cousins" in his own opinion, and indeed in almost everybody's else, in a dying condition,"-far gone in a consumption, as it was called; but dying, though not sixty, of old age at last. His lot in this life was in many things a hard one, but his blessings had been great, and his end was peace. All his children had been dutiful to their parents, and to their care he confided their mother. If he knew of Robert's transgressions in one year, he likewise knew of his obedience through many; nor feared that he would strive to the utmost to shelter his mother in the storm. Robert writes, "On the 13th current (Feb. 1784) I lost the best of fathers. Though, to be sure, we have had long warning of the impending stroke, still the feelings of nature claim their part; and I cannot recollect the tender endearments and parental lessons of the best of friends, and the ablest of instructors, without feeling what perhaps the calmer dictates of reason would partly condemn. I hope my father's friends in your country will not let their connection in this place die with him. For my part I shall ever with pleasure, with pride, acknowledge my connection with those who were allied, by the ties of blood and friendship, to a man whose memory I will ever honour and revere." And now the family remove to Mossgiel,

"A virtuous household, but exceeding poor."

How fared Burns during the next two years, as a peasant? How fared he as a poet? As a peasant, poorly and hardly— as a poet, greatly and gloriously. How fared he as a man? Read his confessions. Mossgiel was the coldest of all the soils on which the family had slaved and starved-starved is too strong a word—and, in spite of its ingratitude, its fields are hallowed ground. Thousands and tens of thousands have come from afar to look on them; and Wordsworth's self has “gazed himself away" on the pathetic prospect.

"There,' said a stripling, pointing with much pride,
Towards a low roof, with green trees half-concealed,
'Is Mossgiel farm; and that's the very field
Where Burns plough'd up the Daisy.' Far and wide
A plain below stretched seaward, while, descried
Above sea-clouds, the peaks of Arran rose ;
And, by that simple notice, the repose
Of earth, sky, sea, and air, was vivified.

Beneath the random bield of clod or stone,
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the one
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love."

Peasant -Poet-Man is, indeed, an idle distinction. Burns is sitting alone in the Auld Clay-Biggin, for it has its one retired room; and, as he says, "half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit”—all he had made by rhyme! He is the picture of a desponding man, steeped to the lips in poverty of his own bringing on, and with a spirit vainly divided between hard realities, and high hopes beyond his reach, resolving at last to forswear all delusive dreams, and submit to an ignoble lot. When at once, out of the gloom arises a glory, effused into form by his own genius creative according to his soul's desire, and conscious of its greatness despite of despair. A thousand times before now had he been so disquieted and found no comfort. But the hour had come of self-revelation, and he knew that on earth his name was to live for ever.

With future hope, I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely caroll'd chiming phrase,
In uncouth rhymes,

Fired at the simple, artless lays
Of other times.

I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar ;
Or when the north his fleecy store
Drove through the sky,

I saw grim nature's visage hoar
Struck thy young eye.

Or, when the deep green-mantled earth
Warm cherish'd every flow'ret's birth,
And joy and music pouring forth
In ev'ry grove,

I saw thee eye the gen'ral mirth
With boundless love.

When ripen'd fields, and azure skies,
Call'd forth the reaper's rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their evening joys,
And lonely stalk,

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise
In pensive walk.

When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
Th' adored Name,

I taught thee how to pour in song,
To soothe thy flame.

"To reconcile to our imagination the entrance of an aerial being into a mansion of this kind," says the excellent Currie, "required the powers of Burns; he, however, succeeds." Burns cared not at that time for our imagination—not he, indeed, not a straw; nor did he so much as know of our existence. He knew that there was a human race; and he believed that he was born to be a great power among them, especially all over his beloved and beloving Scotland. "All hail! my own inspired bard!” That "all hail!" he dared to hear from supernatural lips, but not till his spirit had long been gazing, and long been listening to one commissioned by the "genius of the land," to stand a Vision before her chosen poet in his hut. Reconcile her entrance to our imagination! Into no other mansion but that "Auld Clay-Biggin" would Coila have descended from the sky.

The critic continues, "To the painting on her mantle, on which is depicted the most striking scenery, as well as the most distinguished characters of his native country, some exception may be made. The mantle of Coila, like the cup of Thyrsis (see the first Idyllium of Theocritus), and the shield of Achilles, is too much crowded with figures, and some of the objects represented upon it are scarcely admissible according to the principles of design."

We advise you not to see the first Idyllium of Theocritus. Perhaps you have no Greek. Mr Chapman's translation is as good as a translation can well be, but then you may not have a copy of it at hand. A pretty wooden cup it is, with curled

ears and ivy-twined lips-embossed thereon the figure of a woman with flowing robes and a Lydian head-dress, to whom two angry men are making love. Hard by, a stout old fisherman on a rock is in the act of throwing his net into the sea: not far from him is a vineyard, where a boy is sitting below a hedge framing a locust trap with stalks of asphodel, and guarding the grapes from a couple of sly foxes. Thyrsis, we are told by Theocritus, bought it from a Calydonian Skipper for a big cheese-cake and a goat. We must not meddle with the shield of Achilles.

Turn we then to the "Vision" of Burns, our Scottish Theocritus, as we have heard him classically called, and judge of Dr Currie's sense in telling us to see the cup of Thyrsis.

"Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen,
Till half her leg was scrimply seen ;
And such a leg! my bonny Jean

Could only peer it;

Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean,
Nane else could near it."

You observe Burns knew not yet who stood before himwoman, or angel, or fairy-but the Vision reminded him of her whom best he loved.

"Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs

Were twisted gracefu' round her brows;
I took her for some Scottish Muse,

By that same token."

Some Scottish Muse-but which of them he had not leisure to conjecture, so lost was he in admiration of that mystic robe"that mantle large, of greenish hue." As he continued to gaze on her, his imagination beheld whatever it chose to behold. The region dearest to the Poet's heart is all emblazoned there-and there too its sages and its heroes.

"Here, rivers in the sea were lost;

There, mountains to the skies were tost;
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast,
With surging foam;

There, distant shone Art's lofty boast,
The lordly dome.