III.

Britannia boasts her Avon bard,
With such rare genius blest,
That Nature kindly owned her son
And took him to her breast;
Where he, a loving child of song,

Such inspiration drew,

His genius first exhausted worlds,
And then created new !

IV.

But Caledonia's Ayrshire bard,
With heavenly gifts endowed,
Was still the Muse's favorite child,
Of whom she was most proud;
And though his genius bodied forth
Less forms of things unknown;
His was the master hand that touched
All human hearts as one!

V.

Britannia boasts her lordly bard
Who half disdained the lyre,
Till he was lashed into a vein
Of fierce satiric fire;

And, madly seizing Albion's harp
As 'twere a brand of flame,
Scourged into silence every tongue
That dared asperse his fame.

VI.

But Scotia boasts a peasant bard

Of such satiric vein,

That where he satirizes most

He least inflcts a pain;

And friend or foe once limned to life

By Burns's cannie pen,

Would swear to all the poet's faults,
To be thus limned again!

VII.

Britannia boasts her epic bard,

Whose heart was swept erewhile, As erst was his, "the blind old man Of Scio's rocky isle;"

One whose imagination soared
To such ecstatic height,
That heaven in blinding glories fell

Upon his raptured sight.

VIII.

But while old Scotia boasts no bard

With epic honors.crowned,
Save him of Morven's golden harp
Once strung for chiefs renowned:
It is her glory and her pride,
That with a single lyre,

She makes heroic every heart

Beyond Homeric fire!

IX.

Britannia boast her school of bards,

Whose genius thought to make

The art of poetizing prove

The glory of the "Lake;"

And Keswick was the mighty seat
Where they arrayed their lyre,

That flashed not one Promethean spark,
But only painted fire!

X.

But Scotia boasts a single bard

Who proudly scorned the schools

As nurseries to teach the Art

Poetica of fools;

And, snatching Caledonia's harp

Of long neglected wire,

Waked strains that touched the human heart

As with a living fire!

XI.

Then let us all, with one accord,

Our highest tribute pay,

While joining in the world's acclaim

On this his natal day;

And passing round the festive board
The mirth, the song, the wine,
All "tak a right guid willie-waught"
For Scotia's bard divine!

MR. FIELD. The fifth toast is to

5. "Our Country."

"O thou dread power! whose empire-giving hand,
Has oft been stretched to shield the honored land;
Firm may she rise with generous disdain,

At Tyranny's or direr Pleasure's chain;

Still self-dependent in her native shore,

Bold may she brave grim danger's loudest roar;

Till fate the curtin drop on worlds to be no more.”—BURNS.

Music-HAIL COLUMBIA.

How much meaning these two words convey, we know. At home they signify the union of all our states; abroad they are our glory and our defence. The toast will be responded to by Mr. H. B. Perkins.

MR. PERKINS said:

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Though it has been my custom for years past to unite with the sons of old Caledonia in celebrating the birthday of their greatest poet, yet this is the first time that it has not been legitimately within my province to say a word in praise of Scotia's gifted child of song. To-night mine is a different theme. I shall say but a word of the "land of cakes," and barely allude to the darling treasure entrusted to its care. I shall not attempt to follow Tam O'Shanter in his weird ride through “Alloway's auld haunted kirk,” shall leave the happy "Cotter," with his prattling infant on his knee, and the youngling cottagers to the first sweet dreams of night.

"Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes

And fondly broods with miser care―
Time but the impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear."

(Applause.)

So I bid adieu to the "banks and braes" of "bonnie Scotland" to speak to the toast that has been assigned to me.

Mr. Chairman, what a crowd of thoughts cluster around those two words, "Our Country." The crowded city, the populous town, the quiet village, the majestic river, the broad prairie, the mirror-surfaced lake, the cloud capped mountain, and the roaring cataract, all are embraced within the meaning of those two words "Our Country."

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence, the birth-year of our nation-in 1783, our independence acknowledged by Great Britain and all the powers of Europe, at which time we had but thirteen states and only three million of inhabitants; but to-day we have thirty-seven states, and nearly thirty-five millions of people, and all this has been accomplished within less than one century, and its prosperity and wealth founded on Agriculture, Commerce and free Education, (applause)—a result, which for the grandeur of its achievements has no parallel in the history of the world. (Applause.)

Look, Mr. Chairman, for a moment at the geographical position of our country. With one arm she grasps the golden regions of the far off Pacific, whose waters quench the last beam of our setting sun, while the other encircles the billowy Atlantic as it breaks upon our eastern shores. Who would" curtail it in its fair proportions," and what American citizen, within whose bosom there beats a heart alive to the kindlings of patriotism, that does not rejoice that its foundations were laid by patriot hands, deep and strong in the imperishable cement of ages. (Applause.)

Our country is indeed marching onward, with rapid strides, to a great destiny. Glance, sir, at the magnificent network of railroads that stretches out all over our broad domain, while our electric telegraphs send, with lightning speed, their messages into every town and village in our land. The grandeur and greatness of our country is typified in its lofty old mountains, its unpruned forests, and its boundless prairies; it is proclaimed in the mighty thunders of Niagara and the roar of the Mississippi; the delver in the mines of distant California sings its praise, and the fair maiden in the woodman's hut prolongs the melodious strain.

It is echoed by the billows that break upon the shores of our inland seas, and whispered by the rippling of the brooks. (Applause.)

Our country is great in art and arms, in science, literature and song. What other land is so famous for its noble charitable institutions, for its beautiful halls of learning, and for its free, unshackled press, that mighty lever of power, the dread of the venal and the corrupt, but the impenetrable shield of patriotism and moral worth. (Applause).

In science, high upon the scroll of fame are inscribed the great names of Franklin, Fulton and Morse; and in the domain of letters we find the no less brilliant ones of Prescott and Irving, Bryant and Longfellow. And the learned profession, that in the past could boast of a Mason, a Webster, and a Pettigrew, is now honored and ennobled by the wisdom and logic of an O'Connor, the erudition of an Evarts, and the eloquence and genius of a Brady. (Applause.)

Where can you find better or braver soldiers than our country has produced? When the Constitution and the Union were assailed by misguided men, and the magnificent temple of American freedom was rocked by the storm and tempest of war, and the cry for help! help! reached the ears of our soldiers, most nobly did they respond to the call, and stood like a "wall of fire" around the great edifice of constitutional liberty (applause); and to-day the names of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan are pre-eminently grand, massive and conspicuous.

stars.

Our navy now is, and ever has been, a brilliant galaxy of Are not the names of Hull, Decatur and Lawrence the synonym of all that's brave, manly, and patriotic? While Farragut, Foote and Porter have written their names in brilliant characters upon fame's everlasting hill (applause). More than half a century ago the United States contested for the supremacy of the seas with the greatest maratime. power in the world; and though we were not always the victors, still, generally speaking, the meteor flag of proud old Albion went down before the starry banner of the young republic (applause).