ewhat obviously, to the
Southron. As for character, it is enough to say that Scott was one of
the best men who ever walked on this planet; and that Burns was not.
But Scott was not merely good: he was winningly good: of a character
so manly, temperate, courageous that men read his Life, his Journal,
his Letters with a thrill, as they might read of Rorke's Drift or
Chitral. How then are we to account for the undeniable fact that his
countrymen, in public at any rate, wax more enthusiastic over Burns?
Is it that the _homeliness_ of Burns appeals to them as a wandering
race? Is it because, in farthest exile, a line of Burns takes their
hearts straight back to Scotland?--as when Luath the collie, in "The
Twa Dogs," describes the cotters' New Year's Day:--

"That merry day the year begins,
They bar the door on frosty winds;
The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream,
An' sheds a heart-inspirin' steam;
The luntin' pipe an' sneeshin' mill
Are handed round wi' richt guid will;
The cantie auld folks crackin' crouse,
The young anes rantin' through the house,--
My heart has been sae fain to see them,
That I for joy hae barkit wi' them."

That is one reason, no doubt. But there is another, I suspect. With
all his immense range Scott saw deeply into character; but he did not,
I think, see very deeply into feeling. You may extract more of the
_lacrimae rerum_ from the story of his own life than from all his
published works put together. The pathos of Lammermoor is
taken-for-granted pathos. If you deny this, you will not deny, at any
rate, that the pathos of the last scene of _Lear_ is quite beyond his
scope. Yet this is not more certainly beyond his scope than is the
feeling in many a single line or stanza of Burns'. Verse after verse,
line after line, rise up for quotation--

"Thou'lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate."

Or,

"O pale, pale now, those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed sae fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust
The heart that lo'ed me dearly--
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary."

Or,

"Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken