"And Burns, though brief the race he ran,
Though rough and dark the path he trod,
Lived, died in form and soul a man,
The image of his God.

Through care and pain and want and woe,

With wounds that only death could heal,
Tortures the poor alone can know;
The proud alone can feel,

He kept his honesty and truth,

His independent tongue and pen,

And moved, in manhood as in youth,
Pride of his fellow men."

It is in honor of such a poet and such a man that I now propose the toast to the memory of Robert Burns. This toast will be spoken to by one whom we are always glad to hear, Mr. James S. Thayer.

MR. THAYER said:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

In commemorating the events that fill the calendar of the year, I do not think you can frame in our language a sentiment that would penetrate deeper, or vibrate wider through the circle of human sympathies and regards than the one, Mr. President, you have just announced-" The memory of Robert Burns." There is no depth of feeling the power of his genius did not fathom; there is no passion or emotion in the wide and varied experience of human life, that its rays did not reach and illustrate. From the cradle to the grave, from the one to the other shore of the ocean of life on which we are tossed, the waves that bear us on wear a softer and brighter tint, a richer and warmer glow from the star that rose one hundred and ten years ago over the humble birthplace of Robert Burns, than from any of those majestic and full-orbed suns that burn in the highest heaven of poetry. It is often said that those whose office it is to instruct and guide us in the paths of religious duty, fail in their object because their teachings are too far removed from the earth -abstract, doctrinal and transcendental-they do not come

down to the everyday walks and wants of life. If it is everything in religion to bring home to every human heart its hopes and consolations; was it not something in poetry, to approach and take possession for the first time of the universal heart of man? And was it not a marvel, indeed, that the hard, rough hand of a plowman was the first to gather up and weave into a bond of cable strength all the strong and delicate threads of the heart, and by the inspiration of his genius to send round the circuit of all humanity the electric thrill that unites in a brotherhood of feeling and thought all who read and speak the English tongue. Robert Burns did this. That heart answers to heart all the world over is the secret of his power-that nothing that is human was foreign to his own nature, was the argument on which he built. Behold the structure! As the eye ranges along the sides of the mountain sacred to the muses, there are loftier temples and beneath the swelling domes and glittering spires that surmount them, the annointed kings of poetry are enthroned, and hold their court and their revel. They shine in purple all their own, and bear undisputed sway in the domain of epic and dramatic verse. But the votaries who throng these heights do not pass unvisited the imperishable fabric of our bard. It is not reared in marble, nor proportioned or fashioned from the ancient models. The images and works of classic art and beauty do not line its porticos or crowd its niches. No ancestral trophies adorn its walls. It is not planted on that grand summit where you can look out and breathe in the face of the sun. But you can do better than this. You can, on all the sunny slope where it stands, breathe the common, healthy air that gives beauty, strength and vitality to man and nature in all their varied forms and aspects. There are gathered in loving sympathy all those who have warm hearts and generous emotions. There is the tree and the rose, and every flower and green thing that grow beneath the sun; the air is vocal with the song of birds and the music of waterfalls. And all this from a source as pure and copious as any that ever burst from the depths of the earth. How bright the

gleam of the silver waters at the fountain-muse there among its rocks and pines, and the soul will be filled with pure delight. As the stream rolls on, it gathers much of the earth, sometimes not the best, the rains descend chill and stormy, the sharp and bitter winds choke it with the dead leaves and brushwood that moulder on its banks, and sometimes it swells to a wild and angry torrent, but it clears. itself and flows on again, calm and deep, reflecting new images of joy and beauty; and now with a rapid, gushing current it flows on, alas! too fast to the great ocean. The poetry of Burns, genial, homelike, not only excites and stirs all the strong emotions of the heart to a fervid pleasure, an ardent, enthusiastic, present enjoyment, but, when the first wild, passionate utterance has passed, a soothing and subsiding wave of melody sinks sweetly and slowly to a calm. Those who have passed through the Lakes of Killarney will remember a spot where, hemmed in by the most magnificent scenery, at a bend in the lake, the guide lays down his oars and sounds a bugle note, which echoes and re-echoes again and again, and once more, until it dies away in the far solitudes of the mountains. You bend your ear to the water, eager, breathless, to catch the last strain, for the last is the sweetest and most exquisite. So the poetry of Burns wakes in the heart not alone one full, grand echo, but penetrates all its recesses, sounds through all its secret chambers, and the responses, lingering, and long drawn out, fade away in the most delicate and enchanting cadence. [Cheers.] The genius of Burns is conspicuous in this, that while his character is distinct and positive, and excites our interest and sympathy in the highest degree, he seldom sketches his own image. Byron is the hero of his best poems. If Burns in his poetry expresses his own joy or sorrow, it is not that of an individual, but the joy and grief of the human heart, the world over and in all times. And if he blends himself with his poetry, it is because he is so much a child of nature, that his own portrait is often the best delineation that could be given of human life and character. And there is a reason for this, as there is for all things true and genuine. His

character and poetry rest on the same basis—thorough, honest convictions, earnestness, sincerity. These qualities cannot make a man a poet; but born a poet, they make him a man, and inspired by the highest poetic genius, the chief among men; the highest type of the race, allied and akin to all. He loves what they love, and rejects what they condemn—with a sincerity that enlists their sympathy, with an intensity and power that commands their homage. Thus the common mind fixes upon a standard of excellence,-of worth, not only because it is high, elevated—something to look up to, to worship-but because it grows out of the earth; its roots strike into it. They can lean against it and rest under it. There are peasants garments and royal robes to fit every human form that, erect and stately, bears the impress of God's truth and sincerity. For things not genuine and sincere, no matter of what repute, Burns had a hard reckoning. He could not abide cant in religion, pretension in social life, affectation anywhere. But what shall we say of his errors and his faults? I shall not stop to criticise. He who has made every man's life better and nobler should not be severely judged, "because the power was not given to him of wisely guiding his own." Carlyle says in an essay on Mirabeau," Moral reflection-that neither thou nor we, good reader, had any hand in the making of this Mirabeau ; else who knows but we had objected in our wisdom! But it was the Upper Powers that made him, without once consulting us, they and not we-so and not otherwise." Burns was a great poet, a true man,-standing on the broad and even plain of life, close by the side of his fellow man, struggling and toiling with him in its every day trials and temptations, he lifted up the whole mass to a higher level, to a nobler destiny, and from his warm loving, trustful soul, comprehending and embracing all, he poured over every path and byway of man's existence, a light that, brightening along the future, will give joy and hope to all the generations of man. The birthday of Burns is celebrated in every land, and wherever it is observed, throughout our own country, in distant continents, and in the far off islands of the

sea, in no place do more devoted admirers, with warmer hearts than ours, bring their offerings to the shrine of his genius. Fairer faces and brighter smiles do not anywhere grace the festive board. And in another respect, we are fortunate, that while to-night the memory of Burns is enshrined in our inmost hearts as the Chief of Scottish Bards, it is our peculiar privilege to greet with a proud and heartfelt welcome Bryant, the greatest of American poets. [Loud applause.] The greatest, I say, not because he is here, but because he is the greatest. One regret we have, that our bard has been so occupied with the every-day prose of life, that the melody which always enchants his country and the world has been so seldom sounded, from the neglected strings of the harp, that he long ago tuned to a lofty strain of poetic thought and beauty. Ours is the earnest wish, the fervent prayer, that many, many years may yet roll away, ere he will cease to honor and adorn by his presence and his speech-the banquet spread "to the memory of Robert Burns." [Enthusiastic applause.]

MR. FIELD. Ladies and Gentlemen :

We are now promised a poem by Mr. R. W. Wright. MR. WRIGHT then spoke the following poem:

I.

BRITANNIA boasts her hundred bards

Who've struck the sounding lyre,
And flashed along its gleaming chords
Sparks of Olympic fire;

But it is Caledonia's boast,

That to the Sacred Nine
She dedicates immortal verse
That burns in every line.

II.

Britannia boasts her Westminster,
With marble honors crowned,
And brazen names that only live
In that historic ground;

But Scotia proudly points at one
Immortal slab and name,

To which all human hearts and tongues
Accord a deathless fame,