ject; meanwhile, with respect to his "Rhapsodies about Drinking," Burns knew that not only had all the states, stages, and phases of inebriety been humorously illustrated by the comic genius of his country's most popular poets, but that the people themselves, in spite of their deep moral and religious conviction of the sinfulness of intemperance, were prone to look on its indulgences in every droll and ludicrous aspect they could assume, according to the infinite variety of the modifications of individual character. As a poet dealing with life as it lay before and around him, so far from seeking to avoid, he eagerly seized on these; and having in the constitution of his own being as much humor and as rich as ever mixed with the higher elements of genius, he sometimes gave vent to its perceptions and emotions in strains perfectly irresistible-even to the most serious-who had to force themselves back into their habitual and ⚫ better state, before they could regard them with due condemnation.

But humor in men of genius is always allied to pathos-its exquisite touches

"On the pale cheek of sorrow awaken a smile,

And illumine the eye that was dim with a tear."

So is it a thousand times with the humor of Burns-and we have seen it so in our quotations from these very "Rhapsodies." He could sit with "rattling roarin' Willie"-and when he belonged to the Crochallan Fencibles, "he was the king of a' the core." But where he usually sat up late at night, during those glorious hard-working years, was a low loft above a stable-so low that he had to stoop even when he was sitting at a deal table three feet by two with his "heart inditing a good matter" to a plough-boy, who read it up to the poet before they lay down on the same truckle-bed.

Burns had as deep an insight as ever man had into the moral evils of the poor man's character, condition, and life. From many of them he remained free to the last; some he suffered late and early. What were his struggles we know, yet we know but in part, before he was overcome. But it does not appear that he thought intemperance the worst moral evil of the people,

or that to the habits it forms had chiefly to be imputed their falling short or away from that character enjoined by the law written and unwritten, and without which, preserved in its great lineaments, there cannot be to the poor man, any more than the rich, either power or peace. He believed that but for "Man's inhumanity to man," this might be a much better earth; that they who live by the sweat of their brows would wipe them with pride, so that the blood did but freely circulate from their hearts; that creatures endowed with a moral sense and discourse of reason would follow their dictates, in preference to all solicitations to enjoyment from those sources that flow to them in common with all things that have life, so that they were but allowed the rights and privileges of nature, and not made to bow down to a servitude inexorable as necessity, but imposed, as he thought, on their necks as a yoke by the very hands which Providence had kept free;-believing all this, and nevertheless knowing and feeling, often in bitterness of heart and prostration of spirit, that there is far worse evil, because self-originating and self-inhabiting within the invisible world of every human soul, Burns had no reprobation to inflict on the lighter sins of the oppressed, in sight of the heavier ones of the oppressor; and when he did look into his own heart and the hearts of his brethren in toil and in trouble, for those springs of misery which are for ever welling there, and need no external blasts or torrents to lift them from their beds till they overflow their banks, and inundate ruinously life's securest pastures, he saw THE PASSIONS to which are given power and dominion for bliss or for bale of them in his sweetest, loftiest inspirations, he sung as a poet all he felt as a man; willing to let his fancy in lighter moods dally with inferior things and merry measures-even with the very meat and drink that sustains man who is but grass, and like the flower of the field flourisheth and is cut down, and raked away out of the sunshine into the shadow of the grave.

That Burns did not only not set himself to dissuade poor people from drinking, but that he indited "Rhapsodies" about "Scotch Drink," and "Earnest Cries," will not, then, seem at all surprising to poor people themselves, nor very culpable even in the eyes of the most sober among them; whatever may be the light

in which some people regard such delinquencies, your more-insorrow-than-anger moralists, who are their own butlers, and sleep with the key of the wine-cellar under their pillow; his poetry is very dear to the people, and we venture to say that they understand its spirit as well as the best of those for whom it was not written; for written it was for his own Order-the enlightened majority of Christian men. No fear of their being blind to its venial faults, its more serious imperfections, and if there they be, its sins. There are austere eyes in work-shops, and in the fields, intolerant of pollution; stern judges of themselves and others preside in those courts of conscience that are not open to the public; nevertheless, they have tender hearts, and they yearn with exceeding love towards those of their brethren who have brightened or elevated their common lot. Latent virtues in such poetry as Burns's are continually revealing themselves to readers, whose condition is felt to be uncertain, and their happiness to fluctuate with it; adversity puts to the test our opinions and beliefs, equally with our habits and our practices; and the most moral and religious man that ever worked from morning to night, that his family might have bread -daily from youth upwards till now he is threescore and tenmight approve of the sentiment of that Song, feel it in all its fervor, and express it in all its glee, in which age meeting with age, and again hand and heart linked together, the "trusty feres," bring back the past in a sun-burst on the present, and thoughtless of the future, pour out unblamed libations to the days "o' auld lang syne!"

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It seems to us very doubtful if any poetry could become popular, of which the prevalent spirit is not in accordance with that of the people, as well in those qualities we grieve to call vices, as in those we are happy to pronounce virtues. It is not sufficient that they be moved for a time against their will, by some moral poet desirous, we shall suppose, of purifying and elevating their character, by the circulation of better sentiments than those with which they have been long familiar; it is necessary that the will shall go along with their sympathies to preserve them perhaps from being turned into antipathies; and that is not likely to happen, if violence be done to long-established customs

and habits, which may have acquired not only the force, but something too of the sanctity, of nature.

But it is certain that to effect any happy change in the manners or the morals of a people—to be in any degree instrumental to the attainment or preservation of their dearest interests-a Poet must deal with them in the spirit of truth; and that he may do so, he must not only be conversant with their condition," but wise in knowledge, that he may understand what he sees, and whence it springs-the evil and the good. Without it, he can never help to remove a curse or establish a blessing; for a while his denunciations or his praises may seem to be working wonders his genius may be extolled to the skies-and himself ranked among the benefactors of his people; but yet a little while, and it is seen that the miracle has not been wrought, the evil spirit has not been exorcised; the plague-spot is still on the bosom of his unhealed country; and the physician sinks away unobserved among men who have not taken a degree.

Look, for example, at the fate of that once fashionable, for we can hardly call it popular, tale-" Scotland's Skaith, or the History of Will and Jean," with its Supplement, "The Waes o' War." Hector Macneil had taste and feeling-even genius —and will be remembered among Scottish poets.

"Robin Burns, in mony a ditty,

Loudly sings in whisky's praise;
Sweet his sang! the mair's the pity
E'er on it he war'd sic lays.

"O' a' the ills poor Caledonia

E'er yet pree'd, or e'er will taste,
Brew'd in hell's black Pandemonia-
Whisky's ill will skaith her maist."

So said Hector Macneil of Robert Burns, in verse not quite so vigorous as the "Earnest Cry." It would require a deeper voice to frighten the "drouthy" from "Scotch Drink," if it be "brewed in hell." "Impressed with the baneful consequences inseparable from an inordinate use of ardent spirits among the lower orders of society, and anxious to contribute something that might at least tend to retard the contagion of so

dangerous an evil, it was conceived, in the ardor of philanthropy, that a natural, pathetic story, in verse, calculated to enforce moral truths, in the language of simplicity and passion, might probably interest the uncorrupted; and that a striking picture of the calamities incident to idle debauchery, contrasted with the blessings of industrious prosperity, might (although insufficient to reclaim abandoned vice) do something to strengthen and encourage endangered virtue. Visionary as these fond expectations may have been, it is pleasing to cherish the idea; and if we may be allowed to draw favorable inferences from the sale of ten thousand copies in the short space of five months, why should we despair of success?" The success, if we may trust to statistical tables, has, alas! been small; nor would it have been greater had a million copies been put into circulation. For the argument illustrated in the "History of Will and Jean" has no foundation in nature-and proceeds on an assumption grossly calumnious of the Scottish character. The following verses used once to ring in every ear :—

"Wha was ance like Willie Garlace,

Wha in neiboring town or farm?
Beauty's bloom shone in his fair face,
Deadly strength was in his arm?

"Wha wi' Will could rin, or wrestle,

Throw the sledge, or toss the bar?
Hap what would, he stood a castle,
Or for safety or for war:

"Warm his heart, and mild as manfu',
Wi' the bauld he bauld wad be;
But to friends he had a handfu',

Purse and service aft were free."

He marries Jeanie Millar, a wife worthy of him, and for three years they are good and happy in the blessing of God. What in a few months makes drunkards of them both? He happens to go once for refreshment, after a long walk, into a way-side public house-and from that night he is a lost man. He is described as entering it on his way home from a Fair-and we never heard of a Fair where there was no whisky-drinks