STEVENSON AND BURNS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1222, 2 September 1911, Page 9

STEVENSON AND BURNS.

A reviewer raises tho interesting question of what relations of resemblance or dilferenco may have subsisted between tho article on Burns wliicii Steveason wrote for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" and the essay on "Some Aspects of Burns" familiar to readers of "Men and Books." That Stevenson wrote such an article, and that it was rejected 011 tho ground that its picture of the poet jvas too much at variance with tho traditional conception, lias been known to all the wor.d for the last tea venrs at least. There is talk sometimes as if it had been published, but that does not seem to have been the case, been use it is not included in the Edinburgh edition nor is there any mention of it in Graham Balfour's or in Colonel Pridoaux's bibliographies. For that reason any comparison between it and the tssav must be purely conjectural, but it is an e-nsy thing to say that they are quite distinct writings. Four years after tfio article was returned wo find Stevenson recording that he is "three parts through 'Burns'"; and whereas ho acknowledging the faults of the -articleattributing them to cu exaggerated sense of tho • gravity of nil encyclopaedia,—lie held his "Some Aspects" to be "one ol his high-water marks." Still, there must have been resemblances. Tho point of view must have been tho same, for example, because he confesses that in both cases he had concerned himself with the "feet of clay" rather than tho "golden ' head" of the poet. Finally, the thesis— ■ that Burns stands or falls by his long- ; poem period—must hayo teen tho same. It is a point upon which he would have to make up his mind before writing ,'tho ' article, and there is nothing to suggest : that he had changed it later on. On the " whole, it is possiblo to look upon 'the ' cssav as a new and moro beautiful reincar- • nation of the ideas that animated tho ar--5 , , • • ii •' : A further point worth noting in this connection is the irony of the circmu- ' stance that it should have beeu Shairp • who was selected to write a more sympathetic article for tho "Encyclopaedia'' r than Stevenson. Shairp is remembered 3 now as the author of perhaps the least sympathetic bcok on'the pcct over writ--3 ten. Stevenson hintfelf wondered at < } lack of sympathy. Kot only does the author put Bums's most characteristic 1 work 02 the lower plane, but throughout s there is tho evident pain of tho academic • i that tho man of genius does not noeeaI i sarilv conform to the academic tyjo, and I I there is the lifting up of holy hands 3 over the shortcomings of life and utter--1 ance Shairp, however, is all for the 1 « 0 n"-period of Burns's life, and many things can be. forgiven the man who in " \spoets of Pofctr.v eulogised him as the song-writer not only of lus country but of the world. Xo doubt the bulk of S the Scottish people wlio know tho songs ■J and not tl» long poems will hold with him, but your true blue Burnsito will n have no such l.al -measures, but wink y accepting tho best that can be said of the 10 long poems, will accept Shairp s eulogy y of tho songs us well.— Manchester Guardiaa.'