Yet," he adds, and these are the lines to which I call your special attention

"Yet let my country need me, with Elliot to head me,

I'd clatter on my stumps at the sound of a drum."

Many such a randy gangrel body" fought under Wellington in the Peninsula, and found there his manhood, lost and forgotten at home. The simple duty of obedience, the simple obedience to duty, is the virtue of the happy warrior.

You find again that conception of the glory of duty in one of Burns's well-known love songs :

It is also found in a poem whose motive is not love, but whisky :—

Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him;
Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him;
Wi' bluidy hand a welcome gies him;

An' when he fa's,

His latest draught o' breathin' lea'es him

In faint huzzas."

For loyalty, for devotion, for indomitable and cheerful courage, Burns has sung the soldier's praise. Once again you find it in one of the most popular of his songs among his own generation, the song of the soldier returned home, his "hand unstained wi' plunder "

He feels, of course, the intolerable sadness of war :

and, in words which will live while the fountain of tears continues to spring, he has expressed the deepest pathos of all, when valour has not availed and sacrifice has not reaped its unselfish reward :

"Now a' is done that men can do,

And a' is done in vain,"

:

he wrote in that ballad which Sir Walter Scott never tired of hearing his daughter sing:

And here, perhaps, I ought to stop, but I should like to quote three more lines. They seem to me to express the spirit in which we shall yet be able to think-though as these terrible lists of dear and honoured names come, almost from day to day on the sad pages of our newspapers, we must find it hard so to think of them now~ the spirit in which we shall yet be able to think of those brave dead who have fought the battle of their country, the battle of humanity. On an anniversary of Rodney's great naval victory, known as the Battle of the Saints, Burns was asked for a song, and replied with a toast:

"Here's the memory of those on the 12th that we lost !— That we lost, did I say? nay, by heaven, that we found; For their fame it shall last while the world goes round."

(Loud applause.)

THANKS TO THE DONOR.

Bailie Thomson afterwards proposed the health of Provost Bayne, the donor of the statue, and expressed the gratitude of the community for the handsome gift. The toast was heartily pledged.

The Provost, in the course of a characteristic speech, remarked--

That he liked Robert Burns because he understood him, and the way in which he expressed his opinions. Burns was born as poor as he was himself, and he wished for nothing different. He (the Provost) came to Stirling fifty years ago a poor man, and he was not ashamed of it. It was said a man diligent in business would stand before kings; he had stood before kings--aye, and shook hands with them, too. (Laughter and applause.) If they did not make a little effort they could never get on. Those who wanted to succeed must make a proper, honest endeavour. He admired the Works of Burns, and knew what he wrote about was absolutely true. He knew all about The Cottar's Saturday Night,' Hallowe'en," and The Holy Fair," and could look back on the Sacrament Sundays which the farmers would go ten miles in a common cart to attend. The Provost concluded by again expressing his thanks.

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Ex-Bailie Watt proposed "The Sculptor." He congratulated him on his work. His success with the statue just unveiled, he said, had been very marked, and he had given them a speaking embodiment of the Poet. (Applause.)

Mr Hodge having responded, Mr Alexander Pollock, Glasgow, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Burns Federation, in proposing the health of Professor Rait, said :

He was there as the substitute of a much greater and more able man-Mr M'Naught, the President of the Burns Federation. In the name of all the Burns Clubs represented in that Federation, he congratulated the town of Stirling and their worthy Provost on the unveiling of the statue that afternoon. He (Mr Pollock) had tried to do a little, as the Stirling Burns Club was doing, to encourage the younger generation to study the songs and poems of Burns. The statue unveiled that day would be a standing distinction to the town of Stirling, and a memorial of the generosity of their Provost. (Applause.) Proceeding, Mr Pollock paid a high tribute to the work of Professor Rait in the Scottish History and Literature Chair in Glasgow University, and remarked that he thought one result of the war would be that they would have no more German mechanical teaching in their schools, and that Professor Rait would be the prophet as well as the professor of Scottish teaching in Scottish schools from that time forward. (Applause.)

Professor Rait replied in a few happy sentences, and the proceedings concluded with "Auld Lang Syne."

During the afternoon Mr John Ferguson delighted the company with two recitations from the Works of the Poet, the pieces given being "To a Mouse" and "To Mary in Heaven."

BURNS IN BRAILLE

A SEVEN-VOLUME EDITION OF BURNS.

OVER HALF-A-HUNDREDWEIGHT OF PRINTED MATTER.

THE

HE Works of Burns in Braille is now a completed fact, and blind readers all over the world can henceforth read all the poems and some of the letters of Scotia's Bard for themselves.

As our readers are aware, this important work has been carried through by a joint committee of the Rosebery Burns Club and the Carlton Burns Club, both Glasgow bodies of Burns admirers, while the necessary funds have been provided by these two Clubs and a number of other Burns Clubs throughout the kingdom.

For the text of the poems and notes the single volume, Chambers's edition (1896), edited by Doctor William Wallace, was adopted on the advice of Mr J. C. Ewing, the wellknown Burns authority, who very cordially gave his services in supervising the publication. Mr Ewing was unfortunately laid aside for some months by a severe illness, and the selection and editing of the letters, which form the seventh volume of the edition, was undertaken by Mr Alexander Pollock, ex-President of the Rosebery Burns Club, who has acted as joint Honorary Secretary of the committee.

The selection had to be limited by the size of the volume, and while some Burns students may wish that certain letters had been included, it may be said at once that Mr Pollock has done his best to make a representative selection. Burns revealed himself in his correspondence as well as in his poetry, and Mr Pollock has given examples of the Poet's style to various types of correspondents.