THE SCOTTISH EXHIBITION. T must ever be a source of pride to the Burns Federation that the movement for the establishment of a Chair of Scottish Literature and History in a Scottish University originated with one of their members, the late Mr W. Freeland, whose whole-hearted enthusiasm, continued through many years of difficulty and discouragement, at length culminated in the hearty co-operation of kindred Scottish Associations, by whose aid the foundation of the necessary endowment was laid by voluntary subscriptions amounting in the gross to something like £5000. Before this measure of success was achieved Mr Freeland had passed away. But the spirit with which he had imbued the Federation was not allowed to die. Dr William Wallace, who occupied the Presidential chair when he was editor of the Glasgow Herald, lent the whole weight of his influence to the enterprise, and so widened the area of national appeal that it at length took practical shape in the launching of the National Exhibition scheme in Glasgow, which has proved such a financial success that the full endowment of the Chair may now be considered an accomplished fact. When the scheme came to be considered in detail it was thought that the object might be best attained by an Exhibition in which the National History, Art, and Industry of Scotland should be expounded. Committees were therefore formed of men expert in these several spheres. In the departments of history and art it was deemed advisable that the work should be subdivided. Sub-committees were therefore formed to deal with Scottish History and Literature, Historical Portraits, and Ethnographical and Historical Objects. The first of these was further divided into sections, one of which was devoted to Burns MSS., Literature, and Relics. The gentlemen selected to supervise the Burns section were Colonel Bennett, V.D.; J. C. Ewing, D. M‘Naught, R. Edmiston, jr.; Rev. James Forrest, and Wm. Wallace, LL.D., the last-named being appointed convener. A part of the West Gallery was set aside for the Burns exhibits, which, being somewhat circumscribed in area, necessarily limited the accommodation for exhibits, and compelled the committee to make a most careful selection. It was therefore resolved that the exhibits should be confined as far as possible to articles of Burnsian interest in private hands which had seldom or never been exhibited before, and the rarer objects which formed part of the collections in public institutions. The result was a display of portraits, books, manuscripts, and relics which made up in quality and interest for any diminution of quantity observable in comparison with the other sections of a similar nature. The wall space was devoted for the most part to the portraiture of Burns, a subject on which there is much public curiosity, though it requires more expounding than can conveniently be set down in the pages of a catalogue. The centre of attraction here was the original Nasmyth bust, lent to the Exhibition authorities by the Board of Trustees for the National Galleries of Scotland. Efforts were made by the sub-committee to secure the Nasmyth replica from the National Portrait Gallery, in London, and the Auchindrane replica in the possession of Lord Rosebery, so that all three might be seen side by side, but the negotiations unfortunately came to nothing. Oil canvases of the three sons of the Poet were on view, and Colonel De Peyster and Dr Blacklock were also similarly represented. The subsidiaries of the Cottage, the Brig o' Doon, the Auld Brig o' Ayr, &c., were unfailing objects of interest to all classes of visitors, and the collection of engravings of Burns, the Burns country, and everything hat relates thereto, was the most complete that ever was or ever will be brought together. The show of Burns editions was as unique as it was unprecedently valuable. No fewer than nine copies of the First or Kilmarnock Edition of 1786, including Mr M'Naught's uncut copy, were to be seen in the whose aggregate value cannot be put down at less show cases, than £3000. To the four uncut copies already known-the Lamb, the Veitch, the M'Naught, and the Brown-perhaps now fall to be added the slightly-cut Hoe and Huth copies, the former of which was sold in New York this year for 5800 dollars, and the latter in London for £730. The record price on this side of the Atlantic was obtained for the Veitch copy, which was bought by the Alloway Trustees for £1000, the volume being in the original wrappers, with rough edges all round. It is probable that not more than thirty or forty copies of the Kilmarnock edition are now in existence, which, of course, accounts for the high price which even an imperfect copy now brings at public auction. In the centre case the most perfect specimens obtainable of the succeeding editions published during the Poet's life - the Edinburgh, the London, the 2-vol. Edinburgh, the Belfast, the Dublin, the Philadelphia, and the New York-were exhibited, some of which are almost as rare as the Kilmarnock. Some beautiful examples of binding were here shown, notably the volume belonging to Mr Weir, of Kildonan. The centre of attraction, however, was the identical whistle competed for at Friars' Carse in 1789 by Craigdarroch and Glenriddel, and immortalised by Burns in his poem of "The Whistle." The renowned whistle has been in the possession of the Craigdarroch family ever since, and was kindly put on exhibition at Glasgow by Miss Cutlar-Fergusson. The collection of MSS., though small, was very select, several of them, indeed, being unsurpassable for quality and condition. Amongst the most notable may be mentioned The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie,' "Sic a wife as Willie's wife," The deil's awa' wi' th' Exciseman," the Burns Family's copy of Holy Willy's Prayer," the 66 66 66 66 66 Cardonell copy of Tam o' Shanter," and two copies of Scots wha hae," one of which has for the first line, "Scots who have wi' Wallace bled." Besides poems and songs, a number of holograph letters of the Poet's were exhibited, some of them for the first time, and the end cases contained an interesting collection of Burns medals and medallions. Though but a corner of the magnificent display laid out in the Palace of History, the Burns section was not the least popular of the sights in the West Gallery. From opening to closing day it was visited by admiring crowds, and when there was an influx of holiday-makers from the provinces there was scarce standing-room in the limited area. The sub-committee are to be congratulated on the success which attended their efforts, a success which is thus fittingly expressed in the official report:- The collection of Burns portraits, engravings, manuscripts, and relics was exceptionally complete; and it is the truth when we say that no collection hitherto brought together has equalled in importance and unique interest that which was housed in the Burns Section of the Palace of History at the Glasgow Scottish Exhibition of 1911." BURNS AND JAMAICA. "TENN ENNYSON described it perfectly in Enoch Arden," said the Jamaican, as we sat in the shade of the hotel verandah and our eyes roved over the fine natural harbour of Port-Antonio. Screened from sea by a low island and fringed with houses and wharves, it flamed under the hot sun in blues and greens over depth and shallow, or darkened into greys under the trailing veils of passing showers. White-winged yachts mirrored themselves in its waters; banana steamers, white painted and awning-clad, came and went, or lay at the wharves filling their great holds with the luscious fruit. Dark cocoa-nut palms, and stately banana plants hemmed it in with their green plumes and fronds, while close behind westward there rose skyward, a thousand feet, a steep wooded ridge. Southward towered 66 the Blue Mountains. Tennyson described it perfectly," and my friend recited the lines : "The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns And winding glades high up, like ways to heaven, That coiled around the stately stems," etc. “And there!" he said, as he pointed to the crest of the ridge—“ There is Springbank. That is the cozie biel' where your Poet, Robert Burns, was likely to reside had he followed his chest aboard the ship at Greenock, instead of trying his fortune among the whunstane hearts' of the Edinburgh gentry." . We had just arrived direct from Britain over the route Burns would have taken. Day by day we saw the sun mount higher till he became a flaming tyrant in the sky. Daily the sea became bluer, till in the Saragasso it was of the richest ultramarine, on which the crimson shafts of sunrise and the rafts of yellow Gulf weed painted gorgeous colour schemes. Then one night the Morant Light on the eastern end of Jamaica flashed out, her great hills loomed up darkling, and we dropped into this paradise in the morning among the strange new sights, new smells, new air of the Tropics. 66 " The morrow found us riding through the town among its wooden houses and shops and the traffic of its people-mostly coloured-til round the basin we struck up the steep to Springbank. Strangely |