If heav'n but happiness shall give
To thee content am I;

And as with thee I'd wish to live,

For thee I'd bear to die."

Our readers can compare this with Burns's version as an example of his methods in preparing material for Johnson.

The little volume is very interesting. Besides Mr Cook's copy, another has been added to the collection of Mr A. J. Craig, Fixby, Corstorphine.

[EDITOR.]

NOTE ON THE RHYME OF "COTTAR'S SATURDAY

NIGHT."

The influence of Shenstone on Burns is the subject of a chapter of Furth in Field by Hugh Halliburton. In it he says: If we turn to The Cottar's Saturday Night' and read it alongside of The Schoolmistress,' we shall find that in respect of measure, theme, and style of both treatment and language, it was modelled scarcely less after the manner of Shenstone than according to the pattern of Fergusson's Farmer's Ingle.' Unlike the latter, but like The Schoolmistress,' it maintains the perfect form of the Spenserian stanza."

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Be it granted that passages which Hugh Halliburton points out in The Schoolmistress display a similarity to passages in The Cottar's Saturday Night," it still requires an assurance not borne out by comparison of the texts to say that Burns was influenced more by Shenstone's poem than by Fergusson's Farmer's Ingle." In general, the similarity between Fergusson's "Farmer's Ingle and Burns's "Cottar's Saturday Night is far more striking than when comparison is made with Shenstone's Schoolmistress." Even allowing for Burns sharing with Dodsley the mistake that "The Schoolmistress was a moral poem, and not, as originally intended by Shenstone, of an exquisitely humorous turn, we have still the assertion that Burns got his Spenserian stanza from Shenstone.

In the Cambridge History of Shenstone, vol. XI., chap. 10, Mr T. F. Henderson says: "Burns got the Spenserian stanza of 'The Cottar's Saturday Night' from Beat e, not from Spenser."

While those two eminent Burns authorities can be left to dispute the claims of Shenstone or Beattie (and could we not also suggest those of Thomson, who used the pure Spenserian stanza for his "Castle of Indolence," a poem that Burns would be familiar with), we find that Mrs Dunlop, on the 10th April, 1788, when she meditates returning a copy of Spenser's Faery Queen" to Burns,

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makes the following remark : "I have your Faery Queen' here. I don't know how I shall contrive to get her returned; you must instruct me. I never read her with pleasure before. I think you have taught me to understand Spenser, and I thank you for that, and all the superior poetic pleasures for which I am your debtor." One therefore may be excused for a preference of belief that Burns got his rhyme for the Cottar's Saturday Night " direct from Spenser. To anyone who is aware that one of the attributes to Burns's genius was accuracy in all things," it seems a waste of time to seek the source of Burns's inspiration in other places than the fountain head. A. J. CRAIG.

66

Corstorphine.

I think I made a find yesterday in Edinburgh. I got a book called Poems by William Taylor. Taylor seems to have originally hailed from Banffshire, and must have been resident sometime in Currie, Midlothian, just at the foot of the Pentlands. I enclose copy of some lines on Burns, which must be one of the first printed poetical effusions on the Bard. There are also poems on Dr Blair, Fergusson, &c. The poetry is not up to much, but the ideas are good, and there are some uncommon Scotch words in them. There is one called "Jack Ass' Song," which is evidently to the tune of Green grow the Rashes, O." The first verse and the refrain runs thus:

And there is a poem on Fergusson, Ramsay, &c., but Burns is not mentioned in this one.

A. J. CRAIG.

Printed in

(From Scots Poems, by William Taylor.

Edinburgh M,DCC,LXXXVII.)

:

ON READING MR BURNS'S POEMS.

Whan Scotia, clad in wae, bemoan'd
Her Fergusson laid i' the yird;

The God o' Verse, heegh, heegh enthron'd,
Confess'd he was a hopefu' bird.

Than thus his Peers o' State address'd:

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Peers! wha shall wawk the Scottish lyre?
Than his braw Peers, wi' grief oppress'd,

Into the rows o' fate enquire :

Whare written was,

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Tho' Rob be dead,

Scots need na greet, nor mak' a bustle,
"An Ayrshire Blade shall beet their need,
"For Robie Burns shall blaw the whistle."

The God a genius quickly sent

T' inspire the Ayrshire Ploughman Billie ;
Stop, Lady Muse, ye've spun your stent;
Content, quo' Muse, my Norland Willie.*

For modesty wou'd gar him blush,†

Gin we wou'd sing his just applause;
An' has he fawts? the answer's hush;
Nae Mortal Man is free o' flaws.

Corstorphine.

*The Author is a Banffshire Man.

A. J. CRAIG.

†Witness Mr Burns's Answer to W. Sn, Ochiltree.

In November-December, 1918, there was exhibited in London what was described as 66 'The Burns Cottage Collection, comprising the Furniture of the Cottage in which the Poet, Robert Burns, was born, on January 25th, 1759." The claim advanced on behalf of the Collection was refuted by Mr J. C. Ewing, in an article in the Glasgow Herald of 7th December, 1918. Lack of space prevents the reprinting, in this number of the Chronicle, of that article and of two subsequent letters on the subject, from the President of the Burns Federation and Mr Thomas Killin, Hon. Treasurer of the National Burns Memorial and Cottage Homes at Mauchline; but it is proposed to reprint them in our next issue.

ROLL OF HONOUR.

IN FRANCE.

Cover the wound in his forehead pale,
Where his soul sped in the gloaming,
Fluttered and flew through the misty vale,
Like a startled wild bird homing.
No train of mourners, no tolling bell,
Nor flowers on a coffin lying;
For requiem only a screaming shell
Through the grey sky o'er us flying.

Carry him slowly, carry him low,

And carefully choose your going;
Narrow the trenches, and deep the snow,
And the snipers watch your showing!

No costly cerements to wrap him round-
The khaki needs no adorning :
He'll sleep in that till the trumpet sound
Reveille on Judgment morning.

A small, rude cross, a number, a name,
His memory fragrant keeping,
A soldier who fought for Britain's fame
In a foreign land a-sleeping.

Back to the trenches, over the snow,
And carefully mind your going:
There's danger where the parapet's low.
And the snipers watch your showing.
-JAS. BROWN.

The following names have been sent to the Secretary to be added to the List of Members and Members' Sons already published who have given their lives for their King and Country.