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moving poem of his first volume, the "Bard's Epitaph a history, as Wordsworth calls it, in the shape of a prophecy-he completely drops the bravo and speaks the final humble truth. Nobody who reads it will judge him. But the bravado had been there, and its effects, both on himself and others, were deplorable.

Sir Walter Raleigh has lately described Shakespeare as the creed of England. It is a felicitous thought, and it is true, even when we test it in detail. There is a long gallery of drinkers in Shakespeare, every one drawn to the life; people like Stephano, Sir Toby, Pistol, Cassio, "the third part of the world," Lepidus, and many more. There is no savour of Puritanism in the way in which they are depicted, yet no one could say the impression they make on the mind is other than morally wholesome. They express the creed of England about drinking, and it is a sound and manly creed. But who would venture to say as much for the representations of drinking in Burns? Making every allowance for the element of extravagance, without which drinking songs could not be written at all, and prizing above all price the humour of the opening stanzas in "Death and Doctor Hornbook," and much besides, we must reluct: 1tly admit that our National Poet has provided us with a far less wholesome creed than Shakespeare has made uthoritative for our neighbours. And there is no denying that his practice squared with his creed. He drank to the last. He drank, as he said himself, when with every bout he gave away a slice of his constitution. If repentance could trammel up the consequences of evil we might urge that he repented. But what is his own description of the case:--“Whiles, but aye ower late, I think braw sober lessons."

One can hardly help wondering to-day whether in this Burns is to prefigure the fate of his people. There were two things in which he was always absolutely sincere, and in which he never posed more than pose is inevitable in idealising. The one was the incomparable value of a pure and happy family life; the other was his love of

country. Both are signally illustrated in the "Cottar's Saturday Night," which, though both its merits and its popularity are to a large extent conventional, is yet, as Lockhart truly says, that one of all his poems the exclusion of which from the collection would be most injurious to the character of the man. But his patriotism and his sense for home did not save him from the ignoble elements of his creed, and though they are still powerful among us, it seems uncertain whether they will save the nation. Mr Lloyd George made a deep impression lately in the House of Commons by a speech in which he rehearsed the " too lates " of the Asquith Government. Is he going to add to the number the last and most fatal by deferring the day of reckoning with the power which wrecked the life of Burns, which is ceaselessly wrecking characters and homes, and is capable, if let alone, of wrecking the country? Is it to be the epitaph of Scotland, as well as of the greatest genius with which heaven has ever illustrated our poor Sparta Whiles, but aye ower late, I think braw sober lessons?" Neuve Chapelle and Loos apparently were not enough; Kut and Gallipoli were not enough; what will be enough to make us face our deadly peril in dead earnest ?

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Benrig, Kilmaurs, 26th January.

The concluding sentences of the Rev. Principal Denney's article under the above heading, which appeared in the Herald of 25th curt., are, like the proverbial postscript of a lady's letter, more illuminating than the rest of the text. The first impression after perusing it is one of blank wonder at the logical gymnastics by which he establishes such a direct connection between Robert Burns and Mr Lloyd George's shortcomings as a temperance legislator. If his intention was to use the failings of Burns as a stalking-hors to get within gunshot of that statesman he might have chosen a more fitting date than that on which Scotsmen everywhere are wont to meet to do the Poet honour. This is of course a matter of taste, on which every man is his own judge. Even the ubiquitous John Smith, of perennial parish fame, is universally exempted from derogatory remarks on the particular date on which his virtues

are extolled as the preliminary to the time-honoured presentation from admiring friends. Not that Professor Denney descants exclusively on the worse side of Burns ; on the contrary, his condensed estimate of Burns is both just and appreciative so far as it goes. But the method he adopts of exalting the Poet in order at convenience to bring him down by the run deprives his complimentary tribute of most of its value. He goes on to tell us that Shakespeare is the creed of the English people, and consequently is entitled to the credit of creating the beer-swilling propensities of our friends over the Border. And we are left to infer that for a similar reason Burns is responsible, in whole or in part, for the whisky-drinking which we hear so much of in connection with the city of Glasgow. Putting Shakespeare aside, is this true of Scotland, or of Burns? It is only with Burns we here mean to concern ourselves. In Burns's day drunkenness and sensuality were the besetting sins of the classes, and their evil influences were exerted in a downward direction. No man then living did more than Burns in warning the masses against this "contagion weak and vile"; indeed, not a few are inclined to think that the warning is overstrained in the "Twa Dogs" and the " Epistle to Davie." True, he wrote Willie Brewed and Auld Lang Syne," both of which are qualified by "the element of extravagance conceded by Professor Denney. "Scotch Drink " is more political than topical in treatment, being in effect a plea for home products versus importations from abroad. Burns invariably represents his own class as thrifty, sober, and industrious; idleness, licentiousness, and wastrie were with the gentry and the beggars-at the top and bottom of the social fabric. There is no mention of drink in the "Cottar's Saturday Night "; in 'Hallowe'en the social indulgence is limited to a parting glass of "strunt," or weak toddy; and it must eyer stand to his credit that he ridiculed the Holy Fair" out of existence. His personal attitude towards over-indulgence he occasionally puts into words like these

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"There is death in the cup-sae beware!

Nay, more there is danger in touching;
But who can avoid the fell snare ?

The man and his wine's sae bewitching."

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In other compositions, but more especially in his prose, his condemnation of drink is even more emphatic, the superlative of self-abasement being reached in his less-known rhyming confession to William Stewart. A man who so penitentially humiliates himself surely cannot be justly accused of “ flaunting his sins in everybody's face." In his most rollicking strains-" bravado," Professor Denney calls them there is a dying fall patent to all who sympathetically look for it.

Right-thinking Burnsians do not object to anyone drawing Burns's frailties from their dread abode to point a moral, if he be so minded. What they do object to is the singling out of Burns as if he were the chief and only sinner of the drunken era in which he lived; to the blind and unreasoning faith in the hearsay evidence of his early biographers which still obtains; and to the reiteration of malevolent gossip long ago exploded on the most convincing evidence. As for Burns's personal habits, we have Gilbert's testimony that up to his 28th year, when his fame began, he had led a most temperate life. Of Shakespeare's habits we fortunately know little; it is Burns's misfortune that he has been under the microscope for 120 years, and he is always the principal witness for his own prosecution. When he went to Dumfries at the age of 32, the same authority informs us, he struggled hard to overcome his natural aversion to alcohol to prepare himself to do as the Romans did there. He died before he was 38. All charges of inebriety brought against him are crowded into the last five years of his life, and yet not a single black mark stands against him as a Government official with exacting duties to perform every day of the week. Pity it is that he too often succumbed to the temptation of aristocratic dinner parties which were neither more nor less than drunken orgies, for he was too highly strung to keep pace with the seasoned topers who in the end contemned his lack of staying power, and passed by on the other side. What Professor Denney styles his great spread of moral shirt-front is, as often as not, the humorous expression of his contempt for the Holy Willie juries who so smugly sat in judgment on him.

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Dr Currie, the most notable of his early biographers, was a teetotaler-the solitary one within the bounds of the Burns horizon of that day—and his prejudices are apparent in his writings. He failed as a Burns biographer for two reasons-ignorance of his subject, and as Professor Denney puts it, because "the strongest sense may at times be deflected or tainted.”—I am, &c.,

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DEATH OF MR WILLIAM WHITE.

(1821-1916.)

Y the death of Mr Wm. White, the Vale of Leven

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BY district has lost a notable personality, widely known,

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and universally respected in musical and political circles He was precentor in Alexandria Free Church, also in Dumbarton Parish Church, and also in Ayr, from which

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