this subject would certainly have wanted
that tinge of chivalrous feeling which the manners of the age and the
character of the king alike demanded. But with Burns's ardent
admiration of Bruce, and that power of combining the most homely and
humorous incidents with the pathetic and the sublime, which he
displayed in _Tam o' Shanter_, we cannot but regret that he never had
the leisure and freedom from care, which would have allowed him to try
his hand on a subject so entirely to his mind.
Besides this, he had evidently, during his sojourn at Ellisland,
meditated some large dramatic attempt. He wrote to one of his
correspondents that he had set himself to study Shakespeare, and
intended to master all the greatest dramatists, both of England (p. 126)
and France, with a view to a dramatic effort of his own. If he
had attempted it in pure English, we may venture to predict that he
would have failed. But had he allowed himself that free use of the
Scottish dialect of which he was the supreme master, especially if he
had shaped the subject into a lyrical drama, no one can say what he
might not have achieved. Many of his smaller poems show that he
possessed the genuine dramatic vein. _The Jolly Beggars_, unpleasant
as from its grossness it is, shows the presence of this vein in a very
high degree, seeing that from materials so unpromising he could make
so much. As Mr. Lockhart has said, "That extraordinary sketch, coupled
with his later lyrics in a higher vein, is enough to show that in him
we had a master capable of placing the musical drama on a level with
the loftiest of our classical forms."
Regrets have been expressed that Burns, instead of addressing himself
to these high poetic enterprises, which had certainly hovered before
him, frittered away so much of his time in composing for musical
collections a large number of songs, the very abundance of which must
have lessened their quality. And yet it may be doubted whether this
urgent demand for songs, made on him by Johnson and Thomson, was not
the only literary call to which he would in his circumstances have
responded. These calls could be met by sudden efforts, at leisure
moments, when some occasional blink of momentary inspiration came over
him. Great poems necessarily presuppose that the original inspiration
is sustained by concentrated purpose and long-sustained effort; mental
habits, which to a nature like Burns must have at all times been
difficult, and which
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