CELEBRATED AT BRISTOL. 15 Burns went to hear a sermon, and saw a lady, who wore not "a precious jewel in her head," but a bonnet very large and very lofty, fashionable then, but not now(laughter). By some untoward accident there had strayed upon that towering structure of millinery something that has not a local habitation nor a name in civilized society. Burns, with comic humour, traced its impudently ambitious career, and then finding good in everything, he exclaims "O wad some Power the giftie gie us What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us Shakspere has well described an ancient fop, and Burns has sketched a modern one "A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, We may have seen such a specimen of frail humanity on a sunny day when butterflies are out, contemplating his fair proportions on the pavement like another Narcissus, and deeming it too much honour for the vulgar crowd of passers by to tread on his illustrious shadow "O wad some Power the giftie gie us Burns describes the natural according to nature. When he attempts the supernatural it is at least in an original way. The witches in "Tam O'Shanter" are unlike the awful weird sisters of Macbeth. They are a jovial crew of dancers, who, notwithstanding their horrible accom 16 ONE HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY paniments, inspire more of mirth than of dread. And so, in the "Dialogue of Death and Dr. Hornbook,” and in the "Address to the Devil," solemnity of feeling yields to a jocund familiarity. In "Dr. Hornbook," Burns satirized a schoolmaster who presumed to administer medicines. Shakspere's Apothecary had “a "beggarly account of empty boxes," but not so the village doctor, whose catalogue of drugs is irresistibly comical "And then a doctor's saws and whittles, Their Latin names as fast he rattles Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees; Aqua-fontis, what you please, He can content ye. Forbye some new, uncommon weapons, Or mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings Sal-alkali of midge-tail clippings, -(much laughter). Burns did not attempt to follow "I'm wae to think upon yon den, CELEBRATED IN BRISTOL. 17 The Vision in which, while he vowed to abandon poetry that found him poor and made him so, the Scottish Muse appeared to claim him as her own, and to bind him to her service, is poetry of the highest order "I saw thee seek the sounding shore, I saw grim Nature's visage hoar Or when the deep-green mantled earth I saw thee eye the gen'ral mirth * When youthful love, warm, blushing, strong, I taught thee how to pour a song, с To give my counsels all in one, With soul erect; And trust the universal plan Will all protect. 18 ONE HUNDRETH BIRTHDAY. And wear thou this—she solemn said, And, like a passing thought, she fled The gravest moralist could not show more impressively the evanescence of pleasure than Burns does in his famous poem of "Tam O'Shanter," by a profusion of imagery "But pleasures are like poppies spread, * You seize the flower, its bloom is shed! That flit ere you can point their place; In "Bruce's Address at Bannockburn" this highly figurative style is exchanged for the simplest, but full of fire and fervour "By oppression's woes and pains! Lay the proud usurper low! Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die!" Never was sorrowing gratitude more feelingly expressed than in the "Lament for the Earl of Glencairn' CELEBRATED IN BRISTOL "The bridegroom may forget the bride. And a' that thou hast done for me!" 19 And how exquisite is his description of the pure and tender love of woman "As in the bosom o' the stream The moonbeam dwells at dewy e'en, He had solemnly exchanged lovers' vows with his Highland Mary Campbell, who died early, before they met again. As he lay on some sheaves of corn at Ellisland, gazing on the planet Venus, he composed this exquisitely beautiful and pathetic ode to "Mary in Heaven" "Thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, That lov'st to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? That sacred hour can I forget? Can I forget the hallow'd grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past; Thy image at our last embrace; Ah! little thought we 'twas our last! |