And fain wad gar ilk neibour think In benmost corner o' the heart. In afternoon, a' brawly buskit, The joes and lasses lo'e to frisk it. Some tak a great delight to place The modest bon-grace owre the face; Though you may see, if so inclined, The turning o' the leg behind. Now, Comely-Garden and the Park Refresh them, after forenoon's wark: Newhaven, Leith, or Canonmills, Supply them in their Sunday's gills; Where writers aften spend their pence, To stock their heads wi' drink and sense. While danderin cits delight to stray To Castle-hill or public way, Where they nae other purpose mean, Than that fool cause o' being seen, Let me to Arthur's Seat pursue, Where bonny pastures meet the view, And mony a wild-lorn scene accrues, Befitting Willie Shakspeare's muse. If Fancy there would join the thrang, The desert rocks and hills amang, To echoes we should lilt and play, And gie to mirth the live-lang day. Or should some cankered biting shower For, oh, wae's me! the thistle springs ROBERT BURNS. After the publication of Fergusson's poems, in a collected shape, in 1773, there was an interval of about thirteen years, during which no writer of eminence arose in Scotland who attempted to excel in the native language of the country. The intellectual taste of the capital ran strongly in favour of metaphysical and critical studies; but the Doric muse was still heard in the rural districts linked to some popular air, some local occurrence or favourite spot, and was much cherished by the lower and middling classes of the people. In the summer of 1786, ROBERT BURNS, the Shakspeare of Scotland, issued his first volume from the obscure press of Kilmarnock, and its influence was immediately felt, and is still operating on the whole imaginative literature of the kingdom.* Burns was then in his The edition consisted of 600 copies. A second was published in Edinburgh in April 1787, no less than 2500 copies being subscribed for by 1500 individuals. After his unexampled popularity in Edinburgh, Burns took the farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries, married his 'bonny Jean,' and entered twenty-seventh year, having been born in the parish was but a small foundation on which to erect the of Alloway, near Ayr, on the 25th of January 1759. miracles of genius! Robert was taught English His father was a poor farmer, a man of sterling well, and by the time he was ten or eleven years worth and intelligence, who gave his son what of age, he was a critic in substantives, verbs, and education he could afford. The whole, however, particles.' He was also taught to write, had a God bless your fortnight's French, and was one summer-quarter at land-surveying. He had a few books, among which upon his new occupation at Whitsunday 1788. He had obtained -what he anxiously desired as an addition to his means as a farmer-an appointment in the Excise; but the duties of this office, and his own convivial habits, interfered with his management of the farm, and he was glad to abandon it. In 1791 he removed to the town of Dumfries, subsisting entirely on his situation in the Excise, which yielded £70 per annum. Here he published, in 1793, a third edition of his poems, with the addition of Tam o' Shanter, and other pieces composed at Ellisland. He died at Dumfries on the 21st of July 1796, aged thirty-seven years and about six months. The story of his life is so well known, that even this brief statement of dates seems unnecessary. In 1798 a fourth edition of his works was published in Edinburgh. Two years afterwards, in 1800, appeared the valuable and complete edition of Dr Currie, in four volumes, containing the correspondence of the poet, and a number of songs, contributed to Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, and Thomson's Select Scottish Melodies. The editions of Burns since 1800 could with difficulty be ascertained; they were reckoned a few years ago at about a hundred. His poems circulate in every shape, and have not yet'gathered all their fame." were the Spectator, Pope's works, Allan Ramsay, and a collection of English songs. Subsequentlyabout 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 We see him in the veriest shades of obscurity toilas much as the native force and beauty of his poetry. ing, 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-wor- frame, that led him to fear no competitor at the shipping the memory of Scotland's ancient patriots and defenders, and exploring every scene and memorial 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 plough, and his exquisite sensibility and tenderness, The with Cowper, in bringing poetry into the channels of truth and nature. There were only two years between the Task and the Cotter's Saturday Night. No poetry was ever more instantaneously or universally popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland. It seemed as if a new realm had been added to the dominions of the British muse-a new and glorious creation, fresh from the hand of nature. There was the humour of Smollett, the pathos and tenderness of Sterne or Richardson, the real life of Fielding, and the description of Thomson-all united in delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by an Ayrshire ploughman! The volume 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. Mr 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 and circunstances. His command of language and imagery, always the most appropriate, musical, and graceful, was a greater marvel than the creations of a Handel 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 suggestive 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. 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. It 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 senti ments, as Kings may be blest, but Tam was gloriousO'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 treesin 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 |