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Here then to-day, (with faith as sure,
With ardour as intense, as pure,
As when, amidst the rites divine,
I took thy troth, and plighted mine,)
To thee, sweet girl, my second ring
A token and a pledge I bring:
With this I wed, till death us part,
Thy riper virtues to my heart;
Those virtues, which before untried,
The wife has added to the bride :
Those virtues, whose progressive claim,
Endearing wedlock's very name,
My soul enjoys, my song approves,
For conscience' sake as well as love's.

And why? They show me every hour, Honour's high thought, Affection's power, Discretion's deed, sound Judgment's sentence, And teach me all things-but repentance.

ROBERT BURNS.

BORN 1758-DIED 1796.

THE leading circumstances of the life of Burns are so familiarly known to every class of readers, that it seems superfluous to go over them, unless in a manner very different from what can be attempted in this limited publication. His own eloquent and energetic letters, whenever his genuine feelings guided his pen, afford the truest insight into his manly, and, in many points, noble character as a man and a man of genius. His single letter to Dr Moore is one of the most precious morsels of autobio

graphy that the world possesses. Yet there is pleasure in enumerating the important circumstances of the life of Burns, however cursorily, for they are all such as do honour to his character.

Robert Burns was the eldest son of William Burness or Burns, and Agnes Brown, a couple in almost the lowest class of rural life in what was at that time a poor country. They were one of those excellent and virtuous pairs to whom Scotland owes her high moral and religious character among the nations of Europe. The father was a person of uncommon worth and intelligence, but not one of those whose portion is of this world. (a)

The school-education of Robert Burns was scanty and precarious, though his father made great exertions to educate all the family. At an age when boys more prosperously situated are dividing their time between learning and amusement, Burns was exerting himself above his strength to assist his father and his father's family-at the age of a boy doing a man's work-ill-fed, and probably not very well clothed; and, worse than all, feeling, with all the torturing sensibility of genius, the miseries arising to himself and those he loved from great poverty and unavoidable misfortune. The pity that is felt for his misfortunes in after-life may be alloyed by blame of his con

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(a) None of the biographers of Burns mention his mother, save as an excellent wife and mother in her rank of life. have heard a gentleman-himself a poet and a man of feeling and genius-who had opportunities of seeing this venerable matron in her latter years, say, that the mother was the poetical ancestor of Burns. This old lady certainly possessed something of her son's magical power of eloquence. In describing to my informant the localities of their residence near Alloway Kirk, the birth-place of the poet, she talked naturally of their hearing on dark nights "the sea roaring on the shore, and the sealghs yowling," in language more bold and figurative than ever cottage matron used before.-EDITOR.

duct, but our sympathy for Burns and his virtuous relatives, during this season of his early hardships, is an unmingled and a holy feeling. What generous young person ever perused the following passage of Burns' celebrated letter to Dr Moore, without feeling his heart overflow with tenderness, and his spirit burn with indignation! "My father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven children; and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour. My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was a freedom in his lease in two years more; and to weather these we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly: I was a dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother (Gilbert) who could drive very well, and help me to thrash the corn. A novelwriter might perhaps have viewed these scenes with some satisfaction; but so did not I; my indignation yet boils at the recollection of the s-1 factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears."

In this manner the last years of the boyhood of Burns, and the first of his youthful manhood, were passed, sustained by nothing save the warmth of his affections and the strength of his good spirit. If it were possible for penury, neglect, and misfortune, to depress and to extinguish genius, the mind of Burns must have been early crushed into dulness; but, as is said of another vivifying principle, "Many strong waters cannot quench it, neither can the fire consume it."

At the age of twenty-four, his younger brothers being now able to assist their father in the management of their unlucky farm, Robert tried to establish himself as a flaxdresser in Ayr. This project failed; by an accident his premises took fire; and, in conjunction with his brother Gilbert, he took a small farm. In his letters, Burns often jocularly speaks of his own early imprudence and want of thought, and probably over-rates his faults. The grave

world appears always to take him at his own light and reckless estimate, and as a much more heedless youth than he really was. It was about the time he occupied this farm, on which he had entered with his brother, that they might provide a home for the rest of the family, now deprived of their father, that Burns formed that connexion with his future wife which, as a man of good feeling and true honour, does him more credit than may at first sight be imagined. When most anxious to repair the injury in which this young woman had been involved by what was certainly a mutual imprudence, he was prevented from establishing his marriage through those forms which the laws of Scotland sanction, by the harsh and unjustifiable interference of her relatives, and no doubt in some degree by her own acquiescence. A disgraced daughter appeared better than the wife of an honest man in circumstances so hopeless and desperate as were those of Burns. His anguish on the occasion is expressed with great feeling in one of his poems. Shortly after this it is well known how bright "a change came o'er the spirit of his dream." His poems were published in Edinburgh; he came to the metropolis of his country, and met such a reception as no rustic author ever met before, nor ever will again. The tide of prosperity flowed for the time as high as even the hopes of a poet could have risen; and, caressed and applauded by the gay and the great, the fair and the learned, by men of rank and women of elegance, Burns returned home comparatively a rich man, and finally formed that matrimonial connexion which is a trait in his character that none of his biographers have sufficiently appreciated. This, we are warranted in believing, he at last did from the highest and purest motives. How many prudent mothers, virtuous sisters, and honourable friends, would not only have pardoned his abandonment of his future wife, but even have anxiously desired to see him form a connexion

more suitable to a man of his changed prospects, and, above all, to one of his extraordinary endowments. Burns himself ascribes his marriage to necessity; but it was a necessity which ninety-nine out of a hundred young men-" all honourable men," chivalrous spiritswould have thought it quite justifiable to evade. One of the most generous sentiments that any man ever uttered contains the true reason of this sacrifice to a high-minded integrity. In writing to Mrs Dunlop, Burns says of the marriage he had formed,-" The happiness of a once much-loved and still loved fellow-creature was in my power, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a trust." Burns had brought five hundred pounds from Edinburgh, the honourable reward of his abilities. Of this sum he lent or gave two hundred pounds (a) to his brother Gilbert for his own use, and the use of the rest of the family. He then settled with his wife at the farm of Ellis

(a) I have much pleasure in recording the following circumstance:-Mr Gilbert Burns, a man of considerable literary ability, and in all respects one " of the excellent of the earth," died lately in East Lothian, where he had long lived as the factor of Lord Blantyre. The mother of the poet, who many years survived her illustrious son, lived till her death with Gilbert Burns, who had a large family of his own. This debt of £200 to his brother-for such he seems to have considered it-necessarily stood over. The exertions of Dr Currie, and of the other friends and admirers of Burns, had placed his widow far above the fear of want, and every member of the family was respectably settled in life. It seems to have been almost the romance. of integrity which induced Mr Gilbert Burns to devote to the repayment of this loan a sum of money which he received from the booksellers shortly before his death for revising his brother's works. Had Burns survived, it would have gone hard with him before he had taken back this money.

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