are forgotten, (though some of his songs in the Museum deserve another fate,) but the memory of his virtues will not pass away until mankind shall have ceased to sympathize with the fortunes of Genius, and to appreciate the poetry of Burns.

He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence." Letter to Mrs Thrale. Edinburgh, August 17, 1773.

CHAPTER V.

"Edina! Scotia's darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and tow'rs,
Where once beneath a monarch's feet
Sat legislation's sovereign powers;
From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs,
As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd,
And singing, lone, the lingering hours,
I shelter in thy honour'd shade."

THERE is an old Scottish ballad which begins thus:

"As I came in by Glenap,

I met an aged woman,

And she bade me cheer up my heart,
For the best of my days was coming."

This stanza was one of Burns's favourite quotations; and he told a friend* many years afterwards, that he remembered humming it to himself, over and over, on his way from Mossgiel to Edinburgh. Perhaps the excellent Blacklock might not have been particularly flattered with the circumstance had it reached his ears.

Although he repaired to the capital with such alertness, solely in consequence of Blacklock's letter to Dr Laurie, it appears that he allowed some weeks to pass ere he presented himself to the doctor's personal notice. He found several of his

David Macculloch, Esq., brother to Ardwell.

Burns reached Edinburgh before the end of November, and yet Dr Laurie's letter, (General Correspondence, p. 37,) admonishing him to wait on Blacklock, is dated December 22.

old Ayrshire acquaintances established in Edinburgh, and, I suppose, felt himself constrained to give himself up for a brief space to their society. He printed, however, without delay, a prospectus of a second edition of his poems, and being introduced by Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield to the Earl of Glencairn, that amiable nobleman easily persuaded Creech, then the chief bookseller in Edinburgh, (who had attended his son as travellingtutor,) to undertake the publication. The Honourable Henry Erskine, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, the most agreeable of companions, and the most benignant of wits, took him also, as the poet expresses it, "under his wing." The kind Blacklock received him with all the warmth of paternal affection when he did wait on him, and introduced him to Dr Blair, and other eminent literati; his subscription lists were soon filled; Lord Glencairn made interest with the Caledonian Hunt, (an association of the most distinguished members of the northern aristocracy,) to accept the dedication of the forthcoming edition, and to subscribe individually for copies. Several noblemen, especially of the west of Scotland, came forward with subscription-moneys considerably beyond the usual rate. In so small a capital, where everybody knows everybody, that which becomes a favourite topic in one leading circle of society, soon excites an universal interest; and before Burns had been a fortnight in Edinburgh, we find him writing to his earliest patron, Gavin Hamilton, in these terms :"For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John Bunyan; and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inscribed among the wonderful events in the Poor Robin and Aberdeen Almanacks,

along with the Black Monday, and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge."

It will ever be remembered, to the honour of the man who at that period held the highest place in the imaginative literature of Scotland, that he was the first who came forward to avow in print his admiration of the genius and his warm interest in the fortunes of the poet. Distinguished as his own. writings are by the refinements of classical art, Mr Henry Mackenzie was, fortunately for Burns, a man of liberal genius, as well as polished taste; and he, in whose own pages some of the best models of elaborate elegance will ever be recognised, was among the first to feel, and the first to stake his own reputation on the public avowal, that the Ayrshire Ploughman belonged to the order of beings, whose privilege it is to snatch graces" beyond the reach of art." It is but a meJancholy business to trace among the records of literary history, the manner in which most great original geniuses have been greeted on their first appeals to the world, by the contemporary arbiters of taste; coldly and timidly indeed have the sympathies of professional criticism flowed on most such occasions in past times and in the present: But the reception of Burns was worthy of the Man of Feeling. After alluding to the provincial circulation and reputation of his poems, "I hope," said The Lounger, “I shall not be thought to assume too much, if I endeavour to place him in a higher point of view, to call for a verdict of his country on the merits of his works, and to claim for him those honours which their excellence appears to deserve. In mentioning the

The Lounger for Saturday, December 9, 1786.

circumstance of his humble station, I mean not to rest his pretensions solely on that title, or to urge the merits of his poetry, when considered in relation to the lowness of his birth, and the little opportunity of improvement which his education could afford. These particulars, indeed, must excite our wonder at his productions; but his poetry, considered abstractedly, and without the apologies arising from his situation, seems to me fully entitled to command our feelings, and to obtain our applause." . . . . . After quoting various passages, in some of which his readers" must discover a high tone of feeling, and power, and energy of expression, particularly and strongly characteristic of the mind and the voice of a poet," and others as showing" the power of genius, not less admi rable in tracing the manners, than in painting the passions, or in drawing the scenery of nature," and "with what uncommon penetration and sagacity this heaven-taught ploughman, from his humble and unlettered condition, had looked on men and manners," the critic concluded with an eloquent appeal in behalf of the poet personally: "To repair," said he," the wrong of suffering or neglected merit; to call forth genius from the obscurity in which it had pined indignant, and place it where it may profit or delight the world-these are exertions which give to wealth an enviable superiority, to greatness and to patronage a laudable pride."

We all know how the serious part of this ap peal was ultimately attended to; but, in the meantime, whatever gratification such a mind as his could derive from the blandishments of the fair, the condescension of the noble, and the flatteries