Sons of Burns! Inheritors of the name which we proudly revere, you claim in the glad solemnity which now unites us, a privileged and more fondly affectionate part. To the honour with which we would deck the memory of your father, your presence, and that of your respected relatives, nor less that of her sitting in honour by their side, who, though not of his blood, did the duties of a daughter at his dying bed, give an impressive living reality; and while we pay this tribute to the poet, whose glory, beyond that of any other, we blend with the renown of Scotland, it is a satisfaction to us, that we pour not out our praises in the dull cold ear of death. Your lives have been passed for many years asunder; and now that you are freed from the duties that kept you so long from one another, your intercourse, wherever and whenever permitted by your respective lots to be renewed, will derive additional enjoyment from the recollection of this day-a sacred day indeed to brothers, dwelling-even if apart-in unity and peace. And there is one whose warmest feelings, I have the best reason to know, are now with you and us, as well on your own account as for the sake of your great parent, whose character he respects as much as he admires his genius, though it has pleased Heaven to visit him with such affliction as might well deaden even in such a heart as his all satisfaction even with this festival. But two years ago, and James Burnes was the proud and happy father of three sons, all worthy of their race. One only now survives; and may he in due time return from India to be a comfort, if but for a short, a sacred season, to his old age! But Sir Alexander Burnes- -a name that will not die and his gallant brother, have perished, as all the world knows, in the flower of their life-foully murdered in a barbarous land. For them many eyes have wept; and their country, whom they served so faithfully, deplores them among her devoted heroes. Our sympathy may not soothe such grief as his; yet it will not be refused, coming to him along with our sorrow for the honoured dead. Such a father of such sons has far other consolations.

In no other way more acceptable to yourselves could I hope to welcome you, than by thus striving to give an imperfect utterance to some of the many thoughts and feelings that have been crowding into my mind and heart concerning your

father. And I have felt all along that there was not only no impropriety in my doing so, after the address of our noble Chairman, but that it was even the more required of me that I should speak in a kindred spirit, by that very address, altogether so worthy of his high character, and so admirably appropriate to the purpose of this memorable day. Not now for the first time, by many times, has he shown how well he understands the ties by which, in a country like this, men of high are connected with men of humble birth, and how amply he is endowed with the qualities that best secure attachment between the Castle and the Cottage. We rise to welcome you to your Father's land.

CHRISTOPHER ON COLONSAY.

FYTTE I.

[JUNE 1834.]

[This ride, although enriched with many imaginative embellishments, is not all a fable. The Professor actually tried the paces of Colonsay in a regular match, against those of a thorough-bred filly, ridden by a sporting character of local celebrity, on the road between Elleray and Ambleside, and came off winner. This was in 1823 or 1824.]

In our younger days we were more famous for our pedestrian than for our equestrian feats; liker Pollux than Castor. Yet were we no mean horseman; riding upwards of thirteen stone, we seldom mounted the silk jacket, yet we have won matches -and eyewitnesses are yet alive of our victory over old Qon the last occasion he ever went to scale-after as pretty a run home-so said the best judges-as was ever seen at Newmarket. Had you beheld us a half-century ago in a steeplechase, you would have sworn we were either the Gentleman in Black, or about to enter the Church. Then we used to stick close to the tail of the pack, to prevent raw, rash lads from riding over the hounds—and what a tale could we tell of the day thou didst die, thou grey, musty, moth-eaten Foxface! now almost mouldered away on the wall-there-below the antlers of the Deer-king of Braemar, who, as the lead struck his heart, leaped twenty feet up in the air, before his fall was proclaimed by all the echoes of the forest. We hear them now in the silence of the wilderness. Pleasant but mournful to the soul is the memory of joys that are past, saith old Ossian-and from the cavern of old North's breast issueth solemnly the same oracular response! For many a joyous crew are they not ghosts!

Gout and rheumatism were ours-we sold our stud, and

took to cobs. In the field AUT CESAR AUT NULLUS had been our motto-and when no more able to ride up to it, in a wise spirit we were contented with the high-ways and by-waysand Flying Kit, ere he had passed his grand climacteric-sic transit gloria mundi-became celebrated for his jog-trot.

Thus for many years we purchased nothing above fourteen hands and an inch-and that of course became the standard of the universal horse-flesh in the country-nobody dreaming of riding the high horse in the neighbourhood of Christopher North. If at any time anything was sent to us by a friend above that mark, it was understood the gift might be returned without offence-though, to spare the giver mortification, we used to ride the animal for a few days, that the circumstance might be mentioned when he was sent to market; nor need we say that a word in our hand-writing to that effect entitled the laying on of ten pounds in the twenty on his price. We had an innate inclination towards iron-greys-on that was engrafted an acquired taste for hog-manes-and on that again was superinduced a desire for crop-ears-till ere long all these qualifications were esteemed essential to the character of a roadster, and within a circle of a hundred miles you met with none but iron-grey, hog-maned, crop-eared, fourteen-hand-andan-inch cobs-even in carts, shandrydans, gigs, post-chaises, and coaches-nay, the mail.

But though our usual pace was the jog-trot, think not that we did not occasionally employ the trot par excellence—and eke the walk. No cob would have been suffered standing-room for a single day in our six-stalled stable who could not walk five miles an hour, and trot fourteen; and 'twas a spectacle good for sore eyes, all the six slap-banging it at that rate, while a sheet might have covered them, each bowled along by his own light lad, by way of air and exercise, when the road was dusty a rattling whirlwind that startled the birds in the green summer-woods. For almost all the low roads in our county were sylvan-those along the mountains treeless altogether, and shaded here and there by superincumbent cliffs.

At the first big drop of blue-ruin from a thunder-cloud-so well had they all come to know their master's ailment, that it mattered not which of the six he bestrode-our friend below us, laying back the stools of his ears, and putting out his nose with a shake of his head, while his hog-mane bristled electric

in the gloomy light, in ten yards was at the top of his speed, up-hill down-dale-without regard to turnpikes, all paid for at so much per annum—while children ceased their play before cottage-doors, and boys on schoolhouse greens clapped their hands, and waved their caps, to the thrice-repeated cry of "There he goes! Hurra for old Christopher North." For even then we had an old look-it was so gash-though hovering but on three-score-and our hair, it too was of the irongrey-" but more through toil than age"-nothing grizzling the knowledge-box so surely, though slowly, as the ceaseless clink-clank of that mysterious machinery—with its wheels within wheels-instinct with spirit-the Brain. Oh! if it would but lie still-for one day in the seven-in Sabbath rest! Then too might that other perpetual miracle and mobile the Heart-hush its tumult-and mortal man might know the nature as well as the name of peace!

Among the many equine gifts made us, in those days, by our friends on mainland and isle, was one of great powers and extraordinary genius, whom, for sake of the giver, we valued above all the rest-and whom we christened by the euphonious name of his birthplace among the waves-Colonsay. A cob let us call him, though he was not a cob-for he showed blood of a higher, a Neptunian strain; an iron-grey let us call him, though he was not an iron-grey-for his shoulders, and flanks, and rump, were dappled even as if he had been a cloud-steed of the Isle of Sky; a hog-mane let us call him, though he was not a hog-mane, for wild above rule or art, that high-ridged arch disdained the shears, and in spite of them showed at once in picturesque union boarish bristle and leonine hair; a cropear let us call him, though he was not a crop-ear, for over one only of those organs had the aurist achieved an imperfect triumph, while the other, unshorn of all its beams, was indeed a flapper, so that had you seen or heard it in the obscure twilight, you would have crouched before the coming of an elephant. His precise height is not known on earth even unto this day, for he abhorred being measured, and after the style in which he repelled various artful attempts to take his altitude by timber or tape, no man who valued his life at a tester would, with any such felonious intent, have laid hand on his shoulder. Looking at him you could not help thinking of the days "when wild 'mid rocks the noble savage ran;