man," he cries, in the short piece "On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by Me "

"Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye ";

then, turning to the hare with pitying tenderness

"Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little that of life remains!

This may not be great poetry; but it is the poetry of a great man. It is the poetry of a man to whom it was incomprehensible that a human being should find pleasure in cruelty. He himself was unfailingly gentle.

"He was a Master kin',

An' ay was guid to me an' mine,"

says Mailie; and her statement is borne out in many a passage from his writings. He could sympathise even with the mouse which devoured his crops

"I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live "

and with the fox which robbed his hen-roost

Ev'n you, on murd'ring errands toil'd.
The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd,
My heart forgets,

While pityless the tempest wild

Sore on you beats ";

while to the helpless and harmless he was all tender

ness

"Ilk happing bird-wee, helpless thing!

What comes o' thee?'

Since, then, his own sympathy was so all-embracing, there is little wonder that his indignation was aroused

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against the widespread callousness of his time. The bees," he says, in "The Brigs of Ayr

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"Are doom'd by man, that tyrant o'er the weak, The death o' devils, smoor'd wi' brunstane reek: The thundering guns are heard on ev'ry side, The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide; (What warm, poetic heart but inly bleeds, And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!)'

Burns must have been almost the first opponent of blood-sports"; and this is not the only passage in which he condemns them. In the poem, "On Scaring some Water-fowl in Loch-Turit," he deals with the same theme

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Why, ye tenants of the lake,

For me your wat'ry haunt forsake?
Conscious, blushing for our race,
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace.
Man, your proud usurping foe,
Would be lord of all below:

Plumes himself in Freedom's pride,
Tyrant stern to all beside."

This sympathy with his fellow-creatures was one of the finest traits of Burns's character; and its frequent expression in his work is almost sufficient to confute Arnold's statement that he "lacks high seriousness." Nothing was too unimportant for Burns to sympathise with. Not only animals, but trees and flowers, are tenderly addressed, and any wanton destroyer of them is not spared.

In considering Burns as a "critic of his age," it may not be out of place to dwell for a little on his criticism of contemporary literature. That criticism was, it is true, largely tacit, and may have been suggested in some degree by the old Scots ballads and by the revolt against the Popean school; but it was none the less real and, in its insistence on simplicity,

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original. There is a remarkable passage, in the first Epistle to John Lapraik," which shows clearly Burns's literary position—

"I am nae poet, in a sense,

But just a rhymer like by chance;
An' hae to learning nae pretence

Gie me ae spark o' nature's fire,
That's a' the learning I desire;
Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire
At pleugh or cart,

My muse, tho' hamely in attire,
May touch the heart."

It is obvious from this passage that Burns was not
sufficiently sure of himself to pronounce the pseudo-
classic school wrong; and it is noteworthy that in his
English pieces he frequently imitates their style. But
it is certain, nevertheless, that he was profoundly dis-
satisfied with that style; and this is borne out by the
preface to the Kilmarnock edition of his Poems, where
he refers to himself as one who cannot, like the learned
poet, "look down for a rural theme, with an eye to
Theocritus or Virgil."
His work is, consequently,
largely in the Romantic manner. Even where he uses
pseudo-classical forms, as in the satires and epistles, he
uses them in a style far different from the polished,
allusive couplet of Pope; and elsewhere touches sugges-
tive of the Romanticists of the next generation are not
wanting. Take the first stanza of "A Vision," in
which the poet describes an imaginary apparition by the
ruins at Lincluden-

"As I stood by yon roofless tower,

Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air,
Where the houlet mourns in her ivy bower

And tells the midnight moon her care."

The picture of the old ruin, with the crying owl, in the moonlight, might almost have come from Coleridge; and

is

the mention of the unclassical wallflower significant. In the "Epistle to William Simson,' again, we have a Romantic invocation of nature-and of nature in the Wordsworthian, not the Popean, sense

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"O Nature! a' thy shews an' forms

To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the Summer kindly warms,
Wi' life an' light,

Or Winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!

This criticism of literature, half-hearted and halfexpressed though it be, has so much in common with the Romantic Revival that I have wondered if Wordsworth did not owe more to Burns than is generally admitted. It is known that he admired greatly Burns's non-lyrical writing; and there is a striking similarity between the theories of simplicity and sincerity which each in some degree held. THOMAS SHEARER.

HAWICK BURNS CLUB.

OPENING OF CLUBROOMS.

The handsome buildings of the Hawick Burns Club were opened on 28th April, 1928, by Sir Joseph Dobbie, President of the Burns Federation, before a large and representative assembly. The new clubrooms are situated in Albert Road, with a frontage to Albert Bridge, and are thoroughly well equipped in every respect. Mr. George Scott, architect, presented Sir Joseph Dobbie with a silver key, with which he opened the main door.

Mr. John Halliday, President of the Club, occupied the chair; and Sir Joseph Dobbie, in the course of an address, congratulated the members of the Club, which was founded in 1878, on thus celebrating its jubilee, and on the marvellous illustration they had given, by erecting these premises, of their devotion to the memory of Robert Burns. Their success, he said, evidenced, if evidence was required, the hold which the memory of Burns had on the hearts and affections of his countrymen, and nowhere was that feeling stronger than in the Scottish Border Land. The first President of the Club was James Thomson, and he knew of no tribute which more truly voices the sentiments of the Scottish race than Thomson's song, "The Star o' Robbie Burns." Another Border poet of whom Scotland is proud was Scott Riddell, two of whose songs-" Scotland Yet" and "The Crook and Plaid "-will live. Scott Riddell in 1859, at the Centenary Dinner in Hawick, when proposing "The Immortal Memory," undertook the duty of formulating in detail Scotland's debt to Burns. Of course he did it well, but he spoke for an hour and a half! He-Sir Joseph Dobbie-would not speak so long as did Scott