網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

and independent sentiments, which I hope have been found in the man. Reasons of no less weight than the support of a wife and children, have pointed my present occupation as the only eligible line of life within my reach. Still my honest fame is my dearest concern, and a thousand times have I trembled at the idea of the degrading epithets that malice or misrepresentation may affix to my name. Often, in blasting anticipation, have I listened to some future hackney scribbler, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity, exultingly asserting, that Burns, notwithstanding the fanfaronade of independence to be found in his works, and after being held up to public view, and to public estimation, as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources within himself to support his borrowed dignity, dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk out the rest of his insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the lowest of mankind.

"In your illustrious hands, sir, permit me to lodge my strong disavowal and defiance of such slanderous falsehoods. BURNS WAS A POOR MAN FROM HIS BIRTH, AND AN EXCISEMAN BY NECESSITY; BUT-I WILL SAY IT! -I WILL SAY IT! THE STERLING OF HIS HONEST WORTH, POVERTY COULD NOT Debase, anD HIS INDEPENDENT BRITISH SPIRIT, OPPRESSION MIGHT BEND, BUT COULD NOT SUBDUE.”

It was one of the last acts of his life to copy this heartrending letter into a book which he kept for the purpose of recording such circumstances as he thought worthy of preservation. Upwards of a year before his death, there was an evident decline in his personal appearance; and though his appetite continued unimpaired, he was himself sensible that his constitution was sinking. From October, 1795, to the January following, an accidental complaint confined him to the house. A few days after he began to go abroad, he dined at a tavern, and returned home about three o'clock in a very cold morning, benumbed and intoxicated. This was followed by an attack of rheumatism, which confined him about a week. His appetite began to

fail, his hand shook, and his voice faltered on any exertion or emotion; his pulse became weaker and more rapid, and pain in the larger joints, and in the hands and feet, deprived him of sleep. In the month of June, 1796, he removed to Brow, in Annandale, about ten miles from Dumfries, to try the effects of sea-bathing. Here he was invited to dinner by a lady in the neighborhood; and, as he was unable to walk, she sent her carriage for him to the cottage where he lodged. As he entered her apartment, the stamp of death seemed imprinted on his features. He appeared already touching the brink of eternity. His first salutation was, "Well, madam, have you any commands for the other world? He ate little, and complained of having entirely lost the tone of his stomach. He spoke of his death without any of the ostentation of philosophy, but with firmness and feeling, as an event likely to happen very soon. His anxiety for his family hung heavy upon him; and when he alluded to their approaching desolation, his heart was touched with pure and unmingled sorrow. At first he imagined that bathing in the sea had been of benefit to him; the pains in his limbs were relieved; but this was immediately followed by a new attack of fever. When brought back to his own house in Dumfries, on the 18th of July, he was no longer able to stand upright. A tremor pervaded his frame; his tongue was parched, and his mind fell into a delirium, when not roused by conversation. On the second and third day the fever increased, and his strength diminished. On the fourth, the sufferings of this great, but ill-fated, genius were terminated; and a life was closed, which had been embittered by suffering, and insulted by unmerited cal

umny.

When his death was known, it excited a deep and mournful sensation. It was felt as a loss which no earthly power could replace; as the extinction of a prodigy whose appearance was rare and uncertain. He was lamented, not merely like a common individual, by friends and reigh

bors, but by a whole country, whose pleasures he had an exclusive capacity to augment.

He left a widow and four sons. The ceremonial of his interment was accompanied with military honors, not only by the corps of Dumfries volunteers, of which he was a member, but by the Fencible infantry, and a regiment of Cinque Port cavalry then quartered in Dumfries. On the same day, by a coincidence singularly touching, Mrs. Burns was delivered of a son, who did not long survive his father.

Burns was nearly five feet ten inches in height, and of a form that indicated agility as well as strength. His well-raised forehead, shaded with black, curling hair, expressed uncommon capacity. His eyes were large, dark, full of ardor, and animation. His face was well-formed, and his countenance strikingly interesting.

Of his general behavior, every one spoke in the highest terms. It usually bespoke a mind conscious of superior talents, not however unmixed with the affections which beget familiarity and affability. His conversation was extremely fascinating; rich in wit, humor, whim, and occasionally in serious and apposite reflection. No man had a quicker apprehension of right and wrong, or a stronger sense of what was ridiculous and mean. Neither chicanery nor sordidness ever appeared in his conduct Even in the midst of distress, while his feeling heart sunk under the secret consciousness of indigence, and the apprehensions of absolute want, he bore himself loftily to the world. He died in the utmost penury, but not in debt; and left behind him a name which will be remembered as long as departed worth and goodness are esteemed among

men.

After contemplating the melancholy story of his life, it is impossible not to heave a sigh at the asperity of his fortune, while we reprobate the conduct of those who drew nim from the simplicity of humble life, and left him a prey to anxiety and want, to sorrow and despair.

Of his poems, which have been so often printed and so eagerly read, it is unnecessary to enter into a critical examination. All readers of taste and sensibility assign him the first place among the poets of his country; and acknowledge the presence of that "light from heaven" which consecrates and eternizes every monument of genius.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

THE following trifles are not the production of the poet who, with all the advantages of learned art, and perhaps amid the elegances and idleness of upper life, looks down for a rural theme, with an eye to Theocritus or Virgil. To the author of this, these and other celebrated names. their countrymen, are, at least in their original language, a fountain shut up, and a book sealed. Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing poetry by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself, and his rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language. Though a rhymer from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulses of the softer passions, it was not till very lately that the applause, perhaps the partiality of friendship, wakened his vanity so far as to make him think any thing of his worth showing; and none of the following works were composed with a view to the press. To amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the tcil and fatigues of a laborious life; to transcribe the various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears, in his own breast; to find some kin1 of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, always an alien scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind, — these were his motives for courting the muses, and in these he found Poetry to be its own reward.

Now that he appears in the public character of an au

« 上一頁繼續 »