even more than rapture; it is capacity subject to the law of truth and beauty; the intense action of the soul, exalted, harmonious, and illuminated. The dash of noble thoughts may come suddenly on the brain; the torrent of enkindled feeling may rush upon the heart, but the spirit of order and of art must move over the face of this brilliant chaos, ere it is shaped into that perfection which the world does not willingly let die. All mighty souls know this; the rustic Burns knew it, not less than the godlike Milton.
The genius of Burns is now, by that instinctive appreciation which forms the supreme tribunal, placed in the highest order. Whence is this? All he has written may be contained in a moderately sized volume. If quantity of production therefore were needed to exalt a writer, which it is not, Burns should remain in the region of mediocrity. Neither has he composed as critics would seem to require, a work of elaborate and faultless excellence; for he has not even attempted a tragedy or an epic poem. But critics cannot decide this point, and that common heart which decides for all has decided for Burns. The depth and extent of his humanity has gained him his distinction, and it is that humanity which gains distinction for any who outlive their age. It is this spirit of love and sympathy which evinces the kindred that all men recognize; it is this spirit that reaches the truth of nature below all changes, custom and convention; below all colors which climates paint upon the skin; it is this which outlives all facts and fashions, and abides forever in the immortal heart. Whoever has this spirit must live; whoever has it not must die; whoever has this spirit must live, defiled though he may be with many evils; whoever has it not must die, no matter how excellent he may be besides; no matter what his brilliancy, his sagacity, his talent, the generations will outlast them all; will give them to as deep oblivionas they do the tongues of Babel. The world cherishes Boccacio, notwithstanding the offences of his tales; so it likewise preserves Chaucer; Rabelais and old Montaigne continue in literature despite of their impurities; and to think of Shakspeare dying would be to conceive the extinction of letters or our race. All these men are deathless brothers, and Burns is amongst them. His poetry is thoroughly human; a poetry which reproduces as we read it all the feelings of our wayward nature; which shows how man was made to be merry, and how he was made to mourn; which enters the soul on its sunny or its gloomy side, expands the heart with laughter or chastens it with melancholy.
In knowledge of man, Burns strikes us with wonder unspeakable, when we consider the narrow circle in which he lived, and the early age at which he died. A single song is like a compressed drama; and within the circle of these songs we have impulses from every stage of life, from the perturbations of youth to the chill of age. To every shade of sentiment and affection; to every change and turn of inward experience, to every oddity and comicality of feeling, he has given a voice of musical and energetic utterance.
Man, and man directly—man in the play of all his passions, is, with Burns, the great object of interest. The descriptive and the picturesque for their own sake have therefore no place in his writings. A picture with him is never more than the drapery of a passion. The chivalric past has none of his veneration; and the past, in any form, only kindles him when he associates it with the movements of humanity or the struggles of liberty. The conflicts of feudalism, the rivalry of dynasties, the gorgeous falsehoods of departed ages, had no enchantment to warm his fancy or to rule his pen. In this respect, the writings of Scott and those of Burns are as opposite as are their characters. The brilliancy of descriptive narrative glows over the poems of Scott—the strong life of passion throbs in those of Burns. Even in the record of a tour this contrast is observable. Scott has the eye of an antiquarian and a map-maker united. Burns glances along as if space were a tiresome obstruction to his fiery nature: Scott surveys every baronial castle, and notes all its chronicles. Burns raves with inspired fury on the field where the invader was struck down, where “tyrants fell in every blow.” Scott imagined that genius owed homage to rank; Burns gave the obligation another version, and conceived that rank should do reverence to genius. Peasant-born, he was too proud in his humanity to covet titles: almost morbidly jealous of individual independence, hereditary aristocracy was not to him poetically impressive; its outward glare provoked his scorn, and its deeper abuses sickened his imagination.
Two mosthumanqualities in all poets are pre-eminent in Burns—I mean pathos and humor.
His pathos is profound but kindly. No writer is less gloomy than Burns, and yet none for the extent of his compositions has more pathos. No writer within the same compass has grander thoughts or deeper beauty; and, by some magic of the heart, grand thoughts and deep beauty are always allied to melancholy. The canopy of the blue heavens, when not a cloud swims in its brightness, makes our rapture sad: so it does when the stars stud it with ten thousand lights: the mountain’s majesty and the ocean’s vastness subdue our souls to thought, and in this world of ours thought has ever something of the hue of grief. It would seem as if a mysterious connection existed between great objects and pensive feelings, between lofty sentiments and deep regrets, a kind of struggle in our higher nature against the limits of its condition: a disappointment at the long interval that separates our aspirations from the ideal, tinges with sorrow all our sensations of the beautiful. Pathos such as this imbues all the graver poetry of Burns. Scarcely is there a wo which wrings the bosom between the cradle and the grave which has not an expression in the solemn music of his verse, from the gentlest whisper of feeling to the frenzies of every pain and the agonies of every passion. But though deep, his melancholy is not morbid. It is the melancholy of great capacities and of real suffering; of error reacting on itself a just infliction; or glorious desires yearning for their congenial objects. The muse of Burns was a rustic maiden; a maiden healthful and hardy. Fits of vapors she might occasionally have, but the heather of her native mountains soon restored the elasticity of her step, and the breeze of her pleasant valleys quickly recalled the bloom to her cheek and the lustre to her eye. At times she sought the solitudes; but she returned ere long to human homes, and sang her wild and simple songs to the friendly circle. She loved, it is true, to meditate under the green shadow of the forest, and to look up in raptured spirit to the lurid and darkened heavens; but she loved no less the blessed sunshine on the harvest hill, and the cottage smoke that floated in the evening sky. If occasionally she wept amidst the graves of her heroes, she came from the places of the dead, more boldly to proclaim liberty in the places of the living.
This pathos is neither maudlin nor misanthropic. It does not make the head giddy with paradox; nor whirl the heart upon a wild and chaotic tempest of doubt and selfishness; it does not dissect out the evils of human nature, and gloat over them with a diseased voluptuousness; it does not lead you to sit at the feast of despair, with the spectres and skeletons around you of unsocial horrors. It is no mawkish pretence of sentiment. Burns is true to what he feels; and, right or wrong, he speaks it as it is. He maintains this course in his good and his evil. It saved him from groveling and bombast; it saved him from intellectual cant, and from literary quackery. No language is so eloquent as honest language. Truth goes direct to its purpose, while affectation is crawling around its petty circumlocutions; and, as the straight line is the shortest, the most sincere words are the most resistless. As the poet had honesty in himself, he had faith in others. His appeal was weakened by no skepticism in the capacity ofhumble men to appreciate the noble and the beautiful. He spoke to them as beings whose hearts were of the same substance as his own; he spoke confident of the result, and he was not disappointed. The first auditors of his verses were the obscure dwellers among Scottish hills and hamlets, and to his words he received as true a response as poetic enthusiasm could have desired. The sons and daughters of toil proved to him, that he had not trusted them in vain. He gave them his faith, and they paid back the trust with a priceless love.
I have said that the pathos of Burns is not morbid—and I have said truly. In its lowest depths, it is not dark—in the uttermost sadness, it is not despairing. He grieves, but he never whines; and when he utters forth tones the most plaintive, they are yet so vigorous and so full, that, by the strong sound of them, you feel that they come out from the stalwort struggle of a manly bosom. He has pathos, too, of every variety. He has the pathos of sympathy—and this sympathy is often so intense, as to amount to a passionate indignation. As thus, in the poem—“Man was made to Mourn:”—