Essay on Burns

In the present case, however, the book reviewed continues to be a standard authority. Its author, John Gibson Lockhart, was born in 1794, at Cambusnethan, about twelve miles southeast of Glasgow. When Blackwood's Magazine was founded, in 1817, Lockhart became one of its chief contributors. In 1820 he married the eldest daughter of Sir Walter Scott. In the years following his marriage he published several novels, an edition of Don Quixote, and his translations of Ancient Spanish Ballads. This last work has never been superseded, and is often reprinted. In 1826 he became editor of the Quarterly Review, and retained the position until the year before his death, in 1854. His Life of Robert Burns appeared in 1828, and a Life of Napoleon Bonaparte in the next year. His greatest work, the Life of Scott, appeared in 1836-38, and by general consent has taken in English biographical literature a place second only to that of Boswell's Life of Johnson.

Carlyle was introduced to Lockhart when on a visit to London, in 1832. In his Note Book at that time he calls Lockhart "a precise, brief, active person of considerable faculty," and confesses that he "rather liked the man."[1] A month later, in a letter to his brother, he calls him "not without force, but barren and unfruitful."[2] Seven years after this, when Carlyle was settled in London, he formed the project of writing an article on the working-classes for the Quarterly; with this in mind he called upon Lockhart, and, he says, "found him a person of sense, good breeding, even kindness."[3] Ever after this, though the two men were never intimate friends, they had warm affection and esteem for each other. Lockhart feared to accept Carlyle's article because of its radical opinions, and it was published separately, under the title of Chartism. One more link between {v} the men is Carlyle's review--one of his least satisfactory essays--of the Life of Scott, published in 1838, in the London and Westminster Review. And Carlyle's own judgment of Lockhart widens our knowledge of the character of both men.

"A hard, proud, but thoroughly honest, singularly intelligent, and also affectionate man, whom in the distance I esteemed more than perhaps he ever knew. Seldom did I speak to him; but hardly ever without learning and gaining something."[4]

Thomas Carlyle was born December 4, 1795, at Annandale, in Dumfriesshire, in southeast Scotland. His life offers many resemblances, though perhaps more contrasts, to that of Burns. Like Burns, he came from the strong, rough stock of the Scotch peasantry. Of his father, James Carlyle, a man like Burns's father in his strength of character and deeply religious temperament, but unlike him in his complete ignorance of all books except the Bible, Carlyle has himself left us a grand portrait in the Reminiscences. When ten years old, Carlyle was sent to the Annan grammar school. Of his life there we may judge from the veiled account in Sartor Resartus:--

"My Teachers were hide-bound Pedants, without knowledge of man's nature, or of boy's; or of aught save their lexicons and quarterly account-books. Innumerable dead Vocables (no dead Language, for they themselves knew no Language) they crammed into us, and called it fostering the growth of mind.... The Professors knew syntax enough; and of the human soul thus much: that it had a faculty called Memory, and could be acted-on through the muscular integument by the appliance of birch-rods."[5]

James Carlyle recognized his son's ability, and resolved {vi} that he should be an educated man. Yet Carlyle can hardly be said to have been "sent" to the University, for he walked the distance of seventy miles over rough country to Edinburgh. There he worked industriously in the library, and laid the foundations for his wonderful knowledge of books. He tells us later:--

"What I have found the University did for me, was that it taught me to read in various languages and various sciences, so that I could go into the books that treated of these things, and try anything I wanted to make myself master of gradually, as I found it suit me."[6]

Carlyle had been intended for the ministry, but money was lacking, and he took up school teaching as a temporary occupation. In 1818, having saved ninety pounds, he returned to Edinburgh for study. Meanwhile, the ministry had become closed to him, for reading and thought had undermined his belief in the creed of the Scotch Kirk. But Carlyle's reaction from his ancestral beliefs was occasioned by different circumstances from that of Burns. Carlyle, by deep study and meditation, was stirred from the dogmas of the Scotch Kirk, but adhered strictly to its stern, severe code of morals. Burns, who had a lighter, more facile nature, became disgusted with the hypocrisy of those high in church authority, and was attracted by the more winning characters of the leaders of the progressive party. His passions had already weakened his morals; and though he still professed the highest respect for religion in the abstract, he was led on from distrust of orthodox Calvinism to what often seems general skepticism and indifference on religious matters.

After an experiment in legal study, Carlyle finally settled on his trade as a "writer of books." From 1818 to 1822 he lived in Edinburgh, and did hack literary work, largely articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. In 1822 he {vii} became tutor in a private family, with whom he travelled, not returning to Edinburgh until 1825. During these years of indecision as to what should be his life pursuit he had been occupied with German literature, and had published his translation of Wilhelm Meister and his Life of Schiller. For these works he received grateful acknowledgment from Goethe, and by them established a reputation as a writer. In 1827 he met Jeffrey, and made a contract with him to write for the Edinburgh Review.

Meanwhile, in 1826, Carlyle had married Jane Baillie Welsh. Two years later, through the failure of some literary plans, he decided to remove, for the sake of economy, to his wife's farm of Craigenputtock, in southwest Dumfriesshire, in the wild moorland country, fifteen miles from any town. There he resolved, in spite of poverty, to publish no work that did not satisfy his ideal. Carlyle's impressions of his hermit life vary with his changing moods,--now he praises his home as a rural paradise; again he writes in his diary, "Finished a paper on Burns September 16, 1828, at this Devil's Den, Craigenputtock."[7]

This last phrase shows us that the Essay on Burns was one of the first products of Carlyle's self-imposed exile. Of all his essays, this is on the topic nearest to the author's life. Carlyle was drawn to his subject by every bond of race, language, and association. His birthplace, Annandale, is only ten miles from Dumfries, Burns's last home. He had talked with many who had known Burns in life, among them Gilbert Burns, the poet's brother. Though an estimate of the merits of the essay will be more appropriate later, some circumstances connected with its publication must here be noted, for the light which they throw on Carlyle's character. The account of them is quoted, with some small changes, from Froude.

Jeffrey "found the article long and diffuse, though he {viii} did not deny that 'it contained much beauty and felicity of diction.' He insisted that it must be cut down," and received permission from Carlyle to make some alterations.[8] "When the proof-sheets came, Carlyle found 'the first part cut all into shreds,--the body of a quadruped with the head of a bird, a man shortened by cutting out the thighs and fixing the knee-caps on the hips.'[9] He refused to let it appear 'in such a horrid shape.' He replaced the most important passages, and returned the sheets with an intimation that the paper might be cancelled, but should not be mutilated. Few editors would have been so forbearing as Jeffrey when so audaciously defied. He complained, but he acquiesced. He admitted that the article would do the Review credit, though it would be called tedious and sprawling by people of weight whose mouths he could have stopped. He had wished to be of use to Carlyle by keeping out of sight in the Review his mannerism and affectation; but if Carlyle persisted he might have his way.

"Carlyle was touched; such kindness was more than he had looked for. The proud self-assertion was followed by humility and almost penitence, and the gentle tone in which he wrote conquered Jeffrey in turn. Jeffrey said that he admired and approved of Carlyle's letter to him in all respects. 'The candour and sweet blood' which was shown in it deserved the highest praise. 'Your virtues are your own,' said Jeffrey, 'and you shall have anything you like.'"[10]

During Carlyle's residence at Craigenputtock, which lasted, with slight interruption, for six years, were produced most of the miscellaneous essays, and his first great original work, Sartor Resartus. This is the formative period of his literary life, from which he came forth, to quote {ix} Mr. Stephen, "a master of his craft." In 1834 he moved to London, where he resided until his death, in 1881. To this later period belong his greatest works, on which his fame depends: Heroes and Hero-Worship, The French Revolution, Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, and The History of Frederick the Great. But the earlier works have the same tonic quality as the later, and are free from many of their defects. As a teacher, especially if we take an American point of view, Carlyle grows less trustworthy with advancing years. His cynicism becomes more bitter, his hero-worship leads him to sympathize with autocracy, while his contempt for the stupidity of the masses leads him to distrust all popular government. In Lowell's words, quoting Carlyle's contemptuous phrase, "he saw 'only the burning of a dirty chimney' in the war which a great people was waging under his very eyes for the idea of nationality and orderly magistrature."

In the Essay on Burns, then, we have a work of Carlyle's early prime. We might infer this from the style alone, which shows a transition from his early clearness and simplicity to the "piebald, entangled, hyper-metaphorical style of writing" characteristic of his later works, and always associated with his name.

In the Essay on Burns it is not the author's intention to give a connected sketch of Burns's life,[11] or to pass a cool, critical judgment on his poetry as a whole. Carlyle has himself, on page 6 of this essay, given us his idea of the true purpose of biography. The following words from his second essay on Richter make his meaning still clearer:--

"If the acted life of a pius Vates is so high a matter, the written life, which, if properly written, would be a translation and interpretation thereof, must also have great value. It has been said that no Poet is equal to his Poem, which saying is partially true; but in a deeper sense, it {x} may also be asserted, and with still greater truth, that no Poem is equal to its Poet. Now, it is Biography which first gives us both Poet and Poem; by the significance of the one, elucidating and completing that of the other. That ideal outline of himself, which a man unconsciously shadows forth in his writings, and which, rightly deciphered, will be truer than any other representation of him, it is the task of the Biographer to fill up into an actual coherent figure, and bring home to our experience, or at least clear, undoubting admiration, thereby to instruct and edify us in many ways. Conducted on such principles, the Biography of great men, especially of great poets, that is, of men in the highest degree noble minded and wise, might become one of the most dignified and valuable species of composition. As matters stand, indeed, there are few Biographies that accomplish anything of this kind; the most are mere Indexes of a Biography, which each reader is to write out for himself, as he peruses them; not the living body, but the dry bones of a body, which should have been alive. To expect any such Promethean virtue in a common Life-writer were unreasonable enough. How shall that unhappy Biographic brotherhood, instead of writing like Index-makers and Government-clerks, suddenly become enkindled with some sparks of intellect, or even of genial fire; and not only collecting dates and facts, but making use of them, look beyond the surface and economical form of a man's life, into its substance and spirit?"