HIGHLAND MARY. By JOHN ARNOT. AT a Greenock Burns celebration, Mr. John Arnot, in proposing "The Memory of Highland Mary," said that of the many towns more or less associated with Burns - Ayr, Irvine, Mauchline, Kilmarnock, Edinburgh, and Dumfries -Greenock might take a very high place. Ayr had the unspeakable honour of having given him birth; Kilmarnock issued his first edition; Edinburgh lionised him, and then somewhat contemptuously neglected him; Dumfries sheltered him in his last weary years-there the "respectables" shunned him while living and afterwards gave him a great funeral; and Greenock found "a place of blissful rest" for the remains of the one woman who really had his heart. Greenock had a great trust in the Old West Kirkyard, where near by stood the only church of the pre-Reformation period in town. In the place where "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," and within sound of hundreds of hammers and the roar of machinery, lay the dust of her who had become a great literary fact, to whose shrine thousands of people gathered from all parts of the world. Various complaints had appeared from time to time in the newspapers about the neglect of Highland Mary's grave by the Greenock Burns Club, but these complaints, so far as the Club was concerned, had no foundation. The kirk-session of the Old West Kirk was the obstacle that stood in the way. In closing, Mr. Arnot said :- Mary Campbell's worth, her nobility of character, her grace of disposition, and her comely form served to do more for Burns than all the ministers and kirksessions of his time-she struck the loftiest chords in his nature, the chords of trust, of devotion, and of that inner religious feeling of which he had really more than some of the fault-finding Pharisees who take care to remember and to recite all his grave errors, while they discreetly conceal their own. "Whatever faults," says a very candid critic, may attach to Burns, not the slightest speck has ever been found to stain the character of his Highland Mary; and she stands enshrined in the temple of Romantic Poesy in all the spotless purity of Parian marble." This dictum is only the severe and simple truth. If Mary Campbell did not write poetry she lived it. She showed Robert Burns-and, through the medium of his powerful genius, all men-that 66 ""Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, Our immortal poet knew this, and his love for her was singularly lofty in its ideal, and was, while intensely ardent, as high, as elevated as an Alpine peak, as pure as the snow on its summit. BURNS AND HIS HIGHLAND MARY. By G. WASHINGTON MOON. THE mountain lake, which seems asleep in love, Which stoop to kiss it, and at sunrise soar So, too, the poet's soul by passion's breath was swept ; But calmed itself again, as if in love it slept. He breathed out war, and whispered love's soft vows; He poured forth satires, and wrote hymns of praise; He wailed the dirge, and sang the mad carouse; And told of "palaces," and "banks and braes." But "Auld lang syne," and suchlike touching lays, Reveal the nature whence they all did flow— Who has not heard his song of other days, So quaintly sweet, “John Anderson, my jo?" Nor felt, "How true the heart that could have written so!" Ay! true indeed and loving as 'twas true, In that brief hour wherein he bids adieu Dear "Highland Mary" of fond memory; Ere many months they hoped to be united, And dwell together 'neath their own roof-tree. They met, to part awhile; and vows were plighted— They never met again! Chill death that sweet flow'r blighted. The twining branches o'er their heads were waving ; And, its waters clear, their clasped hands laving, A last embrace! Ever as she did gain Each distant height, she turned with ling'ring look ; He, after her, his tearful eyes did strain ;— And so the lovers parted, ne'er to meet again! The mem'ry of this scene would ever fill Only the more the poet's name endears! Honour to BURNS!-'tis all we can bestow :Sighs for his sorrows; for his loss, our tears; Praise, for his deathless songs; and, for his memory, cheers. BURNS' HIGHLAND MARY. FROM "RAMBLES IN EUROPE." By LEONARD A. MORRISON. GREENOCK is naturally interesting. But not its native beauty alone would cause the traveller to prolong his stay. That which gives it its celebrity is the fact that in its old cemetery lies buried one, attractive in herself, whom the love and adoration of one man, with the magic of his pen, have made immortal, whose resting-place is historic, and to which pilgrims come from every clime. It is the grave of Mary Campbell, the dairy-maid, known to the world over as Burns's "Highland Mary," one who was to have been his bride. He loved his Highland Mary with a constancy which never faltered in its devotion, which from its nature could know no death. When her footsteps faltered, when her feet touched the cold waters of the river of death, then he "trod the wine-press " of sorrow alone, and from his suffering soul came forth the purest, truest sentiments he ever expressed. The dross was burned away, the pure gold was revealed, the diamond shone with brightest lustre. On the anniversary of the day on which he heard of her death he gave expression to his feelings in an address to "Mary in Heaven." In "David Copperfield " Steerforth said, "Think of me at my best," a custom not always followed "in the corrupted currents of this world." This poem showed Burns at his |