Many of his poems were never
printed during his lifetime, the most remarkable of these being "The
Jolly Beggars," a piece in which, by the intensity of his imaginative
sympathy and the brilliance of his technique, he renders a picture of
the lowest dregs of society in such a way as to raise it into the realm
of great poetry.
But the real national importance of Burns is due chiefly to his songs.
The Puritan austerity of the centuries following the Reformation had
discouraged secular music, like other forms of art, in Scotland; and as
a result Scottish song had become hopelessly degraded in point both of
decency and literary quality. From youth Burns had been interested in
collecting the fragments he had heard sung or found printed, and he came
to regard the rescuing of this almost lost national inheritance in the
light of a vocation. About his song-making, two points are especially
noteworthy: first, that the greater number of his lyrics sprang from
actual emotional experiences; second, that almost all were composed to
old melodies. While in Edinburgh he undertook to supply material for
Johnson's "Musical Museum," and as few of the traditional songs could
appear in a respectable collection, Burns found it necessary to make
them over.
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