SOURCE: "The 'Annus Mirabilis,' 1785," in Robert Burns and the 18th-Century Revival of Scottish Vernacular Poetry, Aberdeen University Press, 1969, pp. 169-89.

[In the following excerpt Angus-Butterworth examines the histories and inspirations of several of Burns's famous poems.]

The Cottar's Saturday Night

It has often been noticed that Burns drew his inspiration for The Cottar's Saturday Night from Fergusson's poem The Farmer's Ingle, and this as a bare statement may give the impression that one is derived from the other. Actually the connection between the two is so slight that little more than the general idea was borrowed.

We can imagine the impact made on Burns's mind by the descriptions which the earlier poet gives of the farmer's home life, and how his imagination must have been fired by the depiction of scenes which he knew much better than Fergusson. Here, indeed, was a theme so intimately within his experience that none specially designed for him could have been more fitting. But what the prentice hand of Fergusson had attempted, Burns was able to transform by his master touch.

The opening verse of The Cottar's Saturday Night, addressed to Robert Aiken,¹ is thought by Chambers and others to have been added after the rest of the poem was written, but forms a very appropriate introduction. The poet sets the scene, too, by quoting these lines of Gray:

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.²

The 'homely joys' were such as Burns himself knew and loved, so that he was very much at home in describing the quiet domestic scenes. At the same time he preserves a certain detachment, so that Crawford remarks that in his account of the Cottar and his wife, 'Burns eyes the couple quizzically but not unkindly, and he chooses the artificial expressions quite deliberately, so that there shall be no doubt as to his attitude'.³

The resemblance between the first verse of The Farmer's Ingle, and Burns's second verse is worthy of notice, and if we compare them the relationship of the two poems becomes clear. The lines of Fergusson read as follows:

Whan gloamin' gray out-owre the welkin⁴ keeks,⁵
Whan Bawtie ca's the owsen⁶ to the byre,
Whan Thrasher John, sair dung,⁷ his barn-door steeks,⁸
Whan lusty lasses at the dighting⁹ tire:
What bangs fu' leal the e'ening's coming cauld,
And gars¹⁰ snaw-tappit winter freeze in vain;
Gars dowie¹¹ mortals look baith blithe and bauld,
Nor fleyed¹² wi' a' the puirtith¹³ o' the plain;
Begin, my Muse, and chant in hamely strain.

The corresponding verse in The Cottar's Saturday Night reads:

November chill blaws land wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the plough:
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

Apart from a vague similarity of subject, what strikes us at once are the wide differences in the character of the poems. The contrast of language is great. Fergusson as usual is concerned only with the vernacular. Burns, being still at an early stage in his career, was not averse to writing in English, but shows his power by alternating in places between Scots and English. His procedure may be said to consist of using English for the basic narrative, but not hesitating to introduce Scots words and phrases where these heighten the characterization or bring home his meaning more clearly. This was not a mere matter of embellishment, but a brilliant demonstration that he was bilingual. The simple sincerity of many passages disguises his consummate linguistic skill.

Another fundamental point of contrast is that whereas the rhyming in The Farmer's Ingle is a b a b c d c d d, the form of stanza used in The Cottar is that of Spenser and also of Shenstone, namely a b a b b c b c c. Thus as Burns here 'maintains the perfect form of the Spenserian stanza',¹⁴ he has adopted an English measure which was quite outside Fergusson's scope.

In what is no doubt a just assessment Angellier says: 'La distance qui sépare le plus haut effort de Fergusson, de ce qui n'est pas le chef-d'oeuvre de Burns, c'est-à-dire Le Foyer du Fermier, du Samedi soir, est incommensurable. Les deux pieces n'appartiennent pas aux mêmes régions. Celle de Fergusson est de petite description exacte. Elle n'a ni la grande poésie, ni la noble enthousiasme, ni la portée sociale de celle de Burns. Elle n'a en rien cette plénitude de vie.'¹⁵

Dr. Otto Ritter suggests in general terms, without giving direct parallels, that in The Cottar's Saturday Night there is to be found something of Thomson's Winter, Shenstone's Schoolmistress, Gray's Elegy and Goldsmith's Deserted Village¹⁶ Sutherland has observed that this was following the standard practice of the eighteenth century in heightening the perception of the reader by reminding him of poems with which he was already familiar, and that Milton himself had done this in the century before.¹⁷ Crawford is more specific, and notes for example that the lines: "Tis when a youthful, loving pair, / In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale / Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale', echo the reference of Shakespeare to 'the milk-white rose',¹⁸ and Milton's lines: 'And every Shepherd tells his tale / Under the Hawthorn in the dale,'.¹⁹

Crawford is largely accurate in his statement that: 'The evolution of the poem is from a sombre beginning, with its portrayal of the weariness that is the aftermath of physical labour, to a concretely presented interior that merged imperceptibly into a transfiguration and sublimation of the worshipping father and his family.'²⁰ Part of the quality and merit of the poem is the result of this major development of the theme.

One of the prime virtues of Burns as a poet is that he devoted himself in his major works to subjects about which he had intimate knowledge. He was no stranger to the life led by the small farmer. He speaks with affection of the mother's devoted care in sewing so that her family shall appear decent in the eyes of the world, and it is natural that he should use the braid Scots in such lines as:

The mother wi' her needle and her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new.

And a perfectly authentic note is struck in describing the courting of the daughter Jenny:

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben²¹;
A strappin' youth; he takes the mother's eye;
Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill-ta'en;
The father cracks²² of horses, ploughs and kye²³;
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But blate²⁴ and lathefu',²⁵ scarce can weel behave;
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave:
Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.²⁶

Thus, although the standard is not the same throughout, it is impossible to accept the view of Henley, so often superficial in his judgments, that the poem is 'of its essence sentimental and therefore pleasingly untrue'.²⁷ Equally unacceptable is the opinion of a Russian critic, who condemns the cottar on political grounds and suggests that, because he is a proprietor, he must belong to the past: 'And that the countryman—the cottar whom Burns depicted in the "Saturday Night"—was an owner, although a small one; he was "on his own", the master of a self-contained economic unit, and at the time of Burns no longer a typical figure in the Scottish village. Hence one cannot but feel that this represents a Utopian, retrospective glance into the past.'²⁸

Essentially The Cottar's Saturday Night is a sincere and warm-hearted tribute on the part of Burns to the simple, wholesome pleasures among which he had been brought up. It has plenty of quiet humour, but is without the sophistication which might now be considered necessary. Froude shows a just appreciation of how well this reflects Scottish life in this passage: 'Among their good qualities, the Scots have been distinguished for humour—not for venomous wit, but for kindly, genial humour, which half loves what it laughs at—and this alone shows clearly enough that those to whom it belongs have not looked too exclusively on the gloomy side of the world. I should rather say that the Scots have been an unusually happy people. Intelligent industry, the honest doing of daily work, with a sense that it must be done well, under penalties; the necessaries of life moderately provided for; and a sensible content with the situation of life in which men are born—this through the week, and at the end of it the Cottar's Saturday Night—the homely family, gathered reverently and peacefully together, and irradiated with a sacred presence.—Happiness! such happiness as we human creatures are likely to know upon this world, will be found there, if anywhere.'²⁹

In an age when there is so much concentration upon the sordid and unpleasant in literature, it is inevitable that a wholesome and charming work like The Cottar's Saturday Night should be unfashionable, and should be condemned as sentimental for the same reason that kindred poems by Goldsmith and Gray are for the time being not fully appreciated. But unhealthy preoccupation with sexual depravity and the like can only be a passing phase, and meanwhile the poem continues to have countless warm admirers. One major advantage which it brought to Burns himself was his friendship with Mrs. Dunlop. Upon reading it at a time of deep sorrow in her family that lady wrote: 'The poignancy of your expression soothed my soul', and thereafter her faith in him never faltered.

The Jolly Beggars

This remarkable tour de force deserves careful consideration on a number of counts, and it may be appropriate to look first at the circumstances under which it was written. During the winter of 1785, Burns in company with John Richmond and James Smith, spent an evening with Johnnie Dow who, besides being a rhymester, kept a tavern in Mauchline. When the party broke up Burns and his two friends set off for home, and, in walking through the village, they passed the door of an inn or lodging-house for vagrants and beggars kept by a Mrs. Gibson, usually known as Poosie Nansie.

The establishment of Poosie Nansie and her daughter Racer Jess was a disreputable one, but on this occasion the sound of revelry was so cheerful that Burns and his companions went inside to see what kind of party was afoot. It was already the close of the evening, so that the call could only be a short one. There would probably have been danger for any person by himself to have ventured in, but for three young men to do so together was a different matter. At the time Burns was twenty-six, and to get the thing in perspective we have to realize that today the three indulging in this escapade might not long have ceased to be university students. While allowing for the poet's genius, there was an element of an undergraduate prank about the affair.

Although this chance visit to an ale-house was a brief one, a glimpse of the inmates was sufficient to fire the poetic imagination of Burns. What he actually saw may have been very limited, and that drab and squalid, but one reason why the impression made on him was strong was because the scene was a novel one so far as he was concerned: there is nothing to indicate that he was ever in such a place before this or afterwards. He found it convenient, in fact, to forget that he ever wrote The Jolly Beggars, and it was not published until some few years after his death. The cantata, Italian in origin, is used in the case of The Jolly Beggars in the sense of a short lyrical drama set to music, with solos and choruses. Burns read the first draft to John Richmond within a few days of the event. In view of the amount of work involved this was an almost incredible achievement. In The Jolly Beggars he provides eight songs and choruses, and matches them to folk-airs. To link the solos together he gives descriptive passages without tunes, headed Recitativo.

After an introduction, six of the beggars sing songs in turn. A 'Son of Mars', to the tune Soldier's Joy, describes his wartime experiences and how he came by his wounds—'This here was for a wench, and that other in a trench, when welcoming the French at the sound of a drum'. His 'doxy', to the tune Sodger Laddie, tells of her conquests in another field—'I once was a maid tho' I cannot tell when, and still my delight is in proper young men'. Next 'Merry Andrew', to the tune Auld Sir Symon, shows scant respect for the great ones of church and state, opening his song with—'Sir Wisdom's a fool when he's fou; Sir Knave is a fool in a Session; he's there but a prentice, I trow, but I am a fool by profession'. A female beggar then laments her 'Highland Lad', hanged for rieving (or pillaging), to the tune O, An' Ye Were Dead, Gudeman, singing—'A highland lad my love was born, the lalland³⁰ laws he held in scorn; but he still was faithfu' to his clan, my gallant, braw John Highlandman'. She is followed by 'A pigmy Scraper wi' his fiddle', who tries to comfort her to the tune Whistle Owre the Lave O't; saying—'Let me ryke (reach) up to dight (wipe) that tear, an' go wi' me an' be my dear'. But 'Her charms had struck a sturdy caird (or vagrant tinker), as weel as poor gut-scraper', and he, to the air Clout the Cauldron, warns off 'that shrimp, that wither'd imp, with a' his noise an' cap'rin", at the point of a rapier.

The climax of what has been described as this 'wild and glorious cantata' is now reached, when the bard, as 'a wight of Homer's craft',³¹ rises to toast the fair sex, to the tune For A' That, An' A' That, and to lead the final chorus, to the air Jolly Mortals, Fill your Glasses, the refrain of this being:

A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for Cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the Priest.

Naturally the customers of Poosie Nansie could not sing the verses which Burns afterwards wrote for them, nor could they be aware of the tunes he was afterwards to select with such skill. For that matter there is not the slightest reason for thinking that any soldier, fiddler or tinker was actually present, or that the relationship of one member of the company to another was as described by the poet. In the same way the vivid and realistic description in Tam o' Shanter of the warlocks and witches dancing to the sound of the bagpipes played by Old Nick is not evidence that Tam really saw anything of the kind. What there is evidence of, in both instances, is the immense creative faculty in poetry which Burns possessed.

The Jolly Beggars displays very impressively Burns's scholarship and his great knowledge of old songs. It also reveals how true his ear was, and how excellent his musical taste, in finding just the right tune to fit verses which are to be sung in character. All this is a striking achievement for a young man. Wittig says of The Jolly Beggars that it is: 'the fullest symposium of the Scottish tradition. There is no other compilation in which we find such a wealth of old motifs, songs, tunes, Scottish metres and echoes of the Makars, brought freshly to life in a congenial form.'³²

Thus while this cantata is an intensely original work, which only Burns could have written, it shows the influence of literary tradition. As early as the first half of the sixteenth century a song that became popular in Scotland was The Jolly Beggar, attributed to King James V. Again the song 'I once was a maid…', although so much more savage in content, is clearly related to the gentle lines of Allan Ramsay:

My soger laddie's over the sea
And he will bring gold and money to me;
And when he comes hame, he'll make me a lady;
My blessing gang wi' my soger laddie.

In introducing the fiddler Burns again echoes Ramsay, which is something rare with him, but makes the earlier poet appear dull and pedestrian by comparison, as in the very skilful use of Italian musical terms:

Then in an arioso key
The wee Apollo
Set off wi' allegretto glee
His ginga solo.

The corresponding lines in Ramsay read:

On which Apollo,
With meikle pleasure play'd himself
Baith jig and solo.³³

We may notice, too, that when the fiddler says to the female beggar: 'An' go with me an' be my dear', it immediately recalls the line of Marlowe: 'Come live with me and be my Love.'³⁴

In a famous passage Matthew Arnold speaks of The Jolly Beggars as this 'puissant and splendid production'. He also says that in it: 'there is more than hideousness and squalor, there is bestiality; yet the piece is a superb poetic success. It has breadth, truth and power which make the famous scene in Auerbach's Cellar of Goethe's Faust seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are only matched by Shakespeare and Aristophanes.'³⁵ Part of the poetic success mentioned by Arnold came about because, fine as the individual items in the poem are, the themes are closely knit into a unity, and form an artistic whole which transcends each of them in excellence.

No doubt Burns enjoyed writing The Jolly Beggars. It was evidently the passionate outpouring of material he had already accumulated in his mind, under the stimulus of an exceptionally interesting experience, but as a cautious and circumspect Scot he did not choose to allow its appearance to have any ill effect upon his reputation, and it was not published in complete form until 1802, six years after his death. There was then another gap before the editor George Thomson wished to stage the cantata in 1814. Thomson did not find the task easy. First he invited the Scottish composer Farquhar Graham to 'realize' a 'purified' version, but when the result was ready it proved unsatisfactory. He then approached Beethoven, rightly acting on the principle that only the best was good enough for Burns, but unfortunately the great composer did not accept the commission. Finally Sir Henry Bishop undertook the work, and the piece was staged in Edinburgh in March 1823. The result must have been satisfactory at least from a financial point of view, for Bishop received in payment a gold snuff-box, decorated with Scottish jasper and agate; a suite of Scottish damask; and two pictures.

Address to the Deil

Burns was very keenly interested in the Devil. This poem was written in 1785, and his brother Gilbert says of it: 'The curious idea of such an address was suggested to him by running over in his mind the many ludicrous accounts and representations we have from various quarters of this august personage.' This jocular burlesque of Milton's Satan was written after reading Paradise Lost, and at the head of it he quotes the Miltonic epigraph:

O Prince! O Chief of many thronèd Pow'rs!
That led th' embattl'd seraphim to war….

It appears that the idea of contrasting Milton's grand conception with that of popular superstition and folklore made a strong appeal to Burns's sense of humour. Burns had evidently much the closer acquaintance with the Devil, for whereas Milton regards with awe from a respectful distance, the Scottish bard is on very familiar terms, even to the use of nick-names. But while here and in other poems, such as Tarn o' Shanter, the personality of 'Auld Clootie'³⁶ is expressed in terms closely in accord with the ancient traditions of the countryside, Burns had a great love for Milton. In a letter to James Smith he says: 'Give me a spirit like my favourite hero, Milton's Satan.'

There are other references in his letters to Milton's Satan, for whom, with his usual sound taste for what was of merit in literature, he had a particular regard. He was not alone in this preference, and it has been said of Paradise Lost that: 'The magnificent figure of Satan is consistently more appealing than Milton's God', with the curious reversal in the poem of what Milton set out to do and what he actually accomplished.

What we are considering here has a good deal to do with character and temperament. Unlike Shakespeare, who was at one with his own age, Milton always looked backwards, as in his preoccupation with medieval theology. Burns lived in the present: 'The joy of my heart', he said, 'is to study men, their manners, and their ways,' so that it is constantly evident that his figures are of flesh and blood. Part of the merit of what he created came about because he put much of himself into his poems, and expressed his own nature. Shakespeare had the same outlook when he said:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

This sympathetic understanding of humanity is a fundamental feature in the works of Burns, and is an element common to all the great masters. In this he was akin to Shakespeare, who, as Dryden remarks, 'needed not the spectacles of books to read nature: he looked inward and found her there'. Again, as Stewart Perowne has said: 'There never was a less bookish playwright than Shakespeare. Be the setting what it may, it is to the flesh and blood he knew that the action and the talk is committed.'^36a

The subject of the Devil was one in which Burns remained very interested. In 1796, only a few months before his death, he wrote an epistle To Colonel De Peyster, the fourth and fifth stanzas of which read:

Reid suggests that the philosophy of Burns was a rebelliously kindly one, summed up in a verse expressing the hope that even the Devil may escape damnation³⁷:

But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben!
O wad ye tak' a thought an men!
Ye aiblins³⁸ might—I dinna ken—
Still hae a stake
I'm wae³⁹ to think upo' yon den
Ev'n for your sake.

Death and Dr. Hornbook

Among the most remarkable of the early poems of Burns is the one entitled Death and Dr. Hornbook. This famous satire relates to one John Wilson, the schoolmaster of Tarbolton. To increase his income Wilson kept a grocer's shop, from which he sold drugs as well as groceries. He displayed a card in his window announcing that he would give advice free about 'common disorders'.

The poet was present at a masonic meeting at which the dominie made too ostentatious a display of his medical knowledge, sufficient in fact to fill any thoughtful person with alarm at the possible consequences of his activities. Burns, as a conscientious and far-sighted man, was immediately aware of the dangers from such a charlatan, and drew public attention to them by writing his poem at 'seed time', 1785. While publication of the poem made a considerable stir, there appears to be no foundation for the statement by Lockhart that it forced Wilson to close his shop.⁴⁰

This satire deserves notice both as a brilliant piece of work in itself and because it is representative of others which Burns wrote in this style. In it he depicts a reveller who encounters Death on his way home. The dread figure reassures him personally, but proceeds to complain bitterly that he is being outdone in his business by an amateur who kills off people at a great rate before he has time to get to them. The following four verses, although they do not fully reveal the ingenious story, are otherwise typical. Death says:

The power of poetic narrative, shown here, and of giving a lively picture in a very few words, seems almost Chaucerian in character. And although the satire is penetrating, it is tempered by kindly humour, so that the feelings of the victim were not wounded. Wilson became, in fact, one of the poet's innumerable friends, and even told Gilbert Burns that he considered the poem 'rather a compliment'. At a later date he sought the advice and help of Burns in seeking a post in a lawyer's office in Edinburgh. In his reply, written from Ellisland, the poet says: 'I am truly sorry, my dear Sir, that you find yourself so uncomfortably situated in Tarbolton; the more so, as I fear you will find on trial that the remedy you propose is worse than the disease…. To a gentleman who is unacquainted with the science of law, and who proposes to live merely by the drudgery of his quill, he has before him a life of many sorrows…. I should be very sorry any friend of mine should ever try it.'⁵³ Nevertheless Burns enclosed a cordial note of recommendation addressed to a leading Edinburgh lawyer whom the poet described as 'honest John Somerville'.

Holy Willie's Prayer

The amount of energy which Burns devoted to his various interests was quite extraordinary. He can almost certainly be regarded as one of those vivid personalities whose internal fires burn so brightly that an early death is practically inevitable, there being a close resemblance to such cases as those of Goldsmith, Mozart, Schubert and others. One of the many things that interested him, and which found expression in his poetry, was theological controversy. At the first sight this might seem extremely unpromising ground for a poet, but in fact there were issues which were very live ones in Scotland at this period, and were passionately debated.

Contemporary society was sharply divided between those who supported the rigid Calvinistic creed and outlook, who were known as the 'Auld Lichts', and those who had a more rational outlook, known as the 'New Lichts'. It may be noted that one of the books found in the library of Burns was Taylor's Original Sin, a favourite work of the New Light party. The poet found himself drawn into the controversy when two of his friends, Gavin Hamilton (1751-1805), and Robert Aiken, became involved.

Hamilton owned the land farmed by Robert and his brother at Mossgiel, besides practising as a lawyer in Mauchline. All the records show that he was an exceptionally pleasant and kindly man of the highest character, and it was natural that he should appreciate similar qualities in the poet. A firm friendship did in fact grow up between them, with some important consequences.

Dr. Ross remarks that 'Like Burns, Hamilton was a zealous and intelligent supporter of the New Light doctrine',⁵⁴ and was therefore brought into trouble with local orthodox opinion. Perhaps because Mr. Hamilton was one of those rare people of really blameless life, he excited the envy and hatred of one afterwards immortalized by Burns as 'Holy Willie', who sought an opportunity to injure him. This dreadful fellow hid his misdeeds, including the embezzling of church funds, under a cloak of hypocrisy in the form of sour bigotry. He eventually found an opening by accusing Mr. Hamilton of being lax in church attendance and, worse still, of allowing a servant to pull kale on the Sabbath.

An accusation of this kind was then a most serious matter, and could easily ruin a professional man. The Process brought by 'Holy Willie' received a full hearing in the Presbytery of Ayr, and Mr. Hamilton had representing him as Counsel the eloquent Mr. Robert Aiken. Right finally triumphed, but it was a close thing.

Burns was deeply moved by this attack on his upright and irreproachable friend by one whose life he knew to be a slimy sham. In his Holy Willie's Prayer the searing fire of his anger is evident, and has been likened to the scourge of knotted cords with which the money-changers were driven from the Temple. Not only is the poem a magnificent one in itself, but much of Burns the man is revealed in it. It was written in 1785, shortly after Death and Dr. Hornbook, to which it is somewhat akin.

Dr. Ross says of 'Holy Willie'⁵⁵ that he was 'a great pretender for sanctity'. This 'sanctimonious and self-satisfied' man, although for a time an elder, appears to have been more often drunk than sober, and to have become increasingly voluble in his cups. Burns refers to him as 'a rather oddish bachelor, justly famed for that polemical chattering which ends in tippling orthodoxy, and for that spiritualized bawdry which becomes liquorish devotion'. It is said that eventually 'Holy Willie', returning from a carousal, fell into a ditch in a drunken stupor, and was found dead there the following morning.

Holy Willie's Prayer, described as 'a rough but most pungent satire', followed soon after the poet's Twa Herds, which had caused 'a roar of applause'. Both immediately gained a wide circulation in manuscript. 'Burns', says Sir Leslie Stephen, 'represents the revolt of a virile and imaginative nature against a system of belief and practice which, as he judged, had degenerated into mere bigotry and pharisaism.' In these 'satires of startling vigour' he therefore attacked bigotry and superstition. Public opinion was moving in the same direction, and Burns would have been welcome as a continuing champion of the moderate party in church affairs, had his mind not been too great for theological squabbles.

Much of the effect of Holy Willie's Prayer would have been lost if Burns had shown any lack of a sense of proportion, but in fact there is both biting satire and zestful humour. The poet seems to find an almost playful enjoyment in contrasting his victim's pretensions with his real nature, and does it in exquisitely ludicrous terms. At the same time there is no lack of serious thought. Burns felt contempt for hypocritical outward show because it caricatured morality which he respected and upheld. The other side of his feeling is revealed in his Cottar's Saturday Night, with its description of family devotions, which belongs to the same period.

Scotch Drink

An early poem, Scotch Drink, has caused raising of eyebrows because of the perverse idea that the mere choice of such a subject shows what a drunken reprobate Burns must have been. The facts of the case are expressed by Chambers, here as always an excellent authority: 'He was, as has been said, no lover of drink, but his social spirit had invested it with many interesting associations in his mind. Looking round for subjects, the poem of Fergusson, entitled Caller Water, seems to have suggested to him a similar strain on the artificial beverages of his native country.'⁵⁶

A major theme in the poem, which was clearly a large part of its inspiration, related to the cancellation of an ancient right of the laird of Ferintosh to distil duty-free whisky. Gunny on says: 'This poem was suggested by the withdrawal of an Act of Parliament empowering Duncan Forbes of Culloden to distil whisky on his barony of Ferintosh, free of duty, in return for services rendered to the Government. This privilege was a source of great revenue to the family; and as Ferintosh whisky was cheaper than that produced elsewhere, it became very popular, and the name Ferintosh thus became something like a synonym for whisky all over the country. Compensation for the loss of privilege, to the tune of £21,580, was awarded to the Forbes family by a jury…. The circumstances gave the poet his clue; and the subject was one calculated to evoke his wildest humour.'⁵⁷

In one verse the poet says:

In this poem Burns gives as usual some fascinating glimpses into social customs in all grades of society, which his wide acquaintance gave him unusual opportunities of observing. In the following verse, for example, he compares the serving of ale in silver mugs at the tables of the wealthy, with the use among more humble folk of brisk small-beer as a favourite relish to porridge:

The habit Burns had of heading his verses with quotations is extremely interesting, not only because of their often illuminating application to the particular verses, but because of the sidelights they give on his reading. Scotch Drink is headed with a verse from Solomon's Proverbs, a favourite source. Biblical references were frequent, but many of the authors he loved were represented, including Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Gray and Goldsmith. In his songs the names of appropriate tunes he has chosen took the place of quotations.

A similar theme is to be found in The Author's Ernest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch Representatives in the House of Commons, a high-spirited poem, full of humour and irony, in which Burns rails at governmental interference with the liberties of distillers and whisky-drinkers.

The Whistle

Many of the biographers of Burns have expressed scandalized horror at what they have imagined to be his intemperate habits, while failing to produce evidence to support their supposition. It has been suggested, however, that the poet can be condemned from his own works. In particular his poem The Whistle has been accepted as proof of dreadful debauchery on the part of Burns. As this is regarded as an extreme case, showing Burns at his worst, it is desirable to look closely at what really happened.

The whistle in question belonged to Captain Robert Riddel, a landowner and friend of Burns, living at Friar's Carse House, immediately to the south of Ellisland. Burns tells the curious history of the whistle in these words: 'In the train of Anne of Denmark, when she came to Scotland with our James VI, there came over also a Danish gentleman of gigantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless champion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony whistle, which at the commencement of the orgies was laid on the table, and whoever was the last able to blow it, everybody else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to carry off the whistle as a trophy of victory. The Dane produced credentials of his victories, without a single defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, Warsaw, and several of the petty courts in Germany; and challenged the Scots Bacchanalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else of acknowledging their inferiority. After many overthrows on the part of the Scots, the Dane was encountered by Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, ancestor of the present worthy baronet of that name; who, after three days and three nights' hard contest, left the Scandinavian under the table,

And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill.

Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, afterwards lost the whistle to Walter Riddel of Glen Riddel, who had married his sister.' By 1789 the famous whistle had come by descent to Burns's neighbour, Captain Robert Riddel, who felt he would like to make it the subject of a friendly contest with two other descendants of the Scandinavian's conqueror, namely Alexander Fergusson of Craigdarroch and Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, then M.P. for Dumfriesshire.

How dreadful, many have felt, that Burns should have joined in gross debauchery of this sort. Actually he did nothing of the kind, and it is curious to note that no one condemns the three rather eminent men who were the real contestants. The part that Burns was called upon to play, as a friend of those concerned, was to act as a kind of judge and umpire. In response to a reminder, apparently sent on the evening of the dinner, he sent this note in verse, afterwards preserved at Craigdarroch House, indicating that he was delayed by his Excise duties:

William Hunter, a senior member of the household at Friar's Carse, provided some years later this record of the occasion. 'Burns', he says, 'was present the whole evening. He was invited to attend the party, to see that the gentlemen drank fair, and to commemorate the day by writing a song.' Hunter continues:'I recollect well, that when the dinner was over, Burns quitted the table, and went to a table in the same room that was placed in a window that looked south-east: and there he sat down for the night. I placed before him a bottle of rum and another of brandy, which he did not finish, but left a good deal of each when he rose from the table after the gentlemen had gone to bed…. When they were put to bed, Burns walked home without any assistance, not being the worse of drink.'

Hunter adds: 'When Burns was sitting at the table in the window, he had pen, ink and paper, which I brought to him at his own request. He now and then wrote on the paper, and while the gentlemen were sober, he turned round often and chatted with them, but drank none of the claret which they were drinking…. I heard him read aloud several parts of the poem, much to the amusement of the three gentlemen.'

Chambers remarks in connection with the above matter that Burns 'was of too social and mirth-loving a nature to refuse to join in occasional revelries, such as then too frequently occurred amongst gentlemen as well as commoners; but he liked these scenes rather in spite of, than from a love of, drinking', adding that, 'All his old Ellisland servants testify to the sobriety of his life there.'

This episode gives us an intimate and typical glimpse of the poet avoiding the excesses of his friends while remaining on cordial terms with them. It is interesting, too, to note his brilliant feat of composing the poem on the spot, showing how actively his mind was working; and of recounting the verses as they are written to auditors who were enthusiastic about them until unconsciousness supervened. And while at the close of the evening Burns walked soberly home, ready to rise out on his rounds at the crack of dawn, it was far otherwise with the contestants: it is on record, for example, that Lawrie, 'gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines', never afterwards quite recovered from the effects of the contest.

Halloween

When Burns was a boy his father used to invite a poor widow, Betty Davidson, 'to spend a few months at a time with his family, both at Alloway and Mount Oliphant, where, to requite his kindness, she was most assiduous in spinning, carding, and doing all kinds of good offices that were in her power. She was of a mirthful temperament, and therefore a great favourite with the children.' The old dame had a wonderful collection of tales about witches, warlocks, ghosts and the like, and the recital of these had so strong an effect on the imagination of the poet that for ever afterwards, in his nocturnal rambles, he kept a sharp lookout in suspicious places.

The interest in such things remained with Burns, and with the passing years his knowledge of the traditional lore of witchcraft in his part of the country became unrivalled. In his poem on Halloween the depth of his learning is well displayed. In his introduction to it he says: 'The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but, for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the West of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human-nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such should honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it, among the more unenlightened in our own.' The calm, detached standpoint of the poet is to be noted, for it was very rare in his day, and causes one to reflect upon the amount of credulity which survives in full vigour in our own time, nearly two centuries later, waiting for someone with a mind as impartial and philosophic as that of Burns to observe its manifestations.

The poem itself forms a valuable record of ancient customs and beliefs, and there is so much conservatism about what is essentially an oral tradition that there may be little change in the course of a millennium. At the same time there is often obscurity about the meaning of particular actions, and for that reason among others the notes that Burns gives are very helpful. Incidentally here again we find the poet in the role of a serious antiquary. To quote one note must suffice. He says: 'The first ceremony of Halloween is pulling each a stock or plant of kail. They (the lasses and lads) must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with: its being big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells—the husband or wife. If any yird, or earth, stick to the root, that is tocher, or fortune; and the taste of the custoc, that is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly the stems or, to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above the head of the door; and the Christian names of the people whom chance brings into the house are, according to the priority of placing the runts, the names in question.'

The poem gains interest by being given a locale. Thus in a note on the line: On Cassilis Downans dance, Burns says that these are 'Certain little romantic, rocky green hills, in the neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cassilis', and of the line: There up the cove to stray and rove, he says that the cove is 'A noted cavern near Colean-house called the Cove of Colean, which, as well as Cassilis-Downans, is famed in country story for being a favourite haunt of fairies'.

Notes

¹ Robert Aiken of Ayr (1739-1807) was a prosperous lawyer in his native town.

²The Elegy, verse 8.

³ Thomas Crawford, Burns (1960), p. 177.

⁴ sky.

⁵ oxen.

⁶ peeps.

⁷ overcome.

⁸ shuts, cf. sneck, to latch or fasten.

⁹ cleaning.

¹⁰ makes.

¹¹ doleful.

¹² frightened or made afraid.

¹³ poverty.

¹⁴ J. Logie Robertson, Furth in Field, p. 260.

¹⁵ F. Angellier, Robert Burns; la vie, les oeuvres, Paris (1893), II, 80.

¹⁶ Otto Ritter, Dr.Phil., Quellenstudien zu Robert Burns, 1773-1791, Berlin (1901), p. 99.

¹⁷ James Sutherland, A Preface to Eighteenth-Century Poetry, Oxford (1948), pp. 132-6, cf. also Perry, English Literature in the 18th Century, pp. 435 ff.

¹⁸Henry IV, Pt. II, I, i. 254.

¹⁹L'Allegro, lines 67-68.

²⁰ Op. cit. pp. 180-1.

²¹ inside.

²² chats, gossips.

²³ cows.

²⁴ bashful—hesitating.

²⁵ reluctant.

²⁶ literally what is left, i.e. the rest of people

²⁷ W. E. Henley, in The Poems of Robert Burns, edited by W. E. Henley and T. F. Henderson (1896), IV, 277.

²⁸ A. E. Elistratova, Robert Burns, Moscow (1957).

²⁹ J. A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects (The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish Character), (1867-83), II, 147.

³⁰ Scottish variant of Lowland.

³¹ Burns observes that Homer is allowed to be the earliest ballad singer on record.

³² K. Wittig, The Scottish Tradition in Literature, Edinburgh (1958), p. 211.

³³ Allan Ramsay, Poems, edited by Geo. Chalmers (1800), An Elegy on Patie Birnie, 1, 235.

³⁴ Christopher Marlowe (1564-93), The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.

³⁵ Matthew Arnold, 'The Study of Poetry', in Essays in Criticism, 2nd series (1954 edition), pp. 26 and 31-33.

³⁶ This Scottish name for Satan is taken from his cloven feet or cloots.

^36a Stewart Perowne, O.B.E., M.A., F.S.A., in The Times, 6 June 1964.

³⁷ Op. cit. p. 155.

³⁸ or ablings, a Scottish form of 'able', with suf. 'lings', i.e. possibly.

³⁹ The Scottish form of sad or woeful.

⁴⁰ John Gibson Lockhart, Life of Robert Burns (1959 edition), pp. 50-51.

⁴¹ death in a comfortable straw bed.

⁴² oath.

⁴³ grave-cloth.

⁴⁴ weaver.

⁴⁵ fists.

⁴⁶ aching or sore.

⁴⁷ slid gently or quietly.

⁴⁸ colic.

⁴⁹ rumbling.

⁵⁰ pet-ewes.

⁵¹ swelled.

⁵² belly.

⁵³ 11 September 1790.

⁵⁴ John D. Ross, LL.D., Who's Who in Burns, published by Eneas Mackay, Stirling (1927).

⁵⁵ Actually William Fisher (1737-1809).

⁵⁶ Op. cit. I, 202.

⁵⁷ W. Gunnyon, Burns Manuscripts in the Kilmarnock Monument (1889), p. 121.