prayers. His sceptical doubts no longer troubled him—they had never been more than shadows-and he had at last the faith of a confiding Christian. We are not even to suppose that his heart was always disquieted within him because of the helpless condition of his widow and orphans. That must have been indeed with him a dismal day on which he wrote three letters about them so full of anguish; but to give vent to grief in passionate outcries usually assuages it, and tranquillity sometimes steals upon despair. His belief that he was so sunk in debt was a delusion-not of delirium-but of the fear that is in love. And comfort must have come to him in the conviction that his country would not suffer the family of her Poet to be in want. As long as he had health they were happy though poor-as long as he was alive they were not utterly destitute. That on his death they would be paupers, was a dread that could have had no abiding place in a heart that knew how it had beat for Scotland, and in the power of genius had poured out all its love on her fields and her people. His heart was pierced with the same wounds that extort lamentations from the death-beds of ordinary men, thinking of what will become of wife and children; but like the pouring of oil upon them by some gracious hand, must have been the frequent recurrence of the belief—“On my death people will pity them, and care for them for my name's sake." Some little matter of money he knew he should leave behind him-the two hundred pounds he had lent to his brother; and it sorely grieved him to think that Gilbert might be ruined by having to return it. What brotherly affection. was there! They had not met for a good many years; but personal intercourse was not required to sustain their friendship. At the Brow often must the dying Poet have remembered Mossgiel.

On the near approach of death he returned to his own house, in a spring-cart-and having left it at the foot of the street, he could just totter up to his door. The last words his hand had strength to put on paper were to his wife's father, and were written probably within an hour of his return home. "My dear Sir,-Do for heaven's sake send Mrs Armour here immediately. My wife is hourly expected to be put to bed. Good God! what a situation for her to be in, poor girl, without a friend! I returned from sea-bathing quarters to-day; and

my medical friends would almost persuade me that I am better; but I think and feel that my strength is so gone, that the disorder will prove fatal to me.- -Your son-in-law, R. B." That is not the letter of a man in delirium-nor was the letter written a few days before, from the Brow, to "my dearest love." But next day he was delirious, and the day after too, though on being spoken to he roused himself into collected and composed thought, and was, ever and anon, for a few minutes himself Robert Burns. In his delirium there was nothing to distress the listeners and the lookers-on-words were heard that to them had no meaning-mistakings made by the parting spirit among its language now in confusion breaking up -and sometimes words of trifling import about trifling things -about incidents and events unnoticed in their happening, but now strangely cared for in their final repassing before the closed eyes just ere the dissolution of the dream of a dream. Nor did his deathbed want for affectionate and faithful service. The few who were privileged to tend it did so tenderly and reverently-now by the side of the sick wife, and now by that of the dying husband. Maxwell, a kind physician, came often to gaze in sadness where no skill could relieve. Findlater-supervisor of excise-sat by his bedside the night before he died; and Jessie Lewars-daughter and sister of a gauger—was his sick-nurse. Had he been her own father she could not have done her duty with a more perfect devotion of her whole filial heart-and her name will never die, "here eternised on earth" by the genius of the Poet who for all her Christian kindness to him and his had long cherished towards her the tenderest gratitude. His children had been taken care of by friends, and were led in to be near him now that his hour was come. His wife in her own bed knew it, as soon as her Robert was taken from her; and the great Poet of the Scottish people, who had been born "in the auld clay biggin on a stormy winter night, died in a humble tenement on a bright summer morning, among humble folk, who composed his body, and according to custom strewed around it flowers brought from their own gardens.

Great was the grief of the people for their Poet's death. They felt that they had lost their greatest man; and it is no exaggeration to say that Scotland was saddened on the day of his funeral. It is seldom that tears are shed even close to the 0

VOL. VII.

grave, beyond the inner circle that narrows round it; but that day there were tears in the eyes of many far off at their work, and that night there was silence in thousands of cottages that had so often heard his songs-how sweeter far than any other, whether mournfully or merrily to old accordant melodies they won their way into the heart! The people had always loved him; they best understood his character, its strength and its weakness. Not among them at any time had it been harshly judged, and they allowed him now the sacred privileges of the grave. The religious have done so ever since, pitying more than condemning, nor afraid to praise; for they have confessed to themselves, that had there been a window in their breasts as there was in that of Burns, worse sights might have been seen—a darker revelation. His country charged herself with the care of them he had loved so well, and the spirit in which she performed her duty is the best proof that her neglect-if neglect at any time there were-of her Poet's wellbeing had not been wilful, but is to be numbered with those omissions incident to all human affairs, more to be lamented than blamed, and if not to be forgotten, surely to be forgiven, even by the nations who may have nothing to reproach themselves with in their conduct towards any of their great poets. England, "the foremost land of all this world," was not slack to join in her sister's sorrow, and proved the sincerity of her own, not by barren words, but fruitful deeds, and best of all by fervent love and admiration of the poetry that had opened up so many delightful views into the character and condition of our "bold peasantry, their country's pride," worthy compatriots with her own, and exhibiting in different Manners the same national Virtues.

No doubt, wonder at a prodigy had mingled in many minds with admiration of the ploughman's poetry; and when they of their wondering found an end, such persons began to talk with abated enthusiasm of his genius and increased severity of his character, so that, during intervals of silence, an undercurrent of detraction was frequently heard brawling with an ugly noise. But the main stream soon ran itself clear; and Burns has no abusers now out of the superannuated list; out of it-better still-he has no patrons. In our youth we have heard him spoken of by the big-wigs with exceeding condescension; now the tallest men know that to see his features

rightly they must look up. Shakespeare, Spencer, and Milton, are unapproachable; but the present era is the most splendid in the history of our poetry-in England beginning with Cowper, in Scotland with Burns. Original and racy, each in his own land is yet unexcelled; immovably they both keep their places their inheritance is sure. Changes wide and deep, for better and for worse, have been long going on in town and country. There is now among the people more education-more knowledge than at any former day. Their worldly condition is more prosperous, while there is still among them a deep religious spirit. By that spirit alone can they be secured in the good, and saved from the evil of knowledge; but the spirit of poetry is akin to that of religion, and the union of the two is in no human composition more powerful than in "the Cottar's Saturday Night." "Let who may have. the making of the laws, give me the making of the ballads of a people," is a profound saying; and the truth it somewhat paradoxically expresses is in much as applicable to a cultivated and intellectual as to a rude and imaginative age. From our old traditional ballads we know what was dearest to the hearts and souls of the people. How much deeper must be the power over them of the poems and songs of such a man as Burns, of himself alone superior in genius to all those nameless minstrels, and of a nobler nature; and yet more endeared to them by pity for the sorrows that clouded the close of his life.

SPEECH AT THE BURNS FESTIVAL.

["The Burns Festival"-a meeting at which the people of Scotland of all ranks assembled in large numbers to do honour to the memory of their great national poet-was celebrated in the vicinity of Ayr on the 6th of August 1844. Not fewer than 80,000 persons were present on the occasion; and when they marched in procession with playing bands and streaming banners past the platform on which the Dii Majores of the jubilee were stationed, the spectacle was in the highest degree exhilarating. It was a demonstration worthy of the nation, and of the genius which the nation delighted to honour. In the afternoon about 2000 of the assembly dined together in an elegant pavilion extemporised for that purpose. The Earl of Eglinton was in the chair: Professor Wilson acted as croupier; and it was then that he delivered the following oration, in proposing as a toast "The Sons of Burns," who were present as guests at the entertainment.]

WERE this Festival but to commemorate the genius of Burns, and it were asked, what need now for such commemoration, since his fame is coextensive with the literature of the land, and enshrined in every household ?—I might answer, that although admiration of the poet be wide as the world, yet we, his compatriots, to whom he is especially dear, rejoice to see the universal sentiment concentred in one great assemblage of his own people that we meet in thousands and tens of thousands to honour him, who delights each single one of us at his own hearth. But this commemoration expresses, too, if not a profounder, a more tender sentiment; for it is to welcome his sons to the land he has illustrated, so that we may at once indulge our national pride in a great name, and gratify in filial hearts the most pious of affections. There was in former times a custom of crowning great poets. No such ovation honoured our bard, though he too tasted of human applause, felt its delights, and knew the trials that attend it. Which would Burns himself have preferred, a celebration like this in his lifetime, or fifty years after his death? I venture to say, he would have preferred the posthumous as the finer incense. The honour and its object are then seen in juster proportion; for death confers an elevation which the candid