Dark despair around benights me.
. . . . .
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never lovéd blindly,
Never met—or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken-hearted.
The humor of Burns, too, is full of humanity. It is affluent with all the rich and laughing juices of the heart, and has only just so much of acid as adds pungency to sweetness. Burns has the humor most characteristic of his country; but beyond that, he has a humor belonging to himself—a humor which, while it distinguishes the individual, endears him to his kind. In common with his countrymen, he has the cautious innuendo—the sly allusion—the insinuated sarcasm—the shrewd but mocking suggestion—the implied irony—the dextrously concealed and quiet fun—the sober joke—but he goes beyond all this—and has a humor—which can make men of every nation shake their sides—a humor that often unites the broadness of Rabelais with the sentiment of Sterne. Such a humor demands not only extraordinary wealth of imagination, but also, extraordinary force of intellect—a very uncommon fancy and a very strong common sense. And, it was the union of these in Burns which so well enabled him to be at once comic and satirical—which enabled him so happily to combine the sarcastic and the ludicrous—and he does this in such a way, that while his victims writhe before us, we discern no malignity in their torturer. But, it is in jocund, queer, joyous humor—humor reckless in its gladness, that Burns the most excels. In this species of humor he has scarcely an equal. Few of the greatest masters in humor come near him; and in what we may call the comic-lyric, he stands almost alone. The humor that makes richest melody in the heart; that sings for very joy; that by every note in which laughter can sing out its ecstacy—swells the choruses of mirth and merriment—the humor that is a jubilee in the bosom, that gives widest liberty to fancy—a saturnalia, in which no thought of care or labor, dares intrude—a carnival, in which all kindly oddities of conception play their parts—a humor that combines imagination and feeling into numberless bright varieties, to exhilarate our life—of this humor, Burns in his laughing moods is the potent wizard—of this enlivening magic his gayer songs are the resistless spells.
This humor, too, is generously and jovially human, and although Burns’ ridicule is often coarse, it is rarely cruel. He strikes, but it is with the arm of a man, and not with the blasting of a fiend. Gall he does sometimes mingle with the cup of satire, but never the deadly night-shade; the barb he sharpens keenly, but he does not steep it in poison. He painted, it is true, with a breadth and richness of coloring that made men hold their sides and set the table in a roar, the fooleries and absurdities of individuals; the pretensions of sects, and the bitterness of factions; the vanities of professions; the motley trivialities of presumptuous and stolid nonsense; but in the very storm of his sarcasm, he spares our common nature. There is a ridicule which properly may be called diabolical; which desecrates every thing endeared and noble; which laughs not in festivity of spirit, but in bitterness of heart; which like the witches in Macbeth, around the midnight cauldron, shrieks in the irony of satanic mirth over the degradation of humanity. This temper is realized in the writings of Swift, and affected in those of Byron; but we discover no trace of it in the compositions of Burns. Burns would give even to Satan himself the grace of repentance, and a chance of heaven. Burns, like Byron, can pass rapidly from the grave to the grotesque, but altogether in a different spirit. In the one it is the prodigality of fun; in the other it is willfulness of scorn; in the one, it is sport; in the other it is derision; the one as friend to friend mocks humanity pleasantly; the other makes it a Sancho Panza, tosses it in a blanket, and laughs the louder, the more it is humiliated. I believe the spirit of Byron was naturally a fine one; but it was spoiled, if not utterly ruined, as to all its higher capacities and sympathies. I say not that his moral humanity was extinguished, because that would be uncandid; but I do say, that he became fantastic and capricious to such a degree as to fail in the charities which not only soften life, but dignify literature.
Attributing humor to Burns, I do not estimate it as the slight matter which many seem to think it. If we trust some persons, we should conceive that length of face was length of wisdom, gravity of look, the veil of oracles; thickness of skull the safeguard of knowledge; and rigidity of muscle, the solemn surface of an unfathomable philosophy. But humor in its higher form is the quality, not only of a liberal, but of a cultivated spirit. It requires that the mental powers be vigorous as well as genial. It requires imagination and intellect, as well as a heart in the right place, and the juices of the body in a good condition. Humor as well as pathos is the result of sympathy—of sympathy that embraces man in the most brotherly cordiality—weeps with those who weep, and rejoices with those who do rejoice. This is the humor of Shakspeare; it is the humor of Hogarth; it is the humor of Burns. And many a noble use has this honest faculty—often is it more effective than sermons, to make life lambent, to clear the sky, that was becoming too heavy around us, to warm social intercourse, to nurture our socialities, to dissipate evil passions, and by its pleasant mockeries, to shame us out of nonsensical miseries.
Time would now fail me to refer to the poetry of Burns with any special detail; but for pages so well known, a few brief reminiscences will be sufficient. How full of beauty is “The Vision,” the poem in which, with a self-conscious greatness, almost Miltonic, he celebrates his own consecration to the glory of his country; we read it in delight, in wonder, and with sorrow, and with joy; we verily admit, that, “the light which led astray was light from heaven.” With what solemn pleasure we recall the “Cottar’s Saturday Night.” No other poem in the language shows how much the eye of a poet can see, how much the heart of a poet can feel, where another heart is dull, and another eye is blind. To the prosaic nothing familiar is exciting, but to the inspired all existence is full of glory. Here upon a cottage floor we have placed before us, the most pure, and the most noble virtues; the piety that looks to heaven; the patriotism that dignifies earth; here we have the father returned from his toil, with his “wee things” circling his knees, his clean hearth stone; his “thrifty wifie’s” smile; his soul made glad with Sabbath hopes and with holy thoughts; here are brothers and sisters gathered from the work-day world around the parents that shielded, and that blessed their infancy; here are the pleasant face, and the heart’s own smile; here the homely feast with a joy which luxury refuses, and a gratitude which no luxury inspires; here is first love with maiden blushes, shames and fears; here are all the sublimities of the affections, all in the shades of unnoticed life. How noble is that father and that peasant-priest, as he bares his “haffit locks,” and “let us worship God he says with solemn air;”