who condemned him. Genius and learning were incapable of moving a fierce, unlettered soldier, but they had served to elevate and harmonize the soul of Longinus. Without uttering a complaint, he calmly followed the executioner, pitying his unhappy mistress, and bestowing comfort on his afflicted friends.

Since the foundation of Rome, no general had more nobly deserved a triumph than Aurelian ; nor was a triumph ever celebrated with superior pride and magnificence. The pomp was opened by twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the most curiou. animals from every climate of the north, the east, and the south. They were followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement of the amphitheatre. The wealth of Asia, the arms and ensigns of so many conquered nations, and the magnificent plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen, were disposed in exact symmetry or artful disorder. The ambassadors of the most remote parts of the earth, of Æthiopia, Arabia, Persia, Bactriana, India, and China, all remarkable by their rich or singular dresses, displayed the fame and power of the Roman emperor, who exposed likewise to the public view the presents that he had received, and particularly a great number of crowns of gold, the offerings of grateful cities. The victories of Aurelian were attested by the long train of captives who reluctantly attended his triumph — Goths, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians. Each people was distinguished by its peculiar inscription, and the title of Amazons was bestowed on ten martial heroines of the Gothic nation who had been taken in arms. But every eye, disregarding the crowd of captives, was fixed on the Emperor Tetricus and the Queen of the East. The former, as well as his son, whom he had created Augustus, was dressed in Gallic trousers, a saffron tunic, and a robe of purple. The beauteous figure of Zenobia was confined by fetters of gold; a slave supported the gold chain which encircled her neck, and she almost fainted under the intolerable weight of jewels. She preceded on foot the magnificent chariot, in which she once hoped to enter the gates of Rome. It was followed by two other chariots, still more sumptuous, of Odenathus and of the Persian monarch. The triumphal car of Aurelian (it had formerly been used by a Gothic king) was drawn, on this memorable occasion, either by four stags or by four elephants. The most illustrious of the senate, the people, and the army, closed the solemn procession. Unfeigned joy, wonder, and gratitude, swelled the acclamations of the multi

tude ; but the satisfaction of the senate was clouded by the appearance of Tetricus; nor could they suppress a rising murmur, that the haughty emperor should thus expose to public ignominy the person of a Roman and a magistrate.

But, however in the treatment of his unfortunate rivals Aurelian might indulge his pride, he behaved towards them with a generous clemency, which was seldom exercised by the ancient conquerors. Princes who, without success, had defended their throne or freedom, were frequently strangled in prison, as soon as the triumphal pomp ascended the Capitol. These usurpers, whom their defeat had convicted of the crime of treason, were permitted to spend their lives in affluence and honorable repose. The emperor presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli, about twenty miles from the capital ; the Syrian queen insensibly sunk into a Roman matron, her daughters married into noble families, and her race was not yet extinct in the fifth century.

LADY ANNE BARNARD.

Lady Anne Barnard, daughter of the Earl of Balcarres, was born in 1750, and died in 1825. She was a friend and correspondent of Scott and of Lady Byron ; some of her letters to the latter have been published during the late controversy as to the cause of her separation from Lord Byron.

The ballad which follows, written when she was twenty-one years of age, is unsurpassed for tender feeling and truth to nature.

AULD ROBIN GRAY.
WHEN the sheep are in the fauld, when the kye's come hame,
And a' the weary warld to rest are gane,
The waes o' my heart fa’ in showers frae my e'e,
Unkent by my gudeman, wha sleeps sound by me.

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride,
But saving ae crown-piece he had naething beside ;
To make the crown a pound my Jamie gaed to sea,
And the crown and the pound — they were baith for me.

He hadna been gane a twelvemonth and a day,
When my father brake his arm and the cow was stown away ;
My mither she fell sick — my Jamie was at sea,
And Auld Robin Gray came a courting me.

My father couldna wark my mither couldna spin-
I toiled day and night, but their bread I couldna win ;
Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi' tears in his e'e,
Said, “ Jeanie, O, for their sakes, will ye no marry me?"

My heart it said na, and I looked for Jamie back ;
But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack;
His ship was a wrack — why didna Jamie die,
Or why am I spared to cry wae is me?

My father urged me sair — my mither didna speak,
But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break;
They gied him my hand — my heart was in the sea -
And so Robin Gray he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been his wife a week but only four,
When, mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door,
I saw my Jamie's ghaist, for I couldna think it he
Till he said, “ I'm come hame, love, to marry thee !"

O, sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a';
I gied him ae kiss, and bade him gang awa':
I wish that I were dead, but I'm na like to die,
For, though my heart is broken, I'm but young, wae is me!

I

gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin,
I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin;
But I'll do my best a gude wife to be,
For, 0, Robin Gray, he is kind to me.

ROBERT BURNS.

Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January, 1759, near the town of Ayr, in Scotland. Both his parents are said to have been possessed of more than common abilities. The future post was in his boyhood a grave and dull lad, but was well instructed by his teacher and by his father in the ordinary branches of an English education. At fifteen he performed the labor of a man on the farm, but contrived to find leisure for reading many books, especially some plays of Shakespeare, the works of Pope, and a collection of songs. pored over them," says he, "driving my cart or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse, carefully not cing the true tender or sublime from affectation and sustian." After the death of his father he took a farm at Mossgiel, where he resided four years. This was the most fruitful period of his life, during which he wrote many of his most striking poems. These were printed at Kilmarnock, and copies finding their way to Edinburgh, their suc

cess was immediate and unbounded. The poet was invited to the capital, and was received with the heartiest enthusiasm. A new edition of his poems was published, by which he realized a handsome sum, and he returned home a famous man. Shortly after he was appointed an exciseman, with a salary of seventy pounds. It is very seldom that a public office does not work some mischief to the incumbent, and the case of Burns was no exception to the rule. His character and habits from this time were changed rapidly for the worse. Evil associates gathered around him, dragging him deeper into dissipation, until, while still in early manhood, his vital powers gave way, and he died at the age of thirty-seven.

Perhaps the best idea of the songs of Burns can be had from his own preface: “The poetic genius of my country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha, at the plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures. of my native soil, in my native tongue. I tuned my wid artless notes as she inspired.” The finest phrases of the critic can add nothing to this. Every lover of poetry feels a thrill in reading Burns - the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. His songs are as far from the learned verses made by antique rules, as his own Daisy, wet with the morning dew, is from its waxen counterfeit; they are Nature's blossoms, that can give no account of themselves, opening to the eye of heaven, and not to the eye of man; they are the miracles which are impossible till they happen. Genius in its absolute sense is always a superlative ; the differences are in kind, but not in degree ; and probably the world will wait as long for another Burns as for another Shakespeare

The poems of Burns are published in a great variety of forms. Critical articles without cumber have appeared in the reviews; but the reader who wishes to obtain the most accurate idea of the man, and of his genius, should read the able, thorough, and appreciative essay by his great countryman, Carlyle.

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.1

My loved, my honored, much respected friend,
No mercenary bard his homage pays ;
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end,
My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise.
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequestered scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;

What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween!

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The shortening winter day is near a close ;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh,
The blackening trains o’craws’ to their repose;

The toil-worn cotter frae his labor goes, 1 A legal practitioner in Ayr, of considerable oratorical talents, who was among the first

to befriend the poet.

Crows

This night his weekly moil is at an end, –
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;
The expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher' through
To meet their dad, wi' Aichterin’? noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle' blinkin' bonnily,
His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary kiaugh“ an' care beguile,
An' makes him quite forget his labor 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 cannie' errand to a neibor town :
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braws new gown,

Or déposite her sair-worn penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

Wi' joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other's welfare kindly spiers : 9
The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed feet;
Each tells the uncos 10 that he sees or hears.
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ;
Anticipation forward points the view:
The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears,

Gars" auld claes " look amaist as weel's the new;
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

13

Their master's and their mistress's command
The younkers a' are warnéd to obey,
An’ mind their labors wi' an eydent" hand,
An' ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk 15 or play:

1 Stagger. 6 Heedful. 11 Makes,

? Fluttering
7 Careful.
19 Clothes.

3 Fireplace.
8 Fine.
13 Almost.

* Anxiety.
9 Asks.
14 Diligent.

3 By and by. 10 News 15 Trifle.