kirk among his antiquities of Scotland; he composed it in one happy stroll, during a twilight interview with the muse, and in such an ecstacy, that the tears were running down his cheeks. It bears all the marks of an impassioned fit, and is the best and most finished of all his larger poems.

THE BRIGS OF AYR.

"Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictish race,
The very wrinkles Gothic in his face."

THE water of Ayr, over which these two Brigs afford a passage to and from the town, is renowned alike in history and tradition; and now since the poetry and the birth of Burns have bestowed their halo, it is become as celebrated as some rivers whose waters are treble its amount. The clear stream itself; the uplands from which it descends; the glens down which it hurries; the level lands over which it glides to the sea, and the villages and cottages which thrive on its banks, are all matters for the muse and Burns, sometimes with a gay, and now and then with a solemn hand, has recorded them all. Nor has he forgotten the tributary rills and streams which swell the Ayr, till it is of a size to admit ships

"When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil,
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil,

Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course,
Or haunted Garpal draws his feeble source."

Many vicissitudes have happened to the land since "The two Maiden Sisters" erected the Auld Brig, during the days of Alexander the Third. Scotland, lost by the folly of Baliol, was won back by the bravery of Wallace; and, reconquered on the lamentable death of that hero, was restored to independence by one equally heroic and

more fortunate. It is a rough structure of several arches, strong yet, and likely to endure the statues of the Virgin Founders are still pointed out by the district antiquaries on the eastern parapet, but time and a stormy climate have been dealing with them: the bridge is high, narrow, and inconvenient, and, relieved by the new bridge from carts and coaches, is wholly set aside for foot passengers. The New Brig, which, from this kindly interposition, the old one ought to have regarded as a friend, stands some hundred yards or so further down the river, and is handsome and useful. The quarrel between them, as recorded by the poet, was on architectural rather than personal grounds,. and may be regarded as a rustic interpretation of the great controversy between Gothic and Roman architecture.

The Auld Brig was erected in other than a Roman taste, and sprang, like our abbeys and cathedrals, from the Gothic: the New Brig, built after the design of the Adams's, has, like all which came from their hand, the stamp of their uncle, Athenian Stuart, upon it. No wonder, therefore, that the Spirit which presided over the old should treat with anger and scorn the Spirit which presided over the new. She saw a strange and more polished structure arise, embellished with columns and capitals, and resented the intrusion, as her old hero Wallace would an invasion of the Southron. The scorn was answered with scorn; the Spirit of the new looked with compassion and contempt on the mouldering images and time-flawed arches of the old structure, and the rising indignation soon found speech. The poet has conducted the controversy with indifferent skill: the classic Spirit characterizes with some force the architecture of which her rival has the charge; while the Gothic Spirit seeks for defence in the beauty, and

the wisdom, and the devotion which for six centuries had walked over it, Sharply does the New Brig Spirit say—

"Fine architecture, trouth I needs must say't o't!
The Lord be thanket that we've tint the gate o't!
Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices,
Hanging with threat'ning jutlike precipices;
O'er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves,
Supporting roofs fantastic, stony groves;
Windows and doors in nameless sculpture drest,
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest,
Forms like some bedlam statuary's dream,

The crazed creations of misguided whim."

Instead of defending her architecture on the picturesque beauty of its combinations, or its lofty elegance, dim devotional splendor, and the harmony and geometrical unity of its various parts, the Spirit of the Old Brig exclaims

"Ye dainty deacons, and ye douce conveners,

To whom our moderns are but causey-cleaners;
Ye godly councils wha hae blest this town,
Ye godly brethren of the sacred gown,

How would your spirits groan in deep vexation,

To see each melancholy alteration!

Nae langer reverend men, their country's glory,
In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid story ;
Nae longer thrifty citizens and douce,

Meet o'er a pint or in the Council House."

The Genius of the Stream puts an end to a controversy, in which the strong is vanquished by the weak; and the poem concludes with a high strain of compliment to the Poet's patrons, the Stewarts and the Ballantynes.

THE HOLY FAIR.

"My name is Fun, your crony dear,
The nearest friend ye hae;
And this is Superstition here,
'And that's Hypocrisy."

THE scene of this lampoon lies in the kirk-yard of Mauchline, in Ayrshire; and the introductory interview between the poet and his inspirer Fun, took place on the way which leads to that village from Mossgiel. The poem, a sharp one, did some service, though perhaps unintentional, to the kirk of Scotland: the sacrament was in those days dispensed in the open air, and the license in which the laxer members of the community indulged, gave it much the appearance of a festival or fair. When the more unsettled portion of the hearers imagined that the discourse of the preacher was mysterious or dry, they would adjourn to the change-house, and drink and discuss spiritual things, in no very decorous language; while others, like the Kilmarnock lads of the poet's satire, would roam about the skirts of the congregation, making comments aloud, and "winking on the lasses.” All this, and much more, the satire of Burns abated in a moment. Congregations are now more polite, if not more pious, and the idle and profligate seek other scenes on which to exhibit their folly.

The "Holy Fair" seems to have been suggested by the "Leith Races" of Ferguson, to which the opening has too close a resemblance to be accidental. The elder