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which were the 'Spectator,' Pope's works, Allan Ramsay, and a collection of English Songs.' Subsequently-about his twenty-third year his reading was enlarged with the important addition of Thomson, Shenstone, Sterne, and Mackenzie. Other standard works soon followed. As the advantages of a liberal education were not within his reach, it is scarcely to be regretted that his library was at first so small. What books he had, he read and studied thoroughly -his attention was not distracted by a multitude of volumes--and his mind grew up with original and robust vigour. It is impossible to contemplate the life of Burns at this time, without a strong feeling of affectionate admiration and respect. His manly integrity of character-which, as a peasant, he guarded with jealous dignity—and his warm and true heart, elevate him, in our conceptions, almost as much as the native force and beauty of his poetry. We see him in the veriest shades of obscurity, toiling, when a mere youth, like a galley-slave,' to support his virtuous parents and their household, yet grasping at every opportunity of acquiring knowledge from men and books-familiar with the history of his country, and loving its very soil-worshipping the memory of Scotland's ancient patriots and defenders, and exploring the scenes and memorials of departed greatness-loving also the simple peasantry around him, 'the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers.' Burning with a desire to do something for old Scotland's sake, with a heart beating with warm and generous emotions, a strong and clear understanding, and a spirit abhorring all meanness, insincerity, and oppression, Burns, in his early days, might have furnished the subject for a great and instructive moral poem. The true elements of poetry were in his life, as in his writings. The wild stirrings of his ambition-which he so nobly compared to the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave-the precocious maturity of his passions and his intellect, his manly frame, that led him to fear no competitor at the plough, and his exquisite sensibility and tenderness, that made him weep over even the destruction of a daisy's flower or a mouse's nest-these are all moral contrasts or blendings that seem to belong to the spirit of romantic poetry. His writings, as we now know, were but the fragments of a great mind-the hasty outpourings of a full heart and intellect. After he had become the fashionable wonder and idol of his day-soon to be cast into cold neglect and poverty!-some errors and frailties threw a shade on the noble and affecting image, but its higher lineaments were never destroyed. The column was defaced, not broken; and now that the mists of prejudice have cleared away, its just proportions and symmetry are recognized with pride and gratitude by his admiring countrymen.

Burns came as a potent auxiliary or fellow-worker with Cowper, in bringing poetry into the channels of truth and nature. There was only about a year between the 'Task' and the Cotter's Saturday

Night.' No poetry was ever more instantaneously or universaly popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland. А contemporary, Robert Heron, who then resided in Galloway, contiguous to Ayrshire, states that old and young, high and low, learned and ignorant, were alike transported with the poems, and that even ploughmen and maid-servants would gladly have bestowed the wages they earned, if they but might procure the works of Burns.' The volume, indeed, contained matter for all minds-for the lively and sarcastic, the wild and the thoughtful, the poetical enthusiast and the man of the world. So eagerly was the book sought after, that, where copies of it could not be obtained, many of the poems were transcribed and sent round in manuscript among admiring circles. The subsequent productions of the poet did not materially affect the estimate of his powers formed from his first volume. His life was at once too idle and too busy for continuous study; and, alas! it was too brief for the full maturity and development of his talents. Where the intellect predominates equally with the imagination-and this was the case with Burns-increase of years generally adds to the strength and variety of the poet's powers; and we have no doubt that, in ordinary circumstances, Burns, like Dryden, would have improved with age, and added greatly to his fame, had he not fallen at so early a period, before his imagination could be enriched with the riper fruits of knowledge and experience. He meditated a national drama; but we might have looked with more confidence for a series of tales like 'Tam o' Shanter,' which-with the elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson, one of the most highly finished and most precious of his works-was produced in his happy residence at Ellisland. Above two hundred songs were, however, thrown off by Burns in his latter years, and they embraced poetry of all kinds.

Moore became a writer of lyrics, as he informs his readers, that he might express what music conveyed to himself. Burns had little or no technical knowledge of music. Whatever pleasure he derived from it, was the result of personal associations-the words to which airs were adapted, or the locality with which they were connected. His whole soul, however, was full of the finest harmony. So quick and genial were his sympathies, that he was easily stirred into lyrical melody by whatever was good and beautiful in nature. Not a bird sang in a bush, nor a burn glanced in the sun, but it was eloquence and music to his ear. He fell in love with every fine female face he saw; and thus kindled up, his feelings took the shape of song, and the words fell as naturally into their places as if prompted by the most perfect knowledge of music. The inward melody needed no artificial accompaniment. An attempt at a longer poem would have chilled his ardour; but a song embodying some one leading idea, some burst of passion, love, patriotism, or humour, was exactly suited to the impulsive nature of Burns's genius, and to his situation

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and circumstances. His command of language and imagery, always the most appropriate, musical, and graceful, was a greater marvel than the creations of a Fadel or Mozart. The Scottish poet, however, knew many old airs-still more old ballads; and a few bars of the music, or a line of the words, served as a key-note to his sugges tive fancy. He improved nearly all he touched. The arch humour, gaiety, simplicity, and genuine feeling of his original songs, will be felt as long as 'rivers roll and woods are green. They breathe the natural character and spirit of the country, and must be coeval with it in existence. Wherever the words are chanted, a picture is presented to the mind; and whether the tone be plaintive and sad, or joyous and exciting, one overpowering feeling takes possession of the imagination. The susceptibility of the poet inspired him with real emotions and passion, and his genius reproduced them with the glowing warmth and truth of nature.

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"Tam O'Shanter' is usually considered to be Burns's master-piece ; it was so considered by himself, and the judgment has been confirmed by Campbell, Wilson, Montgomery, and almost every critic. displays more various powers than any of his other productions, beginning with low comic humour and Bacchanalian revelry-the dramatic scene at the commencement is unique, even in Burns-and ranging through the various styles of the descriptive, the terrible, the supernatural, and the ludicrous. The originality of some of the phrases and sentiments, as

Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious-
O'er a' the ills of life victorious!

the felicity of some of the similes, and the elastic force and springiness of the versification, must also be considered as aiding in the effect. The poem reads as if it were composed in one transport of inspiration, before the bard had time to cool or to slacken in his fervour; and such we know was actually the case. Next to this inimitable tale of truth' in originality, and in happy grouping of images, both familiar and awful, we should be disposed to rank the Address to the Deil.' The poet adopted the common superstitions of the peasantry as to the attributes of Satan; but though his Address' is mainly ludicrous, he intersperses passages of the highest beauty, and blends a feeling of tenderness and compunction with his objurgation of the Evil One. The effect of contrast was never more happily displayed than in the conception of such a being straying in lonely glens and rustling among trees-in the familiarity of sly humour with which the poet lectures so awful and mysterious a personage who had, as he says, almost overturned the infant world, and ruined all; and in that strange and inimitable outbreak of sympathy in which a hope is expressed for the salvation, and pity for the fate, even of Satan himself

But fare-you-weel, auld Nickie-ben!
Oh, wad ye tak a thought and men'!

Ye aiblins might-I dinna ken-
Still hae a stake;

I'm wae to think upo' yon den,

Even for your sake!

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The Jolly Beggars' is another strikingly original production. is the most dramatic of his works, and the characters are all finely sustained. Currie has been blamed by Sir Walter Scott and others for over-fastidiousness in not admitting that humorous cantata into his edition, but we do not believe that Currie ever saw the Jolly Beggars.' The poem was not published till 1801, and was then printed from the only copy known to exist in the poet's handwriting. Of the 'Cotter's Saturday Night,' the 'Mountain Daisy,' or the 'Mouse's Nest,' it would be idle to attempt any eulogy. In these Burns is seen in his fairest colours-not with all his strength, but in his happiest and most heart-felt inspiration-his brightest sunshine and his tenderest tears. The workmanship of these leading poems is equal to the value of the materials. The peculiar dialect of Burns being a composite of Scotch and English, which he varied at will-the Scotch being generally reserved for the comic and tender, and the English for the serious and lofty-his diction is remarkably rich and copious. No poet is more picturesque in expression. This was the result equally of accurate observation, careful study, and strong feeling. energy and truth stamp the highest value on his writings. He is as literal as Cowper. The banks of the Doon are described as faithfully as those of the Ouse; and his views of human life and manners are as real and as finely moralised. His range of subjects, however, was infinitely more diversified, including a varied and romantic landscape, the customs and superstitions of his country, the delights of goodfellowship and boon society, the aspirations of youthful ambition, and, above all, the emotions of love, which he depicted with such mingled fervour and delicacy. This ecstacy of passion was unknown to the author of the 'Task.' Nor could the latter have conceived anything so truly poetical as the image of Coila; the tutelar genius and inspirer of the peasant youth in his clay-built hut, where his heart and fancy overflowed with love and poetry. Cowper read and appreciated Burns, and we can picture his astonishment and delight on perusing such strains as Coila's address :

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'Or when the deep green-mantled earth
Warm cherished every flow'ret's birth,
And joy and music pouring forth
In every grove,

I saw thee eye the general mirth
With boundless love.

When ripened fields and azure skies,
Called forth the reapers' rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their evening joys,
And lonely stalk,

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise
In pensive walk.

"When youthful love, warm-blushing,
strong,

Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
The adored Name,

I taught thee how to pour in song,
To soothe thy flame.

I saw thy pulse's maddening play,
Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way,
Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray,

By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray,

Was light from Heaven.

'I taught thy manners-painting strains, The loves, the ways of simple swains, Till now, o'er all my wide domains

Thy fame extends;

And some, the pride of Coila's plains,
Become thy friends.

Thou canst not learn, nor can I shew,
To paint with Thomson's landscape glow;
Or wake the bosom-melting three,

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With Shenstone's art;

Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow
Warm on the heart.

'Yet, all beneath the unrivalled rose,
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;
Though large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows,
Adown the glade.

"Then never murmur nor repine;
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;
And, trust me, not Potosi's mine,
Nor king's regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
A rustic bard.

"To give my counsels all in one-
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan;
Preserve the dignity of man,
With soul erect;

And trust, the universal plan
Will all protect.

'And wear thou this '-she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head:
The polished leaves, and berries red,
Did rustling play;

And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.

Burns never could have improved upon the grace and tenderness of this romantic vision-the finest revelation ever made of the hope and ambition of a youthful poet. Greater strength, however, he undoubtedly acquired with the experience of manhood. His Tam o' Shanter,' and 'Bruce's Address,' are the result of matured powers; and his songs evince a conscious mastery of the art and materials of composition. His Vision of Liberty' at Lincluden is a great and splendid fragment. The reflective spirit evinced in his early epistles is found, in his 'Lines written in Friars' Carse Hermitage,' to have settled into a vein of moral philosophy, clear and true as the lines of Swift, and informed with a higher wisdom. It cannot be said that Burns absolutely fails in any kind of composition, except in his epigrams; these are coarse without being pointed or entertaining. Nature, which had lavished on him such powers of humour denied him wit.

In reviewing the intellectual career of the poet, his correspondence must not be overlooked. His prose style was more ambitious than that of his poetry. In the latter he followed the dictates of nature, warm from the heart, whereas in his letters he aimed at being sentimental, peculiar, and striking; and simplicity was sometimes sacrificed for effect. As Johnson considered conversation to be an intellectual arena, wherein every man was bound to do his best, Burns

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