Bouk uSJ- PRESICNTEl) HY ^^^^^6yt4 aA^UVr% „_ „--■,.> ^.,, „,_, ^^X, ST. LOUIS NIGHTS WI' BURNS BURNS AND RELIGION REV. DR. W. C. BITTING BURNS, THE WORLD POET WILLIAM MARION REEDY BURNS AND ENGLISH POETRY PROFESSOR J. L. LOWES BURNS AND THE PROPHET ISAIAH JUDGE M. N. SALE BURNS AND THE AULD CLAY BIGGIN FREDERICK W. LEHMANN THE CLUB, THE ROOM, THE BURNSIANA, THE NIGHTS WALTER B. STEVENS Printed for Private Distribution to Lovers of Burns by The Burns Club of St. Louis 1913 THE MEM'RY O' BURNS ST. LOUIS NIGHTS WV BURNS To the Immortal Memory, the Burns Club of St. Louis dedicates its fourth tribute in printer's ink. "Poems and Letters in Facsimile" zvas the club's initial contribu- tion to Burns literature. This luas followed by "Burns Nights in St. Louis."- More recently zvas reproduced in facsimile the "Lhves to Burns" by Chang Yoiv Tong, a member of the Imperial Chinese Commission at the World's Fair. . The cordial reception given to these privately issued publications by lovers of Burns in many parts of the world encouraged the club to present "St. Louis Nights wi' Burns." This club exists, in the zvords of the by-lazvs, "for the purpose of commemorating the life and genius of Robert Burns." The purpose had its original expression in the Burns Cottage at the World's Fair of IQC4. Reproduc- tions of palaces, copies of historic mansions, imposing types of architecture of many lands zvere grouped in "The Place of Nations," as it zvas called. In the midst of them was the replica of the clay-zvalled, straw-thatched birth- place of him zvho "brought from Heaven to man the message of the dignity of humanity." It was built and maintained by the Burns Cottage Association, composed of men zvho had found inspiration in the creed of Burns. The Burns Club of St. Louis succeeded the Cottage Asso- ciation. It has a permanent home in the upper chamber of the quaint house of the Artists' Guild. Here, about the great fireplace, the club has assembled treasured relics of Burns' life. Upon the zvalls are portraits of Burns, sketches of scenes made familiar by his writings and facsimilies of many poems in his handzvriting. The chamber is open^to the rafters. It has little zvindows high lip under the eaves. The zvhole interior architecture accords with the collection of Burnsiana and zvith the uses to zvhich the chamber is put by the club. Anniversaries of Burns are observed by the Burns Club of St. Louis in zvays original. Not forgotten are the oatmeal cake, the haggis, the Scotch shortbread. There are "barley bree an' sic like at ca." "But nane need drink that are na dry." By way of introduction to the dinner the president repeats the Selkirk Grace: Some hae meat, and carina eat, And\ some wad eat that zuant it; But zi H H X m ^ O po r D BURNS OF THE "AULD CLAY BIGGIN" By Frederick W. Lehmann Scottish Day. August IS, 1904 AMONG the many structures which have been reared •^ ^ upon these grounds to illustrate the achievements, during a hundred years, of a free people in a free land, none has more rightful place than that which so faithfully represents the "auld clay biggin" in which Robert Burns was born. Called untimely from this life ere yet the lan- guage in which he wrote was heard here, though he him- self had never set foot beyond the borders of his own country, the rich fruitage ot his genius is none the less a part of the heritage of our people. Throughout the ■poetry of Burns breathes the spirit of our institutions, the Declaration of Independence, the Proclamation of Eman- cipation, and here we have endeavored to realize, as nearly as human effort may, the great truth that. "The rank is but the guinea's stamp The man's the gowd for a' that." The artificial verse of modern pessimism has given us a description of the "man with the hoe," which Burns would not have accepted as a portrait. When he wrote his "Cotter's Saturday Night," he drew his inspiration not from a foreign canvas, but from his own experience. The cotter he describes was his own father, and of the children who knelt at the ingleside to join in the worship of God, Robert was one. The cotter of Burns' inspiring and uplifting poem toiled as hard as ever did Markham's man with the hoe, but he was not a dull soulless clod ; the light of intelligence was in his eye and the fervor of ambition was in his breast. He had been little at school, but he was an educated man. His books were few, but he read and re-read them until he made their learning and 77 wisdom his own. He had strong convictions concerning his position in the order of the universe, and his sense of nearness to God prevented his abasement in the sight of his fehowmen. As his life darkened to its close, the hope that he had for himself he retained for his children, and to the utmost of his ability he strove to fit them for what- ever place they might be called to by duty or opportunity. At five years of age Robert was sent to school at Alloway Mill, and later the father joined with four of his neighbors to hire a teacher for their children. These early years were well employed. Every moment that could be spared from work was spent in study. He read, not only his school books, but Shakespeare, the Spectator, Pope, Ramsay, and above all, a collection of old Scottish songs. "I pored over them," said he, "driving my cart, or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true, tender or sublime, from afifectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, such as it is." His mother was learned in the legends and ballads of her country, and she brightened the evenings of her humble home by recounting them to her children. There was little variety in this life. It was strenuous in its labor and its study, and simple in its recreations. Its burdens were hard to be borne. This showed itself in the early stoop of the poet's shoulders, in his frequent sick- ness and moods of melancholy. But it was not always dark. He found a charm in the books he pored over so greedily, and a profound pleasure in the companionships which the work and the play of the countryside brought him. Much has been written concerning his habits during the years of his early manhood, but the testimony of those who had the best opportunities for observation is that he was not a dissipated man. Indeed, his time must in the main have been well spent. His letters and his conversa- tion showed him to be a man of culture, as surely as his poems showed him to be a man of genius. At the age of 78 twenty-seven, when the mode of his Hfe had changed but Httle, and certainly not for the better, he went from his farm hfe in Ayrshire to spend a winter in Edinburgh with the highest fashion of that city, and he towered Hke Saul among his brethren in a company made up of men like Dugald Stewart and Hugh Blair. He was the center of attraction at every hospitable board, not as a spectacle of nine days' wonder, but as a companion of inspiring presence, not alone to set the table in a roar, but as a man learned among scholars and wise among sages. Into the gay assemblies of the city where the Duchess of Gordon held sway, he came as a gentleman, and the Duchess her- self had to acknowledge that there was no resisting the charm and fascination of his manner. And yet what acquirements and accomplishments he had, he got from his farm life, and from that he got all the inspiration of his muse. In no spirit of mock humility did he tell the gentlemen of the Caledonia Hunt that the muse of his country found him at the plough tail. There she found him, and hardly ever seems she to have sought him else- where. It is wonderful how little impress his winter in Edinburgh made upon his verse. It may have led him to look a little more to smoothness and polish, but he got from it no inspiration. The poet, we were told long ago, is born and not made. We look in vain into the birth and circumstances of the world's greatest children for an explanation of their genius. The unlettered Homer was the great bard of Greece. From among the humblest dwellers on the Avon came the master spirit of our drama, who made the passions of princes and the ambitions of kings the sport of his genius. And from a clay cot near the banks of the Doon the world has gotten its sweetest heritage of song. Before Burns was fifteen years old, his powers dis- played themselves. In the labors of the harvest his part- ner was a beautiful girl a year younger than himself, and she instilled in him, he tells us, "that delicious passion, 79 which in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys. . . . Among her love-inspiring qualities she sang sweetly; and it was her favorite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. . . - Thus with me began love and poetry." To the gude-wife of Wauchope House he wrote in after years, "When first among the yellow corn A man I reckoned was, An' wi' the lave ilk merry morn Could rank my rig and lass, E'en then a wish, I mind its power, O wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast, That I for puir auld Scotland's sake Some useful plan or buik might make, Or sing a sang at least." He wrote for years, but without publishing, and such currency as his poems had they got through the circulation of manuscript copies from hand to hand. His reputation grew throughout the countryside. While most of his verses were in praise of his fair friends, some of them were bitter lampoons and biting satires upon those he con- ceived to be his enemies, and so, while he was loved by some, he was feared and consequently hated by others. In the religious controversies between the Old Light and the New, he took a free part, and there was more than one to harbor resentment for his Holy Fair and Holy Willie's Prayer, and bide his time to indulge it. Nor had they long to wait. Burns was soon involved in difficulties from which he saw no escape save in flight. He determined to quit Scotland and to try his fortune in the West Indies. To acquire the means of doing this, and to leave some remembrance of himself in his native land, he ventured upon a publication of his poems. In June of 1786, he attended, as he believed, for the 80 last time, the meeting of the Masonic Lodge at Tarbolton, and taking his farewell of them he concluded. "A last request permit me here, When yearly ye assemble a' One round, I ask it with a tear, To him, the bard, that's far awa." Never was parting prayer more richly answered. The children and the children's children of those who met with him at Tarbolton have been gathered to their fathers, and still throughout all Scotland and in far distant places, wherever Scotia's sons and daughters have wandered, men and women yearly gather to pay the richest meed that genius can win,— the tribute of their affections to his memory. • Old Fletcher of Saltoun said that "if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation." Burns wrote the songs, not only of Scotland, but of every English speaking nation, of countries yet unpeopled when he wrote. The Kilmarnock edition was published in 1786, when he was twenty-seven years old. The popularity of the book was great and instant, and yet he realized from it the meagre sum of twenty pounds, not much more than enough to pay his expected passage to Jamaica, and less than one-fifth of what would be paid for a single copy of it at the present time. It is not to be wondered at, that with such reward for such work, he was frequently embar- rassed and often in despondent mood. He had an aversion to debt amounting to horror, and all his life he was fight- ing against it. People blamed his want of thrift and his habits of life; it might have served better to extend now and again a helping hand. The reception with which the little volume met deter- mined him to stay at home, and to publish a second edition of the book. The printer was willing to risk the expense of the printing, but he insisted on being guaranteed the cost of the paper; and for this the meagre profits of the first edition were altogether insufficient. 81 But now his fame was not confined to Ayrshire, and his ambitious hopes led him to the larger field of the capital. The friends he made there came to his assistance, and the subscriptions, led by the members of the Caledon- ian Hunt, gave assurance of success in advance. Five hundred pounds were the rewards of this venture, not secured, however, without great delay and difficulty, his money being doled out to him from time to time, months elapsing before he was able to get a final settlement with his publisher. Two hundred pounds he gave to his brother, who had undertaken the care of their mother, and the remainder he invested in the lease of a farm at Ellis- land, the choice of the place being determined rather by the fancy of the poet than by the judgment of the farmer. His improved circumstances on his return from Edin- burgh overcame the objections which the parents of Jean Armour had made to him, and his marriage with her, irregularly contracted long before, was now publicly acknowledged and approved by the kirk. But the farm was a failure, and the earnings of his literary labors were soon lost upon it, and, much against his will, he accepted a place in the excise at fifty pounds per year. What he thought of this work we can guess from what he said : "Searching auld wives barrels Och on the day! That clarty barm should stain my laurels; But — what'll ye say? These movin' things ca'd wives and weans, Wad move the very heart o' stanes." But the best sentiment he expressed on the subject was to the mother of Glencairn, 'T would much rather have it said that my profession borrowed credit from me, than that I borrowed credit from my profession." He left Ellisland, where he had tried in vain to com- bine the business of farmer and exciseman, and came to Dumfries. Of his life in this city there has been much 82 criticism. He undoubtedly partook sometimes too deeply of the pleasures of the social bowl, but in this he but shared the habits of his time. His companionship was sought by all the free spirits that gathered in the town, for there was none like "rantin', rovin' Robin" to make a night of mirth and merriment. But the reports of his conduct were greatly exaggerated, not only by his enemies, but by himself. In his periods of melancholy he was much given to self censure. No man ever acknowledged his faults more freely or more publicly, and if he had said less of his failings, less would have been thought of them. And much of the reproach against him was due to his political views and the freedom with which he expressed them. His heart responded to the rising spirit of independence in France, and it was not his nature to stifle his convictions. To be a revolutionist was to lose favor in the social realm, and Burns was passed unnoticed, because of his principles, by many who had small occasion to scorn him because of his habits. His dependence upon his salary as exciseman irritated him and deepened his despondency. He longed for a competency that he might be independent; but from the beginning to the end fortune mocked his every thrifty endeavor. His nature was too sensitive to be indifferent to the treatment he was receiving. A friend met him one day walking alone on the shady side of the street, while the opposite walk was gay with successive groups of gentle- men and ladies, not one of whom seemed willing to recog- nize the poet. The friend proposed to him to cross, but he answered, "Nay, nay, my young friend, that's all over now," and then quoted a verse from an old ballad. "His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, His auld ane looked better than mony ane's new, But now he let's 't wear ony way it will hing, And casts himself dowie upon the corn bing." And yet it was during his Dumfries residence that Burns wrote most of his songs. He had been gathering 83 old ballads, altering and adding to them for Johnson's Museum, besides contributing some of his own, when George Thomson entered upon his work of compiling Scottish melodies and having songs written for them by the best writers of the day. He applied to Burns for the help of his genius. Burns answered at once, promising his assistance, and redeemed his promise by contributing some sixty songs, among them the finest efforts of his lyric muse. And, poor as he was, he made it a labor of love. "As to remuneration," he wrote to Thomson, "you may think my songs above price or below price ; but they shall be absolutely one or the other. In the honest enthusiasm with which I embark in your undertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, etc., would be downright prostitution of soul." The man who could write songs like "Highland Mary," "Bannockburn," and "A Man's a Man for a' That," and make them, even when broken with disease and oppressed with poverty, a free gift to his country, is entitled to a charity in judgment broad enough to cover more sins than could ever be laid to Burns' charge. Not until a few days before his death, when he knew that his end was near, and an importunate creditor was threatening him with a process that would cast him in jail, did he alter his purpose. He then wrote to Thomson for five pounds, for which he says. "I promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the neatest song genius you have seen." With this letter he enclosed the lines of "Fairest Maid on Devon Banks." Thomson sent the money, the creditor was paid, and within a week Burns was dead. "We pity the plumage, and forget the dying bird," cried Shelley, as the brilliant Sheridan lay deserted upon his deathbed. And so it was with Burns. There was a splendid funeral. All Dumfries marched in procession to his grave, and a great mausoleum was raised above it. And happily better than this, though late it came, his family received the substantial recognition of his labors that was denied to him. 84 When he passed away in the prime of his early man- hood, his country awoke to the fact that he was the great- est of all her children. No man before, and no man since, has done so much to honor her name. He gave to Scottish literature what until then it wanted, a national quality and character. Men of letters there were before. Hume and Robertson had written their histories, but for aught that appeared in them, they might have come from south of the Tweed. Stewart and Reid belong to schools rather than to a nation. Ramsay and Ferguson were not strong enough to make an impres- sion beyond their own time. Before Burns, the Scottish tongue had not attained to the dignity of literary recogni- tion. He chose it deliberately as the medium of his song, and it mastered him as much as he mastered it. Little of what he has written in pure English rises above the level of mediocrity, and it would not be possible to anglicize his Scottish verse without distinct impairment of its poetic quality. The theme of his verse, like its garb, was Scotch. It was his country and her people, the country as he saw it, the people as he knew them. The scenes he describes are those with which he was familiar, the men and women his every day acquaintances. He never paraphrased books and he never copied pictures. And beyond the confines of his country he had never traveled. Was he not, then, narrow and provincial ? In a sense he was, as all genuine men and women are. Just because he knew Scotland so well and loved her so intensely, was he a poet of the world and of humanity. Love of home is a universal quality. Cosmopolitan people are degenerate. They have lost more in depth than they have gained in breadth. The man who scorns his own people is scorned of all others. The ardent patriot who defends his country in every emergency, and not the captious citizen ever ready to confess her faults, is the type of true manhood, understood and appreciated the world over. In the poetry of Burns there is no suggestion of the pent atmosphere of the study infected with the smoke of 85 the midnight candle, but it is all fresh with the caller air as it sweeps over heath and moor. His rhymes came to him as he walked the fields and by the streams, and they are the harmonies of nature set to song. There is a quick movement in all his composition. He never lingers in description. A line will serve, or, at the most, as in his description of the brook in Hallowe'en, a verse. ''Whyles o'er a linn the burnie plays As thro' the glen it wimpelt, Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays Whyles in a wiel it dimpelt; Whyles glittered to the nightly rays, Wi' bickerin' dancin' dazzle, Whyles clookit underneath the braes Below the spreading hazel." In his song of "Westlin Winds" he brings the birds of Scotland before us, each in a line. "The partridge loves the fruitful fells, The plover loves the mountains. The woodcock haunts the lonely dells, The soaring hern the fountains; Through lofty groves the cushat roves. The path of man to shun it; The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, The spreading thorn the linnet." The essential qualities of Burns' poems are their truth and humanity. His scenic descriptions are but the fram- ing of some human incident, and he uses bird and beast and flowers always to point some moral or adorn some tale of interest to man. He wrote as he felt, and so he wrote sometimes sadly and sometimes bitterly ; sadly, for he was often seized with melancholy, and bitterly, because he felt often that he was harshly used. But, fortunately for us and for him, his muse sought him most in his brighter moods, and "We see amid the fields of Ayr A ploughman who in foul or fair, Sings at his task, So clear we know not if it is The laverock's song we hear or his, Nor care to ask." 86 In the meanest creature and the humblest incident that enters into his Hfe, this ploughman finds a poem, — in the daisy that he upturns, the field mouse, a wounded hare, his aged ewe, his dog, his auld mare, the haggis, and even in the toothache. And a louse upon a lady's bonnet furnishes the occasion of profound moralizing. "O wad some power the giftie gie us, To see ourselves as ithers see us, It wad fra mony a blunder free us, And foolish notion." In all literature there is no more beautiful picture of humble life than he gives us in the "Cotter's Saturday Night." It has invested the cottage with a charm of interest beyond the romance of the castle. It has lightened the task of many a weary toiler and kept hope in the heart of the heavy laden, and above all, it has taught that "To make a happy fireside clime For weans and wife. That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life." Had Burns lived longer, or had his circumstances in life been dififerent, he might have given us some great epic or dramatic work. He contemplated one but it was never begun. That a great lyric drama was within the reach of his powers, his cantata of "The Jolly Beggars" abundantly proves. But "Tani O'Shanter" was his most ambitious production, and this, for picturesque description, for rapid transitions, and for a wonderful blending of mirth and morality, is not to be surpassed. The austere critic thinks that Burns deals too lightly with Tarn's foibles, and so he thinks of Shakespeare in his dealing with Falstaff. But these great natures were kindly both, and could see the soul of goodness in things evil, and their teaching loses nothing of its force because of its gentleness. 87 Burns could not even rail at the devil without speak- ing at least one word of kindly admonition. "Fare you weel, auld nickie ben! O wad ye tak a thought an' men! Ye aiblins might, I dinna ken, Still hae a stake I'm wae to think upo' yon den, Even for your sake." The songs of Burns will always be the chief delight of his readers, for they run the whole gamut of human passion and sentiment. He sings of woman, and of every woman that ever touched his heart or caught his fancy, and then, lest some one might feel slighted, he sang to all the sex in his "Green grow the rashes O !" Criticism of these songs is impossible. They must be read, or, better, they must be sung by some loved voice, and then the heart will feel their power. To no mere trick of verse do they owe their charm. It is the genuineness of their sentiment, the reality of their passion, which holds us in thrall. It has been noted that in "Highland Mary" there is not a single per- fect rhyme, and this is true, but who cares for that, it is none the less the sweetest song ever written by man to commemorate a pure and a lost love. And where is there such a song of that love which never grows old as "John Anderson, My Jo ?" In other fields of lyric verse, he is also the master. What drinking song better than "Willie brewed a peck of maut;" what battle hymn more inspiring than "Bannock- burn ?" Who has sounded in such trumpet tones the prin- ciples of equality as he in "A man's a man for a' that?" And when, among the many millions who speak the English tongue, friends are gathered together, in what song do they pour out their gladness, but "Auld Lang Syne ?" He pictured himself often as a wreck upon life's sea, and envied sometimes those whose "prudent, cautious self control," kept them from the rocks; and yet, of all the merchant argosies that, saiHng under summer skies and over summer seas, came safely into the port of their des- tiny, how many, aye, were there any, bearing in their holds a freight so precious to humanity as the flotsam and the jetsaiT^cast ashore by the wreck of Robert Burns? But it is not for us to speak of his life as a wreck. Although he died while his manhood was in early prime, he had realized the inspiring wish of his youth, some use- ful plan or book to make or sing a song at least. He made the book, he sang the song, and the book is read and the song is heard the wide world over. 89 ROBERT BURNS By Willis Leonard Clanahao Read by Miss Maye McCamish Hedrick Scottish Day, August 15, 1904 O Bard of Freedom, on whose brow A century's fame is shining now, Thy spirit be with us! for thou Has taught us all How men who must to monarchs bow For truth may fall. O teacher of the sons of men, By burning words and fervid pen, Come, and abide with us again. That we may know The soul that shone, a beacon, then, With deathless glow! Though mean and humble was thy lot. Thy parentage all but forgot, Fame sought thee where the crowd was not, And brought thee forth, A poet from a lonely cot, To light the earth. Thy songs, that smell of the sweet sod Where bluebells wave and thistles nod. Where barley grows and plowmen plod And daisies spring. Lift up the eager soul to God, Our only King. Of love and truth, what tender lays Thy spirit gave us! What a maze Of passion blinded thee, in days When thou wert young, And sounded forth sweet woman's praise With tuneful tongue! What songs of friendship true and tried, That shall eternally abide. Of love that for a friend had died, Didst thou attune! Thou wert the truth personified, O Bard of Doon! 90 Thou didst immortalize the land That gave thee being. Thou didst stand Alone, unaided; yet thy hand Wrote down the fame Of stern old Caledonia's grand And deathless name. By thee in human hearts wast bred A love of simple things — a dread Of Cruelty and Wrong, that tread On Truth and Right; Of Avarice, whose greed is fed By soulless Might. By thee the simple creed was taught To harm no man by deed or thought; To pain no living thing in aught, Be 't mouse or man, That in His wisdom God has wrought In His great plan. But more than all thy soul did scan The true nobility of man, And thou didst help to raise the ban From spirits cowed By poverty — more bitter than The grave and shroud. O best-beloved poet! pray Accept the tribute which we lay Before thee in our eager way. Our souls' own choice! Be with us in thy house to-day, While we rejoice. 91 '~p^HE reader of these pages will note that most of the quo- •*• tations from Burns are in the Scottish vernacular. "The Doric dialect of South Scotland, in which Burns wrote, only- increased the charm of his writing for me," said Judge Sale. In Mr. Lehman's address was this more extended reference to the same distinctive quality of Burns' writings: "Before Burns the Scottish tongue had not attained to the dignity of literary recognition. He chose it deliberately as the medium of his song, and it mastered him as much as he mastered it. Little of what he has written in pure English rises above the level of mediocrity, and it would not be possible to anglicize his Scottish verse without distinct impairment of its poetic quality." In Mr. Reedy's opinion, "the poet has told his life story in his song, and told it with a splendid simplicity in the language of the Scots farmer and peasant. When he essays literary English, speaking generally, the magic, the glamour vanishes." It is a curious fact that where the world now sees charm and strength in Burns, his earliest literary recognition found fault. A copy of the little Kilmarnock book was carried to Edinburgh by Professor Stewart when he went up from the banks of Ayr to commence his winter session at the uni- versity. It was given to Henry Mackenzie who was editing The Lounger, and whose judgment as a critic went far in that generation. Mackenzie was the author of "The Man of Feeling," one of the most popular books of the day, a book which Burns in his youth had read so often that it had been worn out. Mackenzie read this first collection of Burns' poems and wrote his opinion of it in The Lounger, The review introduced Burns to the literary world. At a meeting of the Burns Club of St. Louis this tribute of Mackenzie was produced and read. It is in striking contrast with the present estimate of Burns. Mackenzie wrote: "In the discovery of talents generally unknown, men are apt to indulge the same fond partiality as in all other dis- coveries which themselves have made. And hence we have had repeated instances of painters and poets who have been drawn from obscure situations, and held forth to public notice and applause by the extravagant enconiums of their introductors; whose merit though perhaps somewhat neg- lected, did not appear to have been much under-valued by the world, and could not support by its own intrinsic excellence that superior place which the enthusiasm of its patrons would have assigned it. 92 "I know not if I shall be accused of such enthusiasm and partiality, when I introduce to my readers a poet of our own country, with whose writings I have lately become acquainted; but if I am not greatly deceived, I think I may safely pro- nounce him a genius of no ordinary rank. The person to whom I allude is Robert Burns, an Ayrshire ploughman, whose poems were sometime ago published in a country town in the v>^est of Scotland, with no other ambition, if would seem than to circulate among the inhabitants of the country where he was born, to obtain a little fame from those who had heard of his talents. I hope I shall not be thought to assume too much, if I endeavor to place him in a higher point of view, to call for a verdict of his country upon the merits of his works, and to claim for him those honors which their excellence appears to deserve." Then followed this most extraordinary criticism upon Burns: "One bar indeed his birth and education have opposed to his fame — the language in which most of his poems are written. Even in Scotland, the provincial dialect which Ramsey and he have used is now read with a difficulty which greatly damps the pleasure of the reader; in England it cannot be read at all, without such a constant reference to a glossary as nearly to destroy that pleasure. Some of his productions, however, especially those of the grave style are almost English." 93 Q OME three hundred Burns Clubs in all parts of the world '^-^ have united to form the Burns Federation. The Burns Club of St. Louis is one of these. The objects, as set forth in the constitution of the Federation, are: "To strengthen and consolidate by universal affiliation the bond of fellowship existing among the members of Burns Clubs; to superintend the publication of works pertaining to Burns; to acquire a fund for the purchase and preservation of holograph manuscripts and other relics connected with the life of the poet." The Federation was inaugurated at Kilmarnock. There offices are maintained in connection with the Burns Library and Museum. Annual meetings of the Federation are held. A periodical known as the Burns Chronicle is issued. At the head of the Federation as Honorary Presidents are the Earl of Rosebery and Andrew Carnegie. Exchange of greetings is one of the pleasing forms in which the relationship between Burns Clubs find expression. From Poosie Nansie's Hostelry, The Jolly Beggars' Burns Club sent this "warmest greeting" to the Burns Club of St. Louis on the 1913 anniversary. Gie us a canny hour at e'en A' met in Robin's mem'ry O, Then warldly cares an' warldly spleen May a' gae tapsalterie O. Thomas Harvey of Mauchline founded The Jolly Beggars Club, as he explains in a letter to President Bixby, "to remove a reproach, there being none when I came here." He is a native of Ayr. From family tradition he has contributed this to the store of the St. Louis Club's information about Burns: "It may interest you to know that Burns, when at Kirkoswald school, spent every week end at Dalwhat farm, my great grandfather's, John Graham's. John Graham was a full brother of Douglas, tenant of O'Shanter, Burns' Tarn. My mother told me Uncle Douglas' wife was very supersti- tious and believed in witches, warlocks and the like. He had a lot of money to get in Ayr one market day and had it stored in his bonnet. It came on a fearful night and on the shore road he was nearly blown off his nag. His bonnet went with all his cash. He held on for dear life, and manu- factured the story about Alloway kirk in a blaze to explain 94 the loss of his money to his wife. She believed it. The story spread and Burns got it at Dalwhat. There was general laughter afterwards when the storm subsided and Douglas quietly mounted and searched the road, luckily finding his bonnet and money all safe in a wood where it had blown. Almost in his last years, when at Dumfries, Burns told the narrative he had heard at Kirkoswald to Captain Grose, the antiquarian, whom he there met, and at his request shaped and put it, without eflfort, into the immortal lines, Tam O'Shanter." THE BURNS CLUB OF ST. LOUIS W. K. Bixby Scott Blewett Hanford Crawford Archibald W. Douglas David R. Francis Robert Johnston Frederick W. Lehmann Saunders Norvell Ben Blewett David R. Calhoun George M. J. W. Dick Franklin Ferriss A. S. Greig David F. Houston George S. Johns Henry King W. M. Porteous M. N. Sale Walter B. Stevens M. L. Wilkinson Wright 95 'ERER-jAIvSEN PHI 806-800-810-812 N SAI NT LO I Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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