impersonated? It would be hard, I think, to speak so even of the old popish festivals to which Mr. Heron alludes; it would be hard surely to say it of any festival in which, mingled as they may be with sanctimonious pretenders, and surrounded with giddy groups of onlookers, a mighty multitude of devout men are assembled for the worship of God, beneath the open heaven, and above the tombs of their fathers. Let us beware, however, of pushing our censure of a young poet, mad with the inspiration of the moment, from whatever source derived, too far. It can hardly be doubted that the author of the Cottar's Saturday Night had felt, in his time, all that any man can feel in the contemplation of the most sublime of the religious observances of his country; and as little, that he had taken up the subject of this rural sacrament in a solemn mood, he might have produced a piece as gravely beautiful, as his Holy Fair is quaint, graphic, and picturesque. A scene of family worship, on the other hand, I can easily imagine to have come from his hand as pregnant with the ludicrous as that Holy Fair itself. The family prayers of the Saturday's night, and the rural celebration of the Eucharist, are parts of the same system-the system which has made the people of Scotland what they are-and what, it is to be hoped, they will continue to be. And when men ask of themselves what this great national poet really thought of a system in which minds immeasurably inferior to his can see so much to venerate, it is surely just that they should pay most attention to what he has delivered under the gravest sanction. In noble natures, we may be sure, the source of tears lies nearer the heart than that of smiles. The Reverend Hamilton Paul does not desert his post on occasion of the Holy Fair; he defends that piece as manfully as Holy Willie; and, indeed, expressly applauds Burns for having endeavored to explode" abuses discountenanced by the General Assembly." The General Assembly would no doubt say, both of the poet and the com. mentator, non talia auxilio. Hallowe'en, a descriptive poem, perhaps even more exquisitely wrought than the Holy Fair, and containing nothing that could offend the feelings of any body, was produced about the same period. Burns' art had now reached its climax ; but it is time that we should revert more particularly to the personal history of the poet. He seems to have very soon perceived, that the farm of Mossgiel could at the best furnish no more than the bare means of existence to so large a family; and wearied with the " prospects drear," from which he only escaped in occasional intervals of social merriment, or when gay flashes of solitary fancy, for they were no more, threw sunshine on every thing, he very naturally took up the notion of quitting Scotland for a time, and trying his fortune in the West Indies, where, as is well known, the managers of the plantations are, in the great majority of cases, Scotchmen of Burns' own rank and condition. His letters show, that on two or three different occasions, long before his poetry had excited any attention, he had applied for, and nearly obtained appointments of this sort, through the intervention of his acquaintances in the seaport of Irvine. Petty accidents, not worth describing, interfered to disappoint him from time to time; but at last a new burst of misfortune rendered him doubly anxious to escape from his na tive land; and but for an accident, which no one will call petty, his arrangements would certainly have been completed. But we must not come quite so rapidly to the last of his Ayrshire love-stories. How many lesser romances of this order were evolved and completed during his residence at Mossgiel, it is needless to inquire; that they were many, his songs prove, for in those days he wrote no love-songs on imaginary heroines.* Mary Morrison-Behind yon hills where Stinchar flowsOn Cessnot bank there lives a lass-belong to this period; and there are three or four inspired by Mary Campbell-the object of by far the deepest passion that ever Burns knew, and which he has accordingly immortalized in the noblest of his elegiacs. In introducing to Mr. Thompson's notice the song, "Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia's shore?-- Burns says, "In my early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies, I took this farewell of a dear girl;" and, afterwards, in a note on "Ye banks, and braes, and streams around Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, For there I took the last farewell * Letters to Mr. Thompsen, No. IV. 66 was he adds," After a pretty long trial of the most ardent reciprocal affection, we met by appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the banks of Ayr, where we spent a day in taking a farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of the autumn following she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to her grave in a few days, before I could even hear of her illness ;" and Mr. Cromek, speaking of the same "day of parting love," gives, though without mentioning his authority, some further particulars, which no one would willingly believe to be apochryphal. "This adieu," says that zealous inquirer into the details of Burns' story, performed with all those simple and striking ceremonials, which rustic sentiment has devised to prolong tender emotions, and to impose awe. lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook -they laved their hands in the limpid streamand, holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other. They parted -never to meet again." It is proper to add, that Mr. Cromek's story, which even Allan Cunningham was disposed to receive with suspicion, has recently been confirmed very strongly by the accidental discovery of a Bible, presented by Burns to Mary Campbell, in the possession of her still surviving sister at Ardrossan. Upon the boards of the first volume is inscribed, in Burns' handwriting," And ye shall not swear by my name falsely-I am the Lord.-Levit. chap. xix. v. 12." On the second volume,-" Thou shalt not forswear The thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath. St. Matth. chap. v., v. 33." And on a blank leaf of either," Robert Burns, Mossgeil." How lasting was the poet's remembrance of this pure love, and its tragic termination, will be seen hereafter.* Highland Mary, however seems to have died ere her lover had made any of his more serious attempts in poetry. In the Epistle to Mr. Sillar, (as we have already hinted,) the very earliest, ac. cording to Gilbert, of these attempts, the poet celebrates "his Davie and his Jean." This was Jean Armour, a young woman, a step if any thing, above Burns' own rank in life,† the daughter of a respectable man, a master-mason, in the village of Mauchline, where she was at the time the reigning toast, and who still survives, as the respected widow of our poet. There are numberless allusions to her maiden charms in the best pieces which he produced at Mossgeil. The time is not yet come, in which all the de. tails of this story can be expected. Jean Armour found herself "as ladies wish to be that love their lords." And how slightly such a circumstance might affect the character and reputation of a young woman in her sphere of rural life at that period, every Scotsman will understand-to any *Cromek, p 239. "In Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles, "Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland's divine, |