lected for a chapter upon national manners, by some careful traveller, or historian. Tacitus's book de moribus Germanorum, if it were versified, would be much more like a poem than the Saturday Night; though perhaps nothing can be better than the Saturday Night, as a good, plain piece of sense and observation. Tam O'Shanter possesses higher merits, together with a good deal of characteristic description, and broad humour ; it contains lines, which deserve the name of poetry in the true sense of that word. Such are the following: "But pleasures are like poppies spread, * * Or like the rainbow's lovely form * * (Vol. III. p. 327, 328.) "Coffins stood round, like open presses, "And by some devilish cantrip slight, "Each in its cauld hand held a light." 1 (Ibid. p. 330.) There is much humour in a little song, composed by the poet on his marriage : " I hae a wife o' my ain, I'll partake wi' nae-body; " I hae a penny to spend, There-thanks to nae-body; "I am nae-body's lord, " I'll be merry and free, I'll be sad for nae-body; (Vol. I. p. 195. note.) That however, which national partiality has celebrated as humour, is, in most instances, nothing better than dull detail, with an offensive vulgarity both of sentiment and of expression. From the sweep of this condemnation, the countrymen of Burns are now struggling hard to exempt the pieces in the Scottish tongue. But that point is not to be conceded without consideration; for Dr. Moore, himself a Scotchman, in one of his letters (Currie's Edition, Vol. II. p. 240) expressly advises our author to "abandon the Scottish stanza and dialect, and adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry." Now, ifScotchmen were unanimous in preferring Burns's Scotch writings, it might seem presumptuous in Southern critics to dispute about the pre-eminence; but when our own common sense is backed by so high an authority, we may reasonably question, if not deny, the great cleverness even of Halloween, Scotch Drink, and the Twa Dogs. Nay, the two former of these three poems may perhaps be pronounced absolutely tedious and heavy. As to the third, though more amusing, it breathes an offensive spirit of vulgar discontent, and a mischievous eagerness to misrepresent the constitution of society. Such topics were very seductive to this irascible bard, who never could forgive the higher classes of society, for being the higher classes. Indeed, as a politician, he was an extraordinary compound. His family had made him a Jacobite, and his opinions inclined him to be a Jacobin. His vulgarity sometimes appears rather in particular expressions and allusions, than in the general tone of the piece: and of this fault one specimen will probably be quite sufficient. The author, after some lines of good, plain, natural feeling, speaks thus of his friend and of his wife: "Fate still has blest me with a friend, In every care and ill; A tie more tender still. It lightens, it brightens To meet with, and greet with "O, how that name inspires my style! The ready measure rins as fine, But lest then, the beast then His sweaty wizen'd hide." (Vol. III. p. 160, 161.) Burns's descriptivemerit is not confined to the humorous and accurate delineation of character and manners. The appearances of external nature are often seized by his fancy, with all the skill and fidelity of a painter: as in the following passage, the style of which is not unlike the manner of Mr. Walter Scott: "As I stood by yon roofless tower, Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air, "The winds were laid, the air was still, "The stream adown its hazelly path, "The cauld blue North was streaming forth (Vol. IV. p. 345, 346,) Through the greatest part of his works, Burns perpetually betrays a failing, which is almost inseparable from self-taught minds, the notion thata thousand trite common-places, which have never been imparted to himself, must be important discoveries of his own, and of course can never have been yet imparted to other people. Accordingly we find him frequently preaching successions of flat, stale sentences, on the most threadbare topics of morality. There is page after page of such lines as the prosing stanza that follows: "It's no in titles nor in rank, It's no in wealth like Lon'on Bank, To purchase peace and rest; Nae treasures, nor pleasures, (Vol. III. p. 157.) Sometimes his common-place is that of declamation: as in the following address to the shades of unknown ancient bards : "O ye illustrious names unknown! who could feel so strongly " and describe so well; the last, the meanest of the muses' train 66 one who, though far inferior to your flights, yet eyes your path, "and with trembling wing would sometimes soar after you-a poor rustic bard unknown, pays this sympathetic pang to your " memory!" (Reliques, p. 348.) 66 But this style, though too prevalent, is not universal: for we frequently find a real originality of thought. The collection now published, contains more ingenious prose, than all the preceding volumes, taken together. In a letter to two young ladies, he says neatly: "I have one vexatious fault to the kindly-welcome, well-filled "sheet which I owe to your and Charlotte's goodness-it contains "too much sense, sentiment, and good-spelling. It is impossible "that even you two, whom I declare to my God, I will give credit " for any degree of excellence the sex are capable of attaining, it is "impossible you can go on to correspond at that rate; so like "those who, Shenstone says, retire because they have made a good "speech, I shall after a few letters hear no more of you. I insist "that you shall write whatever comes first: what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike, "trifles, bagatelles, nonsense; or to fill up a corner, e'en put down " a laugh at full length." (Reliques, p. 41.) The following reflections on self-appreciation, contain good sense: " I have often observed, in the course of my experience of human "life, that every man, even the worst, has something good about "him; though very often nothing else than a happy temperament "of constitution inclining him to this or that virtue. For this rea. son, no man can say in what degree any other person, besides "himself, can be, with strict justice, called wicked. Let any, of "the strictest character for regularity of conduct among us, exa. "mine impartially how many vices he has never been guilty of, not "from any care or vigilance, but for want of opportunity, or some "accidental circumstance intervening; how many of the weaknesses "of mankind he has escaped, because he was out of the line of "such temptation; and, what often, if not always, weighs more "than all the rest, how much he is indebted to the world's good "opinion, because the world does not know all: I say, any man "who can thus think, will scan the failings, nay, the faults and "crimes, of mankind around him, with a brother's eye." : (Reliques, p. 322, 323.) There is a good deal of imagination in this too : "My worst enemy is Moimême. I lie so miserably open to "the inroads and incursions of a mischievous, light-armed, well. "mounted banditti, under the banners of imagination, whim, "caprice, and passion; and the heavy-armed veteran regulars of " wisdom, prudence and forethought, move so very, very slow, " that I am almost in a state of perpetual warfare, and alas! fre"quent defeat. There are just two creatures that I would envy, |