lily or violet shiftingly the same, should be a song in its simplicity, variously tinged with fine distinctions of the one color of that pervading feeling-now brighter, now dimmer, as open and shut the valve of that mystery, the heart. Sell a song! Nono-said Burns-" You shall have hundreds for nothing—and we shall all sail down the stream of time together, now to merry, and now to sorrowful music, and the dwellers on its banks, as we glide by, shall bless us by name, and call us of the Immortals."

It was in this way that Burns was beguiled by the remembrance of the inspirations of his youthful prime, into the belief that it would be absolutely sordid to write songs for money; and thus he continued for years to enrich others by the choicest products of his genius, himself remaining all the while, alas! too poor. The richest man in the town was not more regular in the settlement of his accounts, but sometimes on Saturday nights he had not wherewithal to pay the expenses of the week's subsistence, and had to borrow a pound note. He was more ready to

lend one, and you know he died out of debt. But his family

suffered privations it is sad to think of-though to be sure the children were too young to grieve, and soon fell asleep, and Jean was a cheerful creature, strong at heart, and proud of her famous Robin, the Poet of Scotland, whom the whole world admired, but she alone loved, and so far from ever upbraiding him, welcomed him at all hours to her arms and to her heart. It is all very fine talking about the delight he enjoyed in the composition of his matchless lyrics, and the restoration of all those faded and broken songs of other ages, burnished by a few touches of his hand to surpassing beauty; but what we lament is, that with the Poet it was not "No song, no supper," but "No supper for any song "—that with an infatuation singular even in the history of the poetic tribe, he adhered to what he had resolved, in the face of distress which, had he chosen it, he could have changed into comfort, and by merely doing so as all others did, have secured a competency to his wife and children. Infatuation! It is too strong a word-therefore substitute some other weaker in expression of blame-nay, let it be—if so you will-some gentle term of praise and of pity; for in this most

selfish world, 'tis so rare to be of self utterly regardless, that the scorn of pelf may for a moment be thought a virtue, even when indulged to the loss of the tenderly beloved. Yet the great natural affections have their duties superior over all others between man and man; and he who sets them aside, in the generosity or the joy of genius, must frequently feel that by such dereliction he has become amenable to conscience, and in hours when enthusiasm is tamed by reflection, cannot escape the tooth of remorse.

How it would have kindled all his highest powers, to have felt assured that by their exercise in the Poet's own vocation he could not only keep want from his door "with stern alarum banishing sweet sleep," but clothe, lodge, and board "the wife and weans," as sumptuously as if he had been an absolute supervisor! In one article alone was he a man of expensive habits— it was quite a craze with him to have his Jean dressed genteelly -for she had a fine figure, and as she stepped along the green, you might have taken the matron for a maid, so light her foot, so animated her bearing, as if care had never imposed any burden on her not ungraceful shoulders heavier than the milk-pail she had learned at Mossgiel to bear on her head. 'Tis said that she was the first in her rank at Dumfries to sport a gingham gown, and Burns's taste in ribands had been instructed by the rainbow. To such a pitch of extravagance had he carried his craze that when dressed for church, Mrs. Burns, it was conjectured, could not have had on her person much less than the value of two pounds sterling money, and the boys, from their dress and demeanor, you might have mistaken for a gentleman's sons. Then he resolved they should have the best education going; and the Hon. the Provost, the Bailies, and Town Council, he petitioned thus: "The literary taste and liberal spirit of your good town have so ably filled the various departments of your schools, as to make it a very great object for a parent to have his children educated in them; still, to me a stranger, with my large family, and very stinted income, to give my young ones that education I wish, at the high school fees which a stranger pays, will bear hard upon me. Some years ago your good town did me the honor of making me an honorary burgess, will you then

allow me to request, that this mark of distinction may extend so far as to put me on a footing of a real freeman in the schools?" Had not "his income been so stinted," we know how he would have spent it.

Then the world-the gracious and grateful world-"wondered and of wondering found no end," how and why it happened that Burns was publishing no more poems. What was he about? Had his genius deserted him? Was the vein wrought out? of fine ore indeed, but thin, and now there was but rubbish. His contributions to Johnson were not much known, and but some six of his songs in the first half part of Thomson appeared during his life. But what if he had himself given to the world, through the channel of the regular trade, and for his own be hoof, in Parts, or all at once, THOSE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY SONGS-new and old-original and restored-with all those disquisitions, annotations, and ever so many more, themselves often very poetry indeed—what would the world have felt, thought, said, and done then? She would at least not have believed that the author of the Cottar's Saturday Night was-a drunkard. And what would Burns have felt, thought, said, and done then? He would have felt that he was turning his divine gift to a sacred purpose he would have thought well of himself, and in that just appreciation there would have been peace-he would have said thousands on thousands of high and noble sentiments in discourses and in letters, with an untroubled voice and a steady pen, the sweet persuasive eloquence of the happy-he would have done greater things than it had before entered into his heart to conceive his drama of the Bruce would have come forth magnificent from an imagination elevated by the joy that was in his heart-his Scottish Georgics would have written themselves, and would have been pure Virgilian-Tale upon Tale, each a day's work or a week's, would have taken the shine out of Tam o' Shanter.

And here it is incumbent on us to record our sentiments regarding Mr. Thomson's conduct towards Burns in his worst extremity, which has not only been assailed by "anonymous scribblers," whom perhaps he may rightly regard with contempt; but as he says in his letter to our esteemed friend, the ingenious

and energetic Robert Chambers, to "his great surprise, by some writers who might have been expected to possess sufficient judgment to see the matter in its true light."

6

In the "melancholy letter received through Mrs. Hyslop," as Mr. Thomson well calls it, dated April, Burns writes, "Alas! my dear Thomson, I fear it will be some time before I tune my lyre again. By Babel streams I have sat and wept,' almost ever since I wrote you last (in February, when he thanked Mr. Thomson for ' a handsome elegant present to Mrs. B―,' we believe a worsted shawl). I have only known existence by the pressure of the heavy hand of sickness, and have counted time but by the repercussions of pain. Rheumatism, cold, and fever, have formed to me a terrible combination. I close my eyes in misery, and open them without hope." In his answer to that letter, dated 4th May, Mr. Thomson writes, "I need not tell you, my good sir, what concern your last gave me, and how much I sympathize in your sufferings. But do not, I beseech you, give yourself up to despondency, nor speak the language of despair. The vigor of your constitution, I trust, will soon set you on your feet again; and then it is to be hoped you will see the wisdom of taking due care of a life so valuable to your family, to your friends, and to the world. Trusting that your next will bring agreeable accounts of your convalescence, and good spirits, I remain with sincere regard, yours." This is kind as it should be; and the advice given to Burns is good, though perhaps, under the circumstances, it might just as well have been spared. In a subsequent letter without date, Burns writes, "I have great hopes that the genial influence of the approaching summer will set me to rights, but as yet I cannot boast of returning health. I have now reason to believe that my complaint is a flying gout; a sad business." Then comes that most heart-rending letter, in which the dying Burns, in terror of a jail, implores the loan of five pounds-and the well-known reply. "Ever since I received your melancholy letter by Mrs. Hyslop, I have been ruminating in what manner I could endeavor to alleviate your sufferings," and so on. Shorter rumination than of three months might, one would think, have sufficed to mature some plan for the alleviation of such sufferings, and human ingenuity has been more severely

taxed than it would have been in devising means to carry it into effect. The recollection of a letter written three years before, when the Poet was in high health and spirits, needed not to have stayed his hand. "The fear of offending your independent spirit," seems a bugbear indeed. "With great pleasure I enclose a draft for the very sum I had proposed sending!! Would I were CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER but for one day for your sake!!!”

Josiah Walker, however, to whom Mr. Thomson gratefully refers, says, a few days before Burns expired, he applied to Mr. Thomson for a loan of £5, in a note which showed the irritable and distracted state of his mind, and his commendable judgment instantly remitted the precise sum, foreseeing that had he, at that moment, presumed to exceed that request, he would have exasperated the irritation and resentment of the haughty invalid, and done him more injury, by agitating his passions, than could be repaired by administering more largely to his wants." Haughty invalid! Alas! he was humble enough now. "After all my boasted independence, stern necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds!" Call not that a pang of pride. It is the outcry of a wounded spirit shrinking from the last worst arrow of affliction. In one breath he implores succor and forgiveness from the man to whom he had been a benefactor. "Forgive me this earnestness-but the horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. FORGIVE ME! FORGIVE ME!" He asks no gift—he but begs to borrow-and trusts to the genius God had given him for ability to repay the loan; nay, he encloses his last song, "Fairest Maid on Devon's banks," as in part payment! But oh! save Robert Burns from dying in prison. What hauteur! And with so "haughty an invalid," how shall a musical brother deal, so as not "to exasperate his irritation and resentment," and do him "more injury by agitating his passions, than could be repaired by administering more largely to his wants? More largely! Faugh! faugh! Foreseeing that he who was halfmad at the horrors of a jail, would go wholly mad were ten pounds sent to him instead of five, which was all "the haughty invalid" had implored, "with commendable judgment," according to Josiah Walker's philosophy of human life, George Thom