FOOTNOTES:

Again the form of my lost wife I see,She lies before me, and she dies again;Again she smiles on me, again she dies,Her eyes now close, and comfort me no more.

He indulged the fond thought that she hovered, a guardian spirit, near him still,—

O if thou love me yet, by heavenly lawsCondemn me not! I am a man and mourn,—Support me though unseen!

And he foretells that, even in distant ages,—"in times perhaps more virtuous than ours," his grief would be remembered, and the name of his Meta revered. And shall it not be so?—it must—it will:—as long as truth, virtue, tenderness, dwell in woman's breast—so long shall Meta be dear to her sex; for she has honoured us among men on earth, and among saints in Heaven!

And now, how shall I fill up this sketch? Let us pause for a moment, and suppose the fate of Meta and Klopstock reversed, and thatshehad been called, according to her own tender and unselfish wish, to be the survivor. Under such a terrible dispensation, her angelic meekness and sublime faith would at first have supported her; she would have rejoiced in thecertaintyof her husband's blessedness, and in the yearning of her heart she would have tried to fancy him ever present with her in spirit; she would have collected together his works, and have occupied herself in transmitting his glory as a poet, without a blemish, to the admiration of posterity; she would have gone about all her feminine duties with a quiet patience—for it would have beenhiswill; and would have smiled—and her smile would have been like the moonlight on a winter lake: and with all her thoughts loosened from the earth, to her there would never more have been good or evil, or grief, or fear, or joy: space and time would only have existed to her, as they separated her fromhim. Thus she would have lived on dyingly from day to day, and then have perished, less through regret, than through the intense longing to realize the vision of her heart, and rejoin him, without whom all concerns of life were vain, and less than nothing. And this, I am well convinced,—as far as one human being may dare to reason on the probable result of certain feelings and impulses in another,—wouldhave been the lot of Meta, if left on the earth alone, and desolate.

If Klopstock acted differently, let him not be too severely arraigned; he was but a man, and differently constituted. With great sensibility, he possessed, by nature, an elasticity of spirit which could rebound, as it were, from the very depths of grief: his sorrow, intense at first, found many outward resources:—he could speak, he could write; his vivacity of imagination pictured to him Meta happy; and his habitual religious feeling made him acquiesce in his own privation; he could please himself with visiting her grave, and every year he planted it with white lilies, "because the lily was the most exalted among flowers, and she was the most exalted among women."[78]He had many friends, to whom the confiding simplicity of his character had endeared him: all his life he seems to have clung to friendship as a child clings to the breast of the mother; he was accustomed to seek and find relief in sympathy; and sympathy, deeplyfelt and strongly expressed, was all around him. With his high intellect and profound feeling, there was ever a child-like buoyancy in the mind of Klopstock, which gained him the title ofder ewigen jungling—"The ever young, or the youth for ever."[79]His mind never fell into "the sear and yellow leaf," it was a perpetual spring: the flowers grew and withered, and blossomed again,—a never-failing succession of fragrance and beauty; when the rose wounded him, he gathered the lily; when the lily died on his bosom, he cherished the myrtle. And he was most happy in such a character, for in him it was allied to the highest virtue and genius, and equally remote from weakness and selfishness.

About four years after the death of Meta, he became extremely attached to a young girl of Blackenburg, whose name was Dona; she loved and admired him in return, but naturally felt somedistrust in the warmth of his attachment; and he addressed to her a little poem, in which, tenderly alluding to Meta, he assures Dona thatsheis not less dear to him orlessnecessary to his happiness[80]—

And such isman'sfidelity!

This intended marriage never took place.

Twenty-five years afterwards, when Klopstock was in his sixtieth year, he married Johanna von Wentham, a near relation of his Meta; an excellent and amiable woman, whose affectionate attention cheered the remaining years of his life.

Klopstock died at Hamburg in 1813, at the age of eighty: his remains were attended to the grave by all the magistrates, the diplomatic corps, the clergy, foreign generals, and a concourse of about fifty thousand persons. His sacred poems wereplaced on his coffin, and in the intervals of the chanting, the ministering clergyman took up the book, and read aloud the fine passage in the Messiah, describing the death of the righteous.—Happy are they who have so consecrated their genius to the honour of Him who bestowed it, that the productions of their early youth may be placed without profanation on their tomb!

He was buried under a lime-tree in the churchyard of Ottensen, by the side of his Meta and her infant,—

Seed sown by God, to ripen for the harvest.

FOOTNOTES:[70]Coleridge's Wallenstein.[71]Bodmer, after the publication of the Messiah, invited the author to his house in Switzerland. He had imaged to himself a most sublime idea of the man who could write such a poem, and had fancied him like one of the sages and prophets of the Old Testament. His astonishment, when he saw a slight-made, elegant-looking young man leap gaily from his carriage, with sparkling eyes and a smiling countenance, has been pleasantly described.[72]Klopstock's Letters, p. 145.[73]Klopstock's Letters.[74]"I not being able to travel yet, my husband has been obliged to make a voyage to Copenhagen. He is yet absent; a cloud over my happiness! He will soon return; but what does that help? he is yet equally absent. We write to each other every post; but what are letters to presence? But I will speak no more of this little cloud, I will only tell my happiness. But I cannot tell you how I rejoice!—A son of my dear Klopstock's! O, when shall I have him?"—Memoirs, p. 99.[75]Elizabeth Schmidt, married to the brother of Fanny Schmidt.[76]Meta was buried with her infant in her arms, at Ottenson, near Altona. She had expressed a wish to have two passages from the Messiah, descriptive of the resurrection, inscribed on her coffin, but one only was engraved:—"Seed sown by God to ripen for the harvest."See Memoirs, p. 197.[77]Translated by Elizabeth Smith, of whom it has been truly said, that she resembled Meta, and to whom we are indebted for her first introduction to English readers.[78]Memoirs.[79]Klopstock says of himself, "it is not my nature to be happy or miserable by halves: having once discarded melancholy, I am ready to welcome happiness."—Klopstock and his Friends, p. 164.[80]Du zweifelst dass ich dich wie Meta liebe?Wie Meta lieb' Ich Done dich!Dies, saget dir mein hertz liebe volMein ganzes hertz! &c.

[70]Coleridge's Wallenstein.

[71]Bodmer, after the publication of the Messiah, invited the author to his house in Switzerland. He had imaged to himself a most sublime idea of the man who could write such a poem, and had fancied him like one of the sages and prophets of the Old Testament. His astonishment, when he saw a slight-made, elegant-looking young man leap gaily from his carriage, with sparkling eyes and a smiling countenance, has been pleasantly described.

[72]Klopstock's Letters, p. 145.

[73]Klopstock's Letters.

[74]"I not being able to travel yet, my husband has been obliged to make a voyage to Copenhagen. He is yet absent; a cloud over my happiness! He will soon return; but what does that help? he is yet equally absent. We write to each other every post; but what are letters to presence? But I will speak no more of this little cloud, I will only tell my happiness. But I cannot tell you how I rejoice!—A son of my dear Klopstock's! O, when shall I have him?"—Memoirs, p. 99.

[75]Elizabeth Schmidt, married to the brother of Fanny Schmidt.

[76]Meta was buried with her infant in her arms, at Ottenson, near Altona. She had expressed a wish to have two passages from the Messiah, descriptive of the resurrection, inscribed on her coffin, but one only was engraved:—"Seed sown by God to ripen for the harvest."See Memoirs, p. 197.

"Seed sown by God to ripen for the harvest."

See Memoirs, p. 197.

[77]Translated by Elizabeth Smith, of whom it has been truly said, that she resembled Meta, and to whom we are indebted for her first introduction to English readers.

[78]Memoirs.

[79]Klopstock says of himself, "it is not my nature to be happy or miserable by halves: having once discarded melancholy, I am ready to welcome happiness."—Klopstock and his Friends, p. 164.

[80]Du zweifelst dass ich dich wie Meta liebe?Wie Meta lieb' Ich Done dich!Dies, saget dir mein hertz liebe volMein ganzes hertz! &c.

[80]

Du zweifelst dass ich dich wie Meta liebe?Wie Meta lieb' Ich Done dich!Dies, saget dir mein hertz liebe volMein ganzes hertz! &c.

It was as Burns'swifeas well as his early love, that Bonnie Jean lives immortalized in her poet's songs, and that her name is destined to float in music from pole to pole. When they first met, Burns was about six-and-twenty, and Jean Armour "but a young thing,"

Wi' tempting lips and roguish e'en,

the pride, the beauty, and the favourite toast of the village of Mauchline, where her father lived. To an early period of their attachment, or to the fond recollection of it in after times, we owe some of Burns's most beautiful and impassioned songs,—as

Come, let me take thee to this breast,And pledge we ne'er shall sunder!And I'll spurn as vilest dust,The world's wealth and grandeur, &c.

"O poortith cold and restless love;" "the kind love that's in her e'e;" "Lewis, what reck I by thee;" and many others. I conjecture, from a passage in one of Burns's letters, that Bonnie Jean also furnished the heroine and the subject of that admirable song, "O whistle, and I'll come to thee, my lad," so full of buoyant spirits and artless affection: it appears that she wished to have her name introduced into it, and that he afterwards altered the fourth line of the first verse to please her:—thus,

Thy Jeanie will venture wi' ye, my lad;

but this amendment has been rejected by singers and editors, as injuring the musical accentuation: the anecdote, however, and the introduction of the name, give an additional interest and a truth to the sentiment, for which I could be content to sacrifice the beauty of a single line; and methinks Jeanie had a right to dictate in this instance.[81]With regard to her personal attractions, Jean was at this time a blooming girl, animated with health, affection, and gaiety: the perfect symmetry of her slender figure; her light step in the dance; the "waist sae jimp," "the foot sae sma'," were no fancied beauties:—she had a delightful voice, and sung with much taste and enthusiasm the ballads of her native country; among which we may imagine that the songs of her lover were not forgotten. The consequences, however, of all this dancing, singing, and loving, were not quite so poetical as they were embarrassing.

O wha could prudence think upon,And sic a lassie by him?O wha could prudence think upon,And sae in love as I am?

Burns had long been distinguished in his rustic neighbourhood for his talents, for his social qualities and his conquests among the maidens of his own rank. His personal appearance is thus described from memory by Sir Walter Scott:—"His form was strong and robust, his manner rustic, not clownish; with a sort of dignified simplicity, whichreceived part of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents; * * * his eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament; it was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed, (I say, literally,glowed) when he spoke with feeling and interest;"—"his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark this;"[82]—and Allan Cunningham, speaking also from recollection, says, "he had a very manly countenance, and a very dark complexion; his habitual expression was intensely melancholy, but at the presence of those he loved or esteemed, his whole face beamed with affection and genius;"[83]—"his voice was very musical; and he excelled in dancing, and all athletic sports which required strength and agility."

Is it surprising that powers of fascination, which carried a Duchess "off her feet," should conquerthe heart of a country lass of low degree? Bonnie Jean was too soft-hearted, or her lover too irresistible; and though Burns stepped forward to repair their transgression by a written acknowledgment of marriage, which, in Scotland, is sufficient to constitute a legal union, still his circumstances, and his character as a "wild lad," were such, that nothing could appease her father's indignation; and poor Jean, when humbled and weakened by the consequences of her fault and her sense of shame, was prevailed on to destroy the document of her lover's fidelity to his vows, and to reject him.

Burns was nearly heart-broken by this dereliction, and between grief and rage was driven to the verge of insanity. His first thought was to fly the country; the only alternative which presented itself, "was America or a jail;" and such were the circumstances under which he wrote his "Lament," which, though not composed in his native dialect, is poured forth with all that energy and pathos which only truth could impart.

No idly feigned poetic pains,My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim;No shepherd's pipe—Arcadian strains,No fabled tortures, quaint and tame:The plighted faith—the mutual flame—The oft-attested powers above—The promised father's tender name—These were the pledges of my love! &c.

This was about 1786: two years afterwards, when the publication of his poems had given him name and fame, Burns revisited the scenes which his Jeanie had endeared to him: thus he sings exultingly,—

I'll aye ca' in by yon town,And by yon garden-green, again;I'll aye ca' in by yon town,And see my bonnie Jean again!

They met in secret; a reconciliation took place; and the consequences were, that bonnie Jean, being again exposed to the indignation of her family, was literally turned out of her father's house. When the news reached Burns he was lying ill; he was lame from the consequences of an accident,—themoment he could stir, he flew to her, went through the ceremony of marriage with her in presence of competent witnesses, and a few months afterwards he brought her to his new farm at Elliesland, and established her under his roof as his wife, and the honoured mother of his children.

It was during thissecond-handhoneymoon, happier and more endeared than many have proved in their first gloss, that Burns wrote several of the sweetest effusions ever inspired by his Jean; even in the days of their early wooing, and when their intercourse had all the difficulty, all the romance, all the mystery, a poetical lover could desire. Thus practically controverting his own opinion, "that conjugal love does not make such a figure in poesy as that other love," &c.—for instance, we have that most beautiful song, composed when he left his Jean at Ayr (in thewestof Scotland,) and had gone to prepare for her at Elliesland, near Dumfries.[84]

Of a' the airts the win' can blaw, I dearly love the west,For there the bonnie lassie lives, the lass that I love best!There wild woods grow and rivers row, and mony a hill between;But day and night, my fancy's flight is ever wi' my Jean!I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair—I hear her in the tuneful birds, wi' music charm the air.There's not a bonnie flower that springs by fountain, shaw, or green—There's not a bonnie bird that sings, but minds me o' my Jean.O blaw ye westlin winds, blaw soft among the leafy trees!Wi' gentle gale, fra' muir and dale, bring hame the laden bees!And bring the lassie back to me, that's aye sae sweet and clean,Ae blink o' her wad banish care, sae lovely is my Jean!What sighs and vows, amang the knowes, hae past between us twa!How fain to meet! how wae to part!—that day she gaed awa!The powers above can only ken, to whom the heart is seen,That none can be sae dear to me, as my sweet lovely Jean!

I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair—I hear her in the tuneful birds, wi' music charm the air.There's not a bonnie flower that springs by fountain, shaw, or green—There's not a bonnie bird that sings, but minds me o' my Jean.

O blaw ye westlin winds, blaw soft among the leafy trees!Wi' gentle gale, fra' muir and dale, bring hame the laden bees!And bring the lassie back to me, that's aye sae sweet and clean,Ae blink o' her wad banish care, sae lovely is my Jean!

What sighs and vows, amang the knowes, hae past between us twa!How fain to meet! how wae to part!—that day she gaed awa!The powers above can only ken, to whom the heart is seen,That none can be sae dear to me, as my sweet lovely Jean!

Nothing can be more lovely than the luxuriant, though rural imagery, the tone of placid but deep tenderness, which pervades this sweet song; and to feel all its harmony, it is not necessary to sing it—it is music in itself.

In November 1788, Mrs. Burns took up her residence at Elliesland, and entered on her duties as a wife and mistress of a family, and her husband welcomed her to her home ("her ain roof-tree,") with the lively, energetic, but rather unquotable song, "I hae a wife o' my ain;" and subsequently he wrote for her, "O were I on Parnassus Hill," and that delightful little bit of simple feeling—

She is a winsome wee thing,She is a handsome wee thing,She is a bonnie wee thing,This sweet wee wife of mine.I never saw a fairer,I never lo'ed a dearer,—And next my heart I'll wear her,For fear my jewel tine!

She is a winsome wee thing,She is a handsome wee thing,She is a bonnie wee thing,This sweet wee wife of mine.

I never saw a fairer,I never lo'ed a dearer,—And next my heart I'll wear her,For fear my jewel tine!

and one of the finest of all his ballads, "Their groves o' green myrtle," which not only presents a most exquisite rural picture to the fancy, but breathes the very soul of chastened and conjugal tenderness.

I remember, as a particular instance—I suppose there are thousands—of the tenacity with which Burns seizes on the memory, and twines round the very fibres of one's heart, that when I was travelling in Italy, along that beautiful declivity above the river Clitumnus, languidly enjoying the balmy air, and gazing with no careless eye on those scenes of rich and classical beauty, over which memory and fancy had shed

A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloudEnveloping the earth;

even then, by some strange association, a feeling of my childish years came over me, and all the livelong day I was singing,sotto voce—

Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon,Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green bracken,Wi' the burn stealing under the long yellow broom!Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers,Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen,For there, lightly tripping among the wild flowers,A' listening the linnet, oft wanders my Jean.

Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon,Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green bracken,Wi' the burn stealing under the long yellow broom!

Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers,Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen,For there, lightly tripping among the wild flowers,A' listening the linnet, oft wanders my Jean.

Thus the heath, and the blue-bell, and the gowan, had superseded the orange and the myrtle on those Elysian plains,

Where the crush'd weed sends forth a rich perfume.

And Burns and Bonnie Jean were in my heart and on my lips, on the spot where Virgil had sung, and Fabius and Hannibal met.

Besides celebrating her in verse, Burns has left us a description of his Bonnie Jean in prose. He writes (some months after his marriage) to his friend Miss Chalmers,—"If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the country. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that I amle plus bel esprit, et le plus honnête hommein the universe; although she scarcely ever, in her life, (except reading the Scriptures and the Psalms of David in metre) spent five minutes togetheron either prose or verse. I must except also a certain late publication of Scots Poems, which she has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads in the country, as she has (O, the partial lover! you will say) the finest woodnote-wild I ever heard."

After this, what becomes of the insinuation that Burns made an unhappy marriage,—that he was "compelled to invest her with the control of his life, whom he seems at first to have selected only for the gratification of a temporary inclination;" and, "that to this circumstance much of his misconduct is to be attributed?" Yet this, I believe, is a prevalent impression. Those whose hearts have glowed, and whose eyes have filled with delicious tears over the songs of Burns, have reason to be grateful to Mr. Lockhart, and to a kindred spirit, Allan Cunningham, for the generous feeling with which they have vindicated Burns and his Jean. Such aspersions are not only injurious to the dead and cruel to the living, but they do incalculable mischief:—they are food for the flippant scoffer at all that makes the'poetry of life.' They unsettle in gentler bosoms all faith in love, in truth, in goodness—(alas, such disbelief comes soon enough!) they chill and revolt the heart, and "take the rose from the fair forehead of an innocent love to set a blister there."

"That Burns," says Lockhart, "ever sank into a toper, that his social propensities ever interfered with the discharge of the duties of his office, or that, in spite of some transitory follies, he ever ceased to be a most affectionate husband—all these charges have been insinuated, and they are allfalse. His aberrations of all kinds were occasional, not systematic; they were the aberrations of a man whose moral sense was never deadened—of one who encountered more temptations from without and from within, than the immense majority of mankind, far from having to contend against, are even able to imagine," and who died in his thirty-sixth year, "ere he had reached that term of life up to which the passions of many have proved too strong for the control of reason, though their mortal career being regardedas a whole, they are honoured as among the most virtuous of mankind."

We are told also of "the conjugal and maternal tenderness, the prudence, and the unwearied forbearance of his Jean,"—and that she had much need of forbearance is not denied; but he ever found in her affectionate arms, pardon and peace, and a sweetness that only made the sense of his occasional delinquencies sting the deeper.

She still survives to hear her name, her early love, and her youthful charms, warbled in the songs of her native land. He, on whom she bestowed her beauty and her maiden truth, dying, has left to her the mantle of his fame. What though she be now a grandmother? to the fancy, she can never grow old, or die. We can never bring her before our thoughts but as the lovely, graceful country girl, "lightly tripping among the wild flowers," and warbling, "Of a' the airs the win' can blaw,"—and this, O women, is what genius can do for you! Wherever the adventurous spirit of her countrymen transport them, from the spicy groves of India to the wild banks of the Mississippi,the name of Bonnie Jean is heard, bringing back to the wanderer sweet visions of home, and of days of "Auld lang Syne." The peasant-girl sings it "at the ewe milking," and the high-born fair breathes it to her harp and her piano. As long as love and song shall survive, even those who have learned to appreciate the splendid dramatic music of Germany and Italy, who can thrill with rapture when Pasta

Queen and enchantress of the world of sound,Pours forth her soul in song;

or when Sontag

Carves out her dainty voice as readilyInto a thousand sweet distinguished tones,

eventheyshall still have a soul for the "Banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," still keep a corner of their hearts for truth and nature—and Burns's Bonnie Jean.

While my thoughts are yet with Burns,—his name before me,—my heart and my memory still under that spell of power which his genius flingsaround him, I will add a few words on the subject of his supernumerary loves; for he has celebrated few imaginary heroines. Of these rustic divinities, one of the earliest, and by far the most interesting, was Mary Campbell, (his "Highland Mary,") the object of the deepest passion Burns ever felt; the subject of some of his loveliest songs, and of the elegy "to Mary in Heaven."

Whatever this young girl may have been in person or condition, she must have possessed some striking qualities and charms to have inspired a passion so ardent, and regrets so lasting, in a man of Burns's character. She was not his first love, nor his second, nor his third; for from the age of sixteen there seems to have been no interregnum in his fancy. His heart, he says, was "completely tinder, and eternally lighted up by some goddess or other." His acquaintance with Mary Campbell began when he was about two or three and twenty: he was then residing at Mossgiel, with his brother, and she was a servant on a neighbouring farm. Their affection was reciprocal, and they were solemnly plighted to eachother. "We met," says Burns, "by appointment, on the second Sunday in May, in a sequestered spot by the banks of the Ayr, where we spent a day in taking a farewell, before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life." "This adieu," say Mr. Cromek, "was performed with all those simple and striking ceremonials which rustic sentiment has devised to prolong tender emotions and to impose awe. The lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook; they laved their hands in the stream, and holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other." This very Bible has recently been discovered in the possession of Mary Campbell's sister. On the boards of the Old Testament is inscribed, in Burns's handwriting, "And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, I am the Lord."—Levit.chap. xix. v. 12. On the boards of the New Testament, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths."—St. Matth.chap. v. v. 33., and hisown name in both. Soon afterwards, disasters came upon him, and he thought of going to try his fortune in Jamaica. Then it was, that he wrote the simple, wild, but powerful lyric, "Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary?"

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,And leave old Scotia's shore?Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,Across the Atlantic's roar?O sweet grows the lime and the orange,And the apple on the pine;But all the charms o' the IndiesCan never equal thine.I hae sworn by the heavens to my Mary,I hae sworn by the heavens to be true;And sae may the heavens forget meWhen I forget my vow!O plight me your faith, my Mary!And plight me your lily-white hand;O plight me your faith, my Mary,Before I leave Scotia's strand.We hae plighted our faith, my Mary,In mutual affection to join;And curst be the cause that shall part us—The hour, and the moment of time!

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,And leave old Scotia's shore?Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,Across the Atlantic's roar?

O sweet grows the lime and the orange,And the apple on the pine;But all the charms o' the IndiesCan never equal thine.

I hae sworn by the heavens to my Mary,I hae sworn by the heavens to be true;And sae may the heavens forget meWhen I forget my vow!

O plight me your faith, my Mary!And plight me your lily-white hand;O plight me your faith, my Mary,Before I leave Scotia's strand.

We hae plighted our faith, my Mary,In mutual affection to join;And curst be the cause that shall part us—The hour, and the moment of time!

As I have seen among the Alps the living stream rise, swelling and bubbling, from some cleft in the mountain's breast, then, with a broken and troubled impetuosity, rushing amain over all impediments,—then leaping, at a bound, into the abyss below; so this song seems poured forth out of the full heart, as if a gush of passion had broken forth, that could not be restrained; and so the feeling seems to swell and hurry through the lines, till it ends in one wild burst of energy and pathos—

And curst be the cause that shall part us—The hour, and the moment of time!

A few months after this "day of parting love," on the banks of the Ayr, Mary Campbell set off from Inverary to meet her lover, as I suppose, to take leave of him; for it should seem that no thoughts of a union could then be indulged.Having reached Greenock, she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried her to the grave in a few days; so that the tidings of her death reached her lover, before he could even hear of her illness. How deep and terrible was the shock to his strong and ardent mind,—how lasting the memory of this early love, is well known. Years after her death, he wrote the song of "Highland Mary."[85]

O pale, pale now those rosy lipsI oft hae kiss'd so fondly!And clos'd for aye the sparkling glanceThat dwelt on me sae kindly!And mouldering now in silent dust,The heart that lo'ed me dearly;But aye within my bosom's coreShall live my Highland Mary.

O pale, pale now those rosy lipsI oft hae kiss'd so fondly!And clos'd for aye the sparkling glanceThat dwelt on me sae kindly!

And mouldering now in silent dust,The heart that lo'ed me dearly;But aye within my bosom's coreShall live my Highland Mary.

The elegy to Mary in Heaven, was written about a year after his marriage, on the anniversary of the day on which he heard of the death of Mary Campbell. The account of the feelings and the circumstances under which it was composed, was taken from the recital of Bonnie Jean herself, and cannot be read without a thrill of emotion. "According to her, Burns had spent that day, though labouring under a cold, in the usual work of his harvest, and apparently in excellent spirits. But as the twilight deepened, he appeared to grow 'very sad about something,' and at length wandered out into the barn-yard, to which his wife, in her anxiety for his health, followed him, entreating him, in vain, to observe that frost had set in, and to return to his fire-side. On being again and again requested to do so, he always promised compliance, but still remained where he was, striding up and down slowly, and contemplating the sky, which was singularly clear and starry. At last, Mrs. Burns found him stretched on a heap of straw, with his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet, 'that shone like another moon,' and prevailed onhim to come in."[86]He complied; and immediately on entering the house wrote down, as they now stand, the stanzas "To Mary in Heaven."

Mary Campbell was a poor peasant-girl, whose life had been spent in servile offices, who could just spell a verse in her Bible, and could not write at all,—who walked barefoot to that meeting on the banks of the Ayr, which her lover has recorded. But Mary Campbell will live to memory while the music and the language of her country endure. Helen of Greece and the Carthage Queen are not more surely immortalised than this plebeian girl.—The scene of parting love, on the banks of the Ayr, that spot where "the golden hours, on angel-wings," hovered over Burns and his Mary, is classic ground; Vaucluse and Penshurst are not more lastingly consecrated: and like the copy of Virgil, in which Petrarch noted down the death of Laura, which many have made a pilgrimage but to look on, even such a relic shall be the Bible of Highland Mary. Some far-famedcollection shall be proud to possess it; and many hereafter shall gaze, with glistening eyes, on the handwriting ofhim,—who by the mere power of truth and passion, shall live in all hearts to the end of time.

Some other loves commemorated by Burns are not very interesting or reputable. "The lassie wi' the lint white locks," the heroine of many beautiful songs, was an erring sister, who, as she was the object of a poet's admiration, shall be suffered to fade into a shadow. The subject of the song,

Had we never lov'd sae kindly—Had we never lov'd sae blindly—Never met—or never parted—We had ne'er been broken-hearted,

was also real, and I am afraid, a person of the same description. Of these four lines, Sir Walter Scott has said, "that they were worth a thousand romances;" and not only so, but they are in themselves a complete romance. They are thealphaandomegaof feeling; and contain the essence ofan existence of pain and pleasure, distilled into one burning drop. Of almost all his songs, the heroines are real, though we must not suppose he was in love with them all,—that were too unconscionable; but he sometimes sought inspiration, and found it, where he could not have hoped any farther boon. In one of his letters to Mr. Thompson, for whose collection of Scottish airs he was then adapting words, he says, "Whenever I want to be more than ordinaryin song, to be in some degree equal to your divine airs, do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation?—tout au contraire. I have a glorious recipe, the very one that, for his own use, was invented by the divinity of healing and poetry, when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus,—I put myself on a regimen of admiring a fine woman."

Thus, the original blue eyes which inspired that sweet song, "Her ee'n sae bonnie blue," belonged to a Miss Jeffreys, now married, and living at New York. We owe "She's fair and she's false," to the fickleness of a Miss Jane Stuart,who, it is said, jilted the poet's friend, Alexander Cunningham.—"The bonnie wee thing," was a very little, very lovely creature, a Miss Davies; and the song, it has been well said, is as brief and as beautiful as the lady herself. The heroine of "O saw ye bonnie Leslie," is now Mrs. Cumming of Logie: Mrs. Dugald Stewart, herself a delightful poetess, inspired the pastoral song of Afton Water; and every woman has an interest in "Green grow the Rushes." All the compliments that were ever paid us by the other sex, in prose and verse, may be summed up in Burns's line,

What signifies the life o' man, an' 't were na for the lasses O?

It were, however, an endless task to give a list of his heroines; and those who are curious about the personal history of the poet, of which his songs are "part and parcel," must be referred to higher and more general sources of information.[87]

Burns used to say, after he had been introducedinto society above his own rank in life, that he saw nothing in thegentlemenmuch superior to what he had been accustomed to; but that a refined and elegant woman was a being of whom he could have formed no previous idea. This, I think, will explain, if it does not excuse, the characteristic freedom of some of his songs. His love is ardent and sincere, and it is expressed with great poetic power, and often with the most exquisite pathos; but still it is the love of a peasant for a peasant, and he wooes his rustic beauties in a style of the most entire equality and familiarity. It is not the homage of one who waited, a suppliant, on the throne of triumphant beauty. "He drew no magic circle of lofty and romantic thought around those he loved, which could not be passed without lowering them from stations little lower than the angels."[88]Still, his faults against taste and propriety are far fewer and lighter than might have been expected from his habits; and as he acknowledged that he could have formed no idea of a woman refined by highbreeding and education, we cannot be surprised if he sometimes committed solecisms of which he was scarcely aware. For instance, he met a young lady (Miss Alexander, of Ballochmyle,) walking in her father's grounds, and struck by her charms and elegance, he wrote in her honour his well known song, "The lovely lass of Ballochmyle," and sent it to her. He was astonished and offended that no notice was taken of it; but really, a young lady, educated in a due regard for theconvenancesand thebienséancesof society, may be excused, if she was more embarrassed than flattered by the homage of a poet, who talked, at the first glance, of "clasping her to his bosom." It was rather precipitating things.

FOOTNOTES:[81]"A Dame whom the graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom the loves have armed with lightning—a fair one—herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment—and dispute her commands if you dare!"—Burns's Letters.[82]Lockhart's Life of Burns, p. 153.[83]Life of Burns, p. 268.[84]Life of Burns, p. 247.[85]Beginning,—"Ye banks and braes and streams aroundThe castle o' Montgomerie."As the works of Burns are probably in the hands of all who will read this little book, those who have not his finest passages by heart, can easily refer to them. I felt it therefore superfluous to give at length the songs alluded to.[86]Lockhart's Life of Burns.[87]To the "Reliques of Burns, by Cromek;" to the Edition of the Scottish Songs, with notes, by Allan Cunningham; and to Lockhart's Life of Burns.[88]Allan Cunningham.

[81]"A Dame whom the graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom the loves have armed with lightning—a fair one—herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment—and dispute her commands if you dare!"—Burns's Letters.

[82]Lockhart's Life of Burns, p. 153.

[83]Life of Burns, p. 268.

[84]Life of Burns, p. 247.

[85]Beginning,—"Ye banks and braes and streams aroundThe castle o' Montgomerie."As the works of Burns are probably in the hands of all who will read this little book, those who have not his finest passages by heart, can easily refer to them. I felt it therefore superfluous to give at length the songs alluded to.

[85]Beginning,—

"Ye banks and braes and streams aroundThe castle o' Montgomerie."

As the works of Burns are probably in the hands of all who will read this little book, those who have not his finest passages by heart, can easily refer to them. I felt it therefore superfluous to give at length the songs alluded to.

[86]Lockhart's Life of Burns.

[87]To the "Reliques of Burns, by Cromek;" to the Edition of the Scottish Songs, with notes, by Allan Cunningham; and to Lockhart's Life of Burns.

[88]Allan Cunningham.

Monti, who is lately dead, will at length be allowed to take the place which belongs to him among the great names of his country. A poet is ill calculated to play the part of a politician; and the praise and blame which have been so profusely and indiscriminately heaped on Monti while living, must be removed by time and dispassionate criticism, before justice can be done to him, either as a man or a poet. The mingled grace and energy of his style obtained him the name ofil Dante grazioso, and he has left behind him somethingstriking in every possible form of composition,—lyric, dramatic, epic, and satirical.

Amid all the changes of his various life, and all the trying vicissitudes of spirits—the wear and tear of mind which attend a poet by profession, tasked to almost constant exertion, Monti possessed two enviable treasures;—a lovely and devoted wife, with a soul which could appreciate his powers and talents, and exult in his fame; and a daughter equally amiable, and yet more beautiful and highly gifted. He has immortalised both; and has left us delightful proofs of the charm and the glory which poetry can throw round the purest and most hallowed relations of domestic life.

When Monti was a young man at Rome, caressed by popes and nephews of popes, and with the most brilliant ecclesiastical preferment opening before him, all his views in life were at oncebouleverséby a passion, which does sometimes in real life play the part assigned to it in romance—trampling on interest and ambition, and mocking at Cardinals' hats and tiaras. Monti fell into love, and fell out of the good graces of his patrons: hethrew off the habit of anabbate,[89]married his Teresa, in spite of the world and fortune; and instead of an aspiring priest, became a great poet.

Teresa Pichler was the daughter of Pichler, the celebrated gem engraver. I have heard her described, by those who knew her in her younger years, as one of the most beautiful creatures in the world. Brought up in the studio of her father, in whom the spirit of ancient art seemed to have revived for modern times, Teresa's mind as well as person had caught a certain impress of antique grace, from the constant presence of beautiful and majestic forms: but her favourite study was music, in which she was a proficient; her voice and her harp made as many conquests as her faultless figure and her bright eyes. After her marriage she did not neglect her favourite art; and she, whose talent had charmed Zingarelli and Guglielmi, was accustomed, in their hours of domestic privacy, to soothe, to enchant, to inspire, her husband. Monti, in one of his poems, has tenderly commemorated her musical powers. Hecalls on his wife during a period of persecution, poverty and despondency, to touch her harp, and, as she was wont, rouse his sinking spirit, and unlock the source of nobler thoughts.

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