Sweet Bard! 'twas thine to soar on high To raise the smile of social glee, The patriot's manly heart to fire, With plaintive lyre. -Mrs HEMANS. Some heavy thought has often lost its weight When "Robbie Burns " has come to share the hour, Crooning his rhymes till my soul grew elate With deep responses to his minstrel power. A man of rare genius. -ELIZA COOK. He deserves all the praise which has been accorded to him.-EMILY MEWburn. Whatever view of the man we choose to take, the poetry of Burns holds an uncontested place in the literature of the world; his songs are on the lips and in the hearts of high and low alike; and had life or his temperament been other than it was it is possible that art might have been the poorer.-ELIZABETH LEE. SCOTTISH TRIBUTES. His soul had ever a secret place, a hidden altar, on which the fire of piety was ever, almost unconsciously, burning.—Mrs J. C. SIMPSON ("Gertrude "). Just when our Scottish dialect was on the wane, Burns's voice was heard, from Land's End to John o' Groat's House, reasserting Scotland's claim to national existence.-RHONA SUTHERLAND. The delicate, masterly hand of Burns, whose name will be lovingly cherished as long as there are Scotch hearts in the world.-MARY CARLYLE AITKEN. As a poet Scott must be ranked far below Burns. He had not the power which the Ayrshire ploughman possessed in so high a degree of touching the heart, of expressing our strongest feelings in simple musical language.-AMELIA HUTCHISON-STIRLING. Burns came, like Homer, from the very fountain-head of life: nobody had taught him a note-he had his music from Nature, and he took his theme from Nature.-Mrs OLIPHANT. Burns, from snatches of his songs heard now and then, was a perpetual delight to me long, long before I had words to tell of the charm which my ear knew; for Burns, whatever his faults, was no sentimental liar, and a child understands what it cannot yet explain. -JESSIE ANNIE ANDERSON. Burns, that large-hearted Bard, and Lady Nairne-those two are the saviours of Scottish song.-JESSIF P. FINDLAY. Burns had made the path to recognition smooth-for Hogg. The educated world had been surprised into seeing life through the eyes of a ploughman; his pity, his satiric indignation, had knocked at its heart, the music of his songs still rang in its ears, the clouded ending of his brief day haunted its conscience with a vague sense of guilt-it was in only too great a hurry to recognise a genius from the sheep-folds.-FLORENCE MACCUNN. In Burns we have an infinite tenderness, and ever-present humanity in every one of his graphic pictures. No part of creation is to him utterly inanimate, and the contemplation of it is constantly leading his thoughts upwards with unaffected piety to the Creator Himself -M. S. GAIRDNER. Among all the poets, Burns is the most real, the most frank, the most free. He is the type of Scotland, alike in its good and its ill. -Mrs WATSON ("Deas Cromarty ”). A. C. WHITE. THE POLITICS OF BURNS. THERM At HE subject of the Politics of Burns naturally falls into three divisions. In the first are grouped his creed, opinions and principles; in the second their sources would be investigated, in so far as they can be ascribed to origins outside himself; in the third would be sketched the course of their development, as it may be traced in his writings, and in such incidents in his life as bear upon politics. This paper is restricted to the first of these divisions. Space was to be considered, and compression makes for concentration and clearness, but the restriction has its drawbacks. many points Burns's politics touch his reading of the social riddle the organisation of the fabric of society, the distribution of wealth, the grading of ranks, and kindred matters. The same intellectual acumen and judgment brought to bear upon politics, political institutions, forms of government, the relations between rulers and ruled, he carries into social affairs, and to the consideration of such subjects as kingship, statesmanship, rank, title, religion as distinct from formality and virtual hypocrisy, learning and pedantry, routine education and its outcome in either culture or chronic, dull stupidity, equality, and the like. It comes out at last that kings, statesmen, politicians are referred to the standard of simple manhood, learned men to that of capacity and intelligence, and national causes to that of humanity and its welfare. Things political, personal, and social run together into one comprehensive theory of life. The attempt, nevertheless, has here been made to isolate Burns's politics. The second and third of the above divisions-origins and evolution -branching out into his social philosophy, may perchance be considered some ither day." 66 At the outset one or two points may be noted which throw light upon his general position, are essential to defining and understanding it, and are the explanation of his political sympathies, of the attitude he maintained towards the authorities of his day, and of his construction of the colossal world-events of the period. These latter include the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, the relations between Great Britain and France, and the general European situation. In home politics, it must always be borne in mind that, in the present-day understanding of the term, Burns was no adherent of party. He was neither a Whig nor a Tory, but held fast by certain principles independent of both. He crossed party lines, gave no more heed to them than one for whom they did not exist, when questions arose involving either right, justice, purity, and liberty-or their opposites, wrong, injustice, corruption and tyranny. He held patriotism and freedom above loyalty to the sovereign, and loved liberty too sincerely either to compress his love within national limits or to condition it upon the natural, but possibly misleading, promptings of nationality. His devotion was too deep, his outlook too wide, his conception of liberty too lofty to be disturbed by national prejudice. "Liberty!" he wrote the Earl of Buchan when, early in 1794, sending him "Scots Wha Hae," "thou art a prize truly, and indeed invaluable, for never canst thou be too dearly bought." The invocation comes in like a familiar refrain, and it is only by assorting passages of a like import, that the hold his passionate love of freedom had upon the heart of Burns can be fully appreciated. In the same month of January he sent a copy of the song, or ode, to Captain Miller, and wrote him : 'The following ode is on a subject which I know you by no means regard with indifference O Liberty! Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay, Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.' 66 It does me so much good to meet with a man whose honest heart glows with the generous enthusiasm, the heroic daring of liberty, that I could not forbear sending you a composition of my own on the subject." Again, when writing Mrs Dunlop on 25th June, 1794, with the first fragment he composed of a designed irregular Ode for General Washington's birthday," he says: "The subject is Liberty; you know, my honoured friend, how dear the theme is to me." 66 This ode is the justification of the observation that he placed liberty above loyalty. He was never an unthinking loyalist of the conventional type. It is quite possible, be it observed, to adhere to the monarchical form of government, and to have faith in the rule of the abstract king, without having either admiration or respect to bestow upon the occupant of the throne for the time being. Should occasion arise to justify it, that is, it is not only possible but inevitable that, even by the most loyally disposed monarchist, a distinction be drawn between the throne as representing an idea, as the centre and pertaining to the symbols of sovereignty, and the reigning King. In that is a sufficiently precise indication of Burns's standpoint. He held by the monarchy, but he assuredly had neither affection nor reverence for George III. In early life, and at least down to 1786-87, he was, like many whom he must have met in Edinburgh, a sentimental Jacobite. When he wrote his autobiographical letter to Dr Moore he was under the impression, possibly mistaken, that some of his forefathers had suffered in the Stewart cause, and that may partly explain the apparent stimulation of his Jacobitism in congenial company, and in localities especially rich in Stewart memories and associations. It must, nevertheless, be said that he is not altogether consistent. He could write Captain Stewart that Prince Charles Edward's Birthday was hallowed to him " as the ceremonies of Religion, and sacred to the memory of the sufferings of my King and |