The Romance of Biography Volume II Part 13

FOOTNOTES:

[70] Coleridge's Wallenstein.

[71] Bodmer, after the publication of the Messiah, invited the author to his house in Switzerland. He had imaged to himself a most sublime idea of the man who could write such a poem, and had fancied him like one of the sages and prophets of the Old Testament. His astonishment, when he saw a slight-made, elegant-looking young man leap gaily from his carriage, with sparkling eyes and a smiling countenance, has been pleasantly described.

[72] Klopstock's Letters, p. 145.

[73] Klopstock's Letters.

[74] "I not being able to travel yet, my husband has been obliged to make a voyage to Copenhagen. He is yet absent; a cloud over my happiness! He will soon return; but what does that help? he is yet equally absent. We write to each other every post; but what are letters to presence? But I will speak no more of this little cloud, I will only tell my happiness. But I cannot tell you how I rejoice!--A son of my dear Klopstock's! O, when shall I have him?"--_Memoirs_, p. 99.

[75] Elizabeth Schmidt, married to the brother of f.a.n.n.y Schmidt.

[76] Meta was buried with her infant in her arms, at Ottenson, near Altona. She had expressed a wish to have two pa.s.sages from the Messiah, descriptive of the resurrection, inscribed on her coffin, but one only was engraved:--

"Seed sown by G.o.d to ripen for the harvest."

_See Memoirs_, p. 197.

[77] Translated by Elizabeth Smith, of whom it has been truly said, that she resembled Meta, and to whom we are indebted for her first introduction to English readers.

[78] Memoirs.

[79] Klopstock says of himself, "it is not my nature to be happy or miserable by halves: having once discarded melancholy, I am ready to welcome happiness."--_Klopstock and his Friends_, p. 164.

[80]

Du zweifelst da.s.s ich dich wie Meta liebe?

Wie Meta lieb' Ich Done dich!

Dies, saget dir mein hertz liebe vol Mein ganzes hertz! &c.

CHAPTER XI.

CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED.

BONNIE JEAN.

It was as Burns's _wife_ as well as his early love, that Bonnie Jean lives immortalized in her poet's songs, and that her name is destined to float in music from pole to pole. When they first met, Burns was about six-and-twenty, and Jean Armour "but a young thing,"

Wi' tempting lips and roguish e'en,

the pride, the beauty, and the favourite toast of the village of Mauchline, where her father lived. To an early period of their attachment, or to the fond recollection of it in after times, we owe some of Burns's most beautiful and impa.s.sioned songs,--as

Come, let me take thee to this breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder!

And I'll spurn as vilest dust, The world's wealth and grandeur, &c.

"O poort.i.th cold and restless love;" "the kind love that's in her e'e;"

"Lewis, what reck I by thee;" and many others. I conjecture, from a pa.s.sage in one of Burns's letters, that Bonnie Jean also furnished the heroine and the subject of that admirable song, "O whistle, and I'll come to thee, my lad," so full of buoyant spirits and artless affection: it appears that she wished to have her name introduced into it, and that he afterwards altered the fourth line of the first verse to please her:--thus,

Thy Jeanie will venture wi' ye, my lad;

but this amendment has been rejected by singers and editors, as injuring the musical accentuation: the anecdote, however, and the introduction of the name, give an additional interest and a truth to the sentiment, for which I could be content to sacrifice the beauty of a single line; and methinks Jeanie had a right to dictate in this instance.[81] With regard to her personal attractions, Jean was at this time a blooming girl, animated with health, affection, and gaiety: the perfect symmetry of her slender figure; her light step in the dance; the "waist sae jimp," "the foot sae sma'," were no fancied beauties:--she had a delightful voice, and sung with much taste and enthusiasm the ballads of her native country; among which we may imagine that the songs of her lover were not forgotten. The consequences, however, of all this dancing, singing, and loving, were not quite so poetical as they were embarra.s.sing.

O wha could prudence think upon, And sic a la.s.sie by him?

O wha could prudence think upon, And sae in love as I am?

Burns had long been distinguished in his rustic neighbourhood for his talents, for his social qualities and his conquests among the maidens of his own rank. His personal appearance is thus described from memory by Sir Walter Scott:--"His form was strong and robust, his manner rustic, not clownish; with a sort of dignified simplicity, which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents; * * * his eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament; it was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed, (I say, literally, _glowed_) when he spoke with feeling and interest;"--"his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon remark this;"[82]--and Allan Cunningham, speaking also from recollection, says, "he had a very manly countenance, and a very dark complexion; his habitual expression was intensely melancholy, but at the presence of those he loved or esteemed, his whole face beamed with affection and genius;"[83]--"his voice was very musical; and he excelled in dancing, and all athletic sports which required strength and agility."

Is it surprising that powers of fascination, which carried a d.u.c.h.ess "off her feet," should conquer the heart of a country la.s.s of low degree? Bonnie Jean was too soft-hearted, or her lover too irresistible; and though Burns stepped forward to repair their transgression by a written acknowledgment of marriage, which, in Scotland, is sufficient to const.i.tute a legal union, still his circ.u.mstances, and his character as a "wild lad," were such, that nothing could appease her father's indignation; and poor Jean, when humbled and weakened by the consequences of her fault and her sense of shame, was prevailed on to destroy the doc.u.ment of her lover's fidelity to his vows, and to reject him.

Burns was nearly heart-broken by this dereliction, and between grief and rage was driven to the verge of insanity. His first thought was to fly the country; the only alternative which presented itself, "was America or a jail;" and such were the circ.u.mstances under which he wrote his "Lament," which, though not composed in his native dialect, is poured forth with all that energy and pathos which only truth could impart.

No idly feigned poetic pains, My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim; No shepherd's pipe--Arcadian strains, No fabled tortures, quaint and tame: The plighted faith--the mutual flame-- The oft-attested powers above-- The promised father's tender name-- These were the pledges of my love! &c.

This was about 1786: two years afterwards, when the publication of his poems had given him name and fame, Burns revisited the scenes which his Jeanie had endeared to him: thus he sings exultingly,--

I'll aye ca' in by yon town, And by yon garden-green, again; I'll aye ca' in by yon town, And see my bonnie Jean again!

They met in secret; a reconciliation took place; and the consequences were, that bonnie Jean, being again exposed to the indignation of her family, was literally turned out of her father's house. When the news reached Burns he was lying ill; he was lame from the consequences of an accident,--the moment he could stir, he flew to her, went through the ceremony of marriage with her in presence of competent witnesses, and a few months afterwards he brought her to his new farm at Elliesland, and established her under his roof as his wife, and the honoured mother of his children.

It was during this _second-hand_ honeymoon, happier and more endeared than many have proved in their first gloss, that Burns wrote several of the sweetest effusions ever inspired by his Jean; even in the days of their early wooing, and when their intercourse had all the difficulty, all the romance, all the mystery, a poetical lover could desire. Thus practically controverting his own opinion, "that conjugal love does not make such a figure in poesy as that other love," &c.--for instance, we have that most beautiful song, composed when he left his Jean at Ayr (in the _west_ of Scotland,) and had gone to prepare for her at Elliesland, near Dumfries.[84]

Of a' the airts the win' can blaw, I dearly love the west, For there the bonnie la.s.sie lives, the la.s.s that I love best!

There wild woods grow and rivers row, and mony a hill between; But day and night, my fancy's flight is ever wi' my Jean!

I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair-- I hear her in the tuneful birds, wi' music charm the air.

There's not a bonnie flower that springs by fountain, shaw, or green-- There's not a bonnie bird that sings, but minds me o' my Jean.

O blaw ye westlin winds, blaw soft among the leafy trees!

Wi' gentle gale, fra' muir and dale, bring hame the laden bees!

And bring the la.s.sie back to me, that's aye sae sweet and clean, Ae blink o' her wad banish care, sae lovely is my Jean!

What sighs and vows, amang the knowes, hae past between us twa!

How fain to meet! how wae to part!--that day she gaed awa!

The powers above can only ken, to whom the heart is seen, That none can be sae dear to me, as my sweet lovely Jean!

Nothing can be more lovely than the luxuriant, though rural imagery, the tone of placid but deep tenderness, which pervades this sweet song; and to feel all its harmony, it is not necessary to sing it--it is music in itself.

In November 1788, Mrs. Burns took up her residence at Elliesland, and entered on her duties as a wife and mistress of a family, and her husband welcomed her to her home ("her ain roof-tree,") with the lively, energetic, but rather unquotable song, "I hae a wife o' my ain;" and subsequently he wrote for her, "O were I on Parna.s.sus Hill," and that delightful little bit of simple feeling--

She is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonnie wee thing, This sweet wee wife of mine.

I never saw a fairer, I never lo'ed a dearer,-- And next my heart I'll wear her, For fear my jewel tine!

and one of the finest of all his ballads, "Their groves o' green myrtle," which not only presents a most exquisite rural picture to the fancy, but breathes the very soul of chastened and conjugal tenderness.