the lovers in the song entitled Lammas Night; and in Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut we seem to be looking on the three happy topers, when declaring themselves "nae that fou." They were, the bard himself, and his two friends, Messrs William Nicol and Allan Cleghorn. But we pass on to a poem of a higher order.

Of The Jolly Beggars, so correct a character has been given in the first number of the QUArTERLY REVIEW, that, as we could not improve it, we shall here transcribe it for the entertainment of our readers, to whom we recommend that respectable literary journal.

"For humorous description and nice discrimination of character, this cantata," say these able critics, "is inferior to no poem of the same length in the whole range of English poetry. The scene, indeed, is laid in the very lowest department of low life, the actors being a set of strolling vagrants, met to carouse, and barter their rags and plunder for liquor, in a hedge ale-house. Yet even in describing the movements of such a group, the native taste of the poet has never suffered his pen to slide into any thing coarse or disgusting. The extravagant glee and outrageous frolic of the beggars are ridiculously contrasted with their maimed limbs, rags, and crutches : the sordid and squalid circumstances of their

appearance are judiciously thrown into the shade. Nor is the art of the poet less conspicuous in the individual figures than in the general mass. The festive vagrants are distinguished from each other by personal appearance and character, as much as any fortuitous assembly in the higher orders of life. . . . The most prominent persons are, a maimed soldier and his female companion, a hackneyed follower of the camp; a stroller, late the consort of a Highland ketterer or sturdy beggar. But weary fa' the waefu' woodie !? Being now at liberty, she becomes an object of rivalry between a pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle' and a strolling tinker: the latter, a desperate bandit, like most of his profession, terrifies the musician out of the field, and is preferred by the damsel, of course. A wandering ballad-singer, with a brace of doxies, is last introduced upon the stage. Each of these mendicants sings a song in character; and such a collection of humorous lyrics, connected by vivid poetical description, is not perhaps to be paralleled in the English language."

That this is sound criticism, the reader will be convinced by the following recitativo, after "the mirth and fun of the company had become fast and furious," in consequence of drink and a song by the ballad-singer :

"So sung the bard-an' Nansie's wa's Shook with a thunder of applause,

Re-echo'd from each mouth;

They toom'd their pocks an' pawn'd their duds,
They scarcely left to coor their fuds,

To quench their lowan drouth.

Then owre again, the jovial thrang

The poet did request

To lowse his pack an' wale a sang,

A ballad o' the best.

He, rising, rejoicing,

Between his twa Deborahs,

Looks round him, an' found them
Impatient for the chorus.”

These verses present to our view the inside of Nansie's house, and the eager looks of the ragged company.

Of the remaining poems, perhaps there is not one, except Holy Willie's Prayer, that is in BURNS's best manner; and of that prayer sufficient notice has been taken already. The Kirk's Alarm has little merit; and of The Twa Herds, though the wit of it is occasionally irresistible, the tendency is very doubtful. It is the same with that of Holy Willie's Prayer, though certainly less exceptionable, as the same mischief can never follow from exhibiting to public scorn

the ridiculous quarrel of two violent theologians, as from laughing at a theological system, which, whether true or false, has been held entire by some of the greatest and best of men, and is admitted by all to be not easily demolished.

On the whole, it appears that the subjects of BURNS's poetry are not numerous, being confined to rural scenes, rustic manners, rustic superstitions, and the ridicule of those theological disputes which agitate the minds of the Scottish peasantry; but if his scenes be not much varied, they are all painted in the most vivid colours. His poems, therefore, are universally admired, and will long continue to be so among those to whom such scenes and superstitions are familiar; and though there are scattered through them a few images which the more serious reader may reasonably wish away, he must be easily alarmed who dreads the consequences of the poems of ROBERT BURNS on the minds of any order of men in society.

EDINBURGH: Printed by John Brown.