No More Learning

In these communications we observe how
little his border-jaunt among the fountains of ancient song
contributed either of sentiment or allusion, to his lyrics; and how
deeply his strains, whether of pity or of merriment, were coloured by
what he had seen, and heard, and felt in the Highlands. In truth, all
that lay beyond the Forth was an undiscovered land to him; while the
lowland districts were not only familiar to his mind and eye, but all
their more romantic vales and hills and streams were already musical
in songs of such excellence as induced him to dread failure rather
than hope triumph. Moreover, the Highlands teemed with jacobitical
feelings, and scenes hallowed by the blood or the sufferings of men
heroic, and perhaps misguided; and the poet, willingly yielding to an
impulse which was truly romantic, and believed by thousands to be
loyal, penned his songs on Drumossie, and Killiecrankie, as the
spirit of sorrow or of bitterness prevailed. Though accompanied,
during his northern excursions, by friends whose socialities and
conversation forbade deep thought, or even serious remark, it will be
seen by those who read his lyrics with care, that his wreath is
indebted for some of its fairest flowers to the Highlands.

The second winter of the poet's abode in Edinburgh had now arrived: it
opened, as might have been expected, with less rapturous welcomes and
with more of frosty civility than the first. It must be confessed,
that indulgence in prolonged socialities, and in company which, though
clever, could not be called select, contributed to this; nor must it
be forgotten that his love for the sweeter part of creation was now
and then carried beyond the limits of poetic respect, and the
delicacies of courtesy; tending to estrange the austere and to lessen
the admiration at first common to all. Other causes may be assigned
for this wane of popularity: he took no care to conceal his contempt
for all who depended on mere scholarship for eminence, and he had a
perilous knack in sketching with a sarcastic hand the characters of
the learned and the grave. Some indeed of the high literati of the
north--Home, the author of Douglas, was one of them--spoke of the poet
as a chance or an accident: and though they admitted that he was a
poet, yet he was not one of settled grandeur of soul, brightened by
study. Burns was probably aware of this; he takes occasion in some of
his letters to suggest, that the hour may be at hand when he shall be
accounted by scholars as a meteor, rather than a fixed light, and to
suspect that the praise bestowed on his genius was partly owing to the
humility of his condition. From his lingering so long about Edinburgh,
the nobility began to dread a second volume by subscription, the
learned to regard him as a fierce Theban, who resolved to carry all
the outworks to the temple of Fame without the labour of making
regular approaches; while a third party, and not the least numerous,
looked on him with distrust, as one who hovered between Jacobite and
Jacobin; who disliked the loyal-minded, and loved to lampoon the
reigning family. Besides, the marvel of the inspired ploughman had
begun to subside; the bright gloss of novelty was worn off, and his
fault lay in his unwillingness to see that he had made all the sport
which the Philistines expected, and was required to make room for some
"salvage" of the season, to paw, and roar, and shake the mane. The
doors of the titled, which at first opened spontaneous, like those in
Milton's heaven, were now unclosed for him with a tardy courtesy: he
was received with measured stateliness, and seldom requested to repeat
his visit. Of this changed aspect of things he complained to a friend:
but his real sorrows were mixed with those of the fancy:--he told Mrs.
Dunlop with what pangs of heart he was compelled to take shelter in a
corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should
mangle him in the mire. In this land of titles and wealth such
querulous sensibilities must have been frequently offended.
Burns, who had talked lightly hitherto of resuming the plough, began
now to think seriously about it, for he saw it must come to that at
last. Miller, of Dalswinton, a gentleman of scientific acquirements,
and who has the merit of applying the impulse of steam to navigation,
had offered the poet the choice of his farms, on a fair estate which
he had purchased on the Nith: aided by a westland farmer, he selected
Ellisland, a beautiful spot, fit alike for the steps of ploughman or
poet. On intimating this to the magnates of Edinburgh, no one lamented
that a genius so bright and original should be driven to win his bread
with the sweat of his brow: no one, with an indignant eye, ventured to
tell those to whom the patronage of this magnificent empire was
confided, that they were misusing the sacred trust, and that posterity
would curse them for their coldness or neglect: neither did any of the
rich nobles, whose tables he had adorned by his wit, offer to enable
him to toil free of rent, in a land of which he was to be a permanent
ornament;--all were silent--all were cold--the Earl of Glencairn
alone, aided by Alexander Wood, a gentleman who merits praise oftener
than he is named, did the little that was done or attempted to be done
for him: nor was that little done on the peer's part without
solicitation:--"I wish to go into the excise;" thus he wrote to
Glencairn; "and I am told your lordship's interest will easily procure
me the grant from the commissioners: and your lordship's patronage and
goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness,
and exile, emboldens me to ask that interest. You have likewise put it
in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered an aged
mother, two brothers, and three sisters from destruction. I am ill
qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of
solicitation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold
promise as the cold denial. " The farm and the excise exhibit the
poet's humble scheme of life: the money of the one, he thought, would
support the toil of the other, and in the fortunate management of
both, he looked for the rough abundance, if not the elegancies
suitable to a poet's condition.

While Scotland was disgraced by sordidly allowing her brightest genius
to descend to the plough and the excise, the poet hastened his
departure from a city which had witnessed both his triumph and his
shame: he bade farewell in a few well-chosen words to such of the
classic literati--the Blairs, the Stewarts, the Mackenzies, and the
Tytlers--as had welcomed the rustic bard and continued to countenance
him; while in softer accents he bade adieu to the Clarindas and
Chlorises of whose charms he had sung, and, having wrung a settlement
from Creech, he turned his steps towards Mossgiel and Mauchline. He
had several reasons, and all serious ones, for taking Ayrshire in his
way to the Nith: he desired to see his mother, his brothers and
sisters, who had partaken of his success, and were now raised from
pining penury to comparative affluence: he desired to see those who
had aided him in his early struggles into the upper air--perhaps
those, too, who had looked coldly on, and smiled at his outward
aspirations after fame or distinction; but more than all, he desired
to see one whom he once and still dearly loved, who had been a
sufferer for his sake, and whom he proposed to make mistress of his
fireside and the sharer of his fortunes. Even while whispering of love
to Charlotte Hamilton, on the banks of the Devon, or sighing out the
affected sentimentalities of platonic or pastoral love in the ear of
Clarinda, his thoughts wandered to her whom he had left bleaching her
webs among the daisies on Mauchline braes--she had still his heart,
and in spite of her own and her father's disclamation, she was his
wife. It was one of the delusions of this great poet, as well as of
those good people, the Armours, that the marriage had been dissolved
by the destruction of the marriage-lines, and that Robert Burns and
Jean Armour were as single as though they had neither vowed nor
written themselves man and wife. Be that as it may, the time was come
when all scruples and obstacles were to be removed which stood in the
way of their union: their hands were united by Gavin Hamilton,
according to law, in April, 1788: and even the Reverend Mr. Auld, so
mercilessly lampooned, smiled forgivingly as the poet satisfied a
church wisely scrupulous regarding the sacred ceremony of marriage.

Though Jean Armour was but a country lass of humble degree, she had
sense and intelligence, and personal charms sufficient not only to win
and fix the attentions of the poet, but to sanction the praise which
he showered on her in song. In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, he thus
describes her: "The most placid good nature and sweetness of
disposition, a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to
love me; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the
best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure: these I think
in a woman may make a good wife, though she should never have read a
page but the Scriptures, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than
a penny-pay wedding. " To the accomplished Margaret Chalmers, of
Edinburgh, he adds, to complete the picture, "I have got the
handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and
kindest heart in the country: a certain late publication of Scots'
poems she has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads in the land,
as she has the finest wood-note wild you ever heard.