PIECES DOUBTFULLY ATTRIBUTED TO BURNS.

THE HERMIT.

WRITTEN ON A MARBLE SIDEBOARD, IN THE HERMITAGE BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF
ATHOLE, IN THE WOOD OF ABERFELDY.

Whoe'er thou art, these lines now reading,
Think not, though from the world receding,
I joy my lonely days to lead in

This desert drear;

This rock my shield, when storms are blowing,
The limpid streamlet yonder flowing
Supplying drink, the earth bestowing
My simple food;

But few enjoy the calm I know in
This desert wood.

'Twas where the birch and sounding thong are plied,

The noisy domicile of pedant pride;

Where Ignorance her darkening vapour throws,

And Cruelty directs the thickening blows;
Upon a time, Sir Abece the great,

In all his pedagogic powers elate,

His awful chair of state resolves to mount,
And call the trembling vowels to account.

First entered A, a grave, broad, solemn wight,
But, ah! deformed, dishonest to the sight!
His twisted head looked backward on his way,
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, ai!

Reluctant, E stalked in; with piteous race
The justling tears ran down his honest face!

PIECES DOUBTFULLY ATTRIBUTED TO BURNS.

That name, that well-worn name, and all his own,
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne!
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound;
And next the title following close behind,
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assigned.

The cobwebbed Gothic dome resounded, Y!
In sullen vengeance, I, disdained reply:
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round,
And knocked the groaning vowel to the ground!

In rueful apprehension entered O,
The wailing minstrel of despairing wo;
Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert,

Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art;
Do grim, deformed, with horrors entering, U
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew!

As trembling U stood staring all aghast,
The pedant in his left hand clutched him fast,
In helpless infants' tears he dipped his right,
Baptised him eu, and kicked him from his sight

297

APPENDIX.

No. 13.- REPUTATION OF BURNS IN HIS LATTER YEARS.

A bent tree is not to be drawn as a straight one; or the truth of history vanishes, and its use as a discipline of knowledge and of wisdom. Hence the representation of my friend's life is unsatisfactory. By the omission of certain portions, it might easily have been made to appear more satisfactory; but then it would have been a lie and every lie-O that people would believe it!-is at best but a whited sepulchre.'-Ilare's Life of Sterling.

THE habits of Burns during his latter years in Dumfries have been the subject of much controversy, and two very decided views of the matter have been taken. We hear, on the one hand, of a life of dissipation. Dr Currie, whose wish was to speak as mildly as might be possible without calling forth exposures by the enemies of the poet, uses the expression: Perpetually stimulated by alcohol in one or other of its various forms.' And he adds: He who suffers the pollution of inebriation, how shall he escape other pollution?' Even the notice of Burns's death, which appeared in the most respectable of the Edinburgh newspapers, contains this sentence: The public, to whose amusement he has so largely contributed, will learn with regret, that his extraordinary endowments were accompanied with frailties which rendered them useless to himself and his family? Heron, who wrote the first memoir of the poet's life, says: "In Dumfries, his dissipation became still more habitual [that is, than it had been in the country]..... The morals of the town were.....not a little corrupted, and, though a husband and a father, Burns did not escape suffering by the general contamination, in a manner which I forbear to describe.' On the other hand, strong testimonies in favour of Burns's conduct during this period have been set forth by his superior officer, Mr Alexander Findlater, and by the Reverend James Gray, who was schoolmaster to the poet's sons.

Mr Findlater says: "My connection with Robert Burns commenced immediately after his admission into the Excise, and continued to the hour of his death. In all that time, the superintendence of his behaviour, as an officer of the revenue, was a branch of my especial province, and it may be supposed I would not be an inattentive observer of the general conduct of a man and a poet so celebrated by his countrymen. In the former capacity, he was exemplary in his attention; and was even jealous of the least imputation on his