The Poetry of Robert Burns Edited by W. E. Henley
and Thomas F. Henderson. Vol. IV. (10s. 6d. net.)—This is the final volume of the most complete edition of Burns hitherto published. The editors have spared no labour, and claim to have discovered in the course of their researches that there is no foundation "for the old, fantastic estimate of Burns's originality." Genius apart, we are told "Burns was no miracle, but a natural development of circumstances and time." Mr. Henley's assertion that he is seldom, if ever, great save when writing in the vernacular is no doubt true, but it is, we think, very far from true that "his poems are greater than his songs." The essay which closes the volume exhibits with slight reticence Burns's shortcomings ; but the poet's pathetic estimate of his failings is a truer one than that formed by Mr. Henley, whose brilliant but rather jaunty mode of treating his subject offends sometimes against good taste. For one piece of sound work the editor deserves to be thanked. He has redeemed Jean Armour's character from the slur cast upon it by Mr. Stevenson. It is scarcely just to say that she was a "facile and empty-headed girl" before marriage, and very unjust to style her a "poor, unworthy, patient" wife afterwards. Mr. Henley shows the delusion under which the novelist laboured, and resents what he terms a grave injustice "to an excellent and very womanly woman and a model wife." Jean had her failings, but it is difficult to believe that a woman with higher tastes would have suited Burns better, and that, as Stevenson says, he "neither loved nor respected his wife."
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