where he stood before-that Lord Woodhouselee knew nothing whatever about the matter, and in his good nature has made assertions absurdly untrue-that Mr Thomson's own defence of himself is in all respects an utter failure, and mainly depends on the supposition of a case unexampled in a Christian land-that Lockhart with unerring finger has indicated where the fault lay-and that Cunningham has accounted for it by a reason that with candid judges must serve to reduce it to one of a very pardonable kind; the avowal of which from the first would have saved a worthy man from some unjust obloquy, and at least as much undeserved commendation-the truth being now apparent to all, that "his poverty, not his will, consented" to secure, on the terms of non-payment, a hundred and twenty songs from the greatest lyrical poet of his country, who during the years he was thus lavishing away the effusions of his matchless genius without fee or reward, was in a state bordering on destitution, and as the pen dropt from his hand, did not leave sufficient to defray the expenses of a decent funeral.

We come now to contemplate his dying days; and mournful as the contemplation is, the close of many an illustrious life has been far more distressing, involved in far thicker darkness, and far heavier storms. From youth he had been visited—we shall not say haunted-by presentiments of an early death; he knew well that the profound melancholy that often settled down upon his whole being, suddenly changing day into night, arose from his organisation ;-and it seems as if the finest still bordered on disease-disease in his case perhaps hereditary-for his father was often sadder than even "the toil worn cottar" needed to be, and looked like a man subject to inward trouble. His character was somewhat stern; and we can believe that in its austerity he found a safeguard against passion, that nevertheless may shake the life it cannot wreck. But the son wanted the father's firmness; and in his veins there coursed more impetuous blood. The very fire of genius consumed him, coming and going in fitful flashes; his genius itself may almost be called a passion, so vehement was it, and so turbulent-though it had its scenes of blissful quietude; his heart too seldom suffered itself to be at rest; many a fever travelled through his veins; his calmest nights were liable to be broken in upon by the worst of dreams

waking dreams from which there is no deliverance in a sudden start-of which the misery is felt to be no delusion-which are not dispelled by the morning light, but accompany their victim as he walks out into the day, and among the dew, and surrounded as he is with the beauty of rejoicing nature, tempt him to curse the day he was born.

Yet let us not call the life of Burns unhappy-nor at its close shut our eyes to the manifold blessings showered by Heaven on the Poet's lot. Many of the mental sufferings that helped most to wear him out, originated in his own restless nature-"by prudent, cautious self-control" he might have subdued some and tempered others-better regulation was within his power-and, like all men, he paid the penalty of neglect of duty, or of its violation. But what loss is hardest to bear? The loss of the beloved. All other wounds are slight to those of the affections. Let fortune do her worst— so that Death be merciful. Burns went to his own grave without having been commanded to look down into another's where all was buried. "I have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. The autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to her." The flower withered, and he wept-but his four pretty boys were soon dancing again in their glee-their mother's heart was soon composed again to cheerfulness-and her face without a shadow. Anxiety for their sakes did indeed keep preying on his heart;-but what would that anxiety have seemed to him, had he been called upon to look back upon it in anguish because they were not? Happiness too great for this earth! If in a dream for one short hour restored, that would have been like an hour in heaven.

Burns had not been well for a twelvemonth; and though nobody seems even then to have thought him dying, on the return of spring, which brought him no strength, he knew that his days were numbered. Intense thought, so it be calm, is salutary to life. It is emotion that shortens our days by hurrying life's pulsations-till the heart can no more, and runs down like a disordered time-piece. We said nobody seems to have thought him dying;-yet after the event, everybody, on looking back on it, remembered seeing death in his face. It is when thinking of those many months of decline and decay,

that we feel pity and sorrow for his fate, and that along with them other emotions will arise, without our well knowing towards whom, or by what name they should be called, but partaking of indignation, and shame, and reproach, as if some great wrong had been done, and might have been rectified before death came to close the account. Not without blame somewhere could such a man have been so neglected-so forgotten-so left alone to sicken and die.

Oh, Scotia ! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent!

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!"

No son of Scotland did ever regard her with more filial affection-did ever in strains so sweet sing of the scenes "that make her loved at home, revered abroad"—and yet his mother stretched not out her hand to sustain-when it was too late to save- -her own Poet as he was sinking into an untimely grave. But the dying man complained not of her ingratitude; he loved her too well to the last to suspect her of such sinthere was nothing for him to forgive-and he knew that he would have a place for ever in her memory. Her rulers were occupied with great concerns-in which all thoughts of self were merged! and therefore well might they forget her Poet, who was but a cottar's son and a gauger. In such forgetfulness they were what other rulers have been, and will be,—and Coleridge lived to know that the great ones of his own land could be as heartless in his own case as the "Scotch nobility" in that of Burns, for whose brows his youthful genius wove a wreath of scorn. "The rapt one of the godlike forehead, the heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth "—but who among them all cared for the long self-seclusion of the white-headed sagefor his sick-bed or his grave?

Turn we then from the Impersonation named Scotland—from her rulers-from her nobility and gentry-to the personal friends of Burns. Could they have served him in his straits? And how? If they could, then were they bound to do so by a stricter obligation than lay upon any other party; and if they had the will as well as the power, 'twould have been easy to find a way. The duties of friendship are plain, simple, sacred-and to perform them is delightful; yet so far as we

can see, they were not performed here-if they were, let us have the names of the beneficent who visited Burns every other day during the months disease had deprived him of all power to follow his calling? Who insisted on helping to keep the family in comfort till his strength might be restored?-for example, to pay his house rent for a year? Mr Syme of Ryedale told Dr Currie, that Burns had "many firm friends in Dumfries," who would not have suffered the haberdasher to put him into jail, and that his were the fears of a man in delirium. Did not those "firm friends" know that he was of necessity very poor? And did any one of them offer to lend him thirty shillings to pay for his three weeks' lodgings at the Brow? He was not in delirium-till within two days of his death. Small sums he had occasionally borrowed and repaid -but from people as poor as himself-such as kind Craig, the schoolmaster, to whom, at his death, he owed a pound-never from the more opulent townfolk or the gentry in the neighbourhood, of not one of whom is it recorded that he or she accommodated the dying Poet with a loan sufficient to pay for a week's porridge and milk. Let us have no more disgusting palaver about his pride. His heart would have melted within him at any act of considerate friendship done to his family; and so far from feeling that by accepting it he had become a pauper, he would have recognised in the doer of it a brother, and taken him into his heart. And had he not in all the earth, one single such Friend? His brother Gilbert was struggling with severe difficulties at Mossgiel, and was then unable to assist him; and his excellent cousin at Montrose had enough to do to maintain his own family; but as soon as he knew how matters stood, he showed that the true Burns blood was in his heart, and after the Poet's death, was as kind as man could be to his widow and children.

What had come over Mrs Dunlop that she should have seemed to have forgotten or forsaken him? "These many months you have been two packets in my debt—what sin of ignorance I have committed against so highly valued a friend I am utterly at a loss to guess. Alas! Madam, ill can I afford, at this time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock (the death of his little daughter), when I became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever,

and long the die spun doubtful; until, after many weeks of a sick-bed, it seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and once, indeed, have been before my own door in the street." No answer came; and three months after he wrote from the Brow: "Madam-I have written you so often without receiving any answer, that I would not trouble you again but for the circumstances in which I am. An illness which has long hung about me, in all probability will speedily send me beyond that bourne whence no traveller returns. Your friendship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. Your conversation, and especially your correspondence, were at once highly entertaining and instructive. With what pleasure did I use to break up the seal! The remembrance yet adds one pulse more to my poor palpitating heart. Farewell. R. B." Currie says, "Burns had the pleasure of receiving a satisfactory explanation of his friend's silence, and an assurance of the continuance of her friendship to his widow and children; an assurance that has been amply fulfilled." That "satisfactory explanation" should have been given to the world—it should be given yet-for without it such incomprehensible silence must continue to seem cruel; and it is due to the memory of one whom Burns loved and honoured to the last, to vindicate on her part the faithfulness of the friendship which preserves her name.

Maria Riddel, a lady of fine talents and accomplishments, and though somewhat capricious in the consciousness of her mental and personal attractions, yet of most amiable dispositions, and of an affectionate and tender heart, was so little aware of the condition of the Poet, whose genius she could so well appreciate, that only a few weeks before his death, when he could hardly crawl, he had by letter to decline acceding to her "desire, that he would go to the birthday assembly, on the 4th of June, to show his loyalty!" Alas! he was fast "wearin awa to the land o' the leal;" and after the lapse of a few weeks, that lady gay, herself in poor health, and saddened out of such vanities by sincerest sorrow, was struck with his appearance on entering the room. "The stamp of death was imprinted on his features. He seemed already touching the brink of eternity. His first salutation was-Well, Madam, have you any commands for the next world!'"' The best men