sermon corresponded with his looks and his lungs-the whole being indeed an extraordinary exhibition of divine worship. We never can think it sinful that Burns should have been humorous on such a pulpiteer; and if we shudder at some of the verses in which he seems yet alive, it is not at the satirist.

"From this time, I began to be known in the country as a maker of rhymes. Holy Willie's Prayer next made its appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, and see if any of it might be pointed against profane rhymers;" "and to a place among profane rhymers," says Mr. Lockhart, in his masterly volume, "the author of this terrible infliction had unquestionably established his right." Sir Walter speaks of it as piece of satire more exquisitely severe than any which Burns ever afterwards wrote, but unfortunately cast in a form too daringly profane to be received into Dr. Currie's collection.” We have

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no wish to say one word in opposition to the sentence pronounced by such judges; but has Burns here dared beyond Milton, Goethe, and Byron? He puts a Prayer to the Almighty into the mouth of one whom he believes to be one of the lowest of blasphemers. In that Prayer are impious supplications couched in shocking terms, characteristic of the hypocrite who stands on a familiar footing with his Maker. Milton's blasphemer is a fallen angel, Goethe's a devil, Byron's the first murderer, and Burns's an elder of the kirk. All the four poets are alike guilty, or not guilty-unless there be in the case of one of them something peculiar that lifts him up above the rest, in the case of another something peculiar that leaves him alone a sinner. Let Milton then stand aloof, acquitted of the charge, not because of the grandeur and magnificence of his conception of Satan, but because its high significance cannot be misunderstood by the pious, and that out of the mouths of the dwellers in darkness, as well as of the Sons of the Morning "he vindicates the ways of God to man." Byron's Cain blasphemes; does Byron? Many have thought so for they saw, or seemed to see, in the character of the Cursed, as it glooms in soliloquies that are poetically sublime, some dark intention in its delineator to inspire doubts of the justice of the Almighty One who inhabiteth eternity. Goethe in

the "Prologue in Heaven" brings, Mephistopheles face to face with God. But Goethe devoted many years to "his great poem, Faust," and in it he too, as many of the wise and good believe, strove to show rising out of the blackness of darkness the attributes of Him whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity. Be it even so; then, why blame Burns? You cannot justly do so, on account of the "daringly profane form " in which " Holy Willie's Prayer" is cast, without utterly reprobating the "Prologue in Heaven."

Of the Holy Fair few have spoken with any serious reprehension. Dr. Blair was so much taken with it that he suggested a well known emendation-and for our own part we have no hesitation in saying, that we see no reason to lament that it should have been written by the writer of the Cottar's Saturday Night. The title of the poem was no profane thought of his—it had arisen long before among the people themselves, and expressed the prevalent opinion respecting the use and wont that profaned the solemnization of the most awful of all religious rites. In many places, and in none more than in Mauchline, the administration of the Sacrament was hedged round about by the self-same prac. tices that mark the character and make the enjoyment of a Rural Fair-day. Nobody doubts that in the midst of them all sat hundreds of pious people whose whole hearts and souls were in the divine service. Nobody doubts that even among those who took part in the open or hardly concealed indecencies which custom could never make harmless, though it made many insensible to their grossness, not a few were now and then visited with devout thoughts; nay, that some, in spite of their improprieties, which fell off from them unawares, or were by an act of pious volition dismissed, were privileged to partake of the communion elements. Nobody supposes that the heart of such an assemblage was to be judged from its outside-that there was no composed depth beneath that restless surface. But everybody knows that there was fatal desecration of the spirit that should have reigned there, and that the thoughts of this world were paramount at a time and place set apart, under sanctions and denunciations the most awful, to the remembrance of Him who purchased for us the kingdom of Heaven.

We believe, then, that Burns was not guilty in this poem of any intentional irreverence toward the public ordinances of religion. It does not, in our opinion, afford any reason for supposing that he was among the number of those who regard such ordinances as of little or no avail, because they do not always exemplify the reverence which becomes men in the act of communing with their God. Such is the constitution of human nature that there are too many moments in the very article of these solemn occasions when the hearts of men are a prey to all their wonted cares and follies; and this short-coming in the whole solemnity robs it to many a delicate and well-disposed, but not thoroughly instructed imagination, of all attraction. But there must be a worship by communities as well as by individuals; for in the regards of Providence, communities appear to have a personality as well as individuals; and how shall the worship of communities be conducted, but by forms and ceremonies, which as they occur at stated times, whatever be the present frame of men's minds, must be often gone through with coldness. If those persons would duly consider the necessity of such ordinances, and their use in the conservation of religion, they would hold them sacred, in spite of the levity and hypocrisy that too often accompany their observance, nor would they wonder to see among the worshippers an unsuspected attention to the things of this world. But there was far more than this in the desecration which called for "the Holy Fair" from Burns. A divine ordinance had through unhallowed custom been overlaid by abuses, if not to the extinction, assuredly to the suppression, in numerous communicants, of the religious spirit essential to its efficacy; and in that fact we have to look for a defence of the audacity of his sarcasm; we are to believe that the Poet felt strong in the possession of a reverence far greater than that which he beheld, and in the conviction that nothing which he treated with levity could be otherwise than displeasing in the eye of God. We are far from seeking to place him, on this occasion, by the side of those men who, "strong in hatred of idolatry," become religious reformers, and while purifying Faith, unsparingly shattered Forms, not without violence to the cherished emotions of many pious hearts. Yet their wit too was often

aimed at faulty things standing in close connection with solemnities which wit cannot approach without danger. Could such scenes as those against which Burns directed the battery of his ridicule be endured now? Would they not be felt to be most profane? And may we not attribute the change in some measure to the Comic Muse?

Burns did not need to have subjects for poetry pointed out and enumerated to him, latent or patent in Scottish Life, as was considerately done in a series of dullish verses by that excellent person, Mr. Telford, Civil Engineer. Why, it has been asked, did he not compose a Sacred Poem on the administration of the Sacrament of our Lord's Last Supper? The answer is-how could he with such scenes before his eyes? Was he to shut them, and to describe it as if such scenes were not? Was he to introduce them, and give us a poem of a mixed kind, faithful to the truth? From such profanation his genius was guarded by his sense of religion, which though defective was fervent, and not unaccompanied with awe. Observe in what he has written, how he keeps aloof from the Communion Table. Not for one moment does he in thought enter the doors of the House of God. There is a total separation between the outer scene and the inner sanctuary-the administration of the sacrament is removed out of all those desecrating circumstances, and left to the imagination of the religious mind-by his silence. Would a great painter have dared to give us a picture of it? Harvey has painted, simply and sublimely, a "Hill Sacrament." But there all is solemn in the light of expiring day; the peace that passeth all understanding reposes on the heads of all the communicants; and in a spot sheltered from the persecutor by the solitude of sympathizing nature, the humble and the contrite, in a ritual hallowed by their pious forefathers, draw near at his bidding to their Redeemer.

We must now return to Burns himself, but cannot allow him to leave Ellisland without dwelling for a little while longer on the happy life he led for three years and more on that pleasant farm. Now and then you hear him low-spirited in his letters, but generally cheerful; and though his affairs were not very prosperous, there was comfort in his household. There was

peace and plenty; for Mrs. Burns was a good manager, and he was not a bad one; and one way and another the family enjoyed an honest livelihood. The house had been decently furnished, the farm well stocked; and they wanted nothing to satisfy their sober wishes. Three years after marriage, Burns, with his Jean at his side, writes to Mrs. Dunlap, "as fine a figure and face we can produce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected modesty, and unsullied purity; nature's mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with, the ways of a selfish, interested, disingenuous world; and the dearest charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing with a more than equal return; these, with a healthy frame, a sound, vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of life.” Josiah Walker, however, writing many years after, expresses his belief that Burns did not love his wife. "A discerning reader will perceive," says he, "that the letters in which he announces his marriage are written in that state, when the mind is pained by reflecting on an unwelcome step; and finds relief to itself in seeking arguments to justify the deed, and lessen its disadvantages in the opinion of others. But the greater the change which the taste of Burns had undergone, and the more his hopes of pleasure must in consequence have been diminished, from rendering Miss Armour his only female companion, the more credit does he deserve for that rectitude of resolution, which prompted him to fulfil what he considered as an engagement, and to act as a necessary duty prescribed. We may be at the same time permitted to lament the necessity which he had thus incurred. A marriage, from a sentiment of duty, may by circumstances be rendered indispensable; but as it is undeniably a duty, not to be accomplished by any temporary exertion, however great, but calling for a renewal of effort every year, every day, and every hour, it is putting the strength and constancy of our principles to the most severe and hazardous trial. Had Burns completed his marriage, before perceiving the interest which he had the power of creating in females, whose accomplishments of mind and manners