LECTURE VII ON BURNS, AND THE OLD ENGLISH BALLADS I AM Sorry that what I said in the conclusion of the last Lecture respecting Chatterton, should have given dissatisfaction to some persons, with whom I would willingly agree on all such matters. What I meant was less to call in question Chatterton's genius, than to object to the common mode of estimating its magnitude by its prematureness. The lists of fame are not filled with the dates of births or deaths; and the side-mark of the age at which they were done, wears out in works destined for immortality. Had Chatterton really done more, we should have thought less of him, for our attention would then have been fixed on the excellence of the works themselves, instead of the singularity of the circumstances in which they were produced. But because he attained to the full powers of manhood at an early age, I do not see that he would have attained to more than those powers, had he lived to be a man. He was a prodigy, because in him the ordinary march of nature was violently precipitated; and it is therefore inferred, that he would have continued to hold on his course, 'unslacked of motion.' On the contrary, who knows but he might have lived to be poet-laureat? It is much better to let him remain as he was. Of his actual productions, any one may think as highly as he pleases; I would only guard against adding to the account of his quantum meruit, those possible productions by which the learned rhapodists of his time raised his gigantic pretensions to an equality with those of Homer and Shakspeare. It is amusing to read some of these exaggerated descriptions, each rising above the other in extravagance. In Anderson's Life, we find that Mr. Warton speaks of him as a prodigy of genius,' as a singular instance of prematurity of abilities': that may be true enough, and Warton was at any rate a competent judge; but Mr. Malone believes him to have been the greatest genius that England has produced since the days of Shakspeare.' Dr. Gregory says, he must rank, as a universal genius, above Dryden, and perhaps only second to Shakspeare.' Mr. Herbert Croft is still more unqualified in his praises; he asserts, that no such being, at any period of life, has ever been known, or possibly ever will be known.' He runs a parallel between Chatterton and Milton; and asserts, that of Macedonian and Swedish mad butchers fly before him,' 'an army meaning, I suppose, that Alexander the Great and Charles the Twelfth were nothing to him; 'nor,' he adds, 'does my memory supply me with any human being, who at such an age, with such advantages, has produced such compositions. Under the heathen mythology, superstition and admiration would have explained all, by bringing Apollo on earth; nor would the God ever have descended with more credit to himself.'-Chatterton's physiognomy would at least have enabled him to pass incognito. It is quite different from the look of timid wonder and delight with which Annibal Caracci has painted a young Apollo listening to the first sounds he draws from a Pan's pipe, under the tutelage of the old Silenus ! If Mr. Croft is sublime on the occasion, Dr. Knox is no less pathetic. The testimony of Dr. Knox,' says Dr. Anderson, (Essays, p. 144), does equal credit to the classical taste and amiable benevolence of the writer, and the genius and reputation of Chatterton.' When I read,' says the Doctor, the researches of those learned antiquaries who have endeavoured to prove that the poems attributed to Rowley were really written by him, I observe many ingenious remarks in confirmation of their opinion, which it would be tedious, if not difficult, to controvert.' Now this is so far from the mark, that the whole controversy might have been settled by any one but the learned antiquaries themselves, who had the smallest share of their learning, from this single circumstance, that the poems read as smooth as any modern poems, if you read them as modern compositions; and that you cannot read them, or make verse of them at all, if you pronounce or accent the words as they were spoken at the time when the poems were pretended to have been written. The whole secret of the imposture, which nothing but a deal of learned dust, raised by collecting and removing a great deal of learned rubbish, could have prevented our laborious critics from seeing through, lies on the face of it (to say nothing of the burlesque air which is scarcely disguised throughout) in the repetition of a few obsolete words, and in the mis-spelling of common ones. 'No sooner,' proceeds the Doctor, do I turn to the poems, than the labour of the antiquaries appears only waste of time; and I am involuntarily forced to join in placing that laurel, which he seems so well to have deserved, on the brow of Chatterton. The poems bear so many marks of superior genius, that they have deservedly excited the general attention of polite scholars, and are considered as the most remarkable productions in modern poetry. We have many instances of poetical eminence at an early age; but neither Cowley, Milton, nor Pope, ever produced any thing while they were boys, which can justly be compared to the poems of Chatterton. The learned antiquaries do not indeed dispute their excellence. They extol it in the highest terms of applause. They raise their favourite Rowley to a rivalry with Homer: but they make the very merits of the works an argument against their real author. Is it possible, say they, that a boy should produce compositions so beautiful and masterly? That a common boy should produce them is not possible,' rejoins the Doctor; but that they should be produced by a boy of an extraordinary genius, such as was that of Homer or Shakspeare, though a prodigy, is such a one as by no means exceeds the bounds of rational credibility.' Now it does not appear that Shakspeare or Homer were such early prodigies; so that by this reasoning he must take precedence of them too, as well as of Milton, Cowley, and Pope. The reverend and classical writer then breaks out into the following melancholy raptures: Unfortunate boy! short and evil were thy days, but thy fame shall be immortal. Hadst thou been known to the munificent patrons of genius. . . . Unfortunate boy! poorly wast thou accommodated during thy short sojourning here among us;-rudely wast thou treated-sorely did thy feelings suffer from the scorn of the unworthy; and there are at last those who wish to rob thee of thy only meed, thy posthumous glory. Severe too are the censures of thy morals. In the gloomy moments of despondency, I fear thou hast uttered impious and blasphemous thoughts. But let thy more rigid censors reflect, that thou wast literally and strictly but a boy. Let many of thy bitterest enemies reflect what were their own religious principles, and whether they had any at the age of fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Surely it is a severe and unjust surmise that thou wouldst probably have ended thy life as a victim to the laws, if thou hadst not ended it as thou didst.' Enough, enough, of the learned antiquaries, and of the classical and benevolent testimony of Dr. Knox. Chatterton was, indeed, badly enough off; but he was at least saved from the pain and shame of reading this woful lamentation over fallen genius, which circulates splendidly bound in the fourteenth edition, while he is a prey to worms. As to those who are really capable of admiring Chatterton's genius, or of feeling an interest in his fate, I would only say, that I never heard any one speak of any one of his works as if it were an old well-known favourite, and had become a faith and a religion in his mind. It is his name, his youth, and what he might have lived to have done, that excite our wonder and admiration. He has the same sort of posthumous fame that an actor of the last age has—an abstracted reputation which is independent of any thing we know of his works. The admirers of Collins never think of him without recalling to their minds his Ode on Evening, or on the Poetical Character. Gray's Elegy, and his poetical popularity, are identified together, and inseparable even in imagination. It is the same with respect to Burns when you speak of him as a poet, you mean his works, his Tam o' Shanter, or his Cotter's Saturday Night. But the enthusiasts for Chatterton, if you ask for the proofs of his extraordinary genius, are obliged to turn to the volume, and perhaps find there what they seek; but it is not in their minds; and it is of that I spoke. The Minstrel's song in Ælla is I think the best. 'O! synge untoe my roundelaie, Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, Black hys cryne as the wyntere nyght, Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, Swote hys tongue as the throstles note, Quycke ynne daunce as thought cann bee, O! hee lys bie the wyllowe-tree. Mie love ys dedde, Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, Harke! the ravenne flappes hys wynge, In the briered dell belowe; Harke! the dethe-owle loude dothe synge, To the nygthe-mares as theie goe. Mie love ys dedde, Gone to hys deathe-bedde, Al under the wyllowe-tree. See the whyte moone sheenes onne hie; Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie, Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, Heere, upon mie true loves grave, Gonne to his deathe-bedde, Wythe mie hondes I'll dent the brieres Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, Comme, wythe acorne-coppe and thorne, Lyfe and all yttes goode I scorne, Daunce bie nete, or feaste by daie. Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, Water wytches, crownede wythe reytes, I die; I comme; mie true love waytes. To proceed to the more immediate subject of the present Lecture, the character and writings of Burns.-Shakspeare says of some one, that he was like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.' Burns, the poet, was not such a man. He had a strong mind, and a strong body, the fellow to it. He had a real heart of flesh and blood beating in his bosom-you can almost hear it throb. Some one said, that if you had shaken hands with him, his hand would have burnt yours. The Gods, indeed, made him poetical'; but nature had a hand in him first. His heart was in the right place. He did not create a soul under the ribs of death,' by tinkling siren sounds, or by piling up centos of poetic diction; but for the artificial flowers of poetry, he plucked the mountain-daisy under his feet; and a field-mouse, hurrying from its ruined dwelling, could inspire him |