“The lady on whom it was made is one of the finest women in Scotland; and in fact (entre nous) is in a manner to me what Sterne's Eliza was to him—a Mistress, or Friend, or what you will, in the guileless simplicity of Platonic love. (Now, don't put any of your squinting constructions on this, or have any clishmaclaver about it among our acquaintances.) I assure you that to my lovely Friend you are indebted for many of your best songs of mine. Do you think that the sober gin-horse routine of existence could inspire a man with life, and love, and joy—could fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos equal to the genius of your Book? No, no!!! Whenever I want to be more than ordinary in song; to be in some degree equal to your diviner airs, do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation? Tout au contraire! I have a glorious recipe; the very one that for his own use was invented by the Divinity of Healing and Poesy when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself in a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my verses. The lightning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and the witchery of her smile the divinity of Helicon!”
Burns is here, of course, on his rhetorical high horse, and the songs to Chloris hardly bear him out; but there is much in the passage to enlighten us as to his composing processes. In his younger days his hot blood welcomed every occasion of emotional experience; toward the end, he sought such occasions for the sake of the patriotic task that lightened with its idealism the gathering gloom of his breakdown. But throughout, and this is the important point to note in relating his poetry to his life, his one mode of complimentary address to a woman was in terms of gallantry.
The following group of love songs illustrate the various phases of his temperament which we have been discussing. The first two are to Mary Campbell, and exhibit Burns in his most reverential attitude toward women:
HIGHLAND MARY
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie! muddy
There Simmer first unfauld her robes, may S. f. unfold
And there the langest tarry;