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LECTURE XVI.

I HAVE spent two Sunday afternoons in speaking of the poetry of Man and of Nature and of the theology in them, as represented in the work of Burns. Our subject to-day is concerned with some aspects of his life so far as they bear on the personal religion that appears in his poetry, and with his relation as a Poet to a special form. of theology.

We have seen how well and manfully, when he was young, he accepted his place as a poor man, and how he honoured Poverty by song. But his poverty did not guard him against the temptations which beset his artist nature. He had but little power of Will when his passions were excited, and whether it was love, or fame, or the pleasures of the table, he was swept away by all alike. The natural result of this course of life, combined with want of Will, was that he never set himself to any ordered music, never adopted or pursued any end with any perseverance. These elements in his character were developed into unfortunate prominence by his visit tc Edinburgh. He was taken out of his natural atmosphere, and though he kept his independence, and retained his free nature, his life was spoilt by the change. His frank

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ness and audacious personality made him unwelcome to those who had lionized him at first, and he was gradually dropped. And when he was put aside he did not like it, and he could never breathe easily again the air of humble life. It was a severe trial. A few weeks before he was flying from his country, an exile and in despair, and now he was at the summit of the wave of Society, his name in every mouth. A few weeks later and the whole pageant had dissolved. He was back again in a small country place, discharging the most unpoetical of offices. He took the glory and the fall with equal good temper and manliness, though they both intensified his errors. was not dazzled at Edinburgh into believing that his fortune was made. He knew that he was too bold and rough to win patronage, and he went home to fulfil his duties as an exciseman, the only place that Society could find to employ the genius of Burns. It was like Society; and yet, though we are indignant, it would be unfair to lay all the blame of the Poet's life on the neglect of Society. If Burns had been a little nobler in character, with some self-restraint, some purposefulness in life, he might have been happy and written his poems, as an exciseman. But he could not; passions, appetites, and irregular excitement carried far beyond what he could bear, soon ruined his life. He had gained a taste for fame, and he was continually invaded by persons who led him away from his work. His fashionable life produced results which brought him to an early death. It stimulated the fatal qualities of his nature; it spoilt the unity of his life by fixing one end of its axis among the rich and another among the poor, and it threw him into the worst company-the

company of the lionizers of genius, who seek it to be amused and then mock at the source of their amusement. It was, no doubt, his own fault that he perished; but it would have been well, if the big people had let him alone, or at least, if they who flattered him had done something better for him than set him to catch smugglers. It is all well summed up in Carlyle's "Lectures on Heroes; in a delightful passage, which I remember being told by one who heard it, was closed exactly as it is in the bookCarlyle pronouncing with inimitable meaning in his voice the last word "But"-and then rapidly passing behind the curtain of the platform.

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"Richter says, in the island of Sumatra there is a kind of Light-chafers-large fireflies-which people stick on spits and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honour to the fire-flies! But !"

I do not think I ever see fine and fashionable people "taking up" a poor artist, or making a show in their drawing-rooms of a struggling genius-and trying, in their blind, barbarian way, to help him on,-especially when they demand that the artist should submit his individuality to their caprices-without a desire to say to him-For God's sake, bear any poverty rather than yield to this. They do not mean badly, but they have no intelligence to mean better; and their tender mercies will kill your powers. You may not be Samson, but it is bitter to make sport for the Philistines. It degrades the intellect and corrodes the heart.

There were two things, then, in his life which spoiled

him. Want of aim was one; and unrestrained passion was the other; and both characterize one type of the artist, the second or rather the third-rate type. In the highest artist, the aim of his life is clear, and he never fails to see it and to labour for it. His passion also, which he must possess, is always in his power. He may choose to indulge it, but he does so purposely, and he can check it when he will with ease; but he rarely chooses to indulge it to the prejudice of his art, whatever that art may be. For the sake of his art, he wills to be temperate and he is; and while enjoying all things to the very top of enjoyment, he is always capable of staying his hand at the point where enjoyment threatens to pass into satiety.

"The great

Burns had neither of these qualities. misfortune of my life," he says, "was to want an aim:" and bitterly he regrets it in hours when solemn thought was uppermost. The note he strikes at the end of his "Address to the Field Mouse" is still more plainly heard in the "Ode to Despondency,"

Happy, ye sons of busy life,

Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!

E'en when the wished end's deny'd,
Yet while the busy means are ply'd,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandoned wight,
Unfitted with an aim,

Meet every sad returning night
And joyless morn the same.

At other times-and how characteristic this is of such a nature he accepts his aimlessness as a good thing, or at least, as something which cannot be helped, and is to

be made the best of. He is in good spirits, his mood is happy, and he contrasts his thoughtless and wild enjoyment with the miserable state of those that live by rule, whose hearts are never touched by impulse:

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And then he turns upon those whose life he half despises, and at times half regrets :

O, ye douce folk, that live by rule,

Grave, tideless-blooded, calm, and cool.
Compared wi' you-O fool! fool! fool!
How much unlike;

Your hearts are just a standing pool,

Your lives a dyke !

I have no special fondness for over-purpose in life, for living by rule. The common advice-find one aim, and pursue it to the exclusion of all others, is good worldly

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