sweetness of the rose, or the song of the mavis. His verses were not composed according to any rules, and are not intended to be judged; they must be felt. When the great Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter, heard some young connoisseurs going through the parrot-like routine of great names in the art

When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff,—

and in the same manner there would be a considerable pocketing of trumpets and tapping of lids, if I began any pedantic disquisition on styles of poetry, qualities of verse, and correctness of metaphor, with reference to Robert Burns. Why, what would people have? We all know he's not the least like Pope; that the "Twa Dogs" has not the slightest resemblance to Spencer's" Fairy Queen;" and that "Duncan Gray" can never be mistaken for "Paradise Lost." In fact, I am happy to say, he is remarkably unclassical, very often incorrect, both in rhyme and grammar, occasionally breaks down in a comparison, and that in choice of subjects he is as low and ungenteel as can possibly be. He actually celebrates the vulgar enjoyments of a set of beggars, met to spend in merriment the result of their fictitious illnesses and melancholy impositions on the charity of

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the humane. He writes a poem on a small animal, so dreadfully vulgar that it is never even mentioned in polite society-a nasty, creeping, disgusting reptile, which appeared one day on a lady's bonnet at church. He wrote another poem on a wretched little mouse turned up by a plough, whereas it is evident he ought only to have written about lions and elephants; and altogether, when we examine his performances through the golden spectacles of Almack's and high life, we wonder the man has attained any reputation at all. Alas! that Parnassus is not covered with Turkey carpets, and the fount of Helicon composed of Eau de Cologne! But, perhaps, it is only with "hecklers" and farmers like himself that he is popular-hobnailed fellows who would wear holes in the Turkey carpet, and never perceive the scented Helicon, though held in gobletfuls under their nose? Let us leave them with their congenial poet, and shut him out of our boudoirs and drawing-rooms. But every drawing-room in England would be darkened if Burns was shut out; every library would feel a positive want, if that vulgar person's dirty little volume was excluded. And why is this? All our criticism is contained in the simple answer-The man was natural. The man had a soul. Without this, all the refinement in the world, and all the correctness, and

all the poetry are of no use-we stand unmoved amidst a cannonade of simile and trope; but with this, there is nothing with which we cannot sympathize. There is nothing vulgar or revolting when ennobled by a true and sensitive heart. As to lowness,-that amazing weapon in the armoury of fools,-what is there low in the admiration a peasant breathes out to his sweetheart?—in the description of an honest labourer's cottage, with "the big ha' Bible, aince his father's pride," placed reverently on the table?—or even in animated pictures of the sports of "Halloween" and the jovialities of "Souter Johnnie?" Our esteemed and celebrated friend, Jeames Plush, Esq., may call these things "low," and express his contempt for them to Mary Hann; but we, who are not gifted with integuments of purple velvet, come to a very different decision. We tell our Mary Hanns that there is something so purifying in warm and real affection, that there is nothing low in the strains where such feelings are expressed; nay, that there is something elevating to humanity itself in the sincerity and simplicity of those rustic songs-that rank, station, wealth, learning, all sink into the shade when the one great string is struck. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin!" And this was the power of Robert Burns. If I were quite sure my friend Mr. Plush was fairly

out of hearing, I would quote in proof of this a frightfully vulgar-looking story-but which isn't vulgar in the slightest degree-which, though it is only about tippling shoemakers and whiskyloving farmers, is as free from "lowness" as if it were about sporting dukes and right honourable members of the Cabinet. It is the tale of "Tam O'Shanter," and his encounter with the witches:

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak' the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' gettin fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonny lasses.)
O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou wasna sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;

That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;
She prophesy'd, that late or soon,

Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon;
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

Ah, gentle dames; it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises !

But to our tale:-Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou' for weeks thegither!
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter;
And ay the ale was growing better:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle—
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himself among the nappy:
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.

But pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;