The Letters of Robert Burns | Page 8

inspiration and faculty of utterance unimpaired. It was in Dumfriesshire
that he composed the most tenderly and melodiously seraphic of his
lyrics--"To Mary in Heaven" and "Highland Mary;" the most powerful
and popular of his narrative poems--"Tam O' Shanter;" the first of all
patriotic odes--"Bruce's Address to his Army"; and the noblest
manifesto of the rights and hopes of manhood--"A Man's a Man for a'
that."
With one word on his style as a prose-writer this short paper must close.
The most diverse opinions have been uttered on the subject. The critics
trip up each other with charming independency. To Jeffrey they seemed
to be "all composed as exercises and for display." Carlyle declared that
they were written "for the most part with singular force and even

gracefulness," and that when Burns wrote "to trusted friends on real
interests, his style became simple, vigorous, expressive, sometimes
even beautiful." Dr. Waddell prefers him to Cowper and Byron as a
letter-writer. Scott, while allowing passages of great eloquence, found
in the letters "strong marks of affectation, with a tincture of pedantry."
Taine thinks "Burns brought ridicule on himself by imitating the men
of the academy and the court." Lockhart thought, with Walker, that "he
accommodated his style to the tastes" of his correspondents. And so on.
It is worth while to learn from Burns himself what he thought of his
talent for prose-composition. And in the first place it is to be noted that
he practised prose-composition before he took to poetry. At sixteen he
was carrying on an extensive literary correspondence, which was
virtually a competition in essay-writing. He kept copies of the letters he
liked best, and was flattered to find that he was superior to his
correspondents. He studied the essayists of Queen Anne's time, and
formed his style upon theirs, and that of their most distinguished
followers. Steele, Addison, Swift, Sterne, and Mackenzie were his
models. He liked their rounded sentences, and caught their
conventional phrases. He found delight in imitating them. He
volunteered his services with the pen on behalf of his fellow-swains.
He became the "Complete Letter-Writer" of his parish, and was proud
of his function and his faculty. He was aware of his "abilities at a
billet-doux." To the very last he had a high opinion of himself as a
writer of letters. He speaks of one letter being in his "very best
manner;" and of waiting for an hour of inspiration to write another that
should be as good. He retained copies of about thirty of his longer
letters, and had them bound for preservation.
The most serious, almost the only charge brought against the prose
style of Burns is the charge of affectation more or less occasional. All
the earlier critics make it or imply it, and with such an apparent show
of proof that it has generally been believed. Later critics, while unable
to deny the feature of his style which so looks like affectation, have
explained it to such good effect as to make it appear a beauty; they
have asked us to regard it as the happy result of a sympathetic mind
adapting itself to the object of its address. This looks very like blaming

Burns's correspondents for the badness of his style. There is some truth
in the explanation, putting it even so extremely. But when this
allowance is made, there still remains a wide and well-marked
difference between his use of English prose and his mastery of Scottish
verse. The latter is complete--it is the mastery of an originator of style.
The former, on the other hand, is the attainment of a clever pupil when
the sentiment is commonplace; when it is deep and vehement, it is
often, in the language of Carlyle, "the effort of a man to express
something which he has no organ fit for expressing." Common people,
to whom niceties of style are unknown, and who read primarily or
exclusively for the sake of the matter, perceive nothing of this
affectation, and think scarcely less highly of Burns's letters than they do
of his poetry.
J. LOGIE ROBERTSON.
7 LOCKHARTON TERRACE, SLATEFORD, EDINBURGH.
[Footnote a: This is really the exposure of an absurdity.]
[Footnote b: By Jeffrey.]
[Footnote c: Dr. Hately Waddell.]
[Footnote d: See, for example, the Cheese Letter to Peter Hill, or the
Snail's-horns Letter to Mrs. Dunlop.]
[Footnote e: Mr. R. L. Stevenson.]

GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE.
LETTERS
I.--To ELLISON OR ALISON BEGBIE (?) [1]
What you may think of this letter when you see the name that
subscribes it I cannot know; and perhaps I ought to make a long preface

of apologies for the freedom I am going to take; but as my heart means
no offence, but, on the contrary, is rather too warmly interested in your
favour,--for that reason I hope