Rabbie Burns, the National Bard, Bard of Ayrshire

Failing health and death

The death room of Robert Burns

Robert Burns Mausoleum at St Michael's churchyard in Dumfries

Burns's worldly prospects were perhaps better than they had ever been; but he had become soured, and had alienated many of his friends by freely expressing sympathy with the French,^[29] and American Revolutions, for the advocates of democratic reform and votes for all men and the Society of the Friends of the People which advocated Parliamentary Reform. His political views came to the notice of his employers, to which he pleaded his innocence. Burns met other radicals at the Globe Inn Dumfries. As an Exciseman he felt compelled to join the Royal Dumfries Volunteers in March 1795.^[30] He lived here in Dumfries in a two-storey red sandstone house on Mill Hole Brae, now Burns street which is now a museum. He went on long journeys on horseback, often in harsh weather conditions as an Excise Supervisor. He was kept very busy – as the exciseman, doing reports, father of four young children, song collector and songwriter. As his health began to give way, he began to age prematurely and fell into fits of despondency.^[29] The habits of intemperance (alleged mainly by temperance activist James Currie)^[31] are said to have aggravated his long-standing possible rheumatic heart condition.^[32]

On the morning of 21 July 1796, Burns died in Dumfries, at the age of 37. The funeral took place on Monday 25 July 1796, the day that his son Maxwell was born. He was at first buried in the far corner of St. Michael's Churchyard in Dumfries; a simple "slab of freestone" was erected as his gravestone by Jean Armour, which some felt insulting to his memory.^[33] His body was eventually moved to its final location in the same cemetery, the Burns Mausoleum, in September 1817.^[34] The body of his widow Jean Armour was buried with his in 1834.^[32]

Armour had taken steps to secure his personal property, partly by liquidating two promissory notes amounting to fifteen pounds sterling (about 1,100 pounds at 2009 prices).^[35] The family went to the Court of Session in 1798 with a plan to support his surviving children by publishing a four-volume edition of his complete works and a biography written by Dr. James Currie. Subscriptions were raised to meet the initial cost of publication, which was in the hands of Thomas Cadell and William Davies in London and William Creech, bookseller in Edinburgh.^[36] Hogg records that fund-raising for Burns's family was embarrassingly slow, and it took several years to accumulate significant funds through the efforts of John Syme and Alexander Cunningham.^[32]

Burns was posthumously given the freedom of the town of Dumfries.^[31] Hogg records that Burns was given the freedom of the Burgh of Dumfries on 4 June 1787, 9 years before his death, and was also made an Honorary Burgess of Dumfries.^[37]

Through his five surviving children (of 12 born), Burns has over 900 living descendants as of 2019.^[38]

Literary style

Tam O’Shanter's Ride, Victoria Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Burns's style is marked by spontaneity, directness, and sincerity, and ranges from the tender intensity of some of his lyrics through the humour of "Tam o' Shanter" and the satire of "Holy Willie's Prayer" and "The Holy Fair".^[18]

Burns's poetry drew upon a substantial familiarity with and knowledge of Classical, Biblical, and English literature, as well as the Scottish Makar tradition.^[39] Burns was skilled in writing not only in the Scots language but also in the Scottish English dialect of the English language. Some of his works, such as "Love and Liberty" (also known as "The Jolly Beggars"), are written in both Scots and English for various effects.^[40]

His themes included republicanism (he lived during the French Revolutionary period) and Radicalism, which he expressed covertly in "Scots Wha Hae", Scottish patriotism, anticlericalism, class inequalities, gender roles, commentary on the Scottish Kirk of his time, Scottish cultural identity, poverty, sexuality, and the beneficial aspects of popular socialising (carousing, Scotch whisky, folk songs, and so forth).^[41]

Statue of Burns in Dumfries town centre, unveiled in 1882

The strong emotional highs and lows associated with many of Burns's poems have led some, such as Burns biographer Robert Crawford,^[42] to suggest that he suffered from manic depression—a hypothesis that has been supported by analysis of various samples of his handwriting. Burns himself referred to suffering from episodes of what he called "blue devilism". The National Trust for Scotland has downplayed the suggestion on the grounds that evidence is insufficient to support the claim.^[43]

Influence

Britain

Burns is generally classified as a proto-Romantic poet, and he influenced William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Percy Bysshe Shelley greatly. His direct literary influences in the use of Scots in poetry were Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson. The Edinburgh literati worked to sentimentalise Burns during his life and after his death, dismissing his education by calling him a "heaven-taught ploughman". Burns influenced later Scottish writers, especially Hugh MacDiarmid, who fought to dismantle what he felt had become a sentimental cult that dominated Scottish literature.

Canada

Burns Monument in Dorchester Square, Montréal, Québec

Burns had a significant influence on Alexander McLachlan^[44] and some influence on Robert Service. While this may not be so obvious in Service's English verse, which is Kiplingesque, it is more readily apparent in his Scots verse.^[45]

Scottish Canadians have embraced Robert Burns as a kind of patron poet and mark his birthday with festivities. 'Robbie Burns Day' is celebrated from Newfoundland and Labrador^[46] to Nanaimo.^[47] Every year, Canadian newspapers publish biographies of the poet,^[48] listings of local events^[49] and buffet menus.^[50] Universities mark the date in a range of ways: McMaster University library organized a special collection^[51] and Simon Fraser University's Centre for Scottish Studies organized a marathon reading of Burns's poetry.^[52][53] Senator Heath Macquarrie quipped of Canada's first Prime Minister that "While the lovable [Robbie] Burns went in for wine, women and song, his fellow Scot, John A. did not chase women and was not musical!"^[54] 'Gung Haggis Fat Choy' is a hybrid of Chinese New Year and Robbie Burns Day, celebrated in Vancouver since the late 1990s.^[55][56]