In a mood which recurred painfully often he was apt to pride himself
on his "sensibility": the letters to Clarinda are full of it. The less
fortunate effects of it are seen both in his conduct and in his poems
in a fondness for nursing his emotions and extracting pleasure from
his supposed miseries; the more fortunate aspects are reflected in the
tender humanity of poems like those _To a Mouse_, _On Seeing a Wounded
Hare_, and _To a Daisy_--perhaps even in the _Address to the Deil_. He
had naturally a warm heart and strong impulses; it is only when an
element of consciousness or mawkishness appears that his "sensibility"
is to be ascribed to the fashionable philosophy of the day and the
influence of his English models.
For better or worse, then, Burns belongs to the literary history of
Britain as a legitimate descendant of easily traced ancestors. Like
other great writers he made original contributions from his individual
temperament and from his particular environment and experience. But
these do not obliterate the marks of his descent, nor are they so
numerous or powerful as to give support to the old myth of the "rustic
phenomenon," the isolated poetical miracle appearing in defiance of
the ordinary laws of literary dependence and tradition.
If this is true of his models it is no less true of his methods.
Though simplicity and spontaneity are among the most obvious of the
qualities of his work, it is not to be supposed that such effects were
obtained by a birdlike improvisation.
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