own the quantity of religious service is excessive. First, the father inculcates the fear of the Lord; next, he reads the Psalm-Dundee, or Martyrs, or Elgin; next, he reads the sacred page, Genesis, Kings, Job, Isaiah, the Gospels, or Revelations; next, he prays with his family; and, finally,

“The parent-pair then secret homage

pay,

And offer up to heaven the warm request;"

-in a word, ten stanzas of religious services to five of human affection, while the main charm of the piece unquestionably gathers round the latter. But for Jenny's sweet confusion-her mother's prudent anxiety -her lover's ingenuous shame-facedness, set at ease by the father's acceptable crack of "horses, pleughs, and kye," all comprised within the limits of a single stanza, the piece would want a good half of its beauty, while much of the insipid enumeration of the sacred books and Psalm-tunes, occupying so considerable a part of the rest of the poem, might be omitted, without depriving the reader's heart of any virtuous or holy emotion, or his mind of any intellectual acquisition. But the "Saturday Night" was a piece which might always be safely praised; and many who have felt, but dare not acknowledge, their obligation to Burns for his bold vindication of common sense and humanity elsewhere, have discharged their consciences by bestowing an excessive and strained admiration on this beautiful but, we think, over-rated poem. Our object here, however, is not so much to criticise the piece as a work of genius, as to show our reasons for believing it not to have been the representation of any scene with which Burns' youth was habitually familiar. His own father's household it assuredly cannot have been meant to represent; though William Burnes's picture may have been, and probably is, to some extent sketched in that of the austere old man "mingling a' wi' admonition due," for, by all accounts, Robert's father appears to have been a most importunate exhorter, in season and out of season; and the result is plain to be seen in the early dissipation into which

his son plunged, to escape the uncongenial austerities of a household in which innocent amusements were regarded with disapproval, and where a sanctimonious gloom was the child's best recommendation to the smiles-if old William ever smiled-of the parent. But the household itself it cannot represent, for none of William Burnes's family ever went out to service, nor was he ever in the condition of a cotter, nor was there any young girl, "woman grown," at that time, to be visited by a lover in the little group that used to gather round his respectable but sombre hearth.

Old William was certainly an extraordinary, though morose man, and we think much mistaken in his notions of the education of young people. He was from Kincardineshire; had come to the neighbourhood of Ayr in the capacity of gardener to Provost Ferguson; had raised himself to the condition of a small farmer, holding a plot of about seven acres, on which, chiefly with his own hands, he had built a house-of course a cottage and mud-walled-but by no means a hut ; on the contrary, it consisted of several apartments, and afforded all the accommodation which a small farmer's family could reasonably require very much the same sort of habitation, we would imagine, as that of Mr. Carleton's father at Prillisk. But this humble man, in addition to a perfect and profound acquaintance with the Scriptures, was possessed of very considerable secular knowledge, of a strong turn for moral and physical philosophy, and an ardent desire to impart the advantages of literature to his family. For this purpose, he and some neighbours united to employ a tutor to attend their children, taking the maintenance of the teacher in turns. To this well-disposed but conceited pedagogue, called Murdoch, we owe the grudge of having taught Robert that smattering of French which so foppishly and absurdly marked his prose composition in after life. To him also we owe the very exaggerated estimation of William Burnes's character, which has led so many writers to regard him, not only as wholly blameless for Robert's follies, but as a pattern

for all parents. Murdoch got into

communication with Walker, the author of the "Memoir on the Irish

Bards" in 1799, at a time when Burnes's fame had attracted universal attention, and when the tutor might hope to share in whatever commendation was going. It will easily be understood how he would make the most of his subject, declaring that, within William Burnes's mean cottage, "dwelt a larger portion of content than in any palace in Europe!" and appealing to the "Cotter's Saturday Night," which he must have well known represented no such scene, in confirmation of his assertion. His praises of old William are unbounded: "An excellent husband," "a tender, affectionate father," "never saw him angry but twice," and "he was by far the best of the human race he ever was acquainted with," &c. &c.; though, in the midst of Murdoch's laudations, it is perfectly plain that every one in the house stood in awe of him, and Robert himself declares that he early felt himself the object of a positive dislike, which he ascribes to the morose old man's vexation at his going to the dancing-school. Looking around us in life, we see almost as many young men ruined by excessive austerity as by excessive indulgence at home. If old William's hearth had been more cheerful, Robert would have had fewer attractions at the ale-house. But our principal quarrel with him is this: that at one time he appears to have succeeded in making Robert something of a hypocrite. We speak of the letter from Irving beginning "Honored Sir," and affecting a religious unction, which we strongly suspect was assumed for the occasion. If we be right in this, what a positive sin this mistaken old man has to answer for, in debasing, even for a time, so manly and ingenuous a mind, and one from which every base pretence was so abhorrent. But, to return to theSaturday Night," we repeat, we think it was a picture which Burns felt he ought to draw for his own justification, and which he drew with more regard to what a jealous piety would consider the Scottish peasant's hearth ought to be, than what it really was. We find a picture of the sort of scene in which we think it infinitely more probable Robert used to spend his "Saturdays at e'en," in Doctor Keith's pleasing little poem, "the Farmer's Ha'," for which we are indebted, among so

many other acceptable gifts of knowledge, to Messrs. Chambers, in one of their exceedingly cheap and generally well-selected publications, though in this particular instance we find our poem associated with other pieces, the sordidness of which, in our estimation, greatly overbalances their merit of humour :

In winter nights, whae'er has scen
The farmer's canty ha' convene,
Finds a' thing there to please his een,
And heart enamour,

Nor langs to see the town, I ween,
That houff o' clamour.

Whan stately stacks are tightly theekit,
And the wide style is fairly steekit,
Nae birkie, sure, save he war streekit
For his lang hame,

But wad gie mair for ae short week o't
Than I can name.

The lasses aye the gloamin hail,
For syne the lads come frae the flail,
Or else frae haddin the pleugh-tail,
That halesome wark;

Disease about they dinna trail,
Like city spark.

They a' drive to the ingle cheek,
Regardless o' a flam o' reek,
And weel their meikle fingers beek,
To gie them tune;

Syne sutor's alson nimbly streek,
To mend their shoon.

They pu' and rax the lingle tails, Into their brogues they ca' the nails; Wi' hammers now, instead o' flails

They mak great rackets, And set about their heels wi' rails O'clinkin tackets.

And aye till this misthriven age,
The gudeman here sat like a sage;
Wi' mull in hand, and wise adage,
He spent the night;
But now he sits in chamber's cage,
A pridefu' wight!

Then, after describing the "lasses," who

"With unshod heels, Are sitting at their spinning wheels," while the "auld gudewife" reeling the yarn, keeps exhorting the hizzies to their work, and "redds them up I trow fu' weel," as auld gudewifes we suppose will continue to do while the world goes round, the rhymster introduces us to that indispensable

character in such scenes, and prescriptive butt for the rustic wit of the kitchen, the tailor.

But he's a slee and cunnin loun,
And taunts again ilk jeerin clown;
For, tho' no bred in borrow town,

He's wondrous gabby,
And fouth o' wit comes frae his crown,
Tho' he be shabby.

Two other important characters, at least in their own eyes, are the "house dog," and the "gudewife's cat," the former of whom, a cynical colly,

Full oft towards the door does look
Wi' aspect crouse;
For unco folk he canna brook
Within the house.

While baudrons, with a grave consciousness of her position,

Purs contentedly indeed,

And looks fu' long,

To see gin folks be taking heed
To her braw song;

which leads to a discussion on the weather, interrupted by the arrival of the pedlar :

The chapman lad, wi' gab sae free
Comes in and mixes i' the glee,
After he's trampet out the e'e
O' mony dub,*

And gotten frae the blast to dree
A hearty drub.

He tells them he's weel sorted now
Of a' thing gude, and cheap and new ;
His sleekit speeches pass for true
With ane and a';

The pedlars ken fu' weel the cue
O' Farmer's Ha'.

of at once administering a smart re. buke to the pride of the "hizzies,” and gratifying her own benevolence.

The gauger's scarcely frae the door
Whan beggars they come in galore,
Wi' wallops flappin in great store,
Raised up in cairns,

And birns baith ahint and 'fore
O' greetin bairns.

Quo' they, "We're trachled unco sair,
We've gane twal mile o' yerd and mair,
The gait was ill, our feet were bare,
The night is weety;

And gin ye quarters hae to spare,
Oh, shaw your pity!"

He thus begins: "What's this ava
There's sad wark in America,
The folk there dinna keep the law
And wad be free;
Nor o' King George hae any awe,
Nor taxes gie.

I wish our folk soon home again,
And no to dander 'yont the main,
Because I dread the King o' Spain,
And wily France,
Will seek the thing that's no their aim,
And lead's a dance."

But now, while all are commenting on John's political speculations, the gudeman himself

Cemes ben the house, Whilk o' their gabbin makes a truce;

cites the emulation of the next shearer, and so the contagion spreads till the whole field is involved in the fury of the Kemp. In this grand strife of who shall shear fastest, the never-failing tailor occupies the post of honour, giving and returning the gibes, usual on such occasions, with infinite spirit, though with no very refined wit. Indeed the play upon words is of the most artless kind, and the words themselves of a strange and barbarous rusticity.

A windy taylior leads the van,
A clean-hough'd nimble little man;
And sair this nettles wabster Tam,
And gars him girn;
He vows he'll ne'er rest till he can
Wind him a pirn.

The blasty smith does brook it ill
That he maun stand sae studdie still;
For sair it gaes against his will

To lose the strife,

And a' for fault o' pith and skill
O's glaikit wife.

Yet her tongue clinks through a' the field:

She sair misca's the supple chield,
And aye casts up whate'r's been steal'd
By Prick-the-loose;

And yet, for a' that, he'll no yield,
But gabs fu' crouse.

He says, "Her manners need a patch,
(For this her tongue is an ill swatch),
Her borders ne'er with his will match ;”
And then he jeers,
That he could mak' as quick despatch
Wi' his auld shears.

Auld Tamie Speals, the Cowan-wright, Now strives 'gainst him with a' his might;

But he is dung clean out o' sight,
"His edge is gane,"
The taylior, jeering, bids him hight,
To grinding-stane.

Then he sic measures does display,
And skreeds sic blads o' corn away,
That he had fairly gained the day,
But that a sutor,
Most manfully about does lay,
A tough auld fouter.

He strives as't had been for his last,
And a' his airs about does cast,
That now he had him surely past,
As clean's a lingle;
The taylior now clips lang and fast-
He's in a pingle.

But the kemp is attended with a

grievous wastrie of the grain, which they shake from the ears in their eagerness to grasp great handfulls, and the older reapers make their protest, Auld William exclaiming feelingly against spilling the "gude food."

"To shear sae foul is ill to brook, For better corn ne'er come ower hook; I'se warrant they'll be in ilka stook Four pecks and mair." Syne he does to the pickle look"'Tis wondrous fair."

Then doth auld Highland Malcolm say,
That they sud also mind the strae,
To cut him laigh, for he'd be wae

To waste gude fodders,
For nowte and horse their food maun
hae,
As weel as idders.

The harvest concludes with a "kirn," and supper, at which Auld William says grace, and the Chelsea Warrior wins great applause as toast-master. The materiel of humour is abundant, but the writer has no charm of expression. He shows the scene, as it actually appeared, in which Burns joked, and jibed, and kemped, among his fellows, but he cannot make us feel how young Burns felt, or see the picture, as young Burns saw it, with his poet's eyes. To learn this we must hear Burns himself speak, who has told us these feelings in strains of unequalled picturesqueness, tenderness, and fervour, in his "Vision." This noble poem has one, and but one fault. The ambition of fine writing has introduced into its machinery a set of agents, imagined, it would appear, after Pope's gracefully-insipid gnomes and sylphs in "The Rape of the Lock." We wish them heartily back at Twickenham, or, if he did not get them there, at a further place. It was written after Robert had been to Edinburgh, and the pedants had begun to whisper in his ear that his muse had affected a too rustic simplicity. They could not understand the tender humanity of such pieces as the address to the Mouse and the Daisy, or the world of feeling and philosophic humour that lies in the brief compass of "The dying Words of poor Maillie;" but they felt that Burns was a poet, and they fed their vanity with the idea of what they would make of him in the stilted forms of poetry