King Louis thought to cut it down,
When it was unco sma', man;

For this the watchman crack'd his crown,
Cut aff his head and a', man.

"Let Britain boast her hardy oak,
Her poplar and her pine, man,

Auld Britain ance could crack her joke,
And o'er her neighbor shine, man.
But seek the forest round and round,
And soon 't will be agreed, man,
That sic a tree cannot be found

'Twixt London and the Tweed, man.

"Wae worth the loon wha woudna eat
Sic wholesome dainty cheer, man;

I'd sell my shoon frae aff my feet

To taste sic fruit I swear, man.

Syne let us pray, auld England may

Soon plant this far-fam'd tree, man ;

And blithe we'll sing, and hail the day
That gave us liberty, man."

So sunk in slavery at this time was Scotland, that England could
not sleep in her bed till she had set her sister free-and sent
down some liberators who narrowly escaped getting hanged by
this most ungrateful country. Such "perilous stuff" as the
above might have been indited by Palmer, Gerald, or Marga-
rot-how all unworthy of the noble Burns? Of all men then
in the world, the author of "The Cottar's Saturday Night" was
by nature the least of a Jacobin. We cannot help thinking that,
like Byron, he loved at times to astonish dull people by daring
things, to see how they looked with their hair on end; and dull
people who are not seldom malignant-taking him at his word,
had their revenge in charging him with all manner of profligacy,
and fabricating vile stories to his disgrace; there being nothing
too gross
for the swallow of political rancor.

It is proved by many very strong expressions in his correspondence that the reproof he received from the Board of Excise sorely troubled him; and no doubt it had an evil influence on public opinion that did not subside till it was feared he was dying, and that ceased for a time only with his death. We have

expressed our indignation-our contempt of that tyrannical treatment; and have not withheld our respect-our admiration from the characteristic manliness with which he repelled the accusations some insidious enemies had secretly sent in to the quarter where they knew fatal injury might be done to all his prospects in life. But was it possible that his most unguarded, rash, and we do not for a moment hesitate to say, blameable expression of political opinions adverse to those maintained by all men friendly to the government, could be permitted to pass without notice? He had no right to encourage what the government sought to put down, while he was "their servant in a very humble department ;" and though he successfully repelled the slanders of the despicable creatures who strove to destroy him, even in his high-spirited letter to Erskine there is enough to show that he had entered into such an expostulation with the Board as must have excited strong displeasure and disapproval, which no person of sense, looking back on those most dangerous times, can either wonder at or blame. He says in his defence before the Board, “I stated that, where I must declare my sentiments, I would say there existed a system of corruption be. tween the executive power and the representative part of the legislature, which boded no good to our glorious constitution, and which every patriotic Briton must wish to see amended." From a person in his situation even such a declaration was not prudent, and prudence was a duty; but it is manifest from what he adds for Erskine's own ear, that something more lay concealed in those generalities than the mere words seem to imply. "I have three sons, who I see already have brought into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit the bodies of SLAVES. Can I look tamely on, and see any machinations to wrest from them the birthright of my boys-the little independent Britons, in whose veins runs my blood? No; I will not, should my heart's blood stream around my attempt to defend it. Does any man tell me, that my poor efforts can be of no service, and that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with the concerns of a nation?" Right or wrong-and we think they were right-the government of the country had resolved to uphold principles, to which the man who could not refrain from thus

fiercely declaring himself, at the very time all that was dearest to him was in peril, could not but be held hostile; and so far from its being their duty to overlook such opinions, because they were the opinions of Burns, it was just because they were the opinions of Burns that it was their duty to restrain and reprove them. He continued too long after this to be by far too outspoken-as we have seen; but that his Scottish soul had in aught become Frenchified, we never shall believe, but while we live shall attribute the obstinacy with which he persisted to sing and say the praises of that people, after they had murdered their King and their Queen, and had been guilty of all enormities, in a great measure to a haughtiness that could not brook to retract opinions he had offensively declared before the faces of many whom not without reason he despised-to a horror of the idea of any sacrifice of that independent spirit which was the very life of his life. Burns had been insulted by those who were at once his superiors and his inferiors, and shall Burns truckle to "the powers that be?" At any bidding but that of his own conviction swerve a hair's-breadth from his political creed? No: not even though his reason had told him that some of its articles were based in delusion, and if carried into practice among his own countrymen, pursuant to the plots of traitors, who were indeed aliens in soul to the land he loved, would have led to the destruction of that liberty for which he, by the side or at the head of his cottage compatriots, would have gladly died.

The evil consequences of all this to Burns were worse than you may have imagined, for over and above the lies springing up like puddock-stools from domestic middens, an ephemeral brood indeed, but by succession perennial, and that even now when you grasp them in your hand, spatter vileness in your eyes, like so many devil's snuff-boxes--think how injurious to the happiness of such a soul as his, to all its natural habitudes, must have been the feuds carried on all around him, and in which he with his commanding powers too largely mingled, between political parties in a provincial town, contending as they thought, the one for hearths and altars, the other for regeneration of those principles, decayed or dead, which alone make hearths and altars sacred,

and their defence worth the tears and the blood of brave men who would fain be free. His sympathy was " wide and general as the casing air;" and not without violence could it be contracted "within the circle none dared tread but they," who thought William Pitt the reproach, and Charles Fox the Paragon of Animals. Within that circle he met with many good men, the Herons, Millers, Riddells, Maxwells, Symes, and so forth; within it too he forgathered with many "a fool and something. more." Now up to "the golden exhalation of the dawn" of his gaugership, Burns had been a Tory, and he heard in "the whisper of a faction" a word unpleasing to a Whiggish ear, turncoat. The charge was false, and he disdained it; but disdain in eyes that when kindled up burned like carriage lamps in a dark night, frightened the whispering faction into such animosity, that a more than usual sumph produced an avenging epigram upon him and two other traitors, in which the artist committed a mistake of workmanship no subsequent care could rectify: instead of hitting the right nail on the head, why he hit the wrong nail on the point, so no wooden mallet could drive it home. From how much social pleasure must not Burns have thus been wilfully self-debarred! From how many happy friendships! By nature he was not vindictive, yet occasionally he seemed to be so, visiting slight offence with severe punishment, sometimes imagining offence when there was none, and in a few instances, we fear, satirizing in savage verses not only the innocent, but the virtuous; the very beings whom, had he but known them as he might, he would have loved and revered-celebrated them living or dead in odes, elegies, and hymns-thereby doing holy service to goodness in holding up shining examples to all who longed to do well. Most of his intolerant scorn of high rank had the same origin-not in his own nature, which was noble, but in prejudices thus superinduced upon it which in their virulence were mean-though his genius could clothe them in magnificent diction, and so justify them to the proud poet's heart.

It is seldom indeed that Lockhart misses the mark; but in one instance-an anecdote-where it is intended to present the pathetic, our eyes perceive but the picturesque-we allude to the tale told him by Davie Macculloch, son of the Laird of Ardwall.

"He told me that he was seldom more grieved than when, riding into Dumfries one fine summer's evening to attend a county ball, he saw Burns walking alone on the shady side of the principal street of the town, while the opposite part was gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the night, not one of whom appeared willing to recognize him. The horseman dismounted and joined Burns, who on his proposing to him to cross the street, said, 'Nay, my young friend, that is all over now,' and quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady Grizell Baillie's pathetic ballad beginning, 'The bonnet stood ance sae fair on his brow,' and ending' And were na my heart light I wad die.' It was little in Burns's character to let his feelings on certain subjects escape in this fashion. He, immediately after citing these verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner; and taking his young friend home with him, entertained him very agreeably until the hour of the ball arrived, with a bowl of his usual potation, and bonnie Jean's singing of some verses which he had recently composed." "Tis a pretty picture in the style of Watteau. "The opposite part gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the night." What were they about, and where were they going? Were they as yet in their ordinary clothes, colts and fillies alike, taking their exercise preparatory to the country-dances of some thirty or forty couple, that in those days used to try the wind of both sexes? If so, they might have chosen better training-ground along the banks of the Nith. Were they all in full fig, the females with feathers on their heads, the males with chapeaux bas-" stepping westward " arm in arm, in successive groups, to the Assembly-room? In whichever of these two pleasant predicaments they were placed, it showed rare perspicacity in Daintie Davie to discern that not one of them appeared willing to recognize Burns-more especially as he was walking on the other and shady side of the street, and Davie on horseback. By what secret signs did the fair free-masons-for such there be express to their mounted brother their unwillingness to recognize from the sunshine of their promenade, the gauger walking alone in the shade of his? Was flirtation at so low an