He

obstinate. At a mason-meeting, it seems, he provoked the Poet by questioning some of his positions, in a speech stuffed with Latin phrases, and allusions to pharmacy. The future satire dawned on Burns at the moment, for he exclaimed twice, "Sit down, Doctor Hornbook !" On his way home he seated himself on the parapet of a bridge near "Willie's Mill," and, in the moon-light, began to reflect on what had passed. It then occurred to him that Wilson had added to the moderate income of his school, the profit arising from the sale of a few common medicines; this suggested an interview with "Death," and all the ironical commendations of the Dominie, which followed. composed the poem on his perilous seat, and, when he had done, fell asleep; he was awakened by the rising sun, and, on going home, committed it to paper. It exhibits a singular union of fancy and humour; the attention is arrested at once by the ludicrous difficulty felt, in counting the horns of the moon, and we expect something to happen when his shadowy majesty comes upon the stage, relates his experience in "nicking the thread and choking the breath," and laments how his scythe and dart are rendered useless by the skill of Dr. Hornbook. On the appearance of the poem, Wilson found the laugh of Kyle too much for

him

"The weans haud out their fingers laughin'."

So he removed to Glasgow, where he engaged with success in other pursuits. He lives, but loves no one the better, it is averred, for naming the name of the Poet, or making any allusion to the poem. Burns repeated the satire to his brother, during the afternoon of the day on which it was composed. "I was holding the plough," said Gilbert, "and Robert was letting water off the field beside me."

The patriotic feelings of the bard were touched when he took up the song of "Scotch Drink," against the government of the day, and uttered his "Earnest cry and prayer to the Scottish representatives in the House of Commons." Yet bitter as he sometimes is, and overflowing with humorous satire, these poems abound with natural and noble images; nay, he scolds himself into a pleasant mood, and scatters praise on the "chosen Five-and-Forty," with much skill and discrimination. His praise of whiskey is strangely mingled with sadness:

"Food fills the wame, an' keeps us livin' ;
Though life's a gift no worth receivin';
When heavy dragg'd wi' pine an' grievin',
But, oil'd by thee,
The wheels o' life gae down hill, scrievin',
Wi' rattlin' glee.

"Thou clears the head o' doited Lear,
Thou cheers the heart o' droopin' Care,
Thou strings the nerves o' Labour sair,

At's weary toil;

Thou even brightens dark Despair Wi' gloomy smile."

A country forge with a blazing fire, an anxious blacksmith, and a welding heat, will rise to the fancy readily on reading these inimitable stanzas:—

"When Vulcan gics his bellows breath,

An' ploughmen gather wi' their graith,
O rare! to see thee fizz and freath
I' the luggit caup!

Then Burnewin comes on like death
At ev'ry chap.

"Nae mercy, then, for airn or steel;
The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel
Brings hard owrehip, wi' sturdy wheel,
The strong forehammer,

'Till block an' studdie ring an' reel

Wi' dinsome clamour."

Nor are there wanting stanzas of a more solemn kind to bring trembling to our mirth. The Scotsman dying on a battle-field, with the sound of victory in his ear, is a noble picture :

"Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him;
Death comes !-wi' fearless eye he sees him,
Wi' bluidy han' a welcome gi'es him,
An' when he fa's,

His latest draught o' breathin' lea'es him
In faint huzzas!"

He steps at once from the serious to the comic: his description of Mither Scotland sitting on her mountain throne, her diadem a little awry, her eyes reeling, and the heather below, becoming moist during her prolonged libations, is equally humorous and irreverent. Those who may suspect that all this singing about liquor arose from a love of it, will be glad to hear that when Nanse Tinnoch was told how Burns pro-, posed to toast the Scottish members in her house "nine times a week," she exclaimed, "Him drink in my house! I hardly ken the colour o' his coin."

The year 1785 was a harvest season of verse with Burns. Some of his poems he hesitated for awhile to make public; others he copied, and scattered amongst his friends. Of these one of the most remarkable is "The Jolly Beggars." This drama, which I cannot help considering the most varied and characteristic of the Poet's works, was unknown, save to some west country acquaintances, till after his death, when it came unexpectedly out. The opening seems uttered by another muse than Coila-the sound is of the elder days of verse; but the moment the curtain draws up and shews the actors, the spirit of Burns appears kindling and animating all. It is impossible to deny his

While she held up her greedy gab

Just like an aumos dish.

Ilk smack still, did crack still, Just like a cadger's whup, Then staggering and swaggering

He roar'd this ditty up."—

The scene of this rustic drama lies in Mauchline, and the actors are strolling vagrants, who, having acquired meal and money by begging, pilfering, and sleight-of-hand, assemble in Poosie Nansie's, to "toom their pocks and pawn their duds," and

"Gie ae night's discharge to care,"

over the gill-stoup and the quaigh. They hold a sort of Beggars Saturday-night-sing-songs, utter sentiments, and lay down the loose laws of the various classes they represent. The

characters are numerous. The maimed soldier, who bore scars both for Scotland and for love; and his doxy, warm with blankets and usquebaugh, who in her youth forsook the sword for the sake of the church, but returned to the drum when age brought reflection. The merryandrew, who would venture his neck for liquor, who held love to be the half of his craft, and yet was a fool still;-the highland dame who had lightened many a purse been ducked in many a well: who, with a countryman, had laid the land under contribution from Tweed to Spey, and was only hindered from making a foray, farther south, by the interposition of the "waefu' woodie!" The pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle;the sturdy tinker, who had "travelled round all Christian ground" in his vocation, and swore by all was swearing worth whenever he was moved; and, last of all, the "wight of | Homer's craft," who, though lame of a foot, had three wives, and could allure the people round him in crowds, when he sung of love and country revelry. All these, and more, sing; and shout, and talk, and act in character! and unite in giving effect to the chorus of a song which claims, for the jovial ragged ring, exemption from the cares which weigh down the sedate and the orderly, and a happiness which refuses to wait on the train-attended carriage, or on the sober bed of matrimony. The curtain drops as they all shout,

"A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest."

There is nothing in the language which, for life and character, approaches this singular "Cantata." The Beggar's Opera is a burial compared to it; it bears some resemblance to the Wallenstein's camp of Schiller, as translated by Lord Francis Egerton; the same variety, and the same license of action and speech distinguish both.

The origin of the Cantata is worth relating. Mauchline ale, and Mauchline maidens, fre

quently brought the Poet from Mossgiel, which lies but some half-a-mile distant. He frequented the public house of John Dow on those occasions, in the immediate vicinity of the scene of "The Jolly Beggars." The house of Poosie Nansie, alias Agrres Gibson, stands opposite nearly to the church-yard gate. One night it happened that James Smith of Mauchline, and Burns, on their way up the street, heard the sound of "meikle fun and jokin'" in Nansie's hostelry, and saw lights streaming from the fractured windows. On entering, they found a company of wandering mendicants enjoying themselves over their dear Kilbagie. They were mours of the scene, called for more liquor, and welcomed with cheers, entered into the huthe noise and fun grew fast and furious. Burns paid much attention to an old soldier, with a "wooden arm and leg," whose drollery was unbounded.

In a few days he rough-wrote the Cantata, and shewed it amongst his friends. He gave the only copy now known to be in in the hands of Thomas Stewart of Greenock. existence to David Woodburn; it was lately

easier task to delineate the characters, and inIt is probable that the Poet found it an dite the songs of the Cantata, than to endow the "Mouse" and the "Daisy" with sentiments would have stamped his tacketed shoe upon the of terror and of pity. A common ploughman one, saying "Down, vermin!" or helped the furrow over upon the other, pronouncing it a weed. With far other feelings the ploughman of Mossgiel saw the ruin of the one, and the destruction of the other. "The verses to says the Mouse and the Mountain Daisy,' while the author was holding the plough. I Gilbert, "were composed on the occasions, and could point out the particular spot where each vourite situation with Robert for poetic compowas composed. Holding the plough was a fasitions, and some of his best verses were produced while he was at that exercise. Several of the poems were written for the purpose of bringing forward some favourite sentiment of the nest of leaves and stubble, the Poet assured the author." When the coulter passed through the timid mouse, as it fled in terror, that the best laid schemes of men were frustrated, as well as those of mice; and that though its house was laid in ruins, and winter afforded no materials for constructing a new one, still its lot was bliss compared with his own. It was touched only with the passing, while he was affected with the past-felt the present, and dreaded the future. A similar train of sentiment runs through the Daisy: the Poet buries its opening bloom with the plough, and grieves that he cannot save a thing so lovely; nay, lest the flower should mistake the crash of the cruel coulter for the pressure of some gentler thing, he exclaims, with equal tenderness and beauty:

"Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,

The bonnie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
Wi' speckled breast,

When upward springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east.”

He suddenly turns from the fate of the flower to his own, and draws the same dark conclusions as he did in the "Mouse;"

"Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's plough-share drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom;

Till, crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall be thy doom!"

His poetry abounds in melancholy predictions about himself; he had visions of beauty and of grandeur, but along with them came darker visions: want and ruin, sorrow and neglect, death and the grave. The immortality conferred on this humble flower escaped not the observation of Wordsworth as he passed, in 1833, through the "Land of Burns."

"Myriads of Daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away less happy than the One
That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love."

The

The fine poem of " Man was made to Mourn" was composed by Burns for the purpose of bringing forward a favourite sentiment." He used to remark to me," says Gilbert, "that he could not well conceive a more mortifying picture of human life than a man seeking work. In casting about in his mind how this sentiment might be illustrated, the elegy of Man was made to Mourn' was composed." germ of the composition may be found in The Life and Age of Man," which the Poet's mother was wont to sing to his grand-uncle. The same sentiment is common to both; the same form of expression, and the same words may be traced in every verse; "Man is made to mourn," is the introductory exclamation of the old; "Man was made to mourn" is the chorus of the new. Nor is the earlier poem without pathos and force; the periods of man's life are compared to the months of the year: the child is born in January, flourishes in July, and dies in December: the parallel is well maintained :

"Then cometh May, gallant and gay,

When fragrant flowers do thrive,
The child is then become a man,

Of age twentie-and-five.

December fell, both sharp and snell,
Makes flowers creep to the ground;
Then man's threescore, both sick and sore,
No soundness in him found."

To make each month of the year correspond with five years of a man's life, the moralizing bard of the year sixteen hundred and fifty-three

extinguished the faculties of man at sixty; the bard of seventeen hundred and eighty-six says nothing of life's duration, but sings the sorrows of him who, overwrought and abject, has to beg leave to toil, from a lordly fellow-worm, who scorns his poor petition, and turns him over to idleness and woe. The question which the Poet asks is one not easily answered by the

oppressor :

"If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave,

By Nature's law design'd,
Why was an independent wish

E'er planted in my mind?

If not, why am I subject to

His cruelty or scorn?

Or why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn?"

The sage of the banks of Ayr intimates to the indignant bard that a future state, where the great and the wealthy cease from troubling, is the only hope and refuge of those "who weary laden mourn." His own desolate condition and dreary prospects raised those darksome ideas.

In the truly noble poem of the "Vision" Burns imagines himself seated, in a winter night, by his fire, which burns reluctantly ; wearied with the flail, he proceeds to muse on wasted time. In his sight the scene is dark enough; he has spent the prime of youth in making rhymes for fools to sing; he has neglected advice which would have placed him at the head of a market; and now, "half-mad, half-fed, half-sarket," he is sitting undistinguished and poor. Stung with these reflections, he starts up, and is about to swear to refrain rhyme till his latest breath, when the door opens, the fire flames brighter, and a strange and lovely lady comes blushing to his side :

And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away."

Frequent bursts of religious feeling, and a fine spirit of morality, are visible in much that Burns wrote; yet only one of his poems is expressly dedicated to devotion-"The Cotter's Saturday Night." The origin of this noble strain is related by his brother:-"Robert had frequently remarked to me that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, Let us worship God,' used by a decent sober head of a family, introducing family worship. The hint of the plan and title of the poem were taken from Fergusson's 'Farmer's Ingle.' When Robert had not some pleasure in view, in which I was not thought fit to participate, we used frequently to walk together, when the weather was favourable, on the Sunday afternoons (those precious breathing times to the labouring part of the community), and enjoyed such Sundays as would make us regret to see their number abridged. It was in one of these walks that I first had the pleasure of hearing the Author repeat the Cotter's Saturday Night.""

The poem is a picture of cottage devotion, by a hand more solicitous about accuracy than effect; for no one knew better than Burns that invention could not heighten, nor art embellish, a scene in which man holds intercourse

with heaven. His natural good taste told him that his work-day burning impetuosity of language, and intrepid freedom of illustration, were unsuitable here; he calmed down his style into an earnest and touching simplicity, which has been mistaken by critics for tameness; but the strength of the poem is proved by the numerous and beautiful images, all of a devotional character, which it impresses on the mind. Religion is the leading feature of the otism in its purity, mingle with it, and give a whole; but love in its virgin state, and patrigentle tinge, rather than a decided colour to the performance. The scene is peculiar to Scotland. With what natural art the Poet introduces us to the Cotter, and to his happy home, and gradually prepares us, by a succession of solemn images, for the opening of the Bible and the pouring out of prayer!

The winter day is darkening into night, the blackening trains of crows seek the pine-tree tops, and the toil-worn cotter lays together his spades and hoes, and, "hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend," walks homewards over the moor:

"At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee-things, todlin', stacher through,
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee,

His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnilie;

His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,

The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,

An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil."

Presently the elder children, released by Saturday night from their weekly servitude among the neighbouring farmers, come "drapping in;' " and Jenny, their eldest hope, now woman grown, shews a "braw new gown," or puts her wages into her parents' hands, to aid them, should they require it. Amid them the anxious mother sits, and, with her needle and shears,

"Gars auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new,

The father mixes a' with admonition due."

The admonition of this good man to his children is, to be obedient to those above them; to mind their labours, nor be idle when unobserved; and chiefly to fear the Lord, and duly, morn and night, implore his aid and counsel. While this is going on, a gentle rap is heard at the door, and a strappan youth, who "takes the mother's e'e," is introduced by Jenny as a neighbour lad, who, among other things, had undertaken to see her safely home. The visit is well taken, for he is neither wild nor worthless, but come of honest parents, and is, moreover, blate and bashful, and for inward joy can scarce behave himself. The mother knows well what makes him so grave; the father converses about horses and ploughs, while the supper-table is spread, and milk from her only