I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought which is so apt to re duce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. This day; the first Sunday of May; a breezy, blue-skyed noon, some time about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sun. ny day about the end, of autumn;-these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday. I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, "The Vision of Mirza ;' a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables. "On the 5th day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. • We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or struc ture of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier-rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the Eolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod?' II. p. 195–197. To this we may add the following passage, as a part, indeed, of the same picture. There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more-I do not, know if I should call it pleasure-but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter-day, and hear the' stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best season for devotion; my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Him, who, in the pompous language of the Hebrew bard, "walks on the wings of the wind. " II. p. 11, The following is one of the best and most striking of a whole series of eloquent hypochondriasm, After six weeks confinement, I am beginning to walk across the room. They have been six horrible weeks;-anguish and low spirits made me unfit to read, write, or think. * I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer officer resigns a commission: for I would not take in any poor, ignorant wretch, by selling out. Lately I was a sixpenny private; and, : God knows, a miserable soldier enough: now I march to the cam- 1 paign, a starving cadet, a little more conspicuously wretched. I am ashamed of all this; for though I do want bravery for the warfare of life, I could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice.' II. p. 127, 128. One of the most striking letters in the collection, and, to us, one of the most interesting, is the earliest of the whole series; being addressed to his father in 1781, six or seven years before his name had been heard of out of his own family. The author> was then a common flax-dresser, and his father a poor peasant'; yet there is not one trait of vulgarity, either in the thought or the expression; but, on the contrary, a dignity and elevation of sentiment, which must have been considered as of good omen in a youth of much higher condition. The letter is as follows. Honoured Sir, I have purposely delayed writing, in the hope that I should have the pleasure of seeing you on New-year's-day; but work comes so hard upon us, that I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for some other little reasons, which I' shall tell you at meeting. My health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder, and, on the whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind, that I dare neither review past wants, nor look forward into futurity; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast, produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, I glimmer a little into futurity; but my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable employment, is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and religious way. I am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this weary life; for I assure you I am heartily tired of it; and, if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. The soul, uneasy, and confin'd at home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of Revelation, than with any ten times as many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that this world has to offer. As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I shall never again be capable of entering into such scenes. Indeed I am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. "I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I am am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me; which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which, I hope, have been remembered ere it is yet too late.' I. P. 99-101. Before proceeding to take any particular notice of his poetical compofitions, we must apprife, our Southern readers, that all his beft pieces are written in Scotch; and that it is impoffible for them to form any adequate judgment of their merits, without a pretty long refidence among thofe who ftill ufe that language. To be able to tranflate the words, is but a fmall part of the knowledge that is neceffary. The whole genius and idiom of the language must be familiar; and the characters, and habits, and affociations of those who speak it. We beg leave too, in paffing, to obferve, that this Scotch is not to be confidered as a provincial dialect,the vehicle only of ruftic vulgarity and rude local humour. It is the language of a whole country,-long an independent kingdom, and ftill feparate in laws, character and manners. It is by no means peculiar to the vulgar; but is the common fpeech of the whole nation in early life, and with many of its moft exalted and accomplished individuals throughout their whole exiftence; and, if it be true that, in later times, it has been, in some measure, laid afide by the more ambitious and afpiring of the present genera, tion, it is ftill recollected, even by them, as the familiar language of their childhood, and of thofe who were the earliest objects of their love and veneration. It is connected, in their imagination, not only with that olden time which is uniformly conceived as more pure, lofty and fimple than the prefent, but alfo with all the foft and bright colours of remembered childhood and domestic affection, All its phrafes conjure up images of fchool-day innocence, and sports, and friendships which have no pattern in fucceeding years. Add to all this, that it is the language of a great body of poetry, with which almost all Scotchmen are familiar; and, in particular, of a great multitude of fongs, written with more tendernefs, nature, and feeling, than any other lyric compofitions that are extant, and we may perhaps be allowed to fay, that the Scotch is, in reality, a highly poetical language; and that it is an ignorant, as well as an illiberal prejudice, which would feek to confound it with the barbarous dialects of Yorkshire or Devon. In compofing his Scottish poems, therefore, Burns did not make an inftinctive and neceffary ufe of the only dialect he could employ. The laft letter which we have quoted, proves, that before he had penned a fingle couplet, he could write in the dialect of England with far greater purity and propriety than nine-tenths of thofe who are called well educated in that country. He wrote in Scotch, becaufe because the writings which he most aspired to imitate were compofed in that language; and it is evident, from the variations preferved by Dr Currie, that he took much greater pains with the beauty and purity of his expreffions in Scotch than in English; and, every one who understands both, muft admit, with infinitely better fuccefs. But though we have ventured to say thus much in praise of the Scottish poetry of Burns, we cannot prefume to lay many fpecimens of it before our readers; and, in the few extracts we may be tempted to make from the volumes before us, fhall be guided more by a defire to exhibit what may be intelligible to all our readers, than by a feeling of what is in itself of the highest excellence. We have faid that Burns is almost equally distinguished for his tenderness and his humour:-we might have added, for a faculty of combining them both in the same subject, not altogether without parallel in the older poets and balladmakers, but altogether fingular, we think, among modern critics. The paffages of pure humour are entirely Scotifh,-and untranflateable. They confift in the moft picturefque reprefentations of life and manners, enlivened, and even exalted by traits of exquifite fagacity, and unexpected reflection. His tenderness is of two forts; that which is combined with circumstances and characters of humble, and fometimes ludicrous fimplicity; and that which is produced by gloomy and distressful impreffions acting on a mind of keen fenfibility. The paffages which belong to the former description are, we think, the moft exquifite and original, and, in our eftimation, indicate the greatest and most amiable turn of genius; both as being accompanied by fine and feeling pictures of humble life, and as requiring that delicacy, as well as juftnefs of conception, by which alone the faftidiousness of an ordinary reader can be reconciled to fuch reprefentations. The exquifite description of the Cotter's Saturday Night' affords, perhaps, the finest example of this fort of pathetic. Its whole beauty cannot, indeed, be difcerned but by those whom experience has enabled to judge of the admirable fidelity and completeness of the picture. But, independent altogether of national peculiarities, and even in fpite of the obscurity of the language, we are perfuaded that it is impoffible to perufe the following ftanzas without feeling the force of tenderness and truth. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, Collects Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend, • At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher thro To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; Weel pleas'd, the mother hears its nae wild, worthless rake. • Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben; A strappan youth; he taks the mother's eye; The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave, • The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; He |