And none of them makes pleasant
reading.
But his relations with the other sex were not all of the nature of
sheer passion. He was capable of serious friendship, warm respect,
abject adoration, and a hundred other variations of feeling; and in
several cases he maintained for years, by correspondence and
occasional visits, an intercourse with ladies on which no shadow of a
stain has ever been cast. Such were his relations with Margaret
Chalmers and Mrs. Dunlop. These facts have no controversial bearing,
but they are necessary to be considered if we are to have a complete
view of Burns's relations to society.
In estimating him as a poet, nothing is lost in keeping in mind the
historical relations which have been so strongly emphasized in recent
years. He himself would have been the last to resent being placed in a
national tradition, but, on the contrary, would have been proud to be
regarded as the last and greatest of Scottish vernacular poets.
Patriotic feeling is frequent in his verse; we have seen how
consciously he performed his work for Johnson and Thomson as a service
to his country; and to the "Guidwife of Wauchope House" he professed,
speaking of his youth,
E'en then, a wish (I mind its pow'r),
A wish that from my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast,
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake
Some usefu' plan or book could make,
Or sing a sang at least.
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