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It is probable, too, that many of these lesser singers whose fame was brief would in their day have deeply resented being placed on a level with the Suffolk peasant-poet.
Hogg, peasant-poet of the Ettrick forest, was supported in all his earlier years by tending sheep and borrowing money from his friends. The first genuine literary adventure of Scott was his collection of a "Scottish Minstrelsy," printed for him by James Ballantyne, a former schoolfellow, who had been encouraged by Scott to open a shop in Edinburgh.
"One of my objects," he says, "was to pay a literary visit to a very remarkable man Jasmin, the peasant-poet of Provence and Languedoc the 'Last of the Troubadours, as, with more truth than is generally to be found in ad captandum designations, he terms himself, and is termed by the wide circle of his admirers; for Jasmin's songs and rural epics are written in the patois of the people, and that patois is the still almost unaltered Langue d'Oc the tongue of the chivalric minstrelsy of yore.
It is easier to collect ana and to make them into the patchwork pattern of a life than to read the character of the man in his writings; and patchwork, of necessity, has more of colour than the homespun web of a peasant-poet. Burns has suffered sorely at the hands of the anecdote-monger. One great feature of his poems is their perfect sincerity.
He tells us this; and we farmers know what it means. But it lay in Nithsdale; and the beauty of Nithsdale shed a regal splendor on his home. It was the poet that had chosen the farm, and not the grain-grower. Then there were the "callants" coming from Edinburgh, from Dumfries, from London, from all the world, to have their "crack" with the peasant-poet, who had sung the "Lass of Ballochmyle."
John'; Hamilton Reynolds, whose good temper and vivacity were like condiments at a feast; John Clare, the peasant-poet, simple as a daisy; Tom Hood, young, silent, and grave, but who nevertheless now and then shot out a pun that damaged the shaking sides of the whole company; De Quincey, self-involved and courteous, rolling out his periods with a pomp and splendor suited, perhaps, to a high Roman festival; and with these sons of fame gathered certain nameless folk whose contributions to the great 'London' are now under the protection of that tremendous power which men call Oblivion."
Dumfries was on one of the great stage lines that led to and from London, and it was often invaded by tourists who were intent on "making a night of it" with the well-known peasant-poet. In these bouts, in which he was generally willing to recite his poems and sing his songs, he received much pleasure and applause, but nothing else, save the wear and tear of dissipation.
But his name will stand beside theirs in the history of British thought in the nineteenth century; and a devoted band of chosen readers, wherever the Anglo-Saxon tongue is heard, will for generations to come continue to drink inspiration from the two or three masterpieces of the Annandale peasant-poet.
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