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looked dowy alike on noble and on slave, on prince and ggar, and all that wore the stamp of man- h clear recognition, with brotherly affection th sympathy, and with pity. Nay, whether, for his culture as a poet, ad much suffering, for a season, were ther advantageous. Great men, in ack over their lives, have testified to ct. A man like Burns might have ais hours between poetry and virtuous -industry, which all true feeling sancay, prescribes and which has a beauty, at cause, beyond the pomp of thrones. to divide his hours between poetry and men's banquets was an ill-starred and inicious attempt. How could he be at ease ach banquets? What had he to do there, Lagling his music with the coarse roar of altogether earthly voices, and brightening the thick smoke of intoxication with fire lent from heaven? Was it his aim to enjoy life? To-morrow he must go drudge as an exciseman! We wonder not that Burns became moody and indignant, and at times an offender against certain rules of society; but rather that he did not grow utterly frantic, and run a muck against them all. How could a man, as falsely placed by his own or others' fault, ever know contentment, or peaceable diligence, for an hour? What he did under such perverse guidance, and what he forbore to do, alike fill us with astonishment at the natural strength and worth of his character.

"Byron-a man of endowment considerably less ethereal than that of Burns-was born in the rank, not of a Scottish ploughman, but of an English peer. The highest worldly honours, the fairest worldly career, are his by inheritance; the richest harvest of fame he soon reaps, in another province, by his own hand-and what does all this avail him? Is he happy? is he good? is he true? Alas! he has a poet's soul, and strives towards the infinite-the eternal-and soon feels that all this is but mounting to the housetop to reach the stars. Like Burns, he is only a proud man, and might, like him, have purchased a pocket copy of Milton, to study the character of Satan; for Satan also is Byron's grand exemplar-the hero of his poetry, and the model, apparently, of his conduct. As in Burns's case, too, the celestial element will not mingle with the clay of earth. Both poet and man of the world he must not be;-vulgar ambition will not live kindly with poetic adoration - he cannot serve God and mammon. Byron, like Burns, is unhappy; nay, he is the most wretched of all men: his life is falsely arranged; the fire that is in him is not a strong, still, central fire, warming into beauty the products of a world,--but it is the mad fire of a volcano; and now we look sadly into the ashes of a crater, which, ere long, will fill itself with snow.

"Byron and Burns were put forth as missioners to their generation, to teach it a higher doctrine, a purer truth: they had a message to deliver which left them no rest till it was accomplished. In dim throes of pain this divine behest lay smouldering within them; for they knew not what it meant, and felt it only in mysterious anticipation, and they had to die without articulately uttering it. They are in the camp of the unconverted; yet not as high messengers of rigorous though benignant truth, but as soft flattering singers; and in pleasant fellowship will they live there. They are first adulated, then persecuted; they accomplish little for others; they find no peace for themselves, but only in death and the grave.

"We confess it is not without a degree of mournful awe that we view the fate of these noble souls, so richly gifted--yet ruined-to so little purpose, with all their gifts. It seems to us there is a stern moral in this piece of history, twice told us in our own time. Surely to men of like genius, if there be any such, it carries with it a lesson of deep significance. Surely it would become such a man,-furnished for the highest of all enterprises, that of being the poet of the age, to consider well what it is he attempts, and in what spirit he attempts it; for the words of Milton were true at all times, and were never truer than at this: He who would write heroic poems must make his whole life a heroic poem.' If he cannot so make his life, then let him hasten from this arena; for neither its lofty glories, nor its fearful perils, are for him. Let him dwindle into a modish ballad-monger, let him worship and be-sing the idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him ; if, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity. Byron and Burns could not live as idol priests, but the fire of their own hearts consumed them; and better it was for them that they could not; for it is not in the favour of the great, nor of the small, but in a life of truth, and in the inexpungable citadel of his own soul, that a Byron's or a Burns's strength must lie. Let the great stand aloof from him, or know how to reverence him. Beautiful is the union of wealth with favour, and furtherance for literature: it is like the costliest flower-jar inclosing the loveliest on earth. Yet, let not the relation be mistaken: -a true poet is not one whom they can hire by money or flattery to be a minister of their pleasures,-their writer of occasional verses, their purveyor of table wit— he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. At the peril of both parties let no such union be attempted. Will a courser of the sun work patiently in the harness of a dray horse? His hoofs are of fire, and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to all lands; and will he lumber on mud highways, dragging ale for earthly appetites from door to door?"]

It must be mentioned, in abatement of this high praise, that Burns occasionally speaks with too little delicacy. He violates without necessity the true decorum of his subject, and indulges in hidden meanings and allusions, such as the most tolerant cannot applaud. Nor is this the worst: he is much too free in his treatment of matters holy. He ventures to take the Deity to task about his own passions, and the order of nature, in a way less reverent than he employs when winning his way to woman's love. He has, in truth, touches of profanity which make the pious shudder. In the warmth of conversation such expressions might escape from the lips; but they should not have been coolly sanctioned in the closet with the pen. These deformities are not, however, of frequent occurrence; and, what is some extenuation, they are generally united to a noble or natural sentiment. He is not profane or indecorous for the sake of being so his faults, as well as his beauties, come from an overflowing fulness of mind.

His songs have all the beauties, and few of the faults, of his poems. As compositions to be sung, a finer and more scientific harmony, and a more nicely-modulated dance of words were required, and Burns had both in perfection. They flow as readily to the music as if both the air and verse had been created together, and blend and mingle like two uniting streams. The sentiments are from nature; and they never, in any instance, jar or jangle with the peculiar feeling of the music. While humming the air over during the moments of composition, the words came and took their proper places, each according to the meaning of the air: rugged expressions could not well mingle with thoughts inspired by harmony.

In his poems, Burns supposes himself in the society of men, and indulges in reckless sentiments and unmeasured language: in his songs he imagines himself in softer company; when woman's eye is on him he is gentle, persuasive, and impassioned; he is never boisterous; he seeks not to say fine things, yet he never misses saying them; his compliments are uttered of free will, and all his thoughts flow naturally from the subject. There is a natural grace and fascination about his songs; all is earnest and from the heart: he is none of your millinery bards who deal in jewelled locks, laced garments, and shower pearls and gems by the bushel on youth and beauty. He makes bright eyes, flushing cheeks, the music of the tongue, and the pulses' maddening play, do all. Those charms he knew came from heaven, and not out of the tire-woman's basket, and would last when fashions changed. It is remarkable that the most naturally elegant and truly impassioned songs in the language were written by a ploughman-lad in honour of the rustic lasses around him.

If we regard the songs of Burns as so many pastoral pictures, we will find that he has an eye for the beauties of nature as accurate and as tasteful as the happiest landscape painter. Indeed he seldom gives us a finished image of female loveliness without the accompaniment of blooming flowers, running streams, waving woods, and the melody of birds: this is the frame-work which sets off the portrait. He has recourse rarely to embellishments borrowed from art; the lighted hall and the thrilling strings are less to him than a walk with her he loves by some lonely rivulet's side, when the dews are beginning to glisten on the lilies and weigh them down, and the moon is moving not unconsciously above them. In all this we may recognize a true poet-one who felt that woman's loveliness triumphed over these fragrant accompaniments, and who regarded her still as the "blood royal of life," the brightest part of creation.

Those who desire to feel, in their full force, the songs of Burns, must not hope it from scientific singers in the theatres. The right scene is the pastoral glen; the right tongue for utterance is that of a shepherd lass; and the proper song is that which belongs to her present feelings. The gowany glen, the nibbling sheep, the warbling birds, and the running stream give the inanimate, while the singer herself personates the living, beauty of the song. I have listened to a country girl singing one of his songs, while she spread her webs to bleach by a running stream-ignorant of her audience

with such feeling and effect as were quite overpowering. This will keep the fame of Burns high among us: should the printer's ink dry up, ten thousand melodious tongues will preserve his songs to remote generations.

The variety, too, of his lyrics is equal to their truth and beauty. He has written songs which echo the feelings of every age and condition in life. He personates all the passions of man and all the gradations of affection. He sings the lover hastening through storm and | tempest to see the object of his attachment-the swelling stream, the haunted wood, and the suspicious parents are all alike disregarded. He paints him again on an eve in July, when the air is calm, the grass fragrant, and no sound is abroad save the amorous cry of the partridge, enjoying the beauty of the evening, as he steals by some unfrequented way to the trysting thorn, whither his mistress is hastening; or he limns him on a cold and snowy night, enjoying a brief parley with her whom he loves, from a cautiously opened window, which shews her white arm and bright eyes, and the shadow perhaps of a more fortunate lover, which accounts for the marks of feet impressed in the snow on the way to her dwelling. Nor is he always sighing and vowing; some of his heroes! answer scorn with scorn, are saucy with the

saucy, and proud with the proud, and comfort themselves with sarcastic comments on woman and her fickleness and folly; others drop all allegiance to that fantastic idol beauty, and while mirth abounds, and "the wine-cup shines in light," find wondrous solace. He laughs at the sex one moment, and adores them the next -he ridicules and satirizes-he vows and entreats he traduces and he defies-all in a breath. Burns was intimate with the female heart, and with the romantic mode of courtship practised in the pastoral districts of Caledonia. He was early initiated into all the mysteries of rustic love, and had tried his eloquence with such success among the maidens of the land that one of them said, "Open your eyes and shut your ears with Rob Burns, and there's nae fear o' your heart; but close your eyes and open your ears, and you'll lose it."

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Of all lyric poets he is the most prolific and various. Of one hundred and sixty songs which he communicated to Johnson's Museum, all, save a score or so, are either his composition, or amended with such skill and genius as to be all but made his own. For Thomson he wrote little short of a hundred. He took a peculiar pleasure in ekeing out and amending the old and imperfect songs of his country. He has exercised his fancy and taste to a greater extent that way than antiquarians either like or seem willing to acknowledge. Scott, who performed for the ballads of Scotland what Burns did for many of her songs, perceived this:"The Scottish tunes and songs," he remarked, "preserved for Burns that inexpressible charm which they have ever afforded to his countrymen. He entered into the idea of collecting their fragments with the zeal of an enthusiast; and few, whether serious or humorous, passed through his hands without receiving some of those magic touches which, without greatly altering the song, restored its original spirit, or gave it more than it previously possessed. So dexterously are those touches combined with the ancient structure, that the rifacciamento, in many instances, could scarcely have been detected without the avowal of the Bard himself. either would it be easy to mark his share in the individual ditties. Some he appears to have entirely re-written; to others he added supplementary stanzas; in some he retained only the leading lines and the chorus; and others he merely arranged and ornamented." No one has ever equalled him in these exquisite imitations: he caught up the peculiar spirit of the old song at once: he thought as his elder brother in rhyme thought, and communicated an antique sentiment and tone to all the verses which he added. Finer feeling, purer fancy, more exquisite touches of nature, and more vigorous thoughts were the result of this intercourse. Burns found Scottish Song like a fruittree in winter, not dead, though unbudded; nor

did he leave it till it was covered with bloom and beauty. He sharpened the sarcasm, deepened the passion, heightened the humour, and abated the indelicacy of his country lyrics.

"To Burns' ear," says Wilson-a high judge in all poetic questions-"the lowly lays of Scotland were familiar, and most dear were they all to his heart. Often had he 'sung aloud old songs that are the music of the heart; and, some day, to be able himself to breathe such strains was his dearest, his highest ambition. His genius and his moral frame were thus imbued with the spirit of our old traditionary ballad poetry; and, as soon as all his passions were ripe, the voice of song was on all occasions of deep and tender interest-the voice of his daily, his nightly speech. Those old songs were his models: he felt as they felt, and looked up with the same eyes on the same objects. So entirely was their language his language that all the beautiful lines, and half lines, and single words that, because of something in them most exquisitely true to nature, had survived the rest of the compositions to which they had long ago belonged, were sometimes adopted by him, almost unconsciously it might seem, in his finest inspirations; and oftener still sounded in his ear like a key-note, on which he pitched his own plaintive tune of the heart, till the voice and language of the old and new days were but as one. He never failed to surpass what he imitated: he added fruit to the tree, and fragrance to the flower. That his songs are a solace to Scottish hearts in far lands we know from many sources; the poetic testimony of an inspired witness is all we shall call for at present:

'Encamped by Indian rivers wild,
The soldier, resting on his arms,
In Burns' carol sweet recalls

The scenes that blessed him when a child,
And glows and gladdens at the charms

Of Scotia's woods and waterfalls.'"'

A want of chivalry has been instanced as a radical fault in the lyrics of Burns. He certainly is not of the number who approach beauty with much awe or reverence, and who raise loveliness into an idol for man to fall down and worship. The polished courtesies and romantic affections of high society had not found their way among the maidens of Kyle; the midnight tryste, and the stolen interview-the rapture to meet, and the anguish to partthe secret vow, and the scarce audible whisper, were dear to their bosoms; and they were unacquainted with moving in parallel lines, and breathing sighs into roses, in affairs of the heart. To draw a magic circle of affection round those he loved, which could not be passed without lowering them from the station of angels, forms no part of the lyrical system of Burns' poetic wooing: there is no affectation in him; he speaks like one unconscious of the veneered and

pursue their fortunes in the world, she lived in a decent and respectable manner, on an income which never amounted to more than £62 per annum. At length, in 1817, at a festival held in Edinburgh to celebrate the birth-day of the bard, Mr. Henry (now Lord) Cockburn, acting as president, it was proposed by Mr. Maule of Panmure (now Lord Panmure), that some permanent addition should be made to the income of the poet's widow. The idea appeared to be favourably received, but the subscription did not fill rapidly. Mr. Maule then said that the burden of the provision should fall upon himself, and immediately executed a bond, entitling Mrs. Burns to an annuity of £50 as long as she lived. This act, together with the generosity of the same gentleman to Nathaniel Gow, in his latter and evil days, must ever endear the name of Lord Panmure to all who feel warmly on the subjects of Scottish poetry and Scottish

music.

Mr. Maule's pension had not been enjoyed by the widow more than a year and a half, when her youngest son James attained the rank of Captain with a situation in the Commissariat, and was thus enabled to relieve her from the necessity of being beholden to a stranger's hand for any share of her support. She accordingly resigned the pension. Mr. M'Diarmid, who records these circumstances, adds, in another place, that, during her subsequent years, Mrs. Burns enjoyed an income of about two hundred a-year, great part of which, as not needed by her, she dispensed in charities. Her whole conduct in widowhood was such as to secure universal esteem in the town where she resided. She died, March 26, 1834, in the 68th year of her age, and was buried beside her illustrious husband, in the mausoleum at Dumfries.*

Mr. Gilbert Burns, the early companion and at all times the steadfast friend of the poet, continued to struggle with the miserable glebe of Mossgiel till about the year 1797, when he removed to the farm of Dinning, on the estate of Mr. Monteath of Closeburn, in Nithsdale. The poet had lent him £200 out of the profits of the Edinburgh edition of his works, in order that he might overcome some of his difficulties; and he, some years after, united himself to a Miss Brekonridge, by whom he had a family

The household effects of Mrs. Burns were sold by public auction on the 10th and 11th of April, and, from the anxiety of the public to possess relics of this interesting household, brought uncommonly high sums. According to the Dumfries Courier, "the auctioneer commenced with small articles, and when he came to a broken copper coffee-pot, there were so many bidders that the price paid exceeded twentyfold the intrinsic value. A tea-kettle of the same metal succeeded, and reached £2 sterling. Of the linens, a tablecloth, marked 1792, which, speaking commercially, may have been worth half-a-crown or five shillings, was knocked down at £5. 78. Many other articles commanded handsome prices, and the older and plainer the furniture the better it sold. The rusty iron top of a shower-bath, which Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop sent to the poet when afflicted with rheumatism, was bought by a Carlisle gentleman for £1. 88.; and

of six sons and five daughters. On all his boys he bestowed what is called occasional education. In consideration of the support he extended to his widowed mother, the poet seems never to have thought of a reckoning with him for the above sum.

He was a man of sterling sense and sagacity, pious without asceticism or bigotry, and entertaining liberal and enlightened views, without being the least of an enthusiast. His letter to Dr. Currie, given in the ensuing Appendix, shows no mean powers of composition, and embodies nearly all the philanthropic views of human improvement which have been so broadly realised in our own day. We are scarcely more affected by the consideration of the penury under which some of his brother's noblest compositions were penned, than by the reflection that this beautiful letter was the effusion of a man who, with his family, daily wrought long and laboriously under all those circumstances of parsimony which characterise Scottish rural life. Some years after, Mr. Gilbert Burns was appointed by Lady Blantyre to be land-steward or factor upon her estate of Lethington in East-Lothian, to which place he accordingly removed. His conduct in this capacity, during near twenty-five years, was marked by great fidelity and prudence, and gave the most perfect satisfaction to his titled employer. It was not till 1820 that he was enabled to repay, with interest, the money borrowed from his brother in 1788. Being invited by Messrs. Cadell and Davies to superintend, and improve as much as possible, a new edition of the poet's works, he received as much in remuneration for his labour as enabled him to perform this act of duty.

The mother of Robert and Gilbert Burns lived in the household of the latter at Grant's Braes, near Lethington, till 1820, when she died at the age of eighty-eight, and was buried in the churchyard of Bolton. In personal aspect, Robert Burns resembled his mother; Gilbert had the more aquiline features of his father. The portrait of Robert Burns, painted by a Mr. Taylor, and published in an engraved form by Messrs. Constable and Company a few years ago, bore a striking resemblance to Gilbert. This excellent man died at Grant's Braes,

a low wooden kitchen chair, on which the late Mrs. Burns sat when nursing her children, was run up to £3. 78. The crystal and china were much coveted, and brought, in most cases, splendid prices. Even an old fender reached a figure which would go far to buy half a dozen new ones, and every thing, towards the close, attracted notice, down to greybeards, bottles, and a half-worn pair of bellows. The poet's eight-day clock, made by a Mauchline artist, attracted great attention, from the circumstance that it had frequently been wound up by his own hand. In a few seconds it was bid up to fifteen pounds or guineas, and was finally disposed of for £35. The purchaser had a hard battle to fight; but his spirit was good, and his purse obviously not a light one, and the story ran that he had instructed Mr. Richardson to secure a preference at any sum under £60."