purposes of obtaining the interest of the great, and enhancing the merits of what, in reality, required no foil. The Cotter's Saturday Night, Tam O'Shanter, and the Mountain Daify, befides a number of later productions, where the maturity of his genius will be readily traced, and which will be given to the Public as foon as his friends have collected and arranged them, fpeak fufficiently for themselves; and had they fallen from a hand more diftinguished in the ranks of fociety than that of a peafant they had perhaps bestowed as unufual a grace there, as even to the humbled fhade of ruftic infpiration, from which they really sprung.

To the obfcure fcene of Mr Burns's education, and to the laborious, tho' honourable station of rural induftry in which his parentage enrolled him, almoft every inhabitant of the fouth of Scotland can give teftimony. His only furviving brother, Gilbert Burns, now guides the ploughfhare of his forefathers in Ayrshire, at a fmall farm near Mauchline; and our poet's eldest fon, (a lad of nine years of age, whofe early difpofitions already prove him the heritor of his father's talents, as well as indigence,) has been defined by his family to the humble employments of the loom.

That Burns had received no claffical education, and was acquainted with the Greek and Roman authors only through the medium of tranflations, is a fact that can be indifputably proved. I have feldom seen him at a lofs in converfation, unless where the dead languages and their writers were the fubject of difcuffion; when I have preffed him to tell me why he never took pains to acquire the Latin in particular, a language his happy memory had fo foon enabled him to be mafter of, he ufed only to reply, with a fmile, that he had already knew all the Latin he defired to learn, and that was, omnia vincit amor;" a phrafe, that

iterfuits, it thould undoubtedly his writings, and most favourfeem was most thoroughly verfed in; I really believe his claffic eruditio. extended little, if any farther.

The penchantr Burns had uniformly acknowledge for the feftive pleasure of the table, and towards the fairer and fofter objecs of Nature's creation, has been the rallying point where the attacks of his cenfors, both pious and moral, have been directed; and to thefe, it must be confeffed, he fhewed himfelf no Stoic. His poetical pieces blend with alternate happinefs of defcription the frolic fpirit of the joy.infpiring bowl, or melt the heart to the tender and impaffionated fentiments in which beauty always taught him to pour forth his own. But who will with to reprove the feelings he has confecrated with fuch lively touches of nature? And where is the rugged moralift that will perfuade us fo far to 66 chill the genial current of the foul," as to regret that Ovid ever celebrated his Corinna, or that Anacreon fung beneath his vine.

I will not however undertake to be the apologist of the irregularities even of a man of genius; though I believe it is as certainly understood that Genius never was free of irregu larities, as that their abfolution, in great measure, may be juflly claimed, fince it is certain, that the world had continued very ftationary in its intellectual acquirements had it never given birth to any but men of plain fenfe. Evenness of conduct, and a due regard to the decorums of the world, have been fo rarely feen to move hand in hand with Genius, that fome have gone fo far as to fay,though there I cannot acquiefce, and that they are even incompatible: Befides, the frailties that caft their hade over fplendor of fuperior merit are more confpicuously glaring than where they are the attendants

of mere mediocrity; it is only on the gem we are difturbed to fee the duft. The pebble may be foiled, and we never regard it. The eccentric intuitions of Genius too often yield the foul to the wild effervefcence of defires always unbounded, and fometimes equally dangerous to the repofe of others as fatal to its own. No wonder then if Virtue herfelf is fometimes loft in the blaze of kindling animation, or that the calm monitions of reafon were not invariably found fufficient to fetter an imagination which fcorned the narrow limits and restrictions that would chain it to the level of ordinary minds.

The Child of Nature, the Child of Sensibility, unbroke to the refrigerative precepts of philofophy, untaught always to vanquish the paffions which were his frequent errors; Burns makes his own artlefs apology in terms more forcible than all the argumentary vindications in the world could, in one of his poems, where he delineates with his ufual fimplicity the progrefs of his mind, and its first expansion to the leffons of the "Tutelary Mufe."

"I saw thy pulfe's maddening play, Wild fend thee Pleafure's devious way, Miled by Fancy's meteor ray,

By paffion driven;

But yet the light that led aftray,

Was light from heaven."

Vide" The Vifion," Duan II. I have already tranfgreffed far beyond the bounds I had propofed to myself on first committing to paper these sketches, which comprehend at least what I have been led to deem the leading features of Burns's mind and character. A critique, either literary or moral, I cannot aim at; mine is wholly fulfulled if, in thefe paragraphs, I have been able to delineate any ftrong traits that diftinguished him, of thofe talents which raised him from the plough, where he paffed the bleak

morning of his life, weaving his rude wreathes of poefy with the wild field flowers that sprung around his cottage, to the enviable eminence of literary fame, where Scotland will long cherish his memory with delight and gratitude, and proudly remember, that beneath her cold sky, a genius, was ripened without care or culture, that would have done honour to the genial temperature of climes better adapted to cherishing its germs, to the perfectioning of thofe luxuriances; that warmth of fancy and colouring, in which he fo eminently excelled!

From feveral paragraphs I have noticed in the public prints, even fince the idea of fending these thi ther was formed, I find private animofities are not yet fubfided, and envy has not yet done her part. I fill truft, however, that honeft fame will be affixed to Burns's reputation which he will be found to have merited, by the candid and impartial, among his countrymen; and where a kindred bofom is found, that has been taught to glow with the fires that animated Burns's, fhould a recollection of the imprudence that fullied his brighter qualifications interpofe; remember at the fame time the imperfection of all human excellence, and leave those inconfiftencies which alternately exalted his nature to the feraph, and tribunal which alone can investigate funk it again into the man, to the the labyrinths of the human heart,

"Where they alike in trembling hopes repofe

"The bofom of his father, and his God."..

He has left behind a wife, with five infant children, and in the hourly expectation of a fixth, without any refource but what he may hope from public fympathy, and the regard due to the memory of her husband. Need we fay any thing more to awaken the feelings of Benevolence? Burns, who himself erected a monu

ment

ment to the memory of his unfortunate poetical predeceffor Ferguson, has left in his diftreffed and helpless family an opportunity to his admirers and the public, at once to pay a tribute of refpect to the genius of the poet, and to erect a fubftantial monument of their own beneficence.Actuated by the regard which is due to the shade of fuch a genius, his remains were interred on Auguft 25th 1796, with military honours, and every fuitable refpect. The corpfe, having been previously conveyed to the town hall, remained there till the follow ing ceremony took place: The military at Dumfries, confifting of the Cinque Port Cavalry and the Angusfhire fencibles, having handfomely tendered their fervices, lined the ftreets on both fides to the burialground. The royal Dumfries volunteers, of which he was a member, in uniform, with crapes on their left arms, fupported the bier. A party of that corps, appointed to perform

the military obfequies, moving, in flow folemn time to the Dead March in Saul, which was played by the military band, preceded in mournful array with arms reverfed. The principal part of the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood, with a number of the particular friends of the band from remote parts, followed in proceffion; the great bells of the churches tolling at intervals. Arrived at the church-yard gate, the funeral party, according to the rules of that exercife, formed two lines, and leaned their heads on their firelocks pointed to the ground. Thro' this fpace the corpfe was carried, and borne forward to the grave. The party then drew up alongfide of it, and fired three vollies over the coffin when depofited in the earth. The whole ceremony prefented a folemn, grand, and affecting fpectacle; and accorded with the general forrow and regret for the lofs of a man whofe like we fcarce can see again.

OF F the affection between the fofter-father, fofter-mother, and fofter-brother, the following inftances in Wales were frequent. The fi delity of Robin ap Inko, fofter-brother to Jevan ap Vychan, of the houfe of Gwedir, in the reign of Ed. ward IV. was a moft noted one. In a fatal feud between Jevan and his brother-in-law, Rys ap Howel, the latter, expecting a fray, provided a butcher to murder Jevan in the confufion of the battle, and to him he gave orders in thefe terms. The butcher not being acquainted with Jevan, Ap Rys faid, "Thou shalt foon difcerne him from the reft by his ftature, and he will make way be

fore him. There is a fofter-brother of his, one Robin ap Inko, a little fellow, that ufeth to match him behind: take heed of him, for be the encountre never foe hot, his eye is ever on his fofter brother ;”—and fo it happened. Robin fufpected the treachery, and feeing the butcher watching his opportunity, came behind him, and knocking him on the head in the moment in which he had come behind Jevan, and had aimed one at that of his beloved fofterbrother.

The patrimony of his faithful follower was in the parish of Llane derrel; and to this day retains the name of Tyddin Inko.

MI.