sympathised with France as when (circumstances having changed) he fulminated against her; that neurosis does not arise in the case; and that we are dealing with an essentially false antithesis in bringing the question of " patriotism into play in such a connection. If oblivion has here spread her poppy for all other men of the time, why not also for Burns? Of course the controversialists in keeping up the pother may unconsciously be paying a tribute to the genius of Burns in singling him out thus for microscopic examination wrenched from his true historical perspective, and with the meaning of fundamental terms left undefined throughout in the very best controversial manner.-I am, &c.,

ANDREW R. COWAN.

Benrig, Kilmaurs, 30th January, 1916.

SIR,-Life is too short to read the annual crop of Burns orations on the 25th of each January, as Mr A. R. Cowan has apparently done this year, perhaps because the crop was not up to the usual average in point of bulk. These orations, with small exceptions, as I take it, do not pretend to be either historically exact or critically accurate; they simply present the speaker's personal estimate of the Poet, his life and works as the fruits of more or less careful study and reading. They should therefore be read with an indulgent eye, and not as the ex cathedra utterances of editorial Daniels come to judgment. When the result is so satisfactory as Mr Cowan has found it to be in the particular of Burns's patriotism we need not trouble ourselves greatly about the process. But Burns's loyalty to the Guelphs of his day and his estimate of their statesmen is quite another matter. It is the intermingling or confounding of these things which, I am inclined to think, prompted Mr Cowan to set them forth separately in their true light. That Burns had no exalted opinion of the reigning dynasty the lines written on the window-pane of the inn at Stirling sufficiently demonstrate, and the fact that he himself so hurriedly destroyed them proves as clearly his consciousness that the unguarded ebullition was a serious indiscretion on the part of an official in the pay of the Government. This did not deter him from laying himself open to the same charge again. The lese majeste of the "Dream," despite its rollicking humour, borders on the contemptuous. His supreme intellectual endowments precluded Chauvinism in any shape or form ; he was consistently agin the Government all the time; Paddy Burke's " eloquence and the "tinkler jaw o' Charlie Fox" he appraised for himself without prejudice or prepossession; he was too big to be squeezed into the pint-pot of party, whose squabbles he looked upon with amused contempt, as witness the " Election

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Ballads." National sentiment made him a non-combatant Jacobite -not family tradition, as suggested by Robert Chambers and others, ample documentary evidence being now available to prove that neither his grandfather nor any of his forebears were out in the '45. In common with the majority of his countrymen he was a Jacobin at the inception of the French Revolution—it is impossible to conceive of him being anything else at that juncture-and the very strength of his opinions led him to adhere to them tenaciously so long as events marched in the line they marked out. All this proceeded from his firm conviction that the politics and statecraft of his day was a horrid mass of corruption," and it stands distinct and apart from his patriotism.

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When the mask was thrown off in France all minor considerations went by the board, and his consuming love of country stood revealed. In January, 1793, he wrote to Graham of Fintry :-" As to France, I was her enthusiastic votary at the beginning of the business. When she came to show her old avidity for conquest in annexing Savoy, &c., to her dominions, and invading the rights of Holland, I altered my sentiments." Lockhart says " All men's eyes were upon Burns in that troublous period as one of the acknowledged leaders of the age, and it would be well if certain "hot-headed zealots" of the present day would turn their eyes in the same direction and profit by the example. -I am, &c., D. M'NAUGHT.

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P.S.-Mr Cowan, apparently quoting from Henley, credits to John Syme the statement that Burns was burnt to a cinder " before he died. If he has verified this I would feel greatly obliged if he would refer me to his authority. I have hitherto failed to trace it, and the phrase is too equivocal to be allowed to stand divorced from its context.-I am, &c., D. M'N.

212 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow, 7th February, 1916.

SIR, I have to thank " M. W. W." for appositely illustrating my contention on this subject by citing Wordsworth as another instance of a person whose patriotism has been taken for granted all along despite Francophile outbursts that remain of the very highest lyrical value. It makes one wonder all the more why Burns should so long have been singled out for rhetorical inquisition, even if the trial in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred ended in an enthusiastic verdict of acquittal. I cannot explain it except on the ground of general pre-eminence, as already suggested. If these self-elected devil's advocates were confined to ordinary January orators it might not matter, as Mr M'Naught, your other corre

spondent, suggests.

But that is not quite the case.

Andrew Lang, whom I cited, is not the only uncommon Burnsite who, having got wandered himself, still tends to lead others astray. I lately heard a very learned lecturer meticulously weigh one set of Burns's sentiments against another, and give his audience the impression that the Poet was perhaps less of a Democrat and more of an Imperialist than we had all been thinking. Here I believe is another of these false antitheses which have been gathering round the commanding figure of Burns in a perfect jungle-growth of fallacy. There is no natural opposition between Imperialism and Democratism, but rather the reverse. Cosmopolitanism, not Democratism, is the true opposite and counteractive of Imperialism. But it would act

as a solvent of Democratism as much as of Imperialism, since these are both essentially sectional, whereas Cosmopolitanism, in the nature of the case, must be universal. The difficulty as regards political altruism of this nature is to redeem it from such utter sloppiness as the case of the ci-devant Prussian nobleman, Anacharsis Clootz, manifested in the French Revolution, and Henry Ford, motor manufacturer, in our own day. The perplexing thing is that Burns has given Cosmopolitanism its best watchword in the lines"For a' that an' a' that,

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It's coming yet for a' that,

When man to man the world ower
Shall brithers be for a' that."

This would raise a final question whether Burns's Jacobitism, Jacobitism, vague Imperialism, and very robust Democratism are not all polarised by a Cosmopolitanism which is the true antithesis of all the other isms." I have my own idea on the subject, but perhaps I had better keep it in store until another January 25th, since I do not want to abuse the hospitality of your columns in days when a paper famine is in the land.-I am, &c.,

ANDREW R. COWAN.

I was not

P.S.-In answer to Mr M'Naught I have to say that I cannot remember ever having seen more than the bald statement attributed to Syme of Burns being "burnt to a cinder." quoting it as an authentic historical utterance or an authoritative literary diagnosis, but simply as being founded on by the orators to account for Burns's "aberration." Assuming the validity of the statement, I showed that it would condemn Burns's patriotism even more than the aberration so called-a thing which the orators were entirely overlooking. Personally I do not in the least believe that Burns was burnt to a cinder or anything like it, so far as his mentality was concerned. But that is another story with which it is impossible meantime to encumber your pages.-A. R. C.

♡

♡

At the Annual Meeting, held in Glasgow on 2nd September, 1916, the Secretary was instructed to draw up a List of Members and Sons of Members of Federated Clubs who had given their lives for their King and Country.

The following list has been compiled from the returns forwarded, and is presented with the hope that it will be found as complete as circumstances permitted.

*Capt. W. H. Gandy.

†Andrew R. Adam, 17th H.L.I.

*Corpl. Alexander Thomson, 9th H.L.I.
†Pte. Harold R. Guthrie, 8th Gordons.
*Lieut. James Hannah, R.F.A.

†Pte. David Johnstone, 7th Camerons.
†Pte. George Johnstone, 5th Camerons.

*Lieut.-Col. Duncan Campbell, M.P., D.S.O.
†2nd Lieut. Ivan S. Allan, K.O.S.B.

Lieut. Alex. J. Begg (M.C.), 17th H.L.I.
†Lieut. Hamish M William, Black Watch.

*Lieut. George Leslie.

†Gunner John Wallace, Royal Canadian N.A.

†Pte. Thos. A. Jackson, 11th Argylls.

Lieut. Geo. H. Pagan, Black Watch.
Lieut. A. C. Westwood, Black Watch.

†Pte. Andrew Mather, 7th Scottish Rifles.
†Pte. James L. Parker, 1st Camerons.
†Pte. Thomas W. Ritchie, 7th Camerons.

*2nd Lieut. John A. Gemmill, 16th H.L.I.
†Capt. W. S. Clark, York and Lancaster Regiment.
†Rifleman Robt. F. Davidson, 5th Scottish Rifles.
†Pte. John Blair, 47th Battalion Canadian Exped. Force
Pte. Thos. Claude Killin; Royal Fusiliers.
†Sergt. John Weir, 5th Lochiel Camerons.

Robt. Glass Knox, R.N.V.R.

Pte. Wm MacAuslan, Gordons.

Pte. David P. Davidson, 17th H.L.I.