His splendid career as a poet, editor, critic and novelist, is well known. His poems, the principal of which are the "Isle of Palms," and the "City of the Plague," are exquisitely beautiful, but deficient in energy, variety and dramatic power. He excels in description, and touches, with a powerful hand, the strings of pure and delicate sentiment. Nothing can be finer than his "Address to a Wild Deer"—"A Sleeping Child"—"The Highland Burial Ground," and "The Home Among the Mountains" in the "City of the Plague." His tales and stories, such as "Margaret Lindsay," "The Foresters," and those in "The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," are well conceived, and charmingly written. They breathe a spirit of the purest morality, and are highly honorable not only to the head but to the heart of their eloquent author. But it is in criticism and occasional sketching in which he chiefly excels. In this field, so varied and delightful, he absolutely luxuriates. His series of papers on Spenser and Homer are remarkable for their delicate discrimination, strength and exuberance of fancy. No man loves Scotland more enthusiastically, or describes her peculiar scenery and manners with more success. Here his "meteor pen," as the author of the Corn Law Rhymes aptly called it, passes like sunlight over the glowing page. His descriptions of Highland scenery and Highland sports are instinct with life and beauty. In a word, to quote the eulogy of the discriminating Hallam, "Wilson is a writer of the most ardent and enthusiastic genius, whose eloquence is as the rush of mighty waters."
Professor Wilson's nature is essentially poetical. It is sensitive, imaginative and generous. It is also said to be deeply religious. Age and experience, reflection, and the Word of God, which he greatly reveres, have tamed the wild exuberance of his youth, strengthened his better principles, and shed over his character the mellow radiance of faith and love. "The main current of his nature," says Gilfillan, "is rapt and religious. In proof of this we have heard, that on one occasion, he was crossing the hills from St. Mary's Loch to Moffat. It was a misty morning; but as he ascended, the mist began to break into columns before the radiant finger of the rising sun. Wilson's feelings became too much excited for silence, and he began to speak, and from speaking began to pray; and prayed aloud and alone, for thirty miles together in the misty morn. We can conceive what a prayer it would be, and with what awe some passing shepherd may have heard the incarnate voice, sounding on its dim and perilous way."
CHAPTER VI.
The Calton Hill—Burns's Monument—Character and Writings of "the Peasant Poet"—His Religious Views—Monument of Professor Dugald Stewart—Scottish Metaphysics—Thomas Carlyle.
Let us take a walk on the Calton Hill, this afternoon; we shall find some objects of interest there. At the termination of Prince's Street, commences Waterloo Place, in which are situated the Stamp Office, Post Office, Bridewell and the Jail. This also leads to Calton Hill, and is one of the most delightful promenades in the city. We skirt around the Hill, a little to the right, pass the beautiful and spacious buildings of the Edinburgh High School on the left, one of the best educational institutions in Scotland, continue our walk a short distance, and come to a round building on the farther declivity of the hill. That is "Burns's Monument." By giving a small douceur to the keeper, we are permitted to enter the interior, in the center of which stands a statue of the poet, by Flaxman. Beautiful and expressive certainly, as a work of art, but it is not quite equal to one's conception of the poet. The forehead is particularly fine—open, massive and high, with an air of lofty repose. The mouth is unpoetical and vulgar—at least something of this is visible in its expression. It wants the chiseled delicacy, as well as gracious expression of noble and generous feeling which we naturally look for in the countenance of Burns. But the likeness, we understand, is defective. In his best days, Burns had a noble, and almost beautiful countenance. In stature he was about five feet ten inches, of great agility and muscular vigor. His countenance was open and ruddy, with a fine, frank, generous expression, eyes large and radiant, forehead arched and lofty, with curling hair clustering over it, and his mouth, especially when engaged in animated conversation, or lighted with a smile, wreathed with intelligence and good humor.
Burns has been termed "the Shakspeare of Scotland." And certainly no poet has ever been regarded, in that country, with such enthusiastic love and reverence. With all his faults, some of which were bad enough, all classes of the Scottish people, from the noble to the peasant, cherish him in their heart of hearts. Indeed he is a sort of national idol, to whom all feel bound to do reverence, notwithstanding his admitted failings. Nor is this a matter of surprise. For, taken as a whole, the poetry of Burns is the poetry of nature—of the heart—and especially of the Scottish heart. It represents the genius of the nation—wild, beautiful and free, shaded by thoughtfulness, and set off by devotion, at once merry as her mountain brooks, yet deep, strong and passionate as the stormy ocean which encircles her coast. "Tam O'Shanter," or "Halloween," the "Cotter's Saturday Night," or "Mary in Heaven," are the two extremes of the picture. In Burns, Scotland saw incarnated her poetry and song, her music and passion, her love and devotion, her seriousness and merriment, her strong-hearted adherence to integrity and truth, her occasional recklessness and madness of spirit, her love of nature, her veneration for God. The grave and the gay, the old and the young, the religious and the reckless, all saw themselves represented in the glorious fragments of his witching poetry. Hence the enthusiasm with which his first volume of poems was received. It seemed as if a new realm had been added to the dominions of the British muse—a new and glorious creation fresh from the hand of nature. There the humor of Smollett, the pathos and tenderness of Sterne and Richardson, the real life of Fielding, and the description of Thomson, were all united in delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by the Ayrshire ploughman! The volume contained matter for all minds—for the lively and sarcastic, the wild and the thoughtful, the poetical enthusiast and the man of the world. So eagerly was the book sought after, that when copies of it could not be obtained, many of the poems were transcribed and sent round in manuscript among admiring circles. His songs are the songs of Scotland. A few have been furnished by Tannahill, Fergusson, Ramsay and others; but the main body of the most exquisite and most popular Scottish melodies are from the pen of Burns. Evermore they echo among her heathy hills and bosky dells. You hear them by the sides of her "bonnie burns," and along the shores of her silver lakes and "rivers grand." At evening gray, they are heard resounding from gowan'd braes and "birken shaws," in the shadow of haunted woods, and hoary ruins; and especially, on winter nights, and "tween and supper times" from her ten thousand happy "inglesides." In Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night" are seen his reverence for religion "pure and undefiled," combined with exquisite description and melodious verse; in "Tam O'Shanter," his vivid fancy and dramatic energy; in "Halloween," his spirit of humor and fun; in his "Lines to a Mountain Daisy," his fine moral sense and tenderness of spirit; and in his "Address to Mary in Heaven," his true heartedness, and sweet lyric power. His native country is beautifully pictured in all his poetry. The "Banks of the Dee," "Edina's lofty seat," "Old Coila's hills and streams"—the "Braes of Yarrow"—"Allan Water"—"Bonnie Doon"—"Sweet Afton among her green braes"—"Auld hermit Ayr," "Stately Irwine," "The birks of Aberfeldy,"—where "summer blinks o'er flowery braes," the "lovely Nith, with fruitful vales and spreading hawthorns,"—"Gowrie's rich valley and Firth's sunny shores," "the clear winding Devon,"—"Castle Gordon,—where waters flow and wild woods rave,"—"the banks and braes and streams around the Castle of Montgomery,"—Bannockburn, Ellerslie and Sheriff Muir;—these, and a thousand other beautiful or storied scenes, mirror themselves in the stream of his sweet and varied verse.
Some vulgar and foolish things he has written; and we condemn them as heartily as others. But his poetry embodies much that is pure and beautiful and true, much of which Burns had no occasion to repent, even on a deathbed, and much of which his native country may well be proud. He was somewhat intemperate, but not to the extent which is generally supposed. Strong temptations,—the habits of the times—the folly of his friends, who thoughtlessly introduced him to the gaities of the metropolis, and then left him to contempt and penury, broke down his constitution, and consigned him to a premature grave. But he was not a man of base and vulgar passions. His was not the cold heart of the sceptic, nor the envenomed spirit of the villain. It was a wild and wayward heart, I grant, but honest and true, generous and kind. The temple was shattered by the lightnings of Heaven, but it was a temple still; and from its broken altars ever and anon ascended the sweet incense of prayer and praise. Burns could never forget his good old father, and the hallowed influences of religion, shed upon his young heart. He loved the Psalms of David, and the holy melodies of his native land; and we presume often sang them, of an evening, accompanied, as he himself intimates, with "the wild woodland note," of his beloved wife. Several of his letters to Miss Dunlop and others indicate a strong conviction of the Divine existence and the immortality of the soul, his struggles against the doubts which haunted his spirit, and his earnest longing for purity and perfection. "You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy," he says in a letter to Mr. Aiken, "but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my very soul; though sceptical on some points of our current belief, yet I think, I have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourn of our present existence;" and then adds—"O thou great, unknown Power, thou Almighty God! who has lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality! I have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me." Having expressed to Mrs. Dunlop his strong conviction of the immortality of the soul, he writes as follows, "I know not whether I have ever sent you the following lines, or if you have ever seen them; but it is one of my favorite quotations, which I keep constantly by me in my progress through life, in the language of the Book of Job,
"Against the day of battle and of war."—