Chapter 6

CONCLUSION

We have now examined in some detail the main facts of Burns's personal life and literary production: it is time to sum these up in order to realize the character of the man and the value of the work.

Certain fundamental qualities are easily traced to his parentage. The Burnses were honest, hard-working people, stubborn fighters for independence, with intellectual tastes above the average of their class. These characteristics the poet inherited. With all his failures in worldly affairs, he contrived to pay his debts; however obliged to friends and patrons for occasional aid, he never abated his self-respect or became the hanger-on of any man; and he showed throughout his life an eager, receptive, and ever-expanding mind. The seed sown by his father with so much pains and care in his early training fell on fruitful soil, and in the range of his information, as well as in his critical and reasoning powers, Burns became the equal of educated men. The love of independence, indeed, was less a family than a national passion. The salient fact in the history of Scotland is the intensity of the prolonged struggle against the political domination of England; and there developed in the individual life of the Scot a corresponding tendency to value personal freedom as the greatest of treasures. The thrift and economy for which the Scottish people are everywhere notable, and which has its vicious excess in parsimony and nearness, is in its more honorable aspects no end in itself but merely a means to independence. If they are keen to "gather gear,"

It's no to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train-attendant, But for the glorious privilege Of being independent.

Along with these substantial and admirable qualities of integrity and independence Burns inherited certain limitations. In the peasant class in which he was born and reared, the fierceness of the struggle for existence has crowded out some of the more beautiful qualities that need ease and leisure for their development. The virtues of chivalry do indeed at times appear among the very poor, but they are the characteristic product of a class in which conditions are more generous, the necessaries of life are taken for granted, and the elemental demands of human nature are satisfied without competitive striving. When a peasant is chivalrous he is so by virtue of some individual quality, and in spite of rather than because of the spirit of his class. Burns was too acute and too observant not to gather much from the social ideals of the ladies and gentlemen with whom he came in contact, and what he gathered affected his conduct profoundly; but at times under stress of frustrated passion or mortified vanity he reverted to the ruder manners of the peasantry from which he sprang. So have to be accounted for certain brutalities in his treatment of the women who loved him or who had been unwise enough to yield to his fascination.

Other characteristics belong to him individually rather than to his family or class or nation. He was to an extraordinary degree proud and sensitive. He reacted warmly to kindness, and showed his gratitude without stint; but he allowed no man to presume upon the obligations he had conferred. He was very conscious of difference of rank, and never sought to ignore it, however little he thought it mattered in comparison with intrinsic merit. But the very degree to which he was aware of the social gap between him and many of his acquaintances put him ever on the alert for slights; and when he perceived or imagined that he had received them, his indignation was sometimes less than dignified and often excessive. Though he knew that he possessed uncommon gifts, he was essentially modest in fact as well as in appearance, and on the whole underestimated his genius.

He had a warm heart, and in his relations with his equals he was genial and friendly. His love of his kind manifested itself especially in his delight in company, a delight naturally heightened by the enjoyment of the sense of leadership which his superior wit and brilliance gave him in almost any society. The customs of the time associated to an unfortunate degree hard drinking with social intercourse. But more than the whisky he enjoyed the loosening of self-consciousness and the warmth of conviviality that it brought.

It's no I like to sit an' swallow, [not that] Then like a swine to puke an' wallow; But gie me just a true guid fellow [give] Wi' right ingine, [wit] And spunkie ance to mak us mellow, [liquor enough] An' then we'll shine!

Burns was not a drunkard. He seems to have taken little alone, and in the houses of some of his more fashionable friends he resented the pressure to drink more than he wanted. Nor did he allow dissipation to interfere with his work on the farm, or his duties in the excise. Yet, even when contemporary manners have received their share of responsibility, it must be allowed that on the poet's own confession he drank frequently to excess, and that this abuse had a serious share in the breakdown of his constitution, weakened as it was by the excessive toil of his youth.

He was fond of women, and this passion more than any other has been the center of the disputes that have raged round his life and character. Again, contemporary and class customs have to be taken into account. In spite of the formal disapproval of public opinion and the censure of the church, the attitude of his class in the end of the eighteenth century toward such irregularities as brought Burns and Jean Armour to the stool of repentance was much less severe than it would be in this country to-day. Burns himself knew he was culpable, but the comparative laxity of the standards of the time made it easier for him to forgive himself, and prompted him to defiance when he believed himself criticized by puritan hypocrites. Thus in his utterances we have a curious inconsistency, his feeling ranging from black remorse and melancholy, through half-hearted excuse and justification, to swaggering bravado. 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.

So in the line of the Scottish "makers" we place him, the inheritor of the speech of Henryson and Dunbar, of the meters and modes of Montgomery and the Sempills, Ramsay and Fergusson, the re-creator of the perishing relics of the lost masters of popular song.

His relation to his English predecessors need not again be detailed, so little of value did they contribute to the vital part of his work. But some account should be taken of his connection with the English literature of his own and the next generation.

The humanitarian movement was well under way before the appearance of Burns, and the particular manifestations of it in, for example, the poems of Cowper on animals, owed nothing to the influence of Burns. But Cowper's hares never appealed to the popular heart with the force of Burns's sheep and mice and dogs, and the tender familiarity and wistful jocoseness of his poems to beasts have never been surpassed. In writing these he was probably, consciously or unconsciously, affected by the tendency of the time, as he was also in the democratic brotherhood of _A Man's a Man for a' That_, but, in both cases, as we have seen, part of the impulse, that part that made his utterance reach his audience, was derived from his personal intercourse with his farm stock and from his inborn conviction of the dignity of the individual. His relations to these elements in the thought and feeling of his day were, then, reciprocal: they strengthened certain traits in his personality, and he passed them on to posterity, strengthened in turn by his moving expression.

The situation is similar with regard to his connection with the so-called "return to nature" in English poetry. Historians have discerned a new era begun in descriptive poetry with Thomson's _Seasons_; and in Cowper again, to ignore many intermediates, there is abundance of faithful portraiture of landscape. But Burns was not given to set description of their kind, and what he has in common with them lies in the nature of his detail--the frank actuality of the images of wind and weather, burn and brae, which form the background of his human comedy and tragedy. He observed for himself, and he called things by their own names. In so doing he was once more following a national tradition, so that he was not "returning" to nature, since the tradition had never left it; but, on the other hand, it is reasonable to suppose that Wordsworth, arriving at a somewhat similar method by a totally different route, found corroboration for his theories of the simplification needed in the matter and diction of poetry in the success of the Scottish rustic who showed his youth

How Verse may build a princely throne On humble truth.

Wordsworth, of course, like the most distinguished of his romantic contemporaries, found much in nature that Burns never dreamed of; and even the faithfulness in detail which Burns shared with these poets reached a point of subtlety and sensuousness far beyond the reach of his simple and direct epithets. Nature was to be given in the next generation a vast and novel variety of spiritual significance. With all that Burns had nothing to do. He was realist, not romanticist, though his example operated beneficently and sanely on some of the romantic leaders.

Yet in Burns's treatment of nature there is imaginative beauty as well as humble truth. His language in description, though not mystical or highly idealized, is often rich in feeling, and his personality was potent enough to pervade his most objective writing. Thus he ranks among those who have put lovers of poetry under obligation for a fresh glimpse of the beauty and meaning of the world around them. This glimpse is so strongly suggestive of the poet that our delight in it will largely depend on our sympathy with his temperament; yet now and again he flashes out a phrase whose imaginative value is absolute, and which makes its appeal without respect to the author:

The wan moon is setting behind the white wave, And time is setting with me, oh!

Apart from the respects in which Burns is the inheritor and perfecter of the vernacular traditions, and apart from his contact, active or passive, with the English poets of his time, there is much in his poetry which is thoroughly his own. It does not lie mainly in his thinking, robust and shrewd though that is. We perceive in his work no great individual attitude toward life and society such as we are impelled to perceive in the work of Goethe; we find no message in it like the message of Browning. What he does is to bring before us characters, situations, moods, images, that belong to the permanent and elemental in our nature. These are presented with a sympathy so living, a tenderness so poignant, a humor so arch and so sly, that they become a part of our experience in the most delightful and exhilarating fashion. Part of the function of poetry is to prevent us from becoming sluggish In our contemplation of life by making us feel it fresh, vivid, pulsing; and this Burns notably accomplishes. Coleridge's image of wetting the pebble to bring out its color and brilliance is peculiarly apt in the case of Burns; for it was the common if not the commonplace that he dealt with, and his workmanship made it sparkle like a jewel.

In the long run the value of an author depends on two factors, the nature of his insight and his power of expression. Burns's insight into his own nature was deep and on the whole just, and that nature was itself rich enough to teach him much. He found there the great struggle between impulse and will--fiery, surging impulse and a stubborn will. This experience, illuminated by a lively imagination, gave him a sympathetic understanding of extraordinary range, extending from the domestic troubles of the royal family and the perplexities of the prime minister to the precarious adventures of a louse. His insight into external nature blended the weather wisdom of the ploughman with the poet's sensitiveness to the harmony or discord of wind and sky with the moods of humanity.

For the expression of all this he had an instrument that did not reach, it is true, to the great tragic tones of Shakespeare nor to the delicate and filmy subtleties of Shelley. But he could utter pathos almost intolerably piercing, and overwhelming remorse; gaiety as fresh and inspiriting as the song of a lark; roistering mirth; keen irony; and a thousand phases of passion. This he did in a verse of amazing variety--sometimes tender and caressing; sometimes rushing like a torrent.

Finally, it must be insisted again, in that aspect in which he is most nearly supreme, the writing of songs, he is musician as well as poet. Though he made no tunes, he saved hundreds; saved them not merely for the antiquary and the connoisseur but for the great mass of lovers of sweet and simple melody; saved them by marrying them to fit and immortal words. It is for this most of all that Scotland and the world love Burns.

THE END

INDEX

_A Man's a Man for a' That_, quoted 158, 317.

_A Red, Red Rose_, 101, quoted 102.

_Address to the Deil_, 38, 86, 281, quoted 282.

_Address to the Unco Guid_, 38, quoted 176, 189.

_Adventures of Telemachus_, 17.

_Ae Fond Kiss_, quoted 56-57, 75, 103.

_Æneid_ (Douglas's), 268.

_Afton Water_, quoted 116.

Ainslie, Robert, 50.

Alloway, 4 ff.

Animals, Burns's feeling for, 270, 271.

Armour, James, 35, 37-39.

Armour, Jean, 35-39, 50, 55, 93, 110, 122, 172.

Arnold, Matthew, 206, 237.

_Auld Lang Syne_, 98, quoted 100.

Auld Lichts, 179, 180, 184, 188.

_Auld Rob Morris_, 115, quoted 121.

Bachelor's Club, 22.

_Bannocks o' Barley_, quoted 165.

_Bard's Epitaph, A_, 294, quoted 308.

Beattie, 86.

Beethoven, 95.

Begbie, Ellison, 22-23, 27, 110.

_Bessy and Her Spinnin'-Wheel_, quoted 145.

Biography, Official, 68.

Blacklock, Doctor, 39.

Blair, Doctor, 45, 86.

Blair Athole, 51.

Boar's Head Tavern, 240.

_Bonnie Lesley_, 115, quoted 118.

_Braw Braw Lads_, quoted 140.

Brow-on-Solway, 67.

Browning, 320.

Burnes, William, 3-8.

Burns, Agnes (Brown), 4, 8.

Burns, Gilbert, 5-6, 15, 31, 59, 90.

Burns, Robert, his career: autobiographical letter, 1-2; parentage and early life, 3-23; schooling, 5-8, 15, 17; reading, 6-8, 18-19; study of French, 16; folk-lore, 18; overwork, 19; first song, 20; flax-dressing, 23; early love-affairs, 22, 27; Mossgiel, 31-44; Elizabeth Paton, 32-35; Jean Armour, 35-36; Mary Campbell (Highland Mary), 36-37; West Indian project, 37-39; Elizabeth Miller, 37; Kilmarnock edition, 37-38; disciplined by the church, 38-39; Edinburgh, 44-56; early reviews, 46; Edinburgh edition, 46-50; southern tour, 50; Highland tours, 50-51; Mrs. McLehose, 52-58; marriage, 55; Ellisland, 53-62; Excise, 61-65; Dumfries, 62-68; politics, 63-65; work for Johnson and Thomson, 65-66, 91-98; whisky, 66-67, 313; illness and death, 66-67.

Burns and music, 9 ff.

Burns's method of composition, 87, 92, 111-112.

Burns's stanza, 80.

_Ca' the Yowes_, quoted 115.

Campbell, Mary, 36-37, 76, 112. See Highland Mary.

_Canterbury Tales_, 254.

Chalmers, Margaret, 110.

_Charlie He's My Darling_, quoted 168.

Chaucer, 254.

Chloris (Jean Lorimer), 110, 112.

_Choice Collection_ (Watson's), 81.

Clarinda (Mrs. McLehose), 52-58.

_Clarinda_, quoted 58, 75, 109.

Cockburn, Mrs., 82.

Coleridge, 321.

_Come Boat Me O'er to Charlie_, quoted 163.

_Comin' through the Rye_, quoted 154.

_Complete Letter-Writer_, 6.

_Contented wi' Little_, quoted 126.

Conviviality, 66, 313.

_Corn Rigs_, 75.

Cowper, 267, 317.

Crabbe, 267.

_Craigieburn-wood_, 111.

Creech, 45, 50, 52.

Currie, Doctor, 68.

Dalrymple, James, 44.

Dalrymple School, 15.

Davidson, Betty, 18.

_Death and Doctor Hornbook_, quoted 287.

_Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie_, 80, 82.

_Dedication to Gavin Hamilton_, 185-186.

Descriptive poetry, 206 ff., 264 ff.

Dick, J.C., 91-92, note.

Dodsley, Robert, 103.

Douglas, Gavin, 268.

Dramatic lyrics, 128 ff.

Drummond of Hawthornden, 72.

Dumfries, 50, 62-68.

Dunbar, William, 81, 241, 316.

_Duncan Davison_, quoted 153.

_Duncan Gray_, quoted 152.

Dunlop, Mrs. 110.

Edinburgh, Burns in, 44-56.

_Edinburgh Magazine_, 46.

Elegies, 294 ff.

_Elegy on Capt. Matthew Henderson_, quoted 298.

Ellisland, 58-62.

English poems of Burns, 73 ff.

Epigrams, 204, 205.

_Epistle to a Young Friend_, 199, quoted 200.

_Epistle to Davie_, 79, quoted 193, 267.

_Epistle to James Smith_, 190, 191.

_Epistle to John Goldie_, 179.

_Epistle to John Rankine_, 33.

_Epistle to McMath_, 181.

_Epistle to William Simpson_, 270.

Epistles, 38, 190 ff.

Epitaphs, 204, 205.

Erskine, Hon. Henry, 45.

Excise service, 59, 61-65.

_Farmer's Ingle_, 84.

Ferguson, Dr. Adam, 46.

Fergusson, Robert, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 316.

Fisher, William, 173.

Flax-dressing experiment, 23.

Flint, Christina, 93.

_For the Sake o' Somebody_, quoted 136.

Freemasons, 46.

French Revolution, 63-64.

_From thee, Eliza, I must go_, 37.

Gaelic, 69.

Gibson, Nancy, 239.

Glencairn, Lord, 45, 49.

Glenriddel Manuscript, 60.

_Go Fetch to me a Pint o' Wine_, quoted 88.

Goethe, 320.

Goldsmith, 86.

Gordon, Duchess of, 45, 48.

Graham of Fintry, 64.

Gray, 86.

_Green Grow the Rashes_, quoted 123.

Grose, Captain, 253.

_Had I the Wyte?_, quoted 148.

_Halloween_, 38, 208, quoted 209, 217, 218, 223, 270, 282.

Hamilton, Gavin, 38, 172, 185.

Hamilton of Gilbertfield, 81, 82.

_Handsome Nell_: quoted 20; criticized by Burns, 21-22, 103.

_Happy Beggars_, 238.

Haydn, 95.

Henderson, Captain Matthew, 294.

Henryson, Robert, 78, 81, 272, 316.

Heroic couplet in Burns, 268, 269.

_Highland Mary_, quoted 113-116.

Highland Mary, 36-37, 76, 110.

_History of the Bible_, 6.

Hogg, James, 162.

_Holy Willie's Prayer_, 38, quoted 173.

_How Lang and Dreary_, quoted 138.

_Humble Petition of Bruar Water_, 51.

Hume, David, 44.

_I Gaed a Waefu' Gate_, quoted 117.

_I Hae a Wife_, quoted 59, 103.

_I Hae Been at Crookieden_, quoted 167.

_I'm Owre Young to Marry Yet_, quoted 143.

Independence, Scottish love of, 311.

Irvine, 23.

_It Was a' for our Rightfu' King_, quoted 162.

Jacobite Songs, 161 ff.

Jacobitism, 63.

_John Anderson, my Jo_, 145, quoted 146.

Johnson, James, 65, 91, 94, 97, 98, 316.

_Kenmure's On and Awa_, quoted 165.

Kilmarnock Edition. 37-39.

Kilpatrick, Nelly, 20, 22, 110.

Kirk of Scotland, Opposition to, 171.

Kirkoswald, 17, 254.

_Kirkyard Eclogues_, 84.

Knox, John, 71.

Kozeluch, 95.

La Fontaine, 272.

_Laddie Lie Near Me_, 92.

_Lament for the Earl of Glencairn_, 49.

Language of Burns, 69 ff.

_Lassie wi' the Lint-white Locks_, quoted 119.

_Last Dying Words of Bonny Heck_, 82.

_Last May a Braw Wooer_, quoted 135.

_Last Speech of a Wretched Miser_, 83.

_Leith Races_, 84.

Lewars, Jessie, 110, 122.

Lindesay, Sir David, 71.

Lindsay, Lady Anne, 82.

Lochlea, 5 ff.

_London Monthly Review_, 46.

Lorimer, Jean (Chloris), 110, 111.

_Lounger, The_, 46.

Lowland Scots, 69 ff.

_Lucky Spence's Last Advice_, 82.

Mackenzie, Henry, 19, 45, 46, 86.

_Macpherson's Farewell_, quoted 150.

McGill, Doctor, 186.

McLehose, Mrs., 52-58.

_Mary Morison_, quoted 28.

Mauchline, 31, 50.

_Merry Beggars_, 238.

Miller, Elizabeth, 37.

Milton, 85.

_Montgomerie's Peggy_, quoted 120.

Montgomery, Alexander, 79, 316.

Moore, Dr. John: 5; letter to, 1-2, 18, 83.

Mossgiel, 31-44.

Mount Oliphant, 4-5.

Murdoch, John, 5, 15-17, 90-91.

Murray, Sir William, 51.

Muse, jocular treatment of his, 203 ff.

Music, Burns's knowledge of, 90 ff.

Music and song, 169-170, 322.

_My Father was a Farmer_, quoted 126.

_My Heart's in the Highlands_, quoted 140.

_My Love She's but a Lassie Yet_, 141, quoted 144.

_My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose_, 101, quoted 102.

_My Nannie's Awa_, quoted 57-58, 75, 103, 266.

_My Nannie O_, quoted 29-30, 103.

_My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing_, quoted 108.

Nairne, Lady, 162.

Nature in Burns, 318.

New Lichts, 179, 188.

Nicol, William, 50, 52.

_O, For Ane an' Twenty, Tam!_, quoted 129.

_O Merry Hae I Been_, quoted 148.

_O This is No my Ain Lassie_, quoted 107.

_O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast_, 122, quoted 123.

_Of a' the Airts_, quoted 106.

_On a Scotch Bard, Gone to the West Indies_, quoted, 42-44.

_On Seeing a Wounded Hare_, 86.

_Open the Door to me, O!_ quoted 137.

Park, Anne, 110.

Paton, Elizabeth, 32.

Peasant characteristics of Burns, 311, 312.

Percy, Bishop, 81.

_Planestanes and Causey_, 84.

Pleyel, 95.

Politics, 63-65.

_Poor Mailie's Elegy_, quoted 26-27.

_Poortith Cauld_, 106, quoted 107.

Poosie Nansie, 239.

Pope, 86, 269.

_Practical Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ_, 186.

_Prayer in the Prospect of Death_, quoted 32.

Ramsay, Allan, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 99, 103, 238, 316.

Ramsay of Ochtertyre, 51.

Realism, 267.

Reformation, influence of, 95 ff.

_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, 81.

Richmond, 44.

Riddel, Col. Robert, 60.

Satires and Epistles, 171 ff.

Scenery in Burns, 265 ff.

_Scotch Drink_, 38, 84, 294, quoted 301.

_Scots Musical Museum_, 65, 95, 97.

_Scots, Wha Hae_, quoted 160.

Scott, Alexander, 79.

Scott, Sir Walter, 44, 46-48, 161-162.

Scottish Dialect, 69 ff.

Scottish Folk-song, 96 ff.

Scottish Literature, 78 ff.

Scottish Song, 90 ff.

Sea in Scottish poetry, 264-265.

Seasons, 318.

_Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs_, 95.

Sempills, 79, 80, 294, 316.

Shaftesbury, 193.

Shakespeare, 85, 321.

Shelley, 322.

Shenstone, 86.

Sibbald, James, 46.

_Simmer's a Pleasant Time_, quoted 131.

Smith, Adam, 44.

Sterne, 86, 270.

Stewart, Dugald, 45.

Stirling, Alexander, Earl of, 72.

Stuart-Menteath, Sir James, 93.

_Tam Glen_, quoted 133.

_Tam o' Shanter_, 253-257, quoted 257, 266, 268, 282.

_Tam Samson's Elegy_, quoted 294.

_Tea Table Miscellany_, 81, 99.

_The Auld Farmer's New-Year Morning Salutation_, quoted 278.

_The Banks of Helicon_, 79.

_The Blue-eyed Lassie_, quoted 117.

_The Bonnie Lad that's Far Awa_, quoted 139.

_The Brigs of Ayr_, 267.

_The Cherry and the Slae_, 79.

_The Cotter's Saturday Night_, quoted 8-15, 38, 74, 84, 190, criticized 207 ff., 219, 266.

_The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie_, quoted 23-25.

_The Deil's Awa wi' th' Exciseman_, quoted 154.

_The Deuk's Dang o'er my Daddie_, quoted 155.

_The Gazetteer_, 64.

_The Gentle Shepherd_, 82.

_The Gloomy Night_, quoted 40-41, 103.

_The Highland Balou_, 150, quoted 151.

_The Highland Laddie_, quoted 164.

_The Holy Fair_, 38, 84, 227, quoted 228.

_The Jolly Beggars_, 38, 77, 238-241, quoted 241, 266.

_The Kirk's Alarm_, 186, 187.

_The Lass of Cessnock Banks_, 23.

_The Lea-Rig_, quoted 120.

_The Man of Feeling_, 86.

_The Ordination_, 184, 185.

_The Piper of Kilbarchan_, 79.

_The Poet's Welcome to his Love-begotten Daughter_, quoted 33-35.

_The Rantin' Dog the Daddie o't_, quoted 134.

_The Rigs o' Barley_, quoted 30, 103.

_The Twa Dogs_, 4, 38, 84, quoted 219.

_The Twa Herds_, 180.

_The Vision_, 38.

_The Weary Pund o' Tow_, quoted 147.

_There'll Never be Peace_, quoted 166.

_There was a Lad_, quoted 125.

Thomson, George, 65, 88, 91, 92, 95, 98, 169, 316.

Thomson, James, 86, 318.

_To a Haggis_, 294, quoted 306.

_To a Louse_, 38, quoted 274.

_To a Mountain Daisy_, 38, 86, 190, quoted 276.

_To a Mouse_, 38, 86, 190, quoted 272.

_To Daunton Me_, quoted 142.

_To Mary in Heaven_, 76, quoted 114.

_To the Deil_, 38, 86, 281, quoted 282.

_To the Guidwife of Wauchope House_, 316.

_To the Rev. John McMath_, quoted 181.

_To the Unco Guid_, 38, quoted 176, 189.

_Wallace, History of Sir William_, 19.

_Wandering Willie_, quoted 138.

Watson, James, 81.

West Indies, 37-39.

_Wha is that at my Bower Door?_, quoted 156.

_What Can a Young Lassie_, quoted 142.

_Whistle and I'll Come to Thee, my Lad_, 75, quoted 132.

_Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary_, 37, quoted 40, 103.

_Willie Brew'd a Peck o' Maut_, 237, quoted 238.

_Willie's Wife_, quoted 156.

Wilson, John (Dr. Hornbook), 287.

_Winter, a Dirge_, 266.

_Winter Night, A_, 271.

Women, Burns and, 314, 315.

Wordsworth, 318, 319.

_Ye Banks and Braes_, quoted 130, 131.

_Yestreen I had a Pint o' Wine_, quoted 104-105, 110.

Young, Dr., 86.