DUGALD STEWART'S MONUMENT
We have, however, a more agreeable picture of the visitor on another occasion when he walked out into the country with Dugald Stewart in a spring morning to the hills of Braid and talked that gentle philosopher's heart away, not now about Edina's palaces and towers. "He told me ... that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind which none could understand who had not witnessed like himself the happiness and worth which they contained." It is more pleasant to think of the poet's dark eyes lighting up as he said this than to watch him proud and self-possessed in the drawing-rooms holding his own, taking such good care that nobody should divine how his heart was beating and his nerves athrill.
But after all there is no such account given of this wonderful visitor to Edinburgh as that we have from the after-recollections of a certain "lameter" boy who was once present in a house where Burns was a guest. The Scott boys from George Square had been admitted to the party which they were too young to join in an ordinary way, in order that they might see this wonder of the world, the ploughman-poet who was not afraid, but behaved as well as any of the gentlemen. And it befell by the happiest chance that Burns inquired who was the author of certain verses inscribed upon a print which he had been looking at. No one knew but young Walter, who we may be sure had not lost a look or a word of the stranger, and who had read everything in his invalid childhood. The boy was not bold enough to answer the question loud out, but he whispered it to some older friend, who told the poet, no doubt with an indication of the blushing and eager lad from whom it came, which procured him a word and a look never forgotten. But there passed at the same time a thought through young Walter's mind, the swift reflection of that never-failing criticism of youth which pierces unaware through all wrappings and veils of the soul. "I remember I thought Burns's acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited; and also that having twenty times the ability of Allan Ramsay and of Fergusson, he talked of them with too much humility as his models." The much-read boy was a little shocked, no doubt disturbed in his secret soul that the poet—so far above any other poet that was to be seen about the world in those days—should not have known that verse: though indeed men better read than Burns might have been excused for their want of acquaintance with a minor poet like Langhorne; but how true was the indignant observation, half angry, that with "twenty times the ability" it was Allan Ramsay and the still less important unfortunate young Fergusson to whom Burns looked up! Did the boy wonder perhaps, though too loyal to say it—for criticism at his age is always keen—whether there might be a something not quite real in that devotion, and ask in the recesses of his mind whether it was possible for such a man to be so self-deceived?
There were no doubt various affectations about Burns, as when he talks big in his diary of observing character and finding this pursuit the greatest entertainment of his life in Edinburgh, with a pretension very general among half-educated persons: but there is no reason to believe that he was not quite genuine about his predecessors. A poet is not necessarily a critic; and Allan Ramsay's fame had been exactly of the popular kind which would attract a son of the soil, whereas Fergusson was the object of Burns's especial tenderness, pity, and regard. And it is touching to recollect that the only sign he left of himself in Edinburgh, where for the first time he learned what it was to mix in fine company and to feel the freedom of money in his pocket, from which he could afford a luxury, was to place a stone over the grave of Fergusson in the Canongate Churchyard, where he lay unknown. His application to the Kirk-Session for leave to do this is still kept upon the books—a curious interruption amid the minutes of church discipline and economics. One wonders if that homely memorial is kept as it ought to be. It is a memorial not only of the admiration of one poet for another, but of Burns's poignant pity—a wellnigh intolerable pang—for a young soul who preceded himself in the way of poetry and despair, one whose life, destined to better and brighter things, had been flung away like a weed on the dismal strand. Only twenty-three years of poetry and folly had sufficed that other reckless boy to destroy himself and shatter his little lamp of light. Burns was only a few years older, and perhaps, though on the heights of triumph, felt something of that horrible tide already catching his own feet to sweep him too into the abyss. There are few things in the world more pathetic than this tribute of his to the victim who had gone before him.
I may perhaps venture to say, with an apology for recurring to a subject dealt with in another book, that this poetic visit to Edinburgh reminds me of the visit of another poet in every way very different from Burns to another city which cannot be supposed to resemble Edinburgh except in the wonderful charm and attraction for devotees which she possesses. There is indeed no just comparison between Petrarch at Venice and Burns at Edinburgh, nothing but the fantastic link, often too subtle to be traced, which makes the mind glide or leap over innumerable distances and diversities from one thing to another. The Italian poet came conferring glory, great as a prince, and attended by much the same honours and privileges, though he was but a half priest, the son of an exile, in an age and place where birth and family were of infinitely more importance than they are now. He was the perfection and flower of learning and high culture, and a fame which had reached the point which is high-fantastical, and can mount no farther—and he came to a palace allotted to him by the Government, and every distinction which it was in their power to bestow, and demeaned himself en bon prince, adorning with skilful eloquent touches of description the glorious scene beneath his windows, the pageants at which he was an honoured spectator. Nothing could be more unlike the young, shy, proud, yet genial-hearted rustic, holding firmly by that magic wand of poetry which was his sole right to consideration, and facing the curious, puzzled, patronising world with a certain suspicion, a certain defiance, as of one whom no craft or wile could betray or pretension daunt—yet ready to melt into an enthusiasm almost extravagant when a lovely young woman or a noble youth pushed open with a touch the door always ajar, or at least unfastened, of his heart.
"The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!"
What Glencairn had done was nothing but kindness, a warm reception which not even the poet's susceptibility could think condescending: but he is repaid with an exuberant, extravagant gratitude. Such was the man; ever afraid to compromise his dignity, but with no measure for the overflowings of his heart. Petrarch, so much more assured in his eminence and superiority to all living poets, was driven from his palace on the Riva and all his delights by the impertinent gibes of some foolish young men. But Burns was flattered and caressed to the top of his bent, and—forgotten, or at least dropped, and no more thought of. He returned to Edinburgh only to find that, the gloss of novelty having worn off, his friends were no longer ready to move heaven and earth in order to bring him to their parties, though probably had he chosen he might have worked himself back "into society" in a slower but more permanent fashion. This, however, he did not choose, but fell back among the convivial middle class, the undistinguished and over merry, where nobody thought it too great humility to refer to Allan Ramsay and Fergusson as his models. It must be recollected, however, that his second visit to Edinburgh, and what seems in the telling a foolish and almost vulgar flirtation, produced one of the most impassioned and exquisite songs of love and despair which has ever been written in any language.
"Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae farewell, alas! for ever!"
There is a stillness of exhausted feeling in this wonderful utterance which is the very soul of despair.
There has been no more remarkable moment in the experience of the town which has known so many strange and striking scenes, though its interest has little to do with history or even with national feeling. It is pure humanity in an unusual development, an episode in the life of the poet such as has many less important parallels, but scarcely any so fully representative and typical. It discloses to us suddenly, as by a flash of light striking into the darkness, the persons, the entertainments, the sentiments of a hundred years ago. We make improvements daily in external matters, but society—we had almost said humanity—rarely learns. There is not the smallest hope that in Edinburgh or elsewhere a young man of genius in Burns's position would now be either more wisely noticed or more truly benefited by such a period of close contact with people who ought by experience and knowledge to know better than he. The only thing that is probable is a falling-off, not an advance. I think it highly doubtful whether a ploughman from Ayrshire, however superlative his genius, would now be received at all in "the best houses" and by the first men and women in Edinburgh; and if not in Edinburgh, surely nowhere else would such a reception as that given to Burns await the untutored poet. The world has seldom another chance permitted to it, and in this case I cannot but think it would be worse and not better used.