desponding martyrs of sloth, or suicidal slaves of intemperance. If ever there was an example of paramount genius, like the first created lion, bursting from the earth,

"Pawing to get free

His hinder parts ;"

MILTON.

then rampant, and bounding abroad, and "shaking his brinded mane," in all the joy of new-found life; if ever there was such an example, calculated to quicken souls as sordid as the clod, and make them start up from behind the plough into poets, the story of Robert Burns affords it. And if ever there was a warning of the degradation and destruction of talents of the highest order, calculated to scare the boldest and vainest adventurer from the fields of poesy, the story of Burns presents that terrific warning; — that flaming sword turning every way, to forbid entrance into that paradise of fancied bliss, but real woe, in which he rioted and fell. But as I propose to allude further to his career in the close of this paper, at present I hasten to notice (very imperfectly, indeed) the themes of poetry, and its influences.

The Themes of Poetry.

It is an affecting consideration, that more than half the interest of human life arises out of the sufferings of our fellow-creatures. The mind is not satisfied alone with the calm of intellectual enjoyments, nor the heart with tender and passionate emotions, nor the senses themselves with voluptuous indulgence.

The mind must be occasionally roused by powerful and mysterious events, in which the ways of Providence are so hidden, that the wisdom and goodness of God are liable to be questioned by ignorance or presumption, while faith and patience must be silent and adore: the heart must sometimes be probed by sympathies so rending, that they only fall short of the actual agony to which they are allied; the senses cannot always resist the undefineable temptation to yield themselves to voluntary torture.

Among the crowds that follow a criminal to execution, is there one who goes, purely, for the pleasure of witnessing the violent death of a being like himself, sensible even under the gallows to the inconvenience of a shower of rain, and cowering under the clergyman's umbrella, to listen for the last word of the last prayer that shall ever be offered for him?-No; some may be indifferent, and a few may be hardened, but not one can rejoice; while the multitude, who are melted with genuine compassion, nevertheless gaze from the earliest glimpse of his figure on the scaffold, to the latest convulsions of his frame, with feelings, in which the strange gratification of curiosity, too intense to be otherwise appeased, so tempers the horror of the spectacle, that it can not only be endured on the spot, but every circumstance of it recalled in cool memory, and invested with a character of romantic adventure.

Can any sorrow of affection exceed, in poignancy, the anguish and anxiety of a mother, watching the progress of consumption in the person of an only son, in whom her husband's image lives, though he is

dead, and looks as he once looked when young, and yet a lover; the son, in whom also her present bliss, her future hopes on earth, are all bound up, as in the bundle of life?—No;- there is a worm that dies not in her bosom, from the first moment when she feels its bite, on discovering the hectic rose upon his cheek, that awakens a thousand unutterable fears, not one of which in the issue is unrealised, till the last withering lily there, as he lies in his coffin, with the impress on his countenance of Death's signet, bearing, even to the eye of love, this inscription, "Bury me out of thy sight!"-Yet, of all the pangs that she has experienced, there is not one, which she did not choose even for its own sake, she would not be comforted!—there is not one, which she would have foregone for any delight under heaven, except that which it was impossible for her to know - his recovery; and while she lives, and while she loves, the recollections that endear him to her happiest feelings are heightened almost to joy in grief, by the remembrance of how much she suffered for him.

To the man of thought, all that is terrible and afflictive in nature, in society, in imagination, is food for his mind, such as spirits, alone, of higher temperament can fully taste and turn into luxury; but which inferior ones can relish, too, in no small measure. Earthquakes, volcanoes, lightning, tempest, famine, plague, and inundation; hard labour, penury, thirst, hunger, nakedness, disease, insanity, death; the existence of moral evil; the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of man's heart; envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness; -the commis

sion and the punishment of crimes against society; oppression, bondage, impotent resistance of injustice; with all the wrongs and woes of a corrupt or a tyrannical government; the desolations of foreign war; the miseries of civil strife; -to sum up all, the troubles to which we are born, the calamities which we bring upon ourselves, the outrages which we inflict on each other, the judgments of Divine Providence on individuals, families, nations, the whole human race,each class, and the whole accumulation of these awakening and appalling evils, not only afford inexhaustible subjects of sublime and inspiring contemplation to the sage, and themes for the poet; but by the manner in which they affect the entire progeny of Adam, prove that more than half the interest of mortal life arises out of the sufferings of our fellow

creatures.

The wisdom and kindness of God are most graciously manifested in thus educing good from evil. There is so much floating and perpetual distress in the world, and in every part of it, that were a person of the firmest nerve to know all that is enduring for one hour only, in one place, the present hour, at this moment, throughout this great city, —and were he able to sympathise with it, in every case, and all at once, as though the whole were under his eyes, within hearing, in his neighbourhood, in his family,

his spirit would assuredly sink under it, and if life were prolonged, and reason not totally overthrown, he would never relapse into gaiety. On the other hand, there is so much selfishness in our nature, that if the groans of the whole creation around could

neither reach our ears, nor touch our hearts, we should be of all animals the most insensate, the most ferocious. It is good for us to be afflicted in the afflictions of others, but it would be death or madness to be so beyond that indefineable line, which Providence has drawn, and within which we are unconsciously kept by the power that wheels the planets in their orbits, and suffers not a sparrow to fall to the ground without permission.

While the last paragraph was passing through my pen upon paper, a fly glanced through the candleflame, fell backwards into the liquid round the wick, and lay weltering there for several seconds before the mercy of a trembling hand could inflict a speedier death than that which it was enduring. What an age of misery might have been condensed within those few moments to the poor fly, is inconceivable to man; but could this be ascertained by some curious enquirer, the nightly burnings alive of flies alone would be sufficient to render his own existence miserable; yet who would choose to be utterly regardless of the sufferings of the meanest insect, the structure of whose frame is a miracle of Omnipotence? and whatever cold-blooded scepticism may insinuate to the contrary, whose sensibilities are probably so acute, that, in the language of the poet,

"E'en the poor beetle that we tread on, feels

As great a pang as when a giant dies."

And thus is man so "fearfully and wonderfully made," as to require for the health of his body, the expansion of his intellect, and the purifying of his