bourhood, celebrated the centenary of Burns by a dinner in the Cafe Royal. The chair was occupied by Mr. John Hendry, and Mr. A. M. Davidson acted as croupier. After the usual loyal toasts, the Chairman, in an admirable speech, proposed the toast of the evening"The Immortal Memory of Burns," which was received with rapturous enthusiasm. Mr. Da vid Black then read, amidst great applause, some verses composed by him for the occasion. The "Sons of Burns," "The Peasantry of Scotland," "The Daughter and Nieces of Burns," and various other toasts were given. Several of the Bard's choicest songs were sung in the course of the evening, and altogether the meeting was one of great enthusiasm. CITY HALL. GLASGOW. with these busts, ran on either side along the whole length of the hall those of Wilson, Scott, Motherwell, Ramsay, Shakspeare, Milton, Byron, Dryden, Pope, and others of the great and good. The spaces between the pillars of the galleries were draped with crimson cloth, fringed with evergreen, and on these, in white letters, were inscribed some of the poet's most popular and most successful lines and poems. In two of the spaces were two whole verses from "The Cottar's Saturday Night." The whole appearance of the hall was brilliant in the extreme. coursed several pieces of music. The gallery was laid out with a service of cake and wine for the ladies, who were to enter after dinner. The grand Glasgow demonstration took place in the City Hall. About five o'clock P. M. the company began to assemble, and a few minutes thereafter the body of the hall was filled. The place was magnificently decorated. In front of the organ there was suspended a large screen, painted to represent various scenes and objects connected with Burns. On the right side was the familiar "Brigs o' Doon," "The Ayr Monument," "The Auld Alloway Kirk," and the cottage in which he was born. On the left side of the painting was "The Mausoleum at While the company were assembling, the exDumfries," with its local scenery. On the excellent band of the Sherwood Foresters distreme left was represented the Edinburgh Monument with the Craigs and Arthur's Seat in the background. In the centre of this composite landscape was represented a bronze statue of the poet ten feet high. The attitude is taken as he appeared when "following his plough in glory and in joy," with his eyes bent on the ground as if he were musing. Above this characteristic painting, which, we believe, is the work of Mr. Bowie, 26 Bothwell Street, are the shield, mottoes, and crest of the poet. At each side the flags of Scotland, England, France, and America drooped in mingled carelessness, and were supported by the shields of Scotland and Glasgow. On either side, hanging from the organ, and every appropriate place, were flags of all designs and colours, which beautifully undulated in the gentle upper current of the hall. Conspicuous in front of the platform was the splendid portrait of Burns by Mr. Macnee, which was displayed to the best advantage. On the wall at each end of the chairman's table were two busts of Burns, the one the classic model of St. Fillans, and the other that of Mr. Currie. The former was kindly lent by Mr. Thomas Brown, and the latter by Mr. A. Balloch. In the same line The gentlemen took their places on the platform in the following order :-Sir Archibald Alison, Bart., chairman-supported on the right by Colonel Burns, Sir David Brewster, Samuel Lover, Sheriff Trotter, and Principal Barclay; on the left by the Lord Provost, Judge Haliburton, R. Monckton Milnes, M.P.; R. Monteith of Carstairs, and Dr. Norman M'Leod. The gentlemen at the second table of the platform were:-Bailie Houldsworth; Mr. Lowe, of the Critic; C. R. Brown; Blanchard Jerrold; Wm. Burns, Esq.; A. Smollett, M.P.; Bailie Fowler; James Cairns, Esq.; Bailie Brown; Bailie Wilson; Bailie Gemmill; Councillor Arthur; D. M. Lang, Esq.; Councillor Clark; J. Cutler Ferguson, Esq.; James Merry, Esq.; Andrew Mitchell, Esq.; Robert Burns Begg; Begg, jun.; and Colonel Mellish. The gentleman composing the third table on the platform were:-J. Ross, jun., Esq.; W. B. Faulds, Esq.; Robert Gunn, Esq.; A. Dennistoun, Esq.; Smith, Irvine; Moses Provan, Esq.; John Crawford, Esq.; D. M'Cub Blessing being asked by Professor Barclay, a very capital and recherche dinner-served up by Mr. M'Lerie-was disposed of. Dr. M'Leod returned thanks. bin, Esq.; R. J. Currie, Esq.; A. J. Sym- | The CHAIRMAN (who was received with loud mington, Esq.; Dr. Morton; John M'Nab, cheers) said,--The first toast, gentlemen, of Esq.; George Coats, Esq.; Charles Rogers, this evening, and the first in all the numerous LL.D., Stirling; J. T. Rochead, Esq.; Officers assemblies who are met together on this occaof the Sherwood Foresters; Haliburton Hume, sion, and at this hour, in honour of Burns, is Esq.; Dr. Laurie; Provost Grey; Dr. Burns; our most gracious Sovereign, "The Queen." J. B. Dill, Esq.; J. Muir Wood, Esq.; Dr. (Hear, hear.) Reigning, as she does, in the Strang, City Chamberlain; P. Rintoul, Esq.; affections of all her subjects, and distinguished as George Troup, Esq.; Dr. Drummond; Adam her rule has been by every public and private Sim, Esq.; Paterson, Esq.; Andrew virtue-(cheers)—there is no assembly of Britons M'Laggan, Esq.; &c. The croupiers were:- in any part of the world among whom her Robert Dalglish, Esq., M.P.; Walter Buchanan, name is not at all times received with enthusiEsq., M.P.; Henry Glassford Bell, Esq., Advo- asm. (Cheers.) But there are peculiar reasons cate; Peter Cunningham, Esq.; Alexander why in this country, and on this occasion, it Baillie Cochrane, Esq. of Lamington. should be hailed with more than ordinary feelings of loyalty. Viewing, indeed, with equal eyes, as sovereign of all, her varied subjects from the Equator to the Arctic circle, her conduct has always been distinguished by that impartiality which was her first duty. Yet we are entitled to hope that she views with peculiar interest the country of her royal ancestors, through whom she has ascended the throne of Britain (cheers)—that her heart is with the land of the mountain and the flood, and that she gladly escapes from the toils and the cares of Royalty to seek refuge in the seclusion of her Highland home, amidst the blue hills, and dark forests, and sounding cataracts of Caledonia. (Cheers.) But in addition to this, there is another and a still stronger reason why, on this day, we should drink our Sovereign's health with enthusiasm. We are assembled to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Burns, and you will soon show with what feelings it will be hailed. (Cheers.) But, coeval with his birth, there was another event arising in a distant hemisphere—the birth of a mighty Eastern empire-the growth of which during an entire century has been commensurate with that of the fame of the Poet, and which has, at its close, attained as colossal a height among the nations of our earth as his has done in the land of song. (Cheers.) And now both have been accomplished on the centenary of our national bard, I have the happiness to give, for the first time from this chair, the health of "Queen Victoria, Sovereign of Great Britain and the Indies." I cannot form a warmer wish for the countless inhabitants of those vast realms, than that the Government of the Queen and her successors may be regulated by this maxim, announced in her noble address on ascending the throne: "It is your prosperity which is our strength; it is your loyalty which is our security; it is your gratitude which is our happiness." (Loud cheering.) The CHAIRMAN then rose and said,-Before we begin the proper business of the evening, allow me to make two observations in reference to the conduct of the business. We have ascertained that no voice, however powerful, can be heard from the other end of the room, and therefore, when the croupiers are to give toasts, they will be requested to move up to the platform, in order that what they say may be heard by the whole company. (Applause.) Another observation I have to make before we begin is this, it is important that the toast of the evening, "The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns," should be given with all the honours. It is usual on occasions of the health of dead persons being drunk to give the toast in solemn silence; but, gentlemen, Burns never will be dead, his spirit is immortal, and we will give him with all the honours. (Loud cheers.) | Gentlemen, in order that he may be thus given, after the speech in which I will have the honour to propose it, I hope you will rest for a minute or two till your glasses are all filled with champagne, in order that the toast may be befittingly honoured. (Cheers.) Allow me, also, in reference to the arrangements of the meeting, to make one other request. There are a number of stewards here present who have been appointed to the agreeable duty of ushering in the ladies who are in attendance to hear this meeting. I request that those gentlemen who have been selected for this duty will now retire to the other end of the room, that they may perform in a proper way their agreeable functions. (Applause.) The ladies' stewards accordingly retired, and in a minute or two ushered in a most brilliant assemblage of the fair sex, who, on taking their places in the galleries, were greeted with loud and long-continued cheers. The Chairman then rose to give the usual loyal and patriotic toasts. The toast was drunk with the usual honours. The CHAIRMAN then proposed in succession "The Prince Consort and the rest of the Royal | that they are of the same stamp as those who Family" and "Her Majesty's Ministers," which were duly responded to. bled with Wallace, and were led on by Robert Bruce, and whose spirit is still to be found among their descendants, ready with strong hands and with stout hearts to do their duty to their country. (Applause.) Song "There was a lad was born in Kyle"-Mr. John Muir. The CHAIRMAN then rose, amid loud cheering, and said—I have now to propose to you a toast which I know will be received with enthusiasm, the toast of the evening-"The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns." (Tremendous cheering, continued for several minutes.) In approaching this great subject I know not whether to feel more impressed with the lowliness of the origin from which our great national poet sprung, or the colossal magnitude of the fame which he has since attained. (Hear, hear.) On this day one hundred years The CHAIRMAN then said-The next toast on the list is one not indeed immediately connected with poetry, but to which no assembly in this country will ever fail to respond with enthusiasm that of "The Navy and Army of Great Britain." (Cheers.) I trust that the cloud which has lately overspread the political horizon in Europe may be dispelled, and that the peace of the world may be long undisturbed. (Hear, hear.) But if it should prove otherwise, and our warriors by sea and land are again to be called into action, I feel assured that they will uphold and extend the ancient martial fame of their country. (Cheers.) Those who have within four years brought to a glorious conclusion two mighty wars in far distant hemispheres, need not fear any adversary; and the conquerors of the Alma, of Inkermann, of 25th January, 1759-a child was born in a Delhi and Lucknow, may safely be intrusted cottage near the now classic Kirk of Alloway, with the honour of their country. (Applause.) in Ayrshire, intended apparently for a humble Nor let it be said that those sentiments are lot, and to be gathered at length to his fathers foreign to this night's festivities-for who was unknown, unsung, in this simple churchyard, so intrepid and ardent a patriot as Burns?- where "his rude forefathers of the hamlet (cheers)—and who shall say what influence the slept." (Cheers.) But this child was destined immortal lines "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace to immortality-(continued cheering)-nature bled,” have had in rousing the heroic spirit of had given him the patent of true nobility, the his countrymen? (Cheers.) His gallant son passport to eternal fame; and while all, or -my friend, Colonel Burns, adorned with the nearly all, cotemporary reputation have already Burmese medal, is beside me, a living example passed away, his alone is hourly on the increase, of their inspiring influence. (Cheers.) The and now shines like the fixed stars with imperspirit elicited on the mountains of Scotland has ishable lustre. (Loud cheers.) It has come to led his countrymen to victory amidst the snows embrace not only his own countrymen but all of the Himalaya. I trust that your reception who can admire genius and venerate lofty feelof this toast will animate our warriors by sea ings in every country of the civilised globe. and land to continued efforts in behalf of their In every city and village of Scotland, in not a country-for glory is the soldier's idol-na- | few in England and Ireland, multitudes are now tional gratitude is his best reward. (Cheers.) assembled to celebrate his genius, and wherever And I know that words which have been spoken, the English language is spoken, in Europe, and cheers which have been heard in this place, Asia, or America, one universal chorus of adhave resounded over the world-smoothed the miration is resounding in honour of our peapillow of suffering in the hospitals of Scutari-sant-son. (Cheers.) His fame has been like and lightened the bed of death in the charnel house of Lucknow. (Loud and long-continued cheering.) The toast was drunk amid loud cheers. Colonel MELLISH, in reply, said-On this occasion, the fighting part of the community is principally represented by the militia, and therefore I have the honour of rising to return thanks for the toast which you have just so warmly received. With reference to the Poet, in whose honour we are this day assembled, I may remark that the countrymen of Robert Burns have lately and most brilliantly participated in the many gallant achievements of the British navy and army, and have thus shown the swelling eddie, which rises round a pebble thrown by a child-the child of nature-into a stream; but that stream has descended to the ocean and become a mighty wave, which has rolled across the Atlantic, and broke, and will for ever break, on the American and Australian shores. (Hear, hear.) Vast as is this assembly which I now address, it is but the representative of millions in the East and in the West, in the North and in the South, who are now found together in the expression of common feeling; and the pulse which now throbs so violently at the very name of Burns under this roof, is beating also at the same moment in the extremities of the earth, afar off in Australian and Transatlantic wilds. Whence is this moral prodigy in which we all participate, yet at which we are still surprised? It is to few men only, and those in ages far distant from each other, that Nature has given the passport to immortality, and when she has done it, it is not on the great or the affluent that she in general has bestowed the gift, but on the most humble and suffering of the human race. (Applause.) She gave it to the Bard of Chios-as a blind and needy supplicant he wandered through the isles of Greece. She gave it to him of the Mantuan lake as he mourned the loss of his little freehold under the shadow of his wide-spreading beech-tree. gave it to the exile of Florence as by the waters of the Po he sat down and wept. She gave it to the prisoner of Ferrara as in the gloom of his dungeon he mourned a hopeless love. She gave it to the Republican of England, after he had, poor and unbefriended, She But where was she to find a worthy recipient for such a gift among the aged civilisation and national jealousies and political passions of Europe in the close of the eighteenth century? She looked for him in the halls of princes, but she found him not there. She looked for him in the senates of nobles, but she found him not there. She looked for him in the forums of commerce, but she found him not there. She looked for him in the solitude of nature, and she found him beside the plough, with his eye fixed on the mountain daisy, which spread its humble beauties beneath his feet. (Loud cheers.) It was in this very circumstance—the lowliness of his origin-that the secret of his ultimate greatness is to be found. (Hear, hear.) The child of nature, he told us, like Homer, or the Hebrew poet in the book of Job, what he saw and what he felt, uninfluenced by the greatness, unbought by the wealth, undeterred by the criticism of the world. Mr. Pitt said at Lord Liverpool's table, shortly after Burns' death, that "since the time of Shakspeare poetry had never come so sweetly from the hand of Nature as in his rhyme;" and that was literally true, and true just because Nature had been his only teacher. Self-taught, untutored, he poured forth in unpremeditated lays "the short and simple annals of the poor," but in their short and simple annals he found means to descend to the inmost depths of the human heart, to ascend to the loftiest heights of human feeling. "The Cottar's Saturday Night" is the most perfect picture that ever was drawn, not merely of individual life, but of the race of man, inferior to none in the world in virtue and firmness-the peasantry of the land. (Cheers.) "Auld Langsyne" has become the national air of Scotland-the expression of the love of home and of the scenes of infancy to the entire civilised world. (Loud cheers.) "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" is already the war-song of the bold and the patriotic in every country of the earth-(hear, hear)-and the passion of love in its purest form was never so finely expressed as in his immortal lines to Highland "Mary in Heaven.” "That sacred hour can I forget? Can I forget the hallowed grove, Ayr gurgling kissed her pebbly shore Beneath the wild wood's thickening green, The birds sang love on every spray, Proclaimed the speed of winged day. Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, As streams their channels deeper wear." (Loud cheering.) All the world has joined in admiration of these exquisite lines; but our wonder at them becomes greater when we recollect that they were written by the poet on the anniversary of Mary's death, after he had concluded the labours of the harvest field, when resting on some corn sheaves, with his eye fixed on the evening star, whose growing light "proclaimed the speed of winged day." (Cheers.) To us, and to Scotchmen in every part of the world who can appreciate the fidelity of his pictures, the poems of Burns possess a peculiar and indescribable charm: they recall scenes of early youth, long unseen, but still unforgotten, and realize in waking hours the beautiful words of the poet in the Soldier's Dream: "I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life's morning march, when my bosom was common excuse that his frailties were those to which men of ardent and poetic mind have in all ages been most subject. I disdain any such apology. I recognize no exemption from moral even to inanimate objects. The hares, the field mouse, the mountain daisy have been celebrated in his songs. Above all, he possessed in the highest degree that great quality without which, in the trial of Time, all others are but as tink-responsibility in the sons of genius. I know ling brass--a due appreciation of the dignity of human nature, and a firm determination to assert it. (Loud cheers.) To him we owe those noble lines now become as household words in every land of freedom : : "The rank is but the guinea stamp; (Cheers.) To this quality also he owed many of the misfortunes with which his life was embittered. Had he condescended to flatter the great-to conciliate the affluent-to fawn upon the multitude-he might have earned ease and comfort in life; but he disdained to do any of the three. Therefore he was neglected by his cotemporaries—therefore we are now raising statues to his memory. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, it is said that Burns was a Radical. I know he was; but I do not respect him the less on that account. (Cheers.) I wish we had more Radicals like Burns. (Continued cheering.) Most men of his ardent and poetic temperament are inclined to those opinions, especially early in life, and were so most of all in his day. They see in others the generous feelings of which they are conscious in themselves. It is well they are so; they would miss their mission if they were not. Genius is the moving power of the moral world. Experience is the fly-wheel which regulates the movements of the mighty machine: without the first it would stand still; without the second it would be torn in pieces. It is by the counteracting influence of the two, as by the antagonist action of fire and water in the material world, that the equilibrium of nature is preserved; and thus is secured at once the life, the progress, and the stability of nations. (Hear.) But if Burns was a Radical, he was not less a patriot. He was no advocate for domestic broils or foreign interference, he respected every man in his own position, but did not seek to change it; for what said he to the Dumfries Volunteers, of whom he was a member? "Be Britain still to Britain true, (Loud cheers.) A more serious charge brought against Burns is that his life was sometimes irregular, some of his poems effusions which, however admired at the moment, his warmest friends must now lament. Gentlemen, in reference to this charge I will not repeat the rather that from him to whom much is given much also will be expected. But I say he was a son of Adam, and let him that is without sin among you throw the first stone. (Cheers.) I would answer in the words of Bolingbroke, when reminded of the faults of his great political antagonist, Marlborough-"Yes, I know he had faults; but he was so great a man that I have forgot what they were." (Loud cheers.) And I would recommend his detractors to imitate his example, to expiate passing faults by lasting benefits to the species, and like him to cause the spots on the sun to be forgotten in the lustre of his rays. (Cheers.) But one great moral truth I extract from the fate of Burns, and that is that no lasting fame is to be acquired, even by the brightest genius, save that which is devoted to the purposes of Virtue; for the few poems of Burns which we now lament have long since passed into oblivion, and those on which his immortal fame is rested are as pure as the driven snow. And, as such, they will form an unseen bond which will for ever unite Britons and their children in every part of the world-a bond which will survive the maturity of colonies, the severance of empires; and "Auld Langsyne" will hold together the wide-spread descendants of the British empire, when grown into independent states "Tho' seas atween them since hae row'd." Gentlemen, I have detained you too long; and I conclude in the words of the Poet "A last request permit me here When yearly ye assemble a', To him the Bard that's far awa." The learned Chairman then resumed his seat amidst tremendous cheering. The toast was drunk with all the honours, the whole company rising to their feet; and ladies, as well as gentlemen, waving their handkerchiefs, and making every demonstration of enthusiasm. Song "Highland Mary "-Mr. Stembridge Ray. Colonel JAMES GLENCAIRN BURNS, who was received with enthusiastic applause, said-I humbly thank my God that He has spared me to live and see this glorious day, a day on which so many thousands in almost every part of the globe are paying homage to the genius of the Bard of Scotia. (Cheers.) My mother told the late Mr. M'Diarmid of Dumfries that my father once said to her-" Jean, one hundred |