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of elegant and flowing drapery; but her native charms remain, the more striking perhaps, because the less adorned; and to these she trusts for fixing her empire on those affections over which fashion has no sway. If she succeeds, a new association arises. The dress of the beautiful rustic becomes itself beautiful, and establishes a new fashion for the young and the gay. And when, in after ages, the contemplative observer shall view her picture in the gallery that contains the portraits of the beauties of successive centuries, each in the dress of her respective day, her drapery will not deviate more than that of her rivals, from the standard of his taste, and he will give the palm to her who excels in the lineaments of nature.

Burns wrote professedly for the peasantry of his country, and by them their native dialect is universally relished. To a numerous class of the natives of Scotland of another description, it may also be considered as attractive in a different point of view. Estranged from their native soil, and spread over foreign lands, the idiom of their country unites with the sentiments and the descriptions on which it is employed, to recal to their minds the interesting scenes of infancy and youth-to awaken many pleasing, many tender recollections. Literary men, residing at Edinburgh or Aberdeen, cannot judge on this point for one hundred and fifty thousand of their expatriated countrymen".

These observations are excited by some remarks of respectable correspondents of the description alluded to. This calculation of the number of Scotchmen living out of Scotland is not altogether arbitrary, and it is probably below the truth. It is in some degree founded on the proportion between the number of the sexes in Scotland, as it appears from the invaluable Statistics of Sir John Sinclair.-For Scotchmen of this description more particularly, Burns seems to have written his song beginning, Their groves o' sweet myrtle, a beautiful strain, which, it may be confi

To the use of the Scottish dialect in one species of poetry, the composition of songs, the taste of the public has been for some time reconciled. The dialect in question excels, as has already been observed, in the copiousness and exactness of its terms for natural objects; and in pastoral or rural songs, it gives a Doric simplicity, which is very generally approved. Neither does the regret seem well founded, which some persons of taste have expressed, that Burns used this dialect in so many other of his compositions. His declared purpose was to paint the manners of rustic life among his "humble compeers," and it is not easy to conceive, that this could have been done with equal humour and effect, if he had not adopted their idiom. There are some indeed who will think the subject too low for poetry. Persons of this sickly taste, will find their delicacies consulted in many a polite and learned author; let them not seek for gratification in the rough and vigorous lines, in the unbridled humour, or in the overpowering sensibility of this bard of nature.

To determine the comparative merit of Burns would be no easy task. Many persons, afterwards distinguished in literature, have been born in as humble a situation of life, but it would be difficult to find any other, who, while earning his subsistence by daily labour, has written verses which have attracted and retained universal attention, and which are likely to give the author a permanent and distinguished place among the followers of the muses. If he is deficient in grace, he is distinguished for ease, as well as energy; and these are indications of the higher order of genius. The father of epic poetry exhibits one of his heroes as excelling in strength, another in swiftness-to form his perfect warrior, these attributes are combined. Every species of intellectual superiority admits

dently predicted, will be sung with equal or superior interest, on the banks of the Ganges or of the Mississippi, as on those of the Tay or the Tweed.

perhaps of a similar arrangement. One writer excels in force; another in ease-he is superior to them both, in whom both these qualities are united. Of Homer himself it may be said, that, like his own Achilles, he surpasses his competitors in mobility as well as strength.

The force of Burns lay in the powers of his understanding and in the sensibility of his heart; and these will be found to infuse the living principle into all the works of genius which seem destined to immortality. His sensibility had an uncommon range. He was alive to every species of emotion. He is one of the few poets that can be mentioned, who have at once excelled in humour, in tenderness, and in sublimity; a praise unknown to the ancients, and which in modern times is only due to Ariosto, to Shakespeare, and perhaps to Voltaire. To compare the writings of this Scottish peasant, with the works of these giants in literature, might appear presumptuous; yet it may be asserted, that he has displayed the foot of Hercules. How near he might have approached them, by proper culture, with lengthened years, and under happier auspices, it is not for us to calculate. But, while we run over the melancholy story of his life, it is impossible not to heave a sigh at the asperity of his fortune; and, as we survey the records of his mind, it is easy to see, that out of such materials have been reared the fairest and the most durable of the monuments of genius.

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A GREAT number of poems have been written on the death of Burns, some of them of considerable poetical merit. To have subjoined all of them to the present edition, would have been to have enlarged it to another volume at least; and to have made a selection, would have been a task of considerable delicacy.

The editor therefore presents one poem only on this melancholy subject; a poem which has not before appeared in print. It is from the pen of one who has sympathized deeply in the fate of Burns, and will not be found unworthy of its author-the biographer of Lorenzo de' Medici. Of a person so well known, it is wholly unnecessary for the editor to speak; and, if it were necessary, it would not be easy for him to find language that would adequately express his respect and his affection.

REAR high thy bleak majestic hills,
Thy shelter'd valleys proudly spread,
And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills,
And wave thy heaths with blossoms red;
But ah! what poet now shall tread
Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign,
Since he, the sweetest bard is dead
That ever breath'd the soothing strain?

As green thy towering pines may grow,
As clear thy stream may speed along,
As bright thy summer suns may glow,
As gayly charm thy feathery throng;

But now, unheeded is the song,

And dull and lifeless all around,
For his wild-harp lies all unstrung,

And cold the hand that wak'd its sound.

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