am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me; which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which, I hope, have been remembered ere it is yet too late.' I. P. 99-101.

Before proceeding to take any particular notice of his poetical compofitions, we must apprife our Southern readers, that all his beft pieces are written in Scotch; and that it is impoffible for them to form any adequate judgment of their merits, without a pretty long refidence among thofe who ftill ufe that language. To be able to tranflate the words, is but a fmall part of the knowledge that is neceffary. The whole genius and idiom of the language must be familiar; and the characters, and habits, and affociations of those who speak it. We beg leave too, in paffing, to obferve, that this Scotch is not to be confidered as a provincial dialect,—the vehicle only of ruftic vulgarity and rude local humour. It is the language of a whole country,-long an independent kingdom, and ftill feparate in laws, character and manners. It is by no means peculiar to the vulgar; but is the common fpeech of the whole nation in early life,-and with many of its most exalted and accomplished individuals throughout their whole existence; and, if it be true that, in later times, it has been, in fome meafure, laid afide by the more ambitious and afpiring of the prefent generation, it is ftill recollected, even by them, as the familiar language of their childhood, and of thofe who were the earliest objects of their love and veneration. It is connected, in their imagination, not only with that olden time which is uniformly conceived as more pure, lofty and fimple than the prefent, but also with all the foft and bright colours of remembered childhood and domestic affection. All its phrafes conjure up images of fchool-day innocence, and sports, and friendships which have no pattern in fucceeding years. Add to all this, that it is the language of a great body of poetry, with which almost all Scotchmen are familiar; and, in particular, of a great multitude of fongs, written with more tendernefs, nature, and feeling, than any other lyric compofitions that are extant, and we may perhaps be allowed to fay, that the Scotch is, in reality, a highly poetical language; and that it is an ignorant, as well as an illiberal prejudice, which would feek to confound it with the barbarous dialects of Yorkshire or Devon. In compofing his Scottish poems, therefore, Burns did not make an inftinctive and neceffary ufe of the only dialect he could employ. The laft letter which we have quoted, proves, that before he had penned a fingle couplet, he could write in the dialect of England with far greater purity and propriety than nine-tenths of those who are called well educated in that country. He wrote in Scotch,

becaufe

because the writings which he moft afpired to imitate were composed in that language; and it is evident, from the variations preferved by Dr Currie, that he took much greater pains with the beauty and purity of his expreffions in Scotch than in English; and, every one who understands both, must admit, with infinitely better fuccefs.

But though we have ventured to fay thus much in praife of the Scottish poetry of Burns, we cannot prefume to lay many specimens of it before our readers; and, in the few extracts we may be tempted to make from the volumes before us, fhall be guided more by a defire to exhibit what may be intelligible to all our readers, than by a feeling of what is in itself of the highest excellence. We have faid that Burns is almoft equally diftinguished for his tenderness and his humour:-we might have added, for a faculty of combining them both in the same subject, not altogether without parallel in the older poets and balladmakers, but altogether fingular, we think, among modern critics. The paffages of pure humour are entirely Scotifh, and untranflateable. They confift in the moft picturesque representations of life and manners, enlivened, and even exalted by traits of exquifite fagacity, and unexpected reflection. His tenderness is of two forts; that which is combined with circumftances and characters of humble, and fometimes ludicrous fimplicity; and that which is produced by gloomy and diftressful impreffions acting on a mind of keen fenfibility. The paffages which belong to the former defcription are, we think, the moft exquifite and original, and, in our eftimation, indicate the greatest and most amiable turn of genius; both as being accompa nied by fine and feeling pictures of humble life, and as requiring that delicacy, as well as juftnefs of conception, by which alone the faftidiousness of an ordinary reader can be reconciled to fuch representations. The exquifite defcription of the Cotter's Saturday Night' affords, perhaps, the fineft example of this fort of pathetic. Its whole beauty cannot, indeed, be difcerned but by thofe whom experience has enabled to judge of the admirable fidelity and completeness of the picture. But, independent altogether of national peculiarities, and even in fpite of the obfcurity of the language, we are perfuaded that it is impoffible to perufe the following stanzas without feeling the force of tenderness and

truth.

• November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:

The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,

Collects

Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,

Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher thro'

To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily,

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,

An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil,
Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A canna errand to a neebor town:

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor,
To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sees the conscious flame

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek;
With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;

Weel pleas'd, the mother hears its nae wild, worthless rake. 'Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;

A strappan youth; he taks the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy.
But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave;
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave;
Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;

The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,

He

He wales a portion with judicious care;

And Let us worship GoD!' he says, with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim.' &c.
Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide ;

But chiefly, in their hearts, with grace divine preside.' III. 174–181. The charm of the fine lines written on turning up a mouse's nest with the plough, will also be found to consist in the simple tenderness of the delineation.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!' III. p. 147. The verses to a Mountain Daisy, though more elegant and picturesque, seem to derive their chief beauty from the same senti

ment.

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,

Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maud crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,

Thou bonnie gem,

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie Lark, companion meet!

Bending

In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,

And low thou lies!' III. p. 201, 202. There are many touches of the same kind in most of the popular and beautiful poems in this collection, especially in the Winter Night-the address to his old Mare-the address to the Devil, &c.;-in all which, though the greater part of the piece be merely ludicrous and picturesque, there are traits of a delicate and tender feeling, indicating that unaffected softness of heart which is always so enchanting. In the humorous address to the Devil, which we have just mentioned, every Scottish reader must have felt the effect of this relenting nature in the following

Ev'n for your sake!' III. p. 74, 76. The finest examples, however, of this simple and unpretending tenderness, is to be found in those songs which are likely to transmit the name of Burns to all future generations. He found

this