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LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.

Mostly by

THOMAS CARLYLE.







New York:
Delisser & Procter, 508 Broadway.
1859.




EDITOR'S PREFACE.


The readers of the "Household Library" will certainly welcome a Life of
Burns. That his soul was of the real heroic stamp, no one who is familiar
with his imperishable lyric poetry, will deny.

This Life of the great Scottish bard is composed of two parts. The first
part, which is brief, and gives merely his external life, is taken from
the "Encyclopedia Britannica." The principle object of it, in this place,
is to prepare the reader for what follows. The second part is a grand
spiritual portrait of Burns, the like of which the ages have scarcely
produced; the equal of which, in our opinion, does not exist. In fact,
since men began to write and publish their thoughts in this world, no one
has appeared who equals Carlyle as a spiritual-portrait painter; and,
taken all in all, this of his gifted countryman Burns is his master-piece.
I should not dare to say how many times I have perused it, and always with
new wonder and delight. I once read it in the Manfrini Palace, at Venice,
sitting before Titian's portrait of Ariosto. Great is the contrast between
the Songs of Burns and the _Rime_ of the Italian poet, between the fine
spiritual perception of Carlyle's mind and the delicate touch of Titian's
hand, between picturesque expression and an expressive picture; yet this
very antithesis seemed to prepare my mind for the full enjoyment of both
these famous portraits; the sombre majesty of northern genius seemed to
heighten and be heightened by the sunset glow of the genius of the south.

Besides giving the article from the "Encyclopedia Britannica," as a kind
of frame for the portrait of Burns, we will here add, from the "English
Cyclopedia," a sketch of Carlyle's life. A severe taste may find it a
little out of place, yet we must be allowed to consult the wishes of those
for whom these little volumes are designed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Carlyle, (Thomas,) a thinker and writer, confessedly among the most
original and influential that Britain has produced, was born in the parish
of Middlebie, near the village of Ecclefechan, in Dumfries-shire,
Scotland, on the 4th of December, 1795. His father, a man of remarkable
force of character, was a small farmer in comfortable circumstances; his
mother was also no ordinary person. The eldest son of a considerable
family, he received an education the best in its kind that Scotland could
then afford--the education of a pious and industrious home, supplemented
by that of school and college. (Another son of the family, Dr. John A.
Carlyle, a younger brother of Thomas, was educated in a similar manner,
and, after practising for many years as a physician in Germany and Rome,
has recently become known in British literature as the author of the best
prose translation of Dante.) After a few years spent at the ordinary
parish school, Thomas was sent, in his thirteenth or fourteenth year, to
the grammar school of the neighboring town of Annan; and here it was that
he first became acquainted with a man destined, like himself, to a career
of great celebrity. "The first time I saw Edward Irving," writes Mr.
Carlyle in 1835, "was six-and-twenty years ago, in his native town, Annan.
He was fresh from Edinburgh, with college prizes, high character, and
promise: he had come to see our school-master, who had also been his. We
heard of famed professors--of high matters, classical, mathematical--a
whole Wonderland of knowledge; nothing but joy, health, hopefulness
without end, looked out from the blooming young man." Irving was then
sixteen years of age, Carlyle fourteen; and from that time till Irving's
sad and premature death, the two were intimate and constant friends. It
was not long before Carlyle followed Irving to that "Wonderland of
Knowledge," the University of Edinburgh, of which, and its "famed
professors," he had received such tidings. If the description of the
nameless German university, however, in "Sartor Resartus," is to be
supposed as allusive also to Mr. Carlyle's own reminiscences of his
training at Edinburgh, he seems afterwards to have held the more formal or
academic part of that training in no very high respect. "What vain jargon
of controversial metaphysic, etymology, and mechanical manipulation,
falsely named science, was current there," says Teufelsdroeckh; "I indeed
learned better perhaps than most." At Edinburgh, the professor of
"controversial metaphysic" in Carlyle's day, was Dr. Thomas Brown, Dugald
Stewart having then just retired; physical science and mathematics, were
represented by Playfair and Sir John Leslie, and classical studies by men
less known to fame. While at college, Carlyle's special bent, so far as
the work of the classes was concerned, seems to have been to mathematics
and natural philosophy. But it is rather by his voluntary studies and
readings, apart from the work of the classes, that Mr. Carlyle, in his
youth, laid the foundation of his vast and varied knowledge. The college
session in Edinburgh extends over about half the year, from November to
April; and during these months, the college library, and other such
libraries as were accessible, were laid under contribution by him to an
extent till then hardly paralleled by any Scottish student. Works on
science and mathematics, works on philosophy, histories of all ages, and
the great classics of British literature, were read by him miscellaneously
or in orderly succession; and it was at this period, also, if we are not
mistaken, he commenced his studies--not very usual then in Scotland--in
the foreign languages of modern Europe. With the same diligence, and in
very much the same way, were the summer vacations employed, during which
he generally returned to his father's house in Dumfries-shire, or rambled
among the hills and moors of that neighborhood.

Mr. Carlyle had begun his studies with a view to entering the Scottish
Church. About the time, however, when these studies were nearly ended, and
when, according to the ordinary routine, he might have become a preacher,
a change of views induced him to abandon the intended profession. This
appears to have been about the year 1819 or 1820, when he was twenty-four
years of age. For some time, he seems to have been uncertain as to his
future course. Along with Irving, he employed himself for a year or two,
as a teacher in Fifeshire; but gradually it became clear to him, that his
true vocation was that of literature. Accordingly, parting from Irving,
about the year 1822, the younger Scot of Annandale, deliberately embraced
the alternative open to him, and became a general man of letters. Probably
few have ever embraced that profession with qualifications so wide, or
with aims so high and severe. Apart altogether from his diligence in
learning, and from the extraordinary amount of acquired knowledge of all
kinds, which was the fruit of it, there had been remarked in him, from the
first, a strong originality of character, a noble earnestness and fervor
in all that he said or did, and a vein of inherent constitutional contempt
for the mean and the frivolous, inclining him, in some degree, to a life
of isolation and solitude. Add to this, that his acquaintance with German
literature, in particular, had familiarized him with ideas, modes of
thinking, and types of literary character, not then generally known in
this country, and yet, in his opinion, more deserving of being known than
much of a corresponding kind that was occupying and ruling British
thought.

The first period of Mr. Carlyle's literary life may be said to extend from
1822 to 1827, or from his twenty-sixth to his thirty-second year. It was
during this period that he produced (besides a translation of Legendre's
"Geometry," to which he prefixed an "Essay on Proportion,") his numerous
well-known translations from German writers, and also his "Life of
Schiller." The latter and a considerable proportion of the former, were
written by him during the leisure afforded him by an engagement he had
formed in 1823, as tutor to Charles Buller, whose subsequent brilliant
though brief career in the politics of Britain, gives interest to this
connection. The first part of the "Life of Schiller" appeared originally
in the "London Magazine," of which John Scott was editor, and Hazlitt,
Charles Lamb, Allan Cunningham, De Quincey, and Hood, were the best known
supporters; and the second and third parts, were published in the same
magazine in 1824. In this year appeared also the translation of Goethe's
"Wilhelm Meister," which was published by Messrs. Oliver and Boyd, of
Edinburgh, without the translator's name. This translation, the first real
introduction of Goethe to the reading world of Great Britain, attracted
much notice. "The translator," said a critic in "Blackwood," "is, we
understand, a young gentleman in this city, who now for the first time
appears before the public. We congratulate him on his very promising
debut; and would fain hope to receive a series of really good translations
from his hand. He has evidently a perfect knowledge of German; he already
writes English better than is at all common, even at this time; and we
know of no exercise more likely to produce effects of permanent advantage
upon a young mind of intellectual ambition." The advice here given to Mr.
Carlyle by his critic, was followed by him in so far that, in 1827, he
published in Edinburgh, his "Specimens of German Romance," in four
volumes; one of these containing "Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre," as a
fresh specimen of Goethe; the others containing tales from Jean Paul,
Tieck, Musaeus, and Hoffman. Meanwhile, in 1825, Mr. Carlyle had revised
and enlarged his "Life of Schiller," and given it to the world in a
separate form, through the press of Messrs. Taylor and Hessay, the
proprietors of the "London Magazine." In the same year, quitting his
tutorship of Charles Buller, he had married a lady fitted in a pre-eminent
degree to be the wife of such a man. (It is interesting to know that Mrs.
Carlyle, originally Miss Welch, is a lineal descendent of the Scottish
Reformer, Knox.) For some time after the marriage, Mr. Carlyle continued
to reside in Edinburgh; but before 1827 he removed to Craigenputtoch, a
small property in the most solitary part of Dumfries-shire.

The second period of Mr. Carlyle's literary life, extending from 1827 to
1834, or from his thirty-second to his thirty-ninth year, was the period
of the first decided manifestations of his extraordinary originality as a
thinker. Probably the very seclusion in which he lived helped to develope,
in stronger proportions, his native and peculiar tendencies. The following
account of his place and mode of life at this time was sent by him, in
1828, to Goethe, with whom he was then in correspondence, and was
published by the great German in the preface to a German translation of
the "Life of Schiller," executed under his immediate care:--"Dumfries is a
pleasant town, containing about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and to be
considered the centre of the trade and judicial system of a district which
possesses some importance in the sphere of Scottish activity. Our
residence is not in the town itself, but fifteen miles to the northwest of
it, among the granite hills and the black morasses which stretch westward
through Galloway almost to the Irish Sea. In this wilderness of heath and
rock, our estate stands forth a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly
inclosed and planted ground, where corn ripens and trees afford a shade,
although surrounded by sea-mews and rough-woolled sheep. Here, with no
small effort, have we built and furnished a neat, substantial dwelling;
here, in the absence of a professional or other office, we live to
cultivate literature according to our strength, and in our own peculiar
way. We wish a joyful growth to the roses and flowers of our garden; we
hope for health and peaceful thoughts to further our aims. The roses,
indeed, are still in part to be planted, but they blossom already in
anticipation. Two ponies which carry us every where, and the mountain air,
are the best medicine for weak nerves. This daily exercise, to which I am
much devoted, is my only recreation; for this nook of ours is the
loneliest in Britain--six miles removed from any one likely to visit me.
Here Rousseau would have been as happy as on his island of Saint-Pierre.
My town friends, indeed, ascribe my sojourn here to a similar disposition,
and forbode me no good result; but I came hither solely with the design to
simplify my way of life, and to secure the independence through which I
could be enabled to remain true to myself. This bit of earth is our own;
here we can live, write, and think, as best pleases ourselves, even though
Zoilus himself were to be crowned the monarch of literature. Nor is the
solitude of such great importance, for a stage-coach takes us speedily to
Edinburgh, which we look upon as our British Weimar; and have I not, too,
at this moment, piled upon the table of my little library, a whole
cart-load of French, German, American, and English journals and
periodicals--whatever may be their worth? Of antiquarian studies, too,
there is no lack."

Before this letter was written, Mr. Carlyle had already begun the
well-known series of his contributions to the "Edinburgh Review." The
first of these was his essay on "Jean Paul," which appeared in 1827; and
was followed by his striking article on "German Literature," and by his
singularly beautiful essay on "Burns" (1828). Other essays in the same
periodical followed, as well as articles in the "Foreign Quarterly
Review," which was established in 1828, and shorter articles of less
importance in Brewster's "Edinburgh Encyclopedia," then in course of
publication. Externally, in short, at this time, Mr. Carlyle was a writer
for reviews and magazines, choosing to live, for the convenience of his
work and the satisfaction of his own tastes, in a retired nook of
Scotland, whence he could correspond with his friends, occasionally visit
the nearest of them, and occasionally also receive visits from them in
turn. Among the friends whom he saw in his occasional visits to Edinburgh,
were Jeffrey, Wilson, and other literary celebrities of that capital (Sir
Walter Scott, we believe, he never met otherwise than casually in the
streets); among the more distant friends who visited him, none was more
welcome than the American Emerson, who, having already been attracted to
him by his writings, made a journey to Dumfries-shire, during his first
visit to England, expressly to see him; and of his foreign correspondents,
the most valued by far was Goethe, whose death in 1832, and that of Scott
in the same year, impressed him deeply, and were finely commemorated by
him.

Meanwhile, though thus ostensibly but an occasional contributor to
periodicals, Mr. Carlyle was silently throwing his whole strength into a
work which was to reveal him in a far other character than that of a mere
literary critic, however able and profound. This was his "Sartor
Resartus;" or, an imaginary History of the Life and Opinions of Herr
Teufelsdroeckh, an eccentric German professor and philosopher. Under this
quaint guise (the name "Sartor Resartus" being, it would appear, a
translation into Latin of "The Tailor done over," which is the title of an
old Scottish song), Mr. Carlyle propounded, in a style half-serious and
half-grotesque, and in a manner far more bold and trenchant than the rules
of review-writing permitted, his own philosophy of life and society in
almost all their bearings. The work was truly an anomaly in British
literature, exhibiting a combination of deep, speculative power, poetical
genius, and lofty moral purpose, with wild and riotous humor and shrewd
observation and satire, such as had rarely been seen; and coming into the
midst of the more conventional British literature of the day, it was like
a fresh but barbaric blast from the hills and moorlands amid which it had
been conceived. But the very strangeness and originality of the work
prevented it from finding a publisher; and after the manuscript had been
returned by several London firms to whom it was offered, the author was
glad to cut it into parts and publish it piecemeal in "Frazer's Magazine."
Here it appeared in the course of 1833-34, scandalising most readers by
its Gothic mode of thought and its extraordinary torture, as it was
called, of the English language; but eagerly read by some sympathetic
minds, who discerned in the writer a new power in literature, and wondered
who and what he was.

With the publication of the "Sartor Resartus" papers, the third period of
Mr. Carlyle's literary life may be said to begin. It was during the
negotiations for the publication that he was led to contemplate removing
to London--a step which he finally took, we believe, in 1834. Since that
year--the thirty-ninth of his life--Mr. Carlyle has permanently resided
in London, in a house situated in one of the quiet streets running at
right angles to the River Thames, at