pectation of Him whom he called "the be preserved in celestial archives, as speshortly-expected King," who, rending the cimens and memorials of extinguished heavens, was to, and shall yet, give him worlds; and, if such there be, surely one a house from heaven, where they that look of them must be the "Paradise Lost." out at the windows are not darkened. In fine, we tell not our readers to imiThus faintly have we pictured John tate Milton's genius-that may be too Milton. Forgive us, mighty shade! wher- high a thing for them; but to imitate his ever thou art, mingling in whatever choir life-the patriotism, the sincerity, the of adoring spirits, or engaged in whatever manliness, the purity, and the piety of exalted ministerial service above, or whe- his_character. When considering him ther present now among those "millions and the other men of his day, we are of spiritual creatures which walk the tempted to say, "There were giants in earth," forgive us the feebleness, for the those days," while we have fallen on the sake of the sincerity, of the offering; and days of little men; nay, to cry out with reject it not from that cloud of incense her of old, "I saw gods ascending from which, with enlarging volume and deepen- the earth, and one of them is like to an ing fragrance, is ascending to thy name old man whose face is covered with a from every country and in every language! mantle." In these days of rapid and uniWe say, with enlarging volume, for the versal change, what need for a spirit so fame of Milton must not only continue, pure, so wise, so sincere, and so gifted, but extend. And perhaps the day may as his! and who will not join in the lancome, when, after the sun of British em-guage of Wordsworth:pire is set, and Great Britain has become as Babylon and as Tyre, and even after its language has ceased to be a living tongue, the works of Milton and of Shakspere shall alone preserve it; for these belong to no country and to no age, but to all countries and all ages-to all ages of time, to all cycles of eternity. Some books may survive the last burning, and

"Milton! thou shouldst be living at this

hour.

England hath need of thee. She is a fen
Of stagnant waters. We are selfish men.

Thy soul was like a star; and dwelt apart;
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free.
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on itself did lay."

BURNS.*

THIS is, if not by any means the ablest, demur, and to say, "Coram haud judice,” yet perhaps, on the whole, the most com- or in plainer Latin, "Ne sutor ultra creplete, satisfactory, and impartial life of pidam."

Burns. We say life; for while admit-|| Burns' biographers, like those of Napoting the general faithfulness of its details, leon, might form quite a gallery by themwe do not, by any means, subscribe to it selves. There was first the amiable, senas a final estimate of his genius or cha-sible, and accomplished Currie-a man racter. As long as Mr Chambers details with considerable mind, and a still larger facts, and sifts evidence, we listen to heart-who loved Burns, if he did not him-reputed author of the "Vestiges" thoroughly know him; and whose verathough he be-with respect and con- city, as the recording angel of his errors, fidence; but when he analyses poetry, or tries to form a comprehensive verdict on genius or morale, we are often compelled to Complete Works and Life of Robert Burns, edited by Robert Chambers.

has been at length, in the main, confirmed. There was next the unfortunate Heron, a cleverish scamp; the Richard Savage, or Edgar Poe of Scotland-without equal power-whom Burns had ad

ter. In 1843 the prurient taste of the public was gratified by the publication of the letters of Burns and Clarinda; a collection which reflected little credit upon either party. And now Robert Chambers seems to have gathered up in these four baskets the remainder of all that can be published of the poetry, prose, or incidents in the life of Robert Burns.

More interesting than even the professed biographies, have been the criticisms which men of genius, in more countries than one, have written on Burns. Scarce one of his biographers can be compared for a moment in genius to such critics as Jeffrey, Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Wilson, Carlyle, and Thomas Aird, all of whom have, in their different dialects, and from their different points of view, written ably on the Scottish poet. Jeffrey's criticism is rather cold and captious, and not what it would have been had he met with the bright-eyed bard, instead of simply seeing him once on the Edinburgh streets.

mitted to some of his guilty confidences, | this, Gilbert Burns had edited an edition of and who felt a very natural desire to pull his poems, and had called in James Gray the Scottish poet down entirely to his and Findlater to defend the poet's characown level-an attempt not successful; for although Burns was often a great fool and a great sinner, his genius and his pride combined to preserve him from becoming the monstrous mixture of habitual folly, vice, improvidence, and vanity, which drowned the little gift which was in Heron. Then came our old friend Josiah Walker, one of the most amiable and kindly of men, as all who knew him, as their Humanity professor in Glasgow College, can testify; accomplished, too, and learned, but who committed two great blunders in his life-first of all, he published a bad poem, and secondly, he wrote a middling life of a good poet. The "Defence of Order" was mercilessly and somewhat heartlessly mangled by Brougham, then the hangman of the "Edinburgh Review," and his life of Burns has more recently quivered under the knout of Christopher North. Both were' in different measures too severe. Walker was in every way a most respectable man, wrote elegantly, and was animated by a He is right in finding not only coarsemost kindly feeling toward the memory ness, but vulgarity, in Burns' letters and of the Scottish bard. Hogg, too, if we conduct; but wrong in not admitting the are not greatly mistaken, and we think powerful plea which his circumstances also Galt, who wrote on everything, both and education present in his behalf. He perpetrated lives of Burns, which we never had never learned to hold the pen so read, and which are totally forgotten by gracefully as he held the sickle. On the the world. Lockhart's life came forth in riggs of corn, or "following his plough "Constable's Miscellany," and excited upon the mountain-side," he was one of great expectation. He was limited, how- God's gentlemen-it was otherwise in the ever, in space, and perhaps in time. He factitious and heated saloons of fashiondoes not seem to have taken the trouble able society. Jeffrey was too much of an of much personal investigation; and the artificial, and an Edinburgh man, to apwork thus became rather a thick and preciate the genius of Burns; and his vigorous inscription than a full or conclu- critique might be called "Edinburgh's sive life, and is chiefly now remembered last kick at the lion whom she first for some striking passages, and because it spoiled, and then spurned." Hazlitt has formed a text to Carlyle's celebrated some beautiful remarks on the poet in critique in the "Edinburgh." Allan Cun- his lectures. Wordsworth wrote a long ningham contributed next an interesting, and ingenious apology for his conduct in rambling, hairum-scairum sort of biography, containing a number of new facts in Burns' history, and written in an easy style, as if the author had been recounting the incidents of a comedy, and not of a deep and painful tragedy. Previous to

a letter to James Gray. Wilson's tribute, hovering between a life, a criticism, and an apology, is one of the most splendid pieces of panegyric in the world. It gushes on like a great river, now gliding at its own sweet will, now sporting in shal

had succeeded. Principle may be called the root, Purpose the trunk, and a true Life the flower of the tree of man. Wanting firm moral or religious principle, it became Burns' great object to gratify the two main desires of his nature, which were

lows, and now rushing, red with poetic fury, would have led to fixed purpose; and till Corra Linn is deafened, and Foyers had Purpose come, a high and noble life cries for quarter in the fell uproar. It is by no means, however, a just and impartial estimate of the character of the man. Carlyle has gone to his task in a graver and more plaintive spirit; and his paper is the true monody for poor Burns. Aird has often, in his "Old Bachelor" and first, to be distinguished; and, second, elsewhere, touched with the most tender to indulge his pleasure-seeking passions. truthfulness on points in Burns' history God gave him what he sought," for a and poems; and his defence of the Burns season; but "sent leanness to his soul." Festival, transferred from his paper to Even when a mere youth, his wit and 'Blackwood,” was worth all the speeches genius made him the "crack of the counat that entertainment together. Even try-side;" the oracle of smithies, roups, after all this splendid deluge of criticism, churchyards between sermons, not to we could have wished that Campbell had speak of balls, mason-lodges, and dancenlarged his estimate, or at least finished ing-assemblies. Early, too, the grim more highly the miniature he has drawn; Hypochondria, destined afterwards to and that Charles Lamb and Coleridge had blacken so many of his hours, began, atgiven us in full their mind of the Ayrshire tended probably, too, by the hell-dogs of ploughman. Remorse, to assail him. Through this inciComing after such reapers, it were vain pient darkness, and above those selfish obto expect more than a few stray glean-jects, there shone, indeed, ever and anon, ́ ings in the field. We would in our future remarks speak, first, of Burns as a man; secondly, of his general powers, and his place as a writer; thirdly, of his poems and prose writings individually; and, fourthly, of the influence he has exerted, and is exerting, on Scotland and the world. In all this our great aim is perfect impartiality.

noble gleams of enthusiasm. He warmly loved nature then as ever; and it is singular to think of a feeling so pure surviving in the company of black and polluting passions in his bosom to the last. How he hung over the yellow broom; how he joyed as at eve he listed the linnet, or the cushat, or the corncraik; and how his soul rose beside the groaning trees of Burns' great want, as a man, was that a wind-swept plantation to Him that of fixed principle. He had a warm heart, "walketh on the wings of the wind!" a generous disposition, pity and com- His patriotic enthusiasm also was inpassion "soft as sinews of the new-born tense; and it, as he had prophesied, conbabe," wide and trembling sympathies, tinued to "boil on in his bosom till the and impulses of higher mood, which gave flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.” the early promise, not only of wisdom, In poetry, and all the books within his but of piety. He was also a sincerely reach, he revelled with sincere and exhonest and truehearted man; and as quisite delight; and never was there one brave as he was sincere. But he pos- who loved literature more warmly, or sessed, besides all this, passions and ima- more for its own sake. Pure, too, in ginative tendencies more than commen-general, was the love that beat in his surate with his good qualities of heart manly breast; and many of his meetings and his powerful faculties of mind; and at the trysting-tree were as blameless as in which deep dangers lurked, like lions the assignations of spirits. Nevertheless, "slumbering near a fount." To counter- all this was only the bright foam; the act these, or rather to subdue them into current below ran deeply toward the peaceful harmony with his better and point of self-seeking-the seeking of aghigher nature, Principle was the one grandisement for his pride, and of pleathing needful. Had it been present, it sure for his senses.

In the rear of great half-maddening haps he felt, "I am bringing a brighter misery, of poverty, disgrace, and the pro- genius here than any its walls enclose. spect of exile, came Fame, like a sudden I shall move that proud city by my burst of sunshine, upon his solitary head. song." Alas! he heard Lot a voice reSure that his hour of triumph was now plying, "Ay, and fall afterwards by her come, he snatched up his staff; and rely- and thy sins!” ing on his genius, his independence, and his conscious pride, but not, alas! on principle or on God, he made for Edinburgh. He walked the whole way, muttering at times to himself the old ditty

"As I came up by Glenap,

I met an aged woman,
Wha bade me keep up my heart,

For the best of my days were coming."

This old woman, like her of Endor, was telling him half a truth and half a lie. "The morning was coming, but also the night." His brightest and his blackest days were alike before him.

|

He

Burns, till his visit to Edinburgh, was apparently a man of simple tastes. He loved the "halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food," her "souple scones;" and his greatest luxury was a haggis. Although occasionally led into the convivial customs of the society of that day, he was on the whole a temperate man. was contented, too, with the society and beauty-coarse enough then, doubtlessof the maid-servants and masons' daughters of the West. But when he came to Edinburgh, all this was changed. He sat at "rich men's feasts;" he tasted venison, turtle, champagne, and the other His conduct and language in Edin- luxuries of a luxurious capital; he saw burgh at first seem to have been ad- accomplished and high-bred beautiesmirable. Instead of having his own ay, and made them blush at his complihead turned, he turned the heads of ments, weep at his recitation of old balall others, lords, literati, and duchesses lads, and tremble at his fiery eloquence. included and remained himself un- His strong sense, however, told him that touched. He assumed soon, modestly in this atmosphere he could not long but decidedly, the conversational place continue. He was but a stranger adin Edinburgh which he had occupied in mitted for an hour into this "Arabian the West. A dux among the peasantry, heaven," and he suspected he must rehe became, without any effort, a dux turn to his cold clodpated earth again; among the dukes. On his way to the but return, having lost his relish for its coals in the morning," he had been in simple enjoyments. This stung his mind the habit of keeping his fellow-carters in to fierce discontent. He never, we think, a roar of laughter; and standing in the seriously contemplated the possibility of drawing-rooms of Prince's Street, his hu- becoming a permanent, instead of a permour produced similar, and his pathos mitted guest in the higher sphere to and eloquence far greater, effects. Suc- which he had found his way. He would cess, in fact, failed to spoil him, and with- have laughed, as Wilson has done, at drew from the attempt; but his second the idea of Burns marrying an Edingoddess, Pleasure, meanwhile quietly said burgh belle. But that he had a hankerto herself, "No matter, I WILL." ing after a higher style of woman for his And her word proved true. What the wife than Jean, is proved by his strong loud tempest of applause could not do, penchant for Charlotte Hamilton and the warm sun of luxury did. We can Mrs M'Lehose. And that he did expect fancy well what his feelings were, as, staff to be raised to some better situation in hand, and hat pulled over his swarthy than that of a hybrid between a gauger brow, he saw for the first time the dusky and a farmer, is also certain. towers of Edina, perhaps swathed in These hopes, however, were disapsmoke, and with the Castle glowering pointed. As his patrons became better grimly, like a sentinel of the night, on acquainted with him, they found him a the streets below, rising before him. Per-man not easy nor safe to patronise; that

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he had strong pride and passions; an the waters were turbid and foaming, how ugly habit of speaking his mind; small often did he stray, and, with "a stern deregard for constituted authorities; and, light and strange," mated with it his we suspect, a growing taste for low com- proud spirit, and though unrecognised as pany and convivial enjoyments. The a king of men, became the troubled sovenine days' wonder, too, had come to its reign of troubled waters! In a calmer period; and these people, not seeing the but darker mood he was found by Egerton possibilities of his rich undeveloped genius, Brydges, sitting on a bench near his own began to tire of "Hallowe'en " and "The house, with a face in which men might Twa Dogs," to find their protegé over- read strange matters." At Ellisland, he rated, and to sigh for some other novelty. was visited by some of the finest breezes John Home came out honestly with what of inspiration which ever crossed his soul. many of them, in the disgust of their re- Here he wrote his lines on the "Friar's action, felt and concealed, and in one of Carse Hermitage." Here he penned, or his letters calls the Ayrshire ploughman rather bled out, his address to "Mary in little else than a humbug, and the public Heaven," the saddest and sweetest of which had admired him little better than all his strains. And here, as he wana commonwealth of blockheads! Thus dered at eventide along the broomy ever do mocking-birds treat the true son banks of the Nith, and thought upon of song. Alloway Kirk-the stories and the scenery of his boyhood-there came on him, like a wild, half-shuddering, half-laughing wind, the inspired tale of Tam o' Shanter a poem

"Conceived in rapture, and in fire begot,"

and which stamps him potentially the "Scottish Shakspere."

Meanwhile, Burns, feeling the precariousness of his position, the stings of criticism and neglect, and not a few twinges of conscience, had retired growling to his native den, and had, greatly to Clarinda's disappointment and anger, married Jean Armour. He had now a family to support, and feeling that poetry was a poor prop, sought for a farm, found it, became By and by, he began to relax in his a gauger, and said, "Go to; I will be attention to his farming duties to sicken wise." But, alas! the miseries of re- of the country, and to long for the somorse and disappointment pursued him ciety and the license of a town. His to Ellisland. There, too, came his hypo- farm, like honest Rip Van Winkle's, was chondria; and there, too, alas! came his getting gradually worse and worse-"the passions. He was beset, besides, by com- most pestilent piece of ground in the pany, and his Muse, for a season, served whole country"-and he threw it up in principally to fan and gild the social ex-disgust. cesses of the farmers and lairds of that Then came that dark sojourn in Dumneighbourhood. To this course of life fries, during which he continued, we fear, there were, it is true, many exceptions. to sink deeper and deeper, till death merHe attended, although fitfully, to the cifully closed his eyes. Beautiful indeed labours of his farm, and was kind to his were the lights which shone, magnifiservants. Jean and he had no quarrel; cent the rainbows which flashed, above the indeed, he was her affectionate companion giant stream, as it was going down the to the end. He was a laborious gauger; precipice, to become a "hell of waters" and how edifying the sight of this potent at the foot. It was in Dumfries that spirit as he appeared rinsing out barrels, he wrote some of his finest letters, and and testing tallow-candles! Glorious, perspired the "celestial ichor" of his best however, were the occasional sparks of songs. To sing seemed a necessity of poetic fire which leaped from him, 'mid his nature. Never was there such an insuch ungenial toil, as from the axles of tensely lyrical spirit. He had but to a mud-cart in a dark night. On that uplift his "diamond pen," or to swing red scaur above the Nith, especially when back and forward in his chair, and the