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We believe, then, that Burns was not guilty in this poem of any intentional irreverence toward the public ordinances of religion. It does not, in our opinion, afford any reason for supposing that he was among the number of those who regard such ordinances as of little or no avail, because they do not always exemplify the reverence which becomes men in the act of communing with their God. Such is the constitution of human nature that there are too many moments in the very article of these solemn occasions when the hearts of men are a prey to all their wonted cares and follies; and this short-coming in the whole solemnity robs it to many a delicate and well-disposed, but not thoroughly instructed imagination, of all attraction. But there must be a worship by communities as well as by individuals; for in the regards of Providence, communities appear to have a personality as well as individuals; and how shall the worship of communities be conducted, but by forms and ceremonies, which as they occur at stated times, whatever be the present frame of men's minds, must be often gone through with coldness. If those persons would duly consider the necessity of such ordinances, and their use in the conservation of religion, they would hold them sacred, in spite of the levity and hypocrisy that too often accompany their observance, nor would they wonder to see among the worshippers an unsuspected attention to the things of this world. But there was far more than this in the desecration which called for "the Holy Fair" from Burns. A divine ordinance had through unhallowed custom been overlaid by abuses, if not to the extinction, assuredly to the suppression, in numerous communicants, of the religious spirit essential to its efficacy; and in that fact we have to look for a defence of the audacity of his sarcasm; we are to believe that the Poet felt strong in the possession of a reverence far greater than that which he beheld, and in the conviction that nothing which he treated with levity could be otherwise than displeasing in the eye of God. We are far from seeking to place him, on this occasion, by the side of those men who, "strong in hatred of idolatry," become religious reformers, and while purifying Faith, unsparingly shattered Forms, not without violence to the cherished emotions of many pious hearts. Yet their wit too was often

aimed at faulty things standing in close connection with solemnities which wit cannot approach without danger. Could such scenes as those against which Burns directed the battery of his ridicule be endured now? Would they not be felt to be most profane? And may we not attribute the change in some measure to the Comic Muse?

Burns did not need to have subjects for poetry pointed out and enumerated to him, latent or patent in Scottish Life, as was considerately done in a series of dullish verses by that excellent person, Mr. Telford, Civil Engineer. Why, it has been asked, did he not compose a Sacred Poem on the administration of the Sacrament of our Lord's Last Supper? The answer is-how could he with such scenes before his eyes? Was he to shut them, and to describe it as if such scenes were not? Was he to introduce them, and give us a poem of a mixed kind, faithful to the truth? From such profanation his genius was guarded by his sense of religion, which though defective was fervent, and not unaccompanied with awe. Observe in what he has written, how he keeps aloof from the Communion Table. Not for one moment does he in thought enter the doors of the House of God. There is a total separation between the outer scene and the inner sanctuary—the administration of the sacrament is removed out of all those desecrating circumstances, and left to the imagi nation of the religious mind-by his silence. Would a great painter have dared to give us a picture of it? Harvey has painted, simply and sublimely, a "Hill Sacrament." But there all is solemn in the light of expiring day; the peace that passeth all understanding reposes on the heads of all the communicants; and in a spot sheltered from the persecutor by the solitude of sympathizing nature, the humble and the contrite, in a ritual hallowed by their pious forefathers, draw near at his bidding to their Redeemer.

We must now return to Burns himself, but cannot allow him to leave Ellisland without dwelling for a little while longer on the happy life he led for three years and more on that pleasant farm. Now and then you hear him low-spirited in his letters, but generally cheerful; and though his affairs were not very prosperous, there was comfort in his household. There was

peace and plenty; for Mrs. Burns was a good manager, and he was not a bad one; and one way and another the family enjoyed an honest livelihood. The house had been decently furnished, the farm well stocked; and they wanted nothing to satisfy their sober wishes. Three years after marriage, Burns, with his Jean at his side, writes to Mrs. Dunlap, "as fine a figure and face we can produce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected modesty, and unsullied purity; nature's mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with, the ways of a selfish, interested, disingenuous world; and the dearest charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing with a more than equal return; these, with a healthy frame, a sound, vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of life." Josiah Walker, however, writing many years after, expresses his belief that Burns did not love his wife. "A discerning reader will perceive," says he, "that the letters in which he announces his marriage are written in that state, when the mind is pained by reflecting on an unwelcome step; and finds relief to itself in seeking arguments to justify the deed, and lessen its disadvantages in the opinion of others. But the greater the change which the taste of Burns had undergone, and the more his hopes of pleasure must in consequence have been diminished, from rendering Miss Armour his only female companion, the more credit does he deserve for that rectitude of resolution, which prompted him to fulfil what he considered as an engagement, and to act as a necessary duty prescribed. We may be at the same time permitted to lament the necessity which he had thus incurred. A marriage, from a sentiment of duty, may by circumstances be rendered indispensable; but as it is undeniably a duty, not to be accomplished by any temporary exertion, however great, but calling for a renewal of effort every year, every day, and every hour, it is putting the strength and constancy of our principles to the most severe and hazardous trial. Had Burns completed his marriage, before perceiving the interest which he had the power of creating in females, whose accomplishments of mind and manners

Jean could never hope to equal; or had his duty and his pride permitted his alliance with one of that superior class, many of his subsequent deviations from sobriety and happiness might probably have been prevented. It was no fault of Mrs. Burns, that she was unable, from her education, to furnish what had grown, since the period of their first acquaintance, one of the poet's most exquisite enjoyments; and if a daily vacuity of interest at home exhausted his patience, and led him abroad in quest of exercise for the activity of his mind, those who can place themselves in a similar situation will not be inclined to judge too severely of his error." Mrs. Burns, you know, was alive when this philosophical stuff was published, and she lived for more than twenty years after it, as exemplary a widow as she had been a wife. Its gross indelicacy-say rather wanton insult to all the feelings of a woman, is abhorrent to all the feelings of a man and shows the monk. And we have quoted it now that you may see what vile liberties respectable libellers were long wont to take with Burns and all that belonged to him-because he was a Gauger. Who would have dared to write thus of the wife and widow of a-Gentleman -of one who was a Lady? Not Josiah Walker. Yet it passed for years unreproved-the "Life" which contains it still circulates, and seems to be in some repute-and Josiah Walker on another occasion is cited to the rescue by George Thomson as a champion and vindicator of the truth. The insolent eulogist dared to say that Robert Burns in marrying Jean Armour, "repaired seduction by the most precious sacrifice, short of life, which one human being can make to another!" To her, in express terms, he attributes her husband's misfortunes and misdoings-to her who soothed his sorrows, forgave his sins, inspired his songs, cheered his hearth, blest his bed, educated his children, revered his memory, and held sacred his dust.

What do you think was, according to his biographer, the chief cause of the blameable life Burns led at Ellisland? He knew not what to do with himself! "When not occupied in the fields, his time must have hung heavy on his hands!". Just picture to yourself Burns peevishly pacing the "half-parlor half-kitchen " floor, with his hands in his breeches pockets, tormenting his dull

brain to invent some employment by which he might be enabled to resist the temptation of going to bed in the forenoon in his clothes! But how is this? "When not occupied in the fields, his time must have hung heavy on his hands; for we are not to infer, from the literary eminence of Burns, that, like a person regularly trained to studious habits, he could render himself by study independent of society. He could read and write when occasion prompted; but he could not, like a professional scholar, become so interested in a daily course of lettered industry, as to find company an interruption rather than a relief." We cheerfully admit that Burns was not engaged at Ellisland on a History of the World. He had not sufficient books. Besides, he had to ride, in good smuggling weather, two hundred miles a-week. But we cannot admit that "to banish dejection, and to fill his vacant hours, it is not surprising that he should have resorted to such associates as his new neighborhood, or the inns upon the road to Ayrshire, could afford; and if these happened to be of a low description, that his constant ambition to render himself an important and interesting figure in every society, made him suit his conduct and conversation to their taste." When not on duty, the Exciseman was to be found at home like other farmers, and when "not occupied in the fields" with farm-work, he might be seen playing with Sir William Wallace and other Scottish heroes in miniature, two or three pet sheep of the qua druped breed sharing in the vagaries of the bipeds; or striding along the Scaur with his Whangee rod in his fist, with which, had time hung heavy on his hands, he would have cracked the skull of old Chronos; or sitting on a divot-dyke with the ghost of Tam O'Shanter, Captain Henderson, and the Earl of Glencairn; or, so it is recorded, "on a rock projecting into the Nith (which we have looked for in vain) employed in angling, with a cap made of a fox's skin on his head, a loose great-coat fixed round him by a belt, from which depended an enormous Highland broadsword;" or with his legs under the fir, with the famous Black Bowl sending up a Scotch mist in which were visible the wigs of two orthodox English clergymen, "to whose tastes his constant ambition to render himself an important and interesting figure in every society, made him suit his conduct

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