stead at Mount Oliphant. Reverses, however, came swiftly, and the whole family were plunged into the abyss of poverty, which they so much dreaded. Father, mother and two brothers (Gilbert and Robert) toiled like drudges, even denying themselves many of the real necessaries of life for the Burnesses were a proud family and would ask alms of no man. Burns has described his life in those days as "combining the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the toil of a galley-slave." While Mr. Ferguson lived, the "pound of flesh" was not exacted so mercilessly, but on his death, says the poet, "to clench our misfortunes, we fell into the hands of a factor who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of The Twa Dogs. There was a freedom from his lease in two years; we retrenched our expenses and lived very poorly. A novel-writer might view these scenes with satisfaction, but so did not I. My indignation yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent letters, which used to set us all in tears."

Although Robert was at this time but sixteen years of age, both he and Gilbert had for two years been doing the work of fullgrown men on the farm. At the plough, the scythe and the flail they worked with a zest and vigor that was far beyond their strength. Thus, early in life, by over-work and privation, Burns's bodily health was shattered, and the seeds were sown of that fell disease which carried him off all too early from the world. Those bitter struggles of his early life, and the premature death of the father he had loved and cherished, burned themselves in letters of fire into the heart of the poet, and turned his attention (almost unconsciously) to the social and political questions of the day.

In spite of hard years of toil, Burns had found time to acquire what would even in these latter days be regarded as a fairly good education-remarkably good, certainly, for a Scottish farmer. Of French he knew a little; of Latin he had some small knowledge; while in Scottish and English classics he was widely read. In the history and literature of his own land he was deeply interested, and it is scarcely surprising to find that Burns was not merely a "rantin', rovin', rhymin' billie," but a sturdy pioneer of Scottish Home Rule and National independence as well. The patriotic toiler in the harvest-field, who, when he saw

The rough burr thistle spreading wide
Among the bearded be e.
Turned the weeder clip aside

And spared the symbol dear; was scarcely likely to note in silence the growing servitude of the "ancient Scottish nation.' Scottish liberty had been sacrificed by the ill-starred Union of 1707. At times he seems to share the sentiments of Fletcher of Saltoun regarding the land which had been sold and enslaved by the Whigs. On the passing of the Act of Union, it may be remembered that Fletcher determined to leave Scotland at once. His horse was saddled and bridled, his foot was in the stirrup, and old friends crowded round him remonstrating with the offended patriot. "Will you forsake your country?" they cried indignantly. But, darting at them a look of scorn, the venerable patriot exclaimed: "It's only fit for the slaves who sold it." So, too, Burns.

But these were only random fits of melancholy born in one to whom "his native land had been richt ill-willie." In his normal moods, Scotland was his "auld respected mither," and a free and unregenerated nation, the land of his dreams. Never, however, did he forgive the Scottish Whigs for selling their birthright of national independence for a mess of English pottage. To him they were still "a pack o' traitor-loons." With characteristic vigor, he exclaims:

Oh! would, ere I had seen the day That treason thus could fail us. My auld gray heid had lain in clay Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace. But pith and power, till my last hour, I'll make this declaration: We're bought and sold for English gold, Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. Burns was under no illusions as to the effects of the Union of 1707. He scorned the views of the servile politicians who attributed the increasing prosperity of Scotland to the action of the Whig rogues. To his friend, Mrs. Dunlop, he wrote:

"Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the Union that can coun terbalance the annihilation of her indepen dence and even her very name i often repeat the couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith:

'States of native liberty possess't

Though very poor may yet be very blest.'

Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms English Ambassador,' 'English Court,' etc.; and I am out of all patience to see that equivocal character Hastings impeached by the Commons of England."

It will thus be seen that there were patriots before the days of the Scottish Home Rule Association, who objected to the elimination of Scotland's name from the records of the nations. It may also be the case that the more Democratic constitution of the Scottish Parliament was, to the progressive mind of Burns a strong point in its favor. It is scarcely necessary to recall that the Scottish Parliament though sometimes the tool of a self-willed king, and sometimes of a clique of nobles.

was a single chamber legislature. The Lords, Barons and Burgesses all sat together in the same chamber, so that, as Andrew Fairservice says, "they didna need to hae the same blethers twice ower again." The political results of the Union, as the poet realized, were also disastrous to Scottish liberties. Even financially the Union of 1707 did not begin to "pay" Scotland till about 1760. A federal union, while preserving her Parliament to Scotland, would have been in every way more beneficial to the lesser kingdom. The Scottish Parliament, although not elected on a democratic franchise in the ordinary sense of the words, was nevertheless more representative than that of England. Under an Act passed in the reign of James Ithough it did not become really operative until 1585—the electors were defined as "all free-holders of the King under the degree of prelates and lords of Parliament," possessed of "forty shillings Land in free tenantry of the King" and of a dwelling and residence within the shire. The electors of each county were entitled to appoint "two wise men" to represent them in Parliament, and that the agricultural population who then constituted the vast majority of the Scottish people were well represented, may be gathered from the fact that very frequently in the autumn months several of those who had been elected to sit in the legislature were allowed to go home "because of the harvest," not because "the Twelfth" was approaching, and the members were anxious to reach the Northern moors as fast as the Grampian Express could carry them! Even before the Union, however, juggling with the franchise had begun, and after 1707 the exclusive and anti-democratic system of England was grafted on to that of Scotland. The result was that in Burns's day the Parliamentary franchise was almost wholly confined to landlords. Not only did 2,625 electors frame the laws

which their countrymen had to obey, but they rigidly enforced their every whim and caprice with the iron hand of the law. Those were the days when the notorious Braxfield was earning for himself a reputation that was to stink for many a long day in the nostrils of the people of Scotland. Those were the days when Thomas Muir, Scotland's first political martyr, was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation for advocating the extension of the franchise.

Thomas Muir is one of the honored race of reformers to whom Scotland has not yet done justice. Although Burns and the young lawyer of Hunter's Hill were contemporaries, and though both lived in the South of Scotland, there is no reason to suppose that they had ever met. At the same time, the trial and conviction of the young reformer aroused an extraordinary amount of interest in Scotland, and there are very strong reasons for believing that it was this scandalous perversion of justice that inspired Burns's marching song of Scottish nationalism, the war ode of democracy. It was in January, 1793, that Thomas Muir was arrested on a charge of "Seditious conspiracy" and thrown into prison. Nearly nine months afterwards on August 30th-he was tried before the High Court at Edinburgh, on a charge of having taken part in a public agitation for the extension of the franchise. The trial is still remembered as one of the most notorious in the annals of the Scottish law courts. On the bench sat Lord Braxfield, while in the packed jury were one bookseller, two hawkers, three merchants and nine landlords. "Come awa', Maister Horner," quoth Braxfield as one of the jurymen merchants entered the court, "Come awa' an' help us to hang ane o' thae damned scoondrils."

One of the blackest allegations against Muir was that of having had in his possession a copy of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man (Burns himself narrowly escaped serious trouble for a similar "offence," and had to hide his copy of the offending volume with the blacksmith of Dumfries until the inquisitorial cloud rolled by). On the part of Thomas Muir, defence or protest was unavailing, and the young Scottish reformer was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, with certification that if he returned within that period he should suffer death. News traveled slowly in Scotland in those days, but Burns doubtless

Nay,

learned of the savage sentence on his fellow-bard-for Thomas Muir, too, was poet as well as reformer on September 1st, and the tidings could not fail to arouse in his breast burning indignation against the new race of tyrants who were ruthlessly stamping out liberty in Scotland. more, it is practically certain that on the eventful evening on which Burns heard of the fate of Thomas Muir, he wrote "Scots Wha Hae," the greatest of war odes. It was not from brooding over ancient Scottish feuds that the great inspiration came. The song was not even inspired, as Professor Sharpe contends, by the revolutionary movement in France. The foes whom Burns assailed were those of his own Scottish household. I know that the inspiration is generally attributed to Bruce and Wallace, or Robespierre and Danton. Both, I think, are mistaken theories.

Examine

the facts. Thomas Muir, as I have said, was sentenced on August 30th. Burns would have learned of it probably on September 1st, 1793. "Scots wha hae" was despatched to Mr. Thomson, along with a letter, in which the poet says: "There is a tradition that the air, 'Hey, tuttie, tuttie,' was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought on my yesternight's walk warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm which I threw into a kind of Scottish ode fitted to the affair." Mr. Thomson read the song to some friends on September 4th, so that the "yester-night's walk" must have taken place either on September 1st or 2nd. _On the same subject, Burns also says: "I showed the air to Urbani, who was highly pleased with it, and begged me to make soft verses to it; but I had no idea of giving myself any trouble on the subject, till the accidental recollection of that glorious struggle, associated with the glowing ideas of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite so recent, roused my rhyming mania." The italics are Burns's. Now those two facts can point to but one conclusion, namely, that the "other struggles not quite so recent" refer to the strenuous efforts of the Scottish reformers to combat the tyranny of the landlords and law-makers of the time. No other theory fits all the facts of the case. All this lends additional force to the fervent prayer with which he concludes this marching song of Scottish nationalism

By oppression's woes and pains! By our sons in servile chains!

We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!

Lay the proud Usurper low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!

Let us do-or dee!

"So may God ever defend the cause of Truth and Liberty as He did that day! Amen!"-R. B.

But Scotland as a nation once again meant more to Burns than political changes -important though these were from the point of view of Scottish democracy. He was a sturdy pioneer of land reform as well, and even in these more enlightened days his views on social questions would be regarded as "advanced" and democratic. His questions, "Why has man the will and power to make his fellow mourn?" and man fare better than "Why should a

anither and a' men brithers?" are more than emotional outbursts. Burns realized that the land system of Scotland was the great barrier to social well-being. It was the toil of the "rustic hind," he declared, which "upheld the glittering show"upheld "proud property" and "pampered luxury." It is, however, in his two allegorical poems, "The Twa Dogs" and the "Twa Brigs" of Ayr that Burns expresses his views on land reform with greatest freedom.

To admirers of Burns it is scarcely necessary to recall the illuminating "cracks" of the two canine sociologists. Luath was a ploughman's collie; while Cæsar belonged to a gentleman and scholar. Burns tells us that the factor whose doings they discuss was the one into whose clutches his father's family fell after the death of Mr. Ferguson of Dunholm

L d man, our gentry care as little
For delvers, ditchers, and sic cattle
They gang as saucy by puir folk
As I wad by a stinkin' brock.
I've noticed on our Laird's Court-day,
An mony a time my heart's been wae,
Puir tenant bodies, scant o' cash,
How they maun thole a factor's snash;
He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an' swear,
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear;
While they maun stare wi' aspect humble,
An' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble.

And so the tongues of the twa dogs wag merrily on. "The prideful greed" of the landlords, the farce that was yearly played in Parliament, the demoralizing effect of idleness among the wealthy classes-all these and many other things come under the ban of the sagacious dogs. Particu

larly stinging are Luath's comments on the Highland evictions, which were then arousing wide-spread indignation among the people of Scotland

There's mony a creditable stock O' decent, honest, fawsont folk, Are riven oot, baith root and branch, Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench. Then at last Luath and Cæsar take off their several ways, "rejoiced they werna men but dogs." The Highland evictions also inspired the stinging satire, "Beelzebub's Address," which was written in 1786, although, curiously enough, it was not published till nearly thirty years later. Probably the explanation is that the Scottish publishers were over-awed by the iron hand of Braxfield.

In 1786, as may be recalled, the Chief of Glengarry evicted 400 of his clansmenthe beginning in that particular district of the great Highland clearances. Quelled by superior force, the Highlanders determined to emigrate to Canada, but even that liberty the landlords would have fain denied them. They invoked the aid of the Government to prevent the evicted crofters and cottars from leaving Scottish territory. Such was the extraordinary incident that roused the righteous wrath of Burns. At the plough at Mossgeil he learned of what was happening in the Highlands, and his indignation found vent in a stinging, lashing satire, which he headed thus:

"To the Right Honourable the Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Right Honourable and the Honourable the Highland Society, which met on the 23rd May last, 1786, at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of four hundred Highlanders, who, as the Society were informed by Mr. Mackenzie of Apple ross, were so audacious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters whose property they were, by emigrating from the lands of Mr. MacDonald of Glengarry to the wilds of Canada in search of that fantastic thing-LIBERTY."

Beelzebub's mocking address must certainly have made the blood of the Highland chieftains rankle. It is in the "Brigs of Ayr," however, that we find Burns's mature views on the land question. This poem might, in fact, be described as a sequel to "The Twa Dogs." The Auld Brig, like Luath, had little respect for the Lairds of Scotland. It calls them—

Staumrel, corky headed, graceless gentry,

The herryment and ruin o' the country.

Nor is the new brig one whit more complimentary. A prophetic conclusion, however, is given to the tale-a conclusion which gives us a glimpse of the poet's hopes and aspirations for the future of Scotland. The Genius of the Stream appeared, and with him the heroic and social virtues typified by familiar figures. Learning came, shedding its rays on an unlettered world of workers; Courage came, to strengthen the arm of the reformers; Autumn with its horn of plenty; and Winter with its kindly hospitality.

Last, white-robed peace, crowned with a hazel wreath,

To rustic agriculture did bequeath
The broken iron instrument of Death.

And so at long last the sword was beaten into plowshares and the spear into pruning hooks.

In that parable, or allegory, we have the keynote, and the kernel, too, of Burns's social theories. Ignorance he regarded as the great foe of human progress, the great bulwark, too, of the landed class, whom he regarded as the "ruin of the land." He saw, too, that only by dauntless courage among the votaries of progress could his social and political ideals be realized. In some respects he deals even more pointedly with the land question in his letters than in his poems. There is, for example, the well-known greeting to his friend, Mrs. Dunlop, on the occasion of a noted family event. The letter is dated Dumfries, September 24th, 1792:

"I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to his family. I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a farmer. 'Tis. as a farmer paying a dear unconscionable rent, a cursed life. As to a laird farming his own property, sowing his corn in hone, and reaping it in spite of brittle weather in gladness: knowing that none can say unto him 'What doest thou?'; fattening his herds; shearing his flocks: rejoicing at Christmas; begetting sons and daughters until he be the grey-haired, venerated leader of a little tribe-'tis a heavenly life. Put. devil take the life of reaping the fruits that another must eat."

These and other notable passages in Burns's letters and poems show that the fearless democrat who championed the cause of the evicted crofters against the Highland landlords was a pioneer of land reform as well as an ardent Nationalist.

(Continued on page 477)

ON

The Burns Society of the City of New

York

The Annual Banquet of the society commemorating the 158th Anniversary of the birthday of the poet, Robert Burns, was held January 25, at Delmonico's. It was a very auspicious occasion. More than a hundred were present. The hall was beautifully decorated with the Stars and Stripes, Union Jack, and the St. Andrew's Cross. An informal reception was held before the dinner, after which the guests marched to the banquet hall led by Piper Walter Armstrong. Mr. James MacGregor Smith, the president, presided. Rev. Dr. George Alexander invoked the blessing. The dinner was excellent, and was interspersed by bagpipe selections and selections from the songs of Robert Burns by George A. Fleming, Daniel Beddoe and Eugene Cowles; Louis R. Dressler, accompanist. The music was unusually fine. The toasts to "The President" and to "The King," received a hearty response. Hon. Andrew MacLean, editor of the Brooklyn Citizen. responded to "The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns," in which he surpassed his many memorable and eloquent addresses on similar occasions. He graphically referred to the spirit that animated Burns that was seen in all Scotland to-day. Never in the history of Scotland has more worthy patriotism been manifested than at the present. If Burns were living to-day, he would rejoice in recognizing the patriotic spirit of liberty, which is the key-note of Scotland at the present time. In fact, Burns was instrumental in inspiring the spirit of patriotism throughout the world. In closing, he cited Burns as the universal poet, ranking only with Shakespeare. Rev. Dr. George Alexander, the beloved "bishop of the Presbytery of New York," spoke on "Robert BurnsPreacher"-as being the most effective preacher of his age. His apt quotation and wonderful command of the whole of the poet's works was a surprise and delight to his hearers. The address was most unique. He called attention to Burns' orthodoxy, that he believed in the devil and hell; to his exposure of hypocrisy and hate of cant; his appeal to the conscience; to his charity, his optimism and his humantarianism and internationalism. Prof. George William McClelland, Ph.D., spoke on "Sir Walter Scott," as the greatest literary factor of his age. It was a scholarly production.

The president, Mr. Smith, read telegrams from Mr. Robert Frater Munro and Walter Scott, and congratulated the society on having for the first time as their guest. Mr.

William Sloane, President of the New York St. Andrew's Society.

The officers of the Burns Society for the present year are: James MacGregor Smith, President; Alexander R. Peacock, Vice-President; Dr. Angus Sinclair, Treasurer; John S. MacNab, Secretary.

Among those present, not already mentioned, were: Hon. Charles P. McClelland, Robert B. Scott, D. P. McClellan, J. H. Fleming, W. H. Stephenson, Ralph S. Streett, Harry A. Van Gilder, Frank F. Rogers, Harry A. Kenney. James Hay, John Gibson, Asa John Stott, James Kennedy, Dr. R. B. Kennedy, J. C. Crrie, Edward Laterman, Angus Sinclair, D. E., William Schlafge, C. E. Chambers, Edward E. Gold, George S. Hodgins, John Lundie, D. Sc., Joseph Robinson, Clement F. Street, Alexander B. Halliday, John Reid, Jr.. Walter E. Hodgman. William R. Innis, John C. Ten Eyck, A. C. Humphreys, LL. D., Hon. W. E. Tuttle, Jr., S. W. Rockwell, R. D. Garden, Charles E. Finlay, Hon. B. F. Adams, John Thomson, Gen. Thomas L. Watson, Henry C. Quinby. John Thomson, James B. Wilbur, L. F. Braine, V. C. Armstrong, C. C. Bell, Alexander R. Peacock, Clarence N. Peacock, Rolland B. Peacock, Grant A. Peacock, Francis H. Hutchins. Hon. William H. Edwards, Dr. George David Stewart, Walter C. Booth, John W. Charlton, L. B. Rolston, William M. MacBean, John S. MacNab. Ewen McIntyre, Jr.. Kenneth McIntyre, Alexander Cooper, B. C. Forbes, Thomas Aldcorn, F. Read Black, Charles Booth,