Shakesperian quotations.

In connection with a favour

the Poet asks, the letter goes on to say :

"If you did not know me for a Scots poet, I daresay you would suspect me for a Hibernian—

Hibernia, fam'd 'bove every other grace

For matchless intrepidity of face."

Then we have have the beautiful and touching song composed by Burns, from a mere suggestion in a stall ballad, entitled "The Farewell," perhaps the most pathetic poetic account ever given of gallant but frustrated endeavour :

In the facetious letter to. Charles Sharp, Esq. of Hoddam, and signed "Johnny Faa," it is said :—

"I cannot indeed be properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or kingdom, as my mother was espoused to a marching regiment, and gave me into this bad world aboard a packet boat, somewhere between Donaghadee and Portpatrick."

Writing to Thomson in August, 1793, he discourses. on old Gaelic airs :

By the way, I have met with a musical Highlander in Breadalbine's Fencibles, which are quartered here, who assures me that

he well remembers his mother singing Gaelic songs to both ' Robin Adair' and Gra ma chree.'”

They certainly have more of the Scotch than Irish taste in them. This man comes from the vicinity of Inverness, so it could not be any intercourse with Ireland that could bring them; except what I shrewdly suspect to be the case, the wandering minstrels, harpers and pipers, used to go frequently errant through the wilds both of Scotland and Ireland, and so some favourite airs might be common to both.

And again :

If they

"Your Irish airs are pretty, but they are rank Irish. were like the Banks of Banna,' for instance, though really Irish yet in the Scottish taste, you might adopt them. Since you are so fond of Irish music, what say you to twenty-five of them in an additional number? We could easily find this quantity of charming airs-I will take care that you shall not want songs; and I assure you that you would find it the most saleable of the whole."

In the following year he asks Thomson if he knows "a blackguard Irish song called Onagh's Waterfall.' The air is charming, and I have often regretted the want of decent verses to it." There are various other references to Irish airs in his correspondence.

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Several Irish authors had a great fascination for Burns. Sterne was one of his favourites, especially his " Sentimental Journey," which he describes as a glorious model. 'Tristram Shandy" he calls " a bosom favourite," in the famous

letter to Dr Moore.

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In No. 12 of the Chronicle the editor gave an account of a volume of Sterne's works, published in 1779, and annotated by Burns.

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In a letter to Mrs Dunlop in 1790 he describes Goldsmith as my favourite poet." In the same year, in ordering books from Peter Bell, he wants the works of Sheridan and others.

In a letter to Robert Ainslie on 30th June, 1788, he mentions Dean Swift.

Within twenty years of Burns's death eighty-one different editions of his works were issued-Belfast con

tributing four and Dublin three. Of various other Irish editions particulars will be found by the curious in previous Chronicles, where also will be obtained (in Mr M'Naught's masterly articles on the Merry Muses) details of Ireland's connection with editions of that notorious work.

Celebrated Irishmen and Irishwomen have written in whole-hearted terms of their veneration for Scotia's Bard. A few illustrations will suffice. Moore said that

“Scots wha hae' would, in a great national crisis, be of more avail than all the eloquence of Demosthenes."

And again he wrote:

"The rare art of... wedding verse in congenial union with melody... has ... by him... been exercised with so workmanly a hand, as well as so rich a variety of passion, playfulness, and power, as no song-writer has ever yet displayed."

Mrs S. C. Hall says:—

"How little did the exhausted mother, when she thanked God that a man was born into the world, imagine what a strong, yet tender heart beat within the shelter of that little bosom, or what fearful throes and lofty imaginings were cradled in the head that nestled in her bosom."

Mrs Jameson says:

'They (the lines of Ae fond kiss') are the Alpha and Omega of feeling, and contain the essence of an existence of pain and pleasure distilled into one burning drop."

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Sarah Parker Douglas writes :

Ah, who would say the minstrel failed his mission to fulfil ;
Sought rest inglorious on his lees, or let his harp lie still?
He laid him with the early dead, for brief his span of life,
Yet stored the world with deathless song, whilst battling with its
strife."

Among the Centenary tributes may be quoted the following. Sir Samuel Ferguson said at Dublin :

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'Ulysses did not conceive that skill in manual labour detracted in aught from his position as a prince and chieftain; nor, in the case

of Burns, has it aught detracted from his pre-eminence as a leader among the intellects of his country."

Professor G. L. Craik, speaking at Belfast, said :—

"The Scotchmen, on the whole, of most world-wide renown are -George Buchanan, John Napier, Robert Burns, and Walter Scott, and of the four Burns is perhaps the most famous. He is at least the most thoroughly and intensely Scotch. He has done the most for Scotland-most for her language, most for her people."

J. JEFFREY HUNTER.

DR JOHN MACKENZIE.

HE close friendship between Burns and Dr John Mackenzie, whose practice in Mauchline included the surrounding district, seems to have begun at the date of the illness which ended in the death of Burns's father at Lochlea, and it continued without interruption till the death of the Poet. Though he is not so much in evidence in the life story of the Bard as some other of his Mauchline associates, his friendly hand can be detected at almost every stage of the early struggle when he was poor and nameless. Dr Mackenzie was among the first admirers of his genius, and he had the highest opinion of the whole of the Burns family. He introduced the Poet to Professor Dugald Stewart, Sir John Whitefoord of Ballochmyle, Hon. Henry Erskine, and he also brought the Kilmarnock volume under the notice of Dr Blair. Indeed, as a true and active friend of Burns he takes his place alongside Gavin Hamilton, whose efforts to advance the Poet's interests found in him an effective, unostentatious seconder. He stood by Burns through good report and evil report; and Jean Armour had good reason to bless his kindly heart in her hour of need. The late Dr Wm. Findlay, in his Burns and the Medical Profession, has said almost all that can be said on the worthy doctor's long, exemplary, and uneventful life. He left Mauchline about 1801, and removed to Irvine for the reason in the letter given below. We extract the following from Dr Findlay's work :

On leaving Mauchline, with which he was doubly associated inasmuch as he was married to one of its six proper young belles' -Helen, daughter of John Miller of Millockshill-he commenced practice in Irvine.* After a long and honourable career in that ancient and royal burgh, in the course of which he not only attained the highest honours of the magistracy, but, towards its close in 1824, received from his Alma Mater the degree of M.D., he retired in 1827 to Edinburgh, where he died 4th (not 11th) January, 1837, at an advanced age. The well-known literary and antiquarian *See letter infra.

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