Their tinct apprehension, a most powerful understand. ing, and a happy command of language — of strength as well as brilliancy of expression -- we shall be able to account for the extraordinary attractions of his conversation - for the sorcery which, in his social parties, he seemed to exert on all around him. In the company of women, this Sorcery was more especially apparent. presence charmed the fiend of melancholy in his bosom, and awoke his happiest feelings; it excited the powers of his fancy, as well as the tenderness of his heart; and by restraining the vehemence and the exuberance of his language, at times gave to his manners the impression of taste, and even of elegance, which in the company of men they seldom possessed. This influence was doubtless reciprocal. A Scottish lady accustomed to the best society, declared with characteristic naïveté, that no man's conversation ever carried her so completely off her feet, as that of Burns;1 and an English lady, familiarly acquainted with several of the most distinguished characters of the present times, assured the editor, that in the happiest of his social hours, there was a charm about Burns which she had never seen equalled.' This charm arose not more from the power than the versatility of his genius. No languor could be felt in the society of a man who passed at 1 It has been stated that this lady was Jane, Duchess of Gordon. 2 Mrs. Walter Riddel is here meant. pleasure from grave to gay, from the ludicrous to the pathetic, from the simple to the sublime; who wielded all his faculties with equal strength and ease, and never failed to impress the offspring of his fancy with the stamp of his understanding. "This, indeed, is to represent Burns in his happiest phasis. In large and mixed parties, he was often silent and dark, sometimes fierce and overbearing; he was jealous of the proud man's scorn, jealous to an extreme of the insolence of wealth, and prone to avenge, even on its innocent possessor, the partiality of fortune. By nature, kind, brave, sincere, and in a singular degree compassionate, he was, on the other hand, proud, irascible, and vindictive. His virtues and his failings had their origin in the extraordinary sensibility of his mind, and equally partook of the chills and glows of sentiment. His friendships were liable to interruption from jealousy or disgust, and his enmities died away under the influence of pity or self-accusation. His understanding was equal to the other powers of his mind, and his deliberate opinions were singularly candid and just; but, like other men of great and irreg ular genius, the opinions which he delivered in conversation were often the offspring of temporary feelings, and widely different from the calm decisions of his judgment. This was not merely true respecting the characters of others, but in regard to some of the most important points of human speculation." PREFACE ΤΟ THE FIRST EDITION OF BURNS'S POEMS [THE first editior of Burns's poetry was published at Kilmarnock towards the end of July, 1786, with the title, Poems, chiefly in the Scot tish Dialect, by Robert Burns, and the motto: "The Simple Bard, unbroke to rules of art, Hers all the melting thrill, and hers the kindling fire." ANONYMOUS. It contained the following pieces: - The Twa Dogs Scotch Drink The Author's Earnest The Holy Fair- - Address to Mailie - To J. S**** [Smith] - A Cry and Prayer the Deil Dream - The Vision- Halloween - The Auld Farmer's New-year Morning's Salutation to his Auld Mare Maggie The Cotter's Saturday Night -To a Mouse - Epistle to Davie — The Loment Despondency, an Ode Man was Made to Mourn Winter, a Dirge - A Prayer in the Prospect of Death To a Mountain Daisy - To Ruin - Epistle to a Young Friend - On A Ded a Scotch Bard gone to the West Indies ication to G**** H*******, Esq. To a Louse Epistle to J. L******, an old Scots Bard - To the Same tree -- Epistle to W. S******, OchilEpistle to J. R****** Song, "It was upon a Lammas Night" - Song, "Now Westlin' Winds Song, "From thee, Eliza, I must go' The Farewell to the Brethren of St. James's Lodge, Torbolton - Epitaphs and Epigrams — A Bard's Epitaph. It was introduced by the following preface: -] "The following trifles are not the production of the poet, who, with all the advantages of learned art, and perhaps amid the elegances and idlenesses 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, in their original languages, a fountain shut up, and a book sealed. Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing poet 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'hing of his worth shewing; and none of the fol lowing works were ever composed with a view to the press. To amuse himself with the little cre ations of his own fancy, amid the toil and fatigues of a laborous life; to transcribe the various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears in his own breast; to find some kind 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 author, he does it with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even he, an obscure, nameless bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being branded as an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the world; and because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel Scotch rhymes together, looks upon himself as a poet of no small consequence forsooth! "It is an observation of that celebrated poet1 whose divine elegies do honour to our language, our nation, and our species, that Humility has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised one to fame!' If any critic catches at the word genius, the author tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities, otherwise his publishing in the manner he has done would be a manœuvre below the worst character which, he hopes, his 1 Shenstone. |