HIS POEMS may be all diftributed into the two claffes of paftorals and pieces upon common life and manners. In the former clafs, I include all thofe in which rural imagery, and the manners and fentiments of ruftics, are chiefly defcribed. In the latter, I would comprehend his epigrams, epiftles, and, in fhort, all thofe pieces in which the imagery and fentiments are drawn from the condition and appearances of common life, without any particular reference to the country. It is in the first clafs, that the moft excellent of his poems are certainly to be found. Thofe few pieces which he feems to have attempted in that miferable ftrain, called the Della Crufca Style, appear to me to be the leaft commendable of all his writings. He ufually employs thofe forms of verfification, which have been ufed chiefly by the former writers of poetry in the Scottish dialect, and by fome of the elder English poets. His phrafeology is evidently drawn from thofe books of English poetry which were in his hands, from the writings of former Scottish poets, and from thofe unwritten flores of the Scottish dialect, which became known to him, in the converfation of his fellow-peafants. Some other late writers in the Scottish dialect feem to think, that not to write English; is certainly, to write Scottish. BURNS, avoiding this error, hardly ever tranfgreffed the propriety of English grammar, except in compliance with the long-accustomed variations of the genuine Scottish dialect. FROM FROM the preceding detail of the particulars of this poet's life, the reader will naturally and juftly infer him to have been an honeft, proud, warmhearted man of high paffions, a found understanding, a vigorous and excurfive imagination. He was never known to defcend to any act of deliberate meannefs. In Dumfries, he retained many refpèctable friends, even to the laft. It may be doubted whether he has not, by his writings, exercifed a greater power over the minds of men, and by confequence, on their conduct, upon their happiness and mifery, upon the general fyitem of life, than has been exercifed by any half dozen of the most eminent ftatesmen of the prefent age. The power of the ftatefman, is but fhadowy, fo far as it acts upon externals alone. The power of the writer of genius, fubdues the heart and the underftanding, and having thus made the very fprings of action its own, through them moulds almost all life and nature at its pleasure. BURNS has not failed to command one remarkable fort of homage, fuch as is never paid but to great original genius. A crowd of poetafters ftarted up to imitate him, by writing verfes as he had done, in the Scottish dialect. But, 0 imitatores! fervum pecus! To perfons to whom the Scottish dialect, and the customs and manners of rural life in Scotland, have no charm; I fhall poffibly appear to have faid too much about BURNS. By thofe who paffionately admire him, I shall, perhaps, be blamed, as having faid too little. |