Chapter 2

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKSPEARE.

I had been familiar with the debates of the French Convention, and had witnessed the genius of French eloquence in its highest exertions. Nothing will cure this people of their aversion to nature. With them, all that is natural is poor--simplicity is meanness. The truth of things wants the picturesque, and thus wants every charm. I had listened to some of their public speakers with strong interest, while they were confined to detail. No man tells a story better than a French _conteur_. There lies the natural talent of the people. Nothing can be happier than their seizure of slight circumstances, passing colours of events, and those transient thoughts which make a story as pretty as a piece of ladies' embroidery--a delicate toil, a tasteful display of trivial difficulties gracefully surmounted. But even in their higher order of speakers, I could perceive a constant dissatisfaction with themselves, unless they happened to produce some of those startling conceptions which roused their auditory to a stare, a start, a clapping of hands. I had seen Mirabeau, with all his conscious talent, look round in despair for applause, as a sailor thrown overboard might look for a buoy; I had seen him as much exhausted, and even overwhelmed, by the want of applause, as if he had dropped into an exhausted receiver. If some lucky epigram did not come to his rescue, he was undone.

I was now to be the spectator of a different scene. There was passion and resentment, the keenness of rivalry and the ardour of triumph--but there was no affectation. Men spoke as men speak when their essential interests are engaged--plainly, boldly, and directly--vigorously always, sometimes vehemently; but with that strong sincerity which administers eloquence to even the most untaught orders of mankind, and without which the most decorated eloquence is only the wooden sword and mask of harlequin.

Pitt took the lead, in all senses of the phrase. He was magnificent. His exposition of the state of Europe, perfectly unadorned, had yet an effect upon the House not unlike that of opening a volume to a multitude who had but just learned to read. All was novelty, conviction, and amazement. His appeal to the principles by which a great people should shape its conduct, had all the freshness and the strength of feelings drawn at the moment from the depths of his own blameless bosom; and his hopes of the victory of England over the temptations to public overthrow, exhibited all the fire, and almost all the sacred assurance of prophecy.

He described the system of France as "subversion on principle," its purpose universal tumult, its instrument remorseless bloodshed, and its success a general reduction of society to the wild fury and the squalid necessities of the savage state. "This," he exclaimed, turning his full front to the House, raising his hand, and throwing up his eyes to heaven with the solemnity of an adjuration--"This we must resist, in the name of that Omnipotent Disposer who has given us hearts to feel the blessings of society, or we must acknowledge ourselves unworthy to hold a name among nations. This we must resist--live or die. This system we must meet by system--subtlety by sincerity--intrigue by resolution--treachery by good faith-menace by courage. We must remember that we have been made trustees of the honour of the past, and of the hopes of the future. A great country like ours has no alternative but to join the enemy of all order, or to protect all order--to league against all government, or to stand forth its champion. This is the moment for our decision. Empires are not afforded time for delay. All great questions are simple. Shrink, and you are undone, and Europe is undone along with you; be firm, and you will have saved the world!"

The feelings with which this lofty language was heard were intense. The House listened in a state of solemn emotion, hour after hour, deeply silent, but when some chord was so powerfully touched that it gave a universal thrill. But those involuntary bursts of admiration were as suddenly hushed by the anxiety of the House to listen, and the awful sense of the subject. It was not until the great minister sat down that the true feeling was truly exhibited; the applause was then unbounded--a succession of thunder-peals.

I had now leisure to glance at the Opposition. Fox, for a while, seemed good-humouredly inclined to give up the honour of the reply to some of the popular speakers round him; but the occasion was too important to be entrusted to inferior powers, and, on a general summons of his name, he at length rose. The world is too familiar with the name of this celebrated man to permit more than a sketch of his style. It has been said that he had no style. But this could be said only by those who regard consummate ability as an accident.

Of all the public speakers whom I have ever heard, Fox appeared to me the most subtle--of course, not in the crafty and degrading sense of the word; but in the art of approaching an unexpected case, he was a master. He loitered, he lingered, he almost trifled by the way, until the observer began to believe that he had either no object in view, or had forgotten it altogether. In the next moment he rushed to the attack, and carried all by storm. On this occasion he had a difficult part to play; for the hourly violences of the French capital had begun to alienate the principal aristocracy of England, and had raised abhorrence among that most influential body, the middle class. The skill with which the orator glided over this portion of his subject was matchless; no Camilla ever "flew o'er the unbending corn" with a lighter foot. He could not altogether evade the topic. But he treated it as one might treat the narrative of a distressing casualty, or a disease to be touched on with the pity due to human infirmity, or even with the respect due to a dispensation from above. He often paused, seemed to find a difficulty of breathing, was at a loss for words, of which, however, he never failed to find the most pungent at last; and assumed, in a remarkable degree, the appearance of speaking only from a strong compulsion, a feeling of reluctant duty, a sense of moral necessity urging him to a task which burdened all his feelings. I will acknowledge that, when he had made his way through this difficult performance, I followed him with unequivocal delight, and acknowledged all the orator. He had been hitherto Milton's lion "pawing to get free his hinder parts." He was now loose, in all his symmetry and power, and with the forest and the plain before him. "Why has the monarchy of France fallen?" he explained, "because, like those on whom the malediction of Scripture has been pronounced, it had eyes and yet would not see, and ears, yet would not hear. An immense population was growing up round it year after year, yet it could see nothing but nobles, priests, and princes. In making this war," said he, "you are beginning a contest of which no man can calculate the means, no man can state the objects, and no man can predict the end. You are not warring against the throne of France, nor even against the people of France; but warring against every people of the earth which desires to advance its own prosperity, to invigorate its own constitution, and to place itself in that condition of peace, purity, and freedom, which is not more the desire of man than the command of Providence."

The House burst into loud reprobations of the name of aristocrat and democrat, which he declared to be mere inventions of party prejudice. "Do you require to make political hostilities immortal, give them names; do you wish to break down the national strength, divide it in sections: arm against your enemy, if you will, but here you would arm one hand against the other."

To the charge of defending the French mob, his answer was in the most prompt and daring style.

"Who are the French mob? The French nation. Dare you put eight and twenty millions of men into your bill of attainder? No indictment ever drawn by the hand of man is broad enough for it. Impeach a nation, you impeach the Providence that made it. Impeach a nation, you are impeaching only your own rashness and presumption. You are impeaching even the unhappy monarch whom you profess to defend. Man is every where the creature of circumstances. Nations are what their governments make them. But France is in a state of revolt. Be it so. I demand what nation ever revolted against justice, truth, and honour? You might as well tell me, that they rebelled against the light of heaven; that they rejected the fruits of the earth; that they refused to breathe the air. Men do not thus war against their natural benefactors; they are not mad enough to repel the very instincts of preservation. I pronounce it, fearlessly, that no nation ever rose, or ever will rise, against a sincere, national, and benevolent authority. No nation was ever born blind. Infatuation is not a law of human nature. The monarchy of France was the criminal."

Another burst, which produced vast effect on the House, referred to the exclusiveness of the chief public employments.

"The people have overthrown the titles and dignities of France. I admit it. But was it from a natural hatred of those distinctions? That I deny. They are congenial to the heart of man. The national hatred lay in the sense of that intolerable injustice which turns honour into shame. For centuries, those titles and dignities were to the people not badges of honour, but brands of scorn. They were not public calls to generous emulation, but royal proclamations of everlasting contempt. They were not ramparts surrounding the state, but barriers shutting out the people. How would such insults to the common origin of man, to the common powers of the human mind, to the common desires of distinction born with every man, be endured in this country? Is it to be wondered at, that France should have abolished them by acclamation? I contend, that this was a victory gained, not for a populace, but for a people, for all France, for twenty-eight millions of men--over a portion of society who had lost their rank, a body already sentenced by their personal inefficiency--a caste, who, like a famished garrison, had been starved by the sterility of the spot in which they had inclosed themselves; or, like the Indian devotees, had turned themselves into cripples by their pretence of a sacred superiority to the habits of the rest of mankind."

Opposition still exhibited its ranks but slightly diminished, and the chief passages of this impassioned appeal, which continued for three hours, were received with all the fervour of party. Burke then rose. Strong interest was directed to him, not merely for his eminent name, but from the public curiosity to hear his explanation of that estrangement which had been for some time spreading, under his auspices, through the leading personages of the Opposition. Like most men who have made themselves familiar with the works of a great writer, I had formed a portraiture of him by anticipation. I never was more disappointed. Instead of the expressive countenance and commanding figure, I saw a form of the middle size, and of a homely appearance, a heavy physiognomy, and the whole finished by two appurtenances which would have been fatal to the divinity of the Apollo Belvidere, spectacles and a wig. His voice and manner were scarcely less prepossessing; the one was as abrupt and clamorous, as the other was rustic and ungraceful. He had the general look of a farmer of the better order; and seemed, at best, made to figure on a grand jury.

But I soon felt how trivial are externals in comparison of genuine ability; or perhaps, how much even their repulsiveness may add to the power of genius. I had listened but a few minutes when I forgot every thing, except that a man of the highest faculties was before me; with those faculties wrought to the highest tension by the highest subjects. Taking a line of argument, equally distinct from the leaders of the Ministry and the Opposition, he dwelt as little on the political views of England and Europe with Pitt, as he did upon the revolutionary regeneration of France and Europe with Fox. His view was wholly English; the reference of the revolutionary spirit to our own institutions. "I do not charge," he exclaimed, turning full on the Opposition bench, "individuals with conspiracy; but I charge them with giving the sanction of their name to principles, which have in them all the germs of conspiracy. Sir, the maxim of resisting the beginnings of evil, is as sound in the concerns of nations as in the morality of individual minds. Nay, I am not sure whether mischief is not more effectually done in that incipient state, than when the evil comes full-formed. It is less perceived, and it thus destroys with impunity. The locust, before it gets its wings, destroys the crop with a still more rapacious tooth than when its armies are loading the wind.

"Honourable members have talked largely of their zeal for the constitution. Sir, I am content to follow the wisdom which judges of the faith by the works. In my humble measure, I have been a zealous worshipper of the constitution. There was a time when those honourable gentlemen and myself--and I speak of that time with the regret due to long friendship--took 'sweet counsel together,' and bowed before that common worship as friends. That time is past. We have since taken different paths. I have been charged with apostasy. What is my apostasy? That I have not followed the frenzy and ingratitude of the hour; that, while the most awful event in the history of human change has been transacting before us, I have not shut my ears and eyes to its moral; that I have not followed the throng into the valley, and there joined the fabricators of the new idolatry, the priesthood of the golden calf of revolution, and shared the polluted feast and the intoxicated dance; while the thunders of divine vengeance were rolling on the hill above."

It was obvious from his manner, and his frequent return to the topic, that that charge of deserting his party had deeply wounded his generous and sensitive nature; and nothing struck me as more characteristic of his mind, than the variety and richness of his fine amplification on this subject.

"In those ranks," said he, "I fought for nearly the half of that portion of life allotted to man; certainly for that portion of my course, in which the desires, the vigour, and the applicability of all the best parts of human nature have their fullest play. I came to it a volunteer--I fought side by side with its foremost--I shared the 'winter of their discontent,' as willingly as the summer of their prosperity. I took the buffets of ill fortune, and they were many, with as cheerful a countenance and as unshaken a fidelity as any man. But when I saw a new banner raised among them, blazoned with mottoes of evil, and refused to follow, who were the deserters? They or I?" As he spoke these words, he drew his otherwise rather stooping form to its full height, lifted his hand above his head, and stood like one at once demanding and defying the investigation of the empire.

The roar of applause which followed seemed to shake the very walls. He was powerfully moved; his countenance changed from its usual pallidness to strong suffusion; his hands rather tossed than waved in the air. At last I saw one of them thrust strongly into his bosom, as if the gesture was excited by some powerful recollection. "Do I speak without proof of the public hazards?" he exclaimed. "I can give you demonstration--I need invoke neither powers above nor powers below to enlighten you. I have the oracle within my hand." The House fixed all its eyes upon him. He dropped his voice, and spoke with a faint, but clear tone which formed a remarkable contrast to his usually bold, and even harsh enunciation: "Sir," said he, in this half-whispered voice, "before I join these gentlemen in their worship, I must know what deity presides in their temple; I must see that the incense which fumes before its altar is taken from the sacred repositories of the constitution, not the smuggled importation of foreign fabrications of revolt--that pernicious compound of civil mischief and mad metaphysics--which, instead of consummating and purifying the sacrifice, only poisons the air. I must see something of the priest too, before I join in his aspirations; I must see that he is lawfully inducted to his office, that he is not a rebel in the garb of loyalty--a blasphemer where he professes to pray, and a traitor where he propounds allegiance."

Fox here, evidently taking the description to himself, exhibited palpable signs of displeasure. Burke caught the expression at once, and instantly changed the whole current of his conceptions. "If," said he, "the honourable gentleman thinks that I designate _him_ as the high-priest of this new worship, he does me as much injustice as himself. No, no! When we shall see the Republican Pantheon thrown open, he, and such as he, will not be called to officiate at the altar. He is much more likely to be the victim. The popular ornaments, now flung so lavishly upon him, will find him no further favour, than the speedier offering on the same abhorred altar, which reeks with so much of the best blood of France." Here a corpulent noble, peculiarly hostile to Burke, laughed contemptuously. The orator instantly turned upon him. "True," said he, "there may be a good deal of variety in that procession. There may be the mummer as well as the priest; it may have the mountebank selling his potions, and playing his tricks, as well as the sacrificer with his axe--unless the ambition of the bloated performer should prefer to combine the offices, and be at once the butcher and the buffoon."

The hit was felt on all sides, and the laughter was unbounded. He then rose, as was his custom, into a higher strain. "I can imagine that procession," said he, "or rather, that triumph, of the principles of change. Like the return of the classical Bacchus from his Indian conquests, the demigod," and he now cast a look at Fox, "secure of supremacy, exulting in his prowess, and thinking the civilized world at his feet; but not without the companionship of his trusty Silenus"--and here he turned his glance on the noble lord--"that veteran follower, whose ambition is limited to his cups, and the vigour of whose fidelity is shown only in the constancy of his intoxication; the whole procession being drawn by the wild lords of the forest and the wilderness, who, harnessed as they may be for the moment, will no sooner find their food stinted, than they will resume the natural instincts of the lion and the tiger, turn on their drivers and devour them.

"But, sir," he exclaimed, turning to the chair, "I have higher topics, and to those I now call the attention of the representatives of England. I have alluded to the revolutionary temple. I here have its deity." With these words, he plucked from his bosom a large dagger, held it for a moment up to the light, and then flung it at the foot of the table. The astonishment, and even the alarm, of the whole assembly was beyond description. They all started from their seats, as if assassination had stood before them in a visible shape. Some crowded round Burke, some seized the dagger, which was eventually carried to the Speaker, and became the object of universal curiosity. All was confusion for a considerable time. At length Burke, in a few words delivered in his most impressive tone, explained the phenomenon. "That dagger," said he, "is one of thousands, perhaps of millions, which the preachers of philosophy are now forging for popular conviction. You see that by its construction it is equally fitted for the head of a pike, or for a dagger--equally serviceable in tearing down the monarchy in the field, or stabbing its friends in their chambers. You have it, at once the emblem of rebellion and assassination. Those are the arguments of the new school--those are the instruments by which the limbs of the state are to be amputated, for replacement by the inventions of the revolutionary mechanists. Those are the keys by which the locks of cabinets and councils are henceforth to be opened, and the secrets of national wealth laid bare to the rapacity of the rabble." After this speech nothing was listened to.

The debate had been prolonged through the greater part of the night, and yet such was the interest felt in its subject, that the streets in the neighbourhood continued crowded to the last. All the hotels and coffee-houses were filled with people waiting for the division. Groups, with lighted torches, were lingering everywhere, and passing the intelligence along, as a member happened casually to make his appearance in the course of the night; shouts and expressions of wrath alternately arose, according to the nature of the intelligence, and a species of open-air legislature was held during one of the bitterest nights of winter, with discussions as active, though perhaps not altogether so classical, as those within; yet totally free from tumult, and in the spirit of a people who live with a constant reference to the laws. The rush of the members to the porch, on the breaking up of the debate, produced a corresponding rush of the multitude. Public curiosity was roused to its wildest height--every public sentiment had its full expression; and whether the acclamation was louder when Fox's corpulent frame was seen toiling its slow way through the pressure, or when Pitt's slender figure and passionless face was recognised, is a question which might have perplexed the keenest investigators of popular sentiment. All was that uproar in which the Englishman delights as a portion of his freedom.

On returning to my chamber, exhausted, yet animated with a new sense of the value of existence in such a country, and of the noble faculties which she carried in her bosom, I saw a large packet on my table. I gazed on its envelope for a few moments with that strange emotion which sometimes makes us dread to open the very letter which we most desire to receive. It was obviously from Downing Street. At last I opened it. It contained my commission in the Guards!

My destiny was now fixed, and it is impossible to tell how much I felt relieved. I had spent the preceding period in such perplexing indecision, that I felt my heart withering within me. Now all was clear. My course was decided. I was in other hands than my own, and whatever might be the result, I was no longer answerable for either good or ill fortune. No human being who has not felt the trial almost the torment, of being left to decide on the conduct which may make or mar him for life, can conceive the depression into which it plunges the mind. From this I was now relieved; I was wholly free; an established routine, a vigorous profession, a regulated pursuit, and that pursuit one of the most honourable nature, was suddenly prepared for me by the enclosure upon my table. After again and again reading this simple but expressive document, I threw myself on my bed, and attempted to forget it and the world. But I could forget neither; my eyelids would not close; sleep had gone from me. After a useless effort for composure, I rose, relighted my lamp, and spent the rest of the night in writing to my relatives, to Vincent, to Mordecai, and every one to whom I felt his majesty's sign-manual a vindication of my whole career. There was still one cloud that overhung my prospect, one gloomy and bitter remembrance: but this cloud I had neither the power nor even the wish to dispel; this remembrance was already a part of my being--to extinguish it was impossible. I resolved to cherish it as a sacred recollection, to combine it with the aspirations of my new pursuit, and render them thus still nobler; to reserve it as a treasure inaccessible to the knowledge of mankind, but to which I might return in my hours of discontent with the world, and restore my sense of the beauty of mind and form which might still exist in the shape of human nature.

Yet it may be justly supposed that I did not limit my feelings to this lonely abstraction. I spent an anxious period in making enquiries for the Maréchale, in every quarter which offered the slightest probability of discovering her abode. Though I had seen the announcement of Clotilde's approaching marriage in the public journals, I had seen no mention of its having taken place. My search was wholly unproductive. The captivating duchess, who received me with the kindness which seemed a part of her nature, while she joined me in my praises of the "young, the lovely, and the accomplished Comtesse," "her dearest of friends," could tell me nothing more than that she had left London, and she believed with an intention of visiting France. There her knowledge ceased. I learned only further, that she had grown singularly fond of solitude, was melancholy, and had no hesitation in expressing the deepest dislike to the marriage proposed by her family. My enquiry was at an end.

Hopeless as this intelligence was, it relieved me from the certainty, which would have been despair. While Clotilde remained unallied to one whom I could not avoid regarding as an uncongenial spirit, if not a hard and tyrannical master, there was, at least, the chance of happiness remaining for me in a world where every day brought changes more extraordinary than our meeting. If there should be a war, my regiment would be among the first to be employed, and France would inevitably be the first object of a British expedition. The "march to Paris" had been proclaimed by orators, exhibited in theatres, and chanted in street ballads. All before us was conquest, and distinctions of every kind that can captivate the untried soldier, glittered in all eyes. I was young, ardent, and active. My name was one known to the table at which I seated myself on my introduction to the Guards, and I was immediately on the best footing with the gallant young men of a corps which has never suffered a stain. I had even some peculiar sources of favour in their eyes. I had actually made a campaign. This was more than had been done by any man in the regiment. The Guards, always brave and always foremost as they were, had not seen a shot fired for a quarter of a century. The man who had heard bullets whistling about his ears, and had, besides, seen the realities of war on the magnificent scale of continental campaigning, possessed a superiority which was willingly acknowledged by the gallant youths round us; and every detail of that most romantic campaign, reluctantly given as it was by me, was listened to with generous interest, or manly intelligence. And I had actually learned enough, under the Duke of Brunswick, a master of tactics, to render my services useful at the moment. The discipline of the British army was not then, what it has since been, the model to Europe. The Englishman's nature prompts him to require a reason for every thing; and there was no peculiarly strong reason for the minute toil of foreign discipline, in an army which had never been engaged since the American war. But other days were now obviously at hand, and the passion for discipline, and above all others, for the Prussian discipline, became universal. With the exaggeration common to all popular impulses, the tactics of Frederick were now regarded as the secrets of victory. That great soldier, and most crafty of men, by his private reviews, to which no stranger, even of the highest rank, was ever admitted, and by a series of mystifications, had laboured to produce this impression upon Europe, and had largely succeeded. Mankind love being cheated; and what the charlatanism of necromancy effected a thousand years ago, was now effected by the charlatanism of genius. If I had seen the Prussian troops only at Potsdam, I should probably have mistaken the truncheon for a talisman, like the rest of the world. But the field suffers no mystification. I had seen that the true secret of this great tactician, for such unquestionably he was, consisted in his rejecting the superfluities and retaining the substance; in reducing tactics to the ready application of force, and in simplifying the old and tardy manoeuvres of the French and Austrian battalions, to the few expeditious and essential formations required before an enemy in the field. I was offered the adjutancy, and I accepted it rejoicingly.

In those days, by a curious anomaly, which can scarcely be believed in ours, every regiment was practically free to choose its own system of manoeuvre. The natural consequence was, that no two regiments did any thing alike. To brigade the army was impossible, and every field-day was a scene of ludicrous confusion. But this freedom had the advantage, in the present instance, of allowing me to introduce that Prussian discipline which has since been made the basis of the British. It was then perfectly new, and it had all the effect of brilliant novelty. Our parade was constantly crowded with officers of the highest grades, anxious to transmit our practice to their regiments. The king, always attached to German recollections, and who would have made as good a soldier as any of his forefathers, was frequently a spectator. The princes and nobility were constant in their attendance; and the regiment, thus stimulated, rapidly displayed all the completeness and precision of movement which to this day makes a review of the Guards the finest military spectacle of Europe.

The adjutant was not forgotten in the general applause and excitement. I was promised promotion in the most gratifying language of royalty itself, and all the glittering prospects of the most glittering of all pursuits opened before me. I still had my moments of depression. Clotilde often rose before me like a departed spirit in the solitude of my chamber, and even in the midst of public festivities, or in those balls and banquets which the nobility gave in such profusion at this period of the year. When a shape, however faintly resembling her incomparable elegance of form, passed before my eye, or a voice, in the slightest degree reminding me of her noble tones, reached my ear, I felt an irresistible pang, that, for the time, embittered all the scene around me.

But I had in no period of my life been suffered to linger in long melancholy. One night, after returning from a dinner at Devonshire House, I found a gentleman in possession of my chamber, with my fire briskly blazing, supper on the table, and every appearance of his having made himself master of the establishment. As I paused at the door, in some surprise at the ease of the proceeding, the intruder turned round, and I saw the face of my old and excellent friend Vincent. I was delighted to take the honest hand of one who was enough to redeem the character of human nature. He was full of congratulations and country news. He told me that this, his first visit to London for years, was simply to shake hands with his pupil; to hear from him his adventures; and to have the opportunity of seeing the regiment on parade. He now enjoyed all his objects together. The regiment "reminded him of the grenadiers of Maria Theresa, in the first Hungarian campaign; and all that he wished for me was, that I had seen Daun or Landohn. However, no man in this world could have every wish gratified; and he was certain that I had in me the materials of a field-marshal."

But he had more important topics. By an accidental meeting with an old college friend, high in office, he had ascertained that an expedition for Holland had been resolved on; and that it was to take place without delay. The French army had passed the frontier, and taken the strong fortress of Breda. Williamstadt was bombarded, and must fall in a few days if not relieved. With its fall, the Seven Provinces would be thrown open. In this emergency, aid had been solicited from England.

Vincent's country news was brief. My lordly brother was in pursuit of a neighbouring heiress; and, as a prospective remedy for matrimonial ennui, speculating on the chance of employment on some foreign embassy. Vincent himself had married one of his daughters to a neighbouring squire, whom he denominated an "unlicked cub," but an honest man. Thus I had the knowledge of all that the country could furnish, and thus--"runs the world away."

All now was excitement and activity. The intelligence of the French advance into the territories of our old and very helpless ally, awoke England at once. The feeble and perfectly fruitless negotiations, by which the slide from disgust into war is generally managed, had produced their effect; and France, furious for its prey, and England, steady and stubborn, for the first time were brought face to face. The summons, so long wished for, at length reached us; and the Guards were ordered for embarkation. We received it in the spirit of a jubilee. All had been prepared. And on the night before our final parade, I received my appointment to a company. Our parade, next morning, was one which I believe was never forgotten by any individual who had the good fortune to witness it. Of all the striking ceremonials which I have ever seen, it was the most striking. The king had given notice of his intention to be present, and bid us farewell. At six o'clock, the three regiments were drawn up in front of the Horse-Guards, a body of three thousand men, and finer-looking troops never bore arms. All the avenues to the park were crowded with the multitude. Exactly at the half-hour, a rush of the people towards the parade showed that the king, always punctual, was at hand. He came, surrounded by general officers, with the Prince of Wales, then a most chivalric figure, in the uniform of his regiment of light dragoons, and the Duke of York, as a field-marshal. The enthusiasm of the troops could not be restrained, as this brilliant staff approached their line; and three cheers were given with all the zeal of honest loyalty. There are times when tears are the only substitute for speech; and the king, one of the most kindhearted of men, visibly shed tears at this reception. Another _cortège_ now approached; they were the carriages of the queen and princesses. The scene now became almost painful. There was many a tear from royal and noble eyes--the impulse of high emotion, not of sorrow--or if tinged with the thoughts which always shade the name of war, yet undegraded by weakness. The multitude caught the feeling; the shouts subsided; and all was weeping and waving of handkerchiefs. The king put an end to this embarrassing sympathy. He rode forward, and, taking his station in the centre, gave the word to "march." He was answered by one gallant "huzza" from the line, repeated by the thousands and tens of thousands who now moved before and around us. Our bands struck up, and, with the monarch and his sons at our head, and the queen and princesses following in their equipages, we marched through streets, crowded to the roof, echoing with acclamations, and wishing us all good fortune as we passed along, until we left the mighty metropolis behind. Even then, it was only to meet the new multitude of the country. The road to Greenwich, where we were to embark, exhibited a population as countless, enthusiastic, and full of good wishes as those with whom we had just parted. The king still rode in our front; flags, banners, and every kind of joyous testimonial met our eyes; and if ever there was a triumph before the victory, it was in that honest and generous display of the true heart of England.

The embarkation took place within a few hours; and on that night we slept on the element which Britain has so long made her field of battle. The weather was serene, and we fully enjoyed the freshness of the air, and the brightness of the view, as we rounded the coast. At the mouth of the Thames, we had met a strong squadron of the line of battle, appointed for our convoy, and bringing numerous transports with troops. Our fleet had now become extensive, and as we moved out from the land, the sight became continually more animated and exciting. The despatch of the look-out frigates, the constant change of signals, the firing of guns to regulate the sailing of the great convoy, the manoeuvres of those floating castles, the seventy-fours and three-deckers, the harmony of their bands as they passed us, rushing along under a cloud of canvass, with the hum of the thousands on board--all formed one of the most heart-stirring combinations that could exist to the eye, or even to the heart of a human being.

I stood gazing on the poop of our transport the entire day; and even when twilight came, there was but a change of interest and beauty. We moved on, a moving multitude--a fragment of a mighty nation--almost a nation ourselves, on the face of the deep. Within the horizon which now lay beneath my glance, smooth as glass, and shining in the richness of the departing day, what materials of living power were gathered; what bold hearts; what high hopes; what indefatigable perseverance; what accomplished intelligence! a force inferior to the one before me had more than once changed the fate of the world. It might be now on its way only to change that fate once more. The cause, too, was a noble one. It was sustained by no aggression, perfidy, or desire of change. It was to protect a friendly nation, and to sustain an inspired cause. There was no taint of cruelty or crime to degrade the soldiership of England. We were acting in the character which had already exalted her name as protectors of the weak and punishers of the powerful.

On the second evening we reached the flat and uninteresting coast of Holland. But if the coast was repellent, nothing could exceed the eagerness of the inhabitants to welcome our arrival. On our first approach to the land every boat that could swim came off, crowded with people, some to take refuge on board the fleet, but thousands to urge our speedy landing. The ferocious plunder which had become the principle of the republican arms had stricken terror into the hearts of the Hollanders: a people remarkably attached to home, and fond, or even jealous, of the preservation of the most trivial article of property connected with that home. The French troops, often pressed with hunger, and adopting the desperate maxim of "making war support war," had committed such wanton ruin of property in the Netherlands, that, at this distance, the common effect of exaggeration described them as rather demons than men.

War is of all things the most picturesque, and there never was a gala on the waters of the Adriatic more gay or glittering than our landing. But we had infinitely the advantage in the numbers, the brilliancy, and, what gave a higher feeling to the whole, in the reality of all its objects. This was no painted pageant; it was real strength, real soldiership; the cannon that roared above our heads, as we descended into the boats, were the thunderers which had shaken many a battlement; the flotilla of launches, long-boats, and cutters which covered the sea, was manned with the soldiers and sailors sent forth to fight the battle of human freedom on every shore of the globe. The ships were that British fleet whose name was synonymous with the noblest exploits of war, and which it would have been well worth going round the circumference of the globe to see.

On this night we bivouacked; the shore offered no human habitation, and it was too late for the landing of our tents. But the sand was dry; our fires were soon lighted; all was sport and activity; our bands played "Welcome to Holland;" our men danced with the peasantry; all had the look of a magnificent frolic; and, when at last I threw myself on my open air pillow, I dreamed of fairyland.

At daybreak we marched, in the highest spirits, and only longing to have an opportunity of trying our strength with the enemy. From time to time, the sound of a cannonade reached us, and heightened our eagerness to advance. But Holland is proverbially difficult for any movements but those of a trackschuyt; and the endless succession of narrow roads, the perpetual canals, and the monotony of her level fields, rich as they were, exhausted us, more than if we had marched twice the distance. But the spell of human hearts is excitement, and war is all excitement. All round us was new, and from the colonel to the rank and file, the "general camp, pioneers and all," enjoyed the quaint novelty of Dutch life. The little villages, so unlike our own, and yet so admirably fitted for peasant comfort, the homesteads embedded in plantations of willows, the neatness of every thing round the farm-houses, and even the sleekness of the cattle, which seemed by their tameness to form a part of the habitancy--all were objects of constant remark on our march; and we could easily comprehend the horror with which the arrival of a French commissariat must strike these comfortable burghers. But the punctuality of British payments was perfectly known already; the whole plenty of the land was poured out before us; we regaled sumptuously.

On the second evening of our march through this landscape of fatness, we were warned of our approach to the besieged fortress, by the louder roar of the cannon, and not less by the general desolation of the country. The enemy's hussars had made a wide sweep, and wherever they were seen, the villagers had fled instantly, carrying off their cattle. We found the traces of those foraying excursions in the fragments of burned mills, a favourite object of destruction with the French--for what purpose I never could comprehend, except the pleasure of seeing them burn--in cottages unroofed, for the sake of the thatch; in broken moveables, and, in some instances, in the skeletons of horses and remnants of arms; for the peasantry were not always patient sufferers, and some of the smaller detachments of the plunderers had met with severe retaliation.

At length we halted for the night, and orders were issued for a general movement at daybreak, to attack the French force covering the siege of Williamstadt. The order was received with shouts; and the night was spent in great exultation. The cannonade, which was now within a few miles of us, continued with such violence during the night that sleep was next to impossible; and long before the first streak of light in the east, we were busy in the numberless preparations for a first action. Orderlies and aides-de-camp were speedily in motion, and at the first tap of the _reveillé_ all were on parade. The sun rose brightly, gave one broad blaze along our columns, and after thus cheering us, instantly plunged into a mist, which, except that it was not actually black, obscured our road nearly as much as if it had been midnight. This was simply a specimen of the new land on which we now set foot. But it perplexed all the higher powers prodigiously--generals and the staff galloping round us in all directions, the whole one mass of confusion. Yet we still pushed on, toiling our puzzled way, when, as if by magic, a regiment of the enemy's hussars dashed full into the flank of our column. Never was there a more complete surprise. The enemy were as much astonished as ourselves, for the collision had been the result of an attempt to find their way through the fog back to their camp; but I now for the first time saw the temper of John Bull in the field. The attack of the hussars was evidently looked on by our men less as a military manoeuvre, than as a piece of foreign impudence. To fire might be hazardous to some of our advancing columns, which we could hear, though not see; but the word "charge" from our gallant old colonel was enough; they rushed with the bayonet on the cavalry, forced their way in between the squadrons, which had been brought to a stand by the narrowness of the dyke; and in five minutes the whole had laid down their arms, given up their horses to our fifers and drummers, and were marching to the rear.

As if to reward us for this dashing affair, a gust of wind blew aside the fog; the sun gleamed again; and Williamstadt, the French camp, the covering force formed in columns and waiting for us, and the whole country to the horizon, green as a duckpond, and altogether as smooth, burst on our view. The suddenness of the display was like the drawing-up of a stage curtain, with a melo-dramatic army and castle behind. Our advance was now rapid. The skirmishers on both sides began to engage, and our light artillery to throw a long shot now and then into the enemy's columns. The difficulty of the ground, intersected with high narrow causeways stretching over marshy fields, retarded our progress; and for two hours--and they were the two longest hours which any of us had ever spent--we were forced to content ourselves with firing at our long range, and watching the progress of our more distant columns moving on the flank of the enemy. To a military eye nothing could be more interesting than the view of the vast field on which these concentric movements were developing themselves from hour to hour. At length we received the order to advance, and drive in a strong column which had just debouched from a wood in front of us. Our men rushed on with a cheer, threw in a heavy volley, and charged. Their weight was irresistible, and the French column broke, and took refuge again in the wood. Another glance showed me the whole British force in motion, every where pressing on; the enemy every where retreating, all their columns converging upon their camp. Those are the brilliant moments of a soldier's life. All was exultation. We had met the enemy, and driven him from his position.

But the most difficult task of the day was still to be achieved. The French camp had been placed in strong ground; heavy batteries commanded every approach; and Dampierre, their general, an officer of known ability, had exhibited all his skill in rendering the position, if not impregnable, at least one which could not be forced without the most serious loss. The day had been already far spent, and the troops were wearied with six hours' marching and fighting; but nothing could restrain their eagerness to finish the victory. The heads of columns again advanced, and the firing became tremendous on both sides. The French batteries poured an absolute shower of balls upon us, and we were beginning to lose men, when a strange and indescribable sound suddenly caught every ear. Such was the universal sense of something more singular, and even more formidable, than the work of war, that the fire on our side rapidly subsided, and every eye was turned to look for the cause. It soon exhibited itself. With a roar like thunder, I saw the sea bursting in upon the plain where the enemy lay intrenched. The Dutch garrison had sallied out from Williamstadt, on the repulse of the French, and cut the dyke in several places. The ocean now fought our battle; each chasm in the long mound which protected the fields from inundation, was now the channel of a roaring cataract; the trenches were soon filled; as the waters advanced, the field-works were washed away; still wave rolled on wave; cannon, tents, baggage, every thing but the soldier himself, was seen gradually sinking, or floating away on the surface of the surge. Within the hour, the ground on which we had fought during the day was completely covered with the flood. The French camp was totally buried. The enemy had only time to make a hurried retreat, or rather flight, along the causeways which stood above the waters. As an army, they were utterly ruined; when they at last reached firm ground, they scattered through the country, and those battalions never appeared in the field again.

Our troops entered the relieved fortress, with drums beating and colours flying. We were received as deliverers; all that the place could offer was heaped upon us; and if praise could have repaid our exploits, never was praise more abundant from the lips of the whole population.

The catastrophe was complete; and when at night I broke away from the heat and noise of the huge barrack in which we had been placed, as the post of favour, and walked upon the rampart, nothing could form a more expressive contrast to the tumult of the day. The moon was high, and her light showed the whole extent of the late field of battle. But all now was one immense shining lake. Where cavalry had charged and artillery had roared, and the whole living clash and confusion of a stubborn engagement had filled the eye and ear but a few hours before, all was now an expanse of quiet water, calm as the grave, without a vestige of the struggle, but with hundreds of the combatants sleeping their last sleep below, and the whole artillery and equipment of a powerful army submerged.

I was still gazing from the ramparts, when I observed a body of cavalry advancing along the dike, at a rapid pace, with a group of staff officers among them. The alarm was given by the sentries; and, after some brief pause, it was ascertained that they were the escort of the new commander-in-chief of the allied armies in the Netherlands. My first impression was, that the man to whom so important a trust was given must be Clairfait; and I hastened down to meet him at our quarters. But I was disappointed; and for the dark and decided physiognomy, and military frankness of that distinguished soldier, I saw the Prince Cobourg, stern and lofty in his air, evidently too Austrian to be popular, yet known to be a gallant officer. But my disappointment was considerably assuaged by seeing one of his staff throw himself off his horse, and hasten towards me with almost joyous salutation. My surprise and pleasure were equal when I found him to be Guiscard!

Supper was on the table when I introduced the Prussian philosopher to my brother officers, and they were delighted with him. But he was the philosopher no longer, or rather had thrown off the half misanthropy which had made him so strong a contrast to my honest friend Varnhorst. His very countenance had adopted a different expression. It was no longer stern and sarcastic, but was lighted up with pleasantry; and the only conception of the change which I could form was, either that he had arrived at that height of philosophy to which every thing seems trivial, or that he had met with some of those extraordinary instances of good fortune which throw all the world into sunshine for the moment.

But he was full of knowledge on the subject most interesting to his hearers; and he gave us his information of the allied councils, and the movements of the armies, with a copiousness and courtesy which all our questioning could not tire.

"We have now," said he, "the finest army in line that Europe has ever seen; little less than 200,000 men are under the command of the prince. If he is suffered to move them in a mass, they must break through any part of the French territory which they choose. If they divide, they will be beaten. It will now take only three pitched battles to reach Paris--for the three covering armies fight with the guillotine in their rear. But a single unlucky skirmish may bring every peasant in France upon us; and it takes but fifteen days to make the French peasant a soldier. Blows, and those straightforward, are our true policy. If we negotiate, we shall be beaten; if beaten here, we shall be beaten on the Rhine, and perhaps even on the Danube."

The news of Dumourier's attempt to overthrow his government had reached us, but in the usual way of mystification. The answer of Guiscard was prompt and plain. "Dumourier," said he, "is one of those men who has a one-sided understanding. He is a capital soldier, but a childish statesman; and, with an absurdity by no means limited to himself, he thinks that his talent lies in statesmanship. The result has been, that the factions have always managed him as they do all men of his calibre. When he attempted to act for himself, they crushed him without mercy; when he ceased to be a tool, he necessarily became a victim. The army is now in retreat. To the French retreat is always ruin; the horseman sells his horse; the foot-soldier sells his musket; and the artilleryman sells his powder and ball, breaks up his gun-carriage for a fire, and throws his gun into the next ditch. The peasantry then fall on them all, repay their plunder with the pike and the pitchfork, and in three days the army is dissolved."

"But will Cobourg follow up his blow?" was the question on all sides.

"The commander-in chief," was the answer, "is intelligent and brave. He has learned his profession under the greatest soldier whom Russia has produced, or perhaps ever will produce--Suwarrow. But he is himself under orders. If he were a republican general he would instantly march, and within a week he would be in the Tuileries. But as an Austrian commander, he must wait for the opinion of men too far off to know a single fact of the campaign, too blind to know them if they were on the spot, and too jealous even of their own general to suffer him to beat the enemy if victory would throw their own nothingness into the shade."

Every hour now produced its event. A general _feu-de-joie_ announced the first great success of the campaign; Mayence had been taken, with its garrison of 20,000 men. The French general Custine, had made an unsuccessful attack on the lines of the besiegers, to relieve the fortress in its last extremity, had been beaten, and driven back into the Vosges, where he was at liberty to starve among the most barren mountains of France. But this intelligence came qualified by the formidable rumour that Prussia was already making terms with the French, that it had acknowledged the government as the "Republic," and even that the Prussians had sung the _Marsellaise_. Thus we had the light and shade.

But while politicians tremble, soldiers are gay. What were all those shiftings and doublings to us? We had all the luxuries of the most luxurious of all lives, the foreign camp. We had now marched from the country of fogs and bogs, and were moving through the richest soil, and not the least beautiful landscape, of the Continent. Holland was left behind, Flanders was round us, France was before us. We had the finest army of Europe, untouched by disaster, confident in its strength, and the enemy in full flight. If we despised the fugitives, we fully as much despised the politicians; the man with the sword in his hand naturally scorns the man with the pen behind his ear. Thus we galloped, danced, and dreamed on. The spring, too, had come; the harshness of a foreign winter had been changed within a few days to the delightful softness of early summer. The fields were covered with flowers, and the country was filled with the preparations for the rural fêtes of the first of May. I enjoyed the scene doubly, for I had been sent along with a squadron of dragoons to the advanced posts, and thus escaped the turmoil of the camp. My quarters were in one of the old Flemish country-houses, which had been the headquarters of the French general, and had thus escaped the usual ravage. The chateau was large, well furnished in the national fashion, and the half-dozen domestics who remained after the escape of their master, were charmed with the expenditure which always follows the presence of English troops. My companion, the captain of dragoons, was one of the finest specimens of his country--the heir of a noble family, generous and gay, brave as his own sword, and knowing as little of the soldier's life as became a young aristocrat with the prospect of thirty thousand a-year. He insisted on our giving a ball to the Flemings; and our invitations were sent out accordingly for half a dozen leagues round. They included, of course, the camp; and every lounger who could obtain leave for the night came crowding in upon us. Nothing could succeed better. All was festivity within doors. But not so all without, for the night suddenly changed from serenity to storm. England is not the only spot famed for fickleness of atmosphere. By midnight every beech and elm round the chateau was tossing and bending down to the roots, and a heavy snowfall was already sheeting the fields. As the storm rose, it occurred to me to ascertain what provision might have been made against it by our soldiers, who were lodged in the barns and extensive outhouses of the chateau. Leaving my dragoon friend to act as master of the ceremonies, I sallied forth. The storm was now at its height; and it was with some difficulty that I could make my way. In the midst of the excessive darkness, I felt some animal make a sudden spring on me, which nearly brought me to the ground. Wolves were not common in the country, but there had been some recent instances of their issuing from the forests, and my first idea was that I had been thus attacked. But the barking and bounding of a dog soon put an end to this conception; and I recognised in my assailant the huge house-dog of the chateau, with whom I had already struck up a particular friendship. More sharpsighted than myself, he had rushed across the wood after me, and exhibited all imaginable rejoicing at the rencontre. I reached the barns, found all my men wrapped in that quiet which cares nothing for the troubles of kings and cabinet councils, and was preparing to return, when Cæsar, with every demonstration of having found something of importance, brought me a letter which he had dug out of the snow. By the light of the lantern, I discovered it to be the report of an engineer officer dispatched from the French army to ascertain the condition of our outposts, informing the head of the staff of an intended ball, and proposing a plan for carrying off the whole party together. I was thunderstruck. The letter was dated three days before, and though evidently dropped by some negligence of the officer, yet giving full time for him to make his report in person, and bring the force necessary for our capture. If it succeeded, an exploit of this order might have paralysed the whole campaign; for nearly the entire staff of the army, besides a crowd of regimental officers of all grades, were within the walls of the chateau.

I hastened back, showed the report to one or two of the principal officers, in private, for the purpose of avoiding alarm to our fair partners, and we then considered what means were left to protect us from the approaching catastrophe. Our little council of war was nearly as much perplexed as matters of this kind are in general; and the propositions, various as they were, came finally to the usual result, that we had got into a scrape, and that we must get out of it as well as we could. To send the ladies away was impossible, in a tempest which already flooded every road, and with all the trees crashing over their heads. To expect reinforcements from the camp, at such a distance, and in such weather, was hopeless; with the recollection that the whole affair might be over in the next quarter of an hour, and our entire assembly be in march before the French hussars. This was the first occasion of my responsibility as a soldier; and I learned, from this time forth, to give commanders-in-chief some credit for their responsibilities. The agonies of that half hour I have never forgotten. Military failure was nothing compared to the universal shame and blighting which must fall on the officer who suffered such a disgrace to be inflicted on him in the presence of the whole army; and such a calamity to arrest the progress of that army, if not the hopes of Europe. My resolution was desperately but decidedly taken, if the post fell into the enemy's hands, on that night to throw away my sword and abandon my profession, unless some French bayonet or bullet relieved me from all the anxieties of this feverish world. To offer the command of the post to any of the superior officers present was, as I well knew, contrary to rule; and on me and the dragoon devolved the whole duty.

But this state of almost nervous torture was as brief as it was painful, and my faculties became suddenly clear. The service of outposts was a branch of soldiership, at that period, wholly unpractised by the British troops; but I had seen it already on its most perfect scale in the Prussian retreat, which I and my hussars had our share in covering. My first step was to warn my soldiers and the dragoons of the probability of attack, and my second to call for a favourite quadrille, in which I saw all our guests busily engaged before I left the chateau. My next was to repeat my Prussian lesson in reconnoitring all the avenues to the house. This, which ought to have been our first act on taking possession, had been neglected, in the common belief that the enemy were in full retreat. The gallant captain of dragoons prepared to take a gallop at the head of a party along the _chaussée_, and ascertain whether there were any symptoms of movement along the road. He mounted and was gone. Posting the dragoons in the farm-yard, I went to the front to make such preparations as the time might allow for the enemy. Like the greater number of the Flemish chateaux, it was approached by a long avenue lined with stately trees; but it wanted the customary canal, or the fosse, which, however detestable as an accompaniment to the grounds in peace, makes a tolerable protection in times of war, at least from marauding parties. All was firm, grand, and open, except where the garden walls and hedges of the lawn shut it in. As the avenue was the only approach accessible to cavalry, and as this was the force which would probably be used for a _coup-de-main_, if it were to be attempted at all, I set all hands to work to secure it. Wild as the night was, my men wielded the spade and mattock with good will; and we had completed a trench of some feet deep and wide, half across the road, when I caught the trampling of cavalry at a distance. My chagrin was irrepressible; the enemy would be upon us before we had got through our work, and we must be taken or fly. My men worked vigorously; but the cavalry were upon us--and to my utter astonishment and infinite relief, our labours produced a roar of laughter. The party were our dragoons, who had looked for the French advance in vain, and were now amusing themselves with our waste of toil. We forgave them their jest; they passed, and we prepared to follow to our quarters. But still the French officer's report haunted me; the precision of its terms, and the feasibility of the enterprise itself, struck with new force; and even after I had given the word to move, I halted the men, and climbing a little pleasure turret by the side of the avenue, gave a parting glance round the horizon. Nothing was to be seen. The night was dark as a dungeon, and I prepared to descend, when at that moment the distant sound of a trumpet broke on the air. I listened, and thought that I recognised the French call for cavalry to saddle and mount. I sprang down; every man piled his arms, took spade and mattock in hand once more, and in a few minutes the trench was completed across the road. Still no further notice of approaching troops was to be heard; and I heard a low, but rather provoking laugh among my company. Still I determined to persevere, and ordering some of the trees round us to be cut down, formed a rude species of _chevaux-de-frise_ in front of our trench. It was scarcely finished, when the distant trampling of cavalry was heard in the lull of the gale. All were now convinced, and dispatching a notice to the dragoons to be ready, we stood to our arms. Giving the strictest orders that not a word should be spoken, nor a shot fired, I waited for the enemy. The trampling increased every moment, and it was evident that the body of cavalry must be large, though of its actual numbers we could form no conjecture. They suddenly stopped at the entrance of the avenue, and I was in fear that my _trou-de-rat_ would be discovered; but the national impatience soon spared me this vexation. The cavalry, hearing nothing in the shape of resistance, and not relishing the pelting of the storm in the open country, rushed in without further search, and came pouring on at the gallop. The avenue was long, and the whole corps was already within it, when the leading squadrons came at full speed upon my rude fortifications. In they dashed, into the very heart of my _chevaux-de-frise_. Nothing could equal the confusion. Some sprang over the trees, but it was only to be flung into the trench; some even leaped the trench, but it was only to be met by our bayonets. The greater number, startled by the cries of their unlucky comrades in front, attempted to rein back; but found it impossible, from the weight of the squadrons still pushing on from behind. At this point, while they stood a struggling mass, wholly unable to move either backward or forward, I gave the word to fire, and poured in a volley with terrible execution. An ineffectual firing of pistols was their only return. Some of their officers now rushed to the front, with the usual gallantry of their character, called on their men to advance, and charged the trench; but this dash only filled it with falling men and horses. I gave them a second volley, which was followed by a howl of despair; the whole of their leading squadron was brought down--every shot had told. The mass still stood, evidently taken by surprise, and wholly unable to extricate themselves. I now ordered our dragoons to mount, take a circuit to the head of the avenue, and, if possible, close them in. In a few minutes, I heard the effect of my order in their galloping through the enclosures, and in the shout of a charge at the further end of the avenue. The staff and other officers in the chateau had hurried out at the sound of our firing, and some had come up to us, and others had joined the dragoons. A proposal was now sent by a general officer to the commandant of the brigade, to surrender, with a threat of being put to the sword in case of an instant's delay. The brave Frenchman was indignant at the proposal, and threatened to hang the bearer of it to the next tree. But the British camp had palpably been alarmed by this time. Bugles and trumpets were heard in every direction. Our dragoons had already shut up the avenue; and after some slight discussion, the advance of a few squadrons more, which came up at the gallop, proved the total impossibility of escape, and the affair was at an end. This night's _mêlée_ had no rival in the campaign; it put into our hands twelve hundred of the best cavalry in the French army, and almost wholly stripped the enemy of the means of protecting his flanks, while it made a most brilliant figure in the Gazette--the true triumph of the British soldier.

To me, it was a restoration to life from the depths of despair. It may be perfectly true, that many a post has been surprised, and many an officer captured, without being objects of penalty, or even of public observation; but my case was different. My character as a soldier was essential to my existence. The eyes of many, at home and abroad, were on me; and the scorn of one, wherever she was, would have been fatal to me. But of those bitter extremes I say no more; my spirit was buoyant with a sense that I had done my duty in the most effective style. Nor was I left to my solitary sense on the subject. My return to the chateau was as triumphant as if I had gained a pitched battle at the head of a hundred thousand men. Our fair guests, who had spent the hour before in the terrors of instant capture, were boundless in their congratulations and expressions of gratitude. The officers, to whom my defence had made the entire difference between a French prison and liberty, spoke in the manliest and most cheering terms of my conduct. The scene of the struggle was visited during the next day by every officer of the army who could obtain a horse and an hour's leave; and the report which was forwarded to the commander-in-chief contained language which was regarded as a sure pledge of promotion.

Guiscard hurried over to join in the congratulation. He had been employed until a late hour in sending despatches to his court, relative to the growing problems of our politics with Prussia; and taking the first opportunity of throwing aside the envoy, he came at a gallop to shake hands with me. His impatience to see the ground scarcely suffered him to sit down at table; his toast to the brave British army was given, and we went out to traverse the avenue. After having inspected every corner of it with his keen military glance--"You will find my theory right," said he; "war is always a succession of mistakes. There never has been a battle fought, in which even the successful general could not point out a series of his own blunders, any one of which might have ruined him. The only distinction is, that there are brilliant mistakes and stupid ones. Yours was of the former order--the Frenchman's of the latter. If, instead of sending his whole brigade headlong down the road, like clowns at a fair, he had dismounted half a squadron of his dragoons, and sent them to fire into the casements of the chateau, while he kept the rest of his men in hand in the neighbourhood, he must have captured every soul of the party, and by this time had you all fast at the French headquarters; but he blundered, and he has paid the price of blundering." To my laughing reply, "that there was at least some merit in the steadiness of the men who beat him"--"Of course," was his answer. "The English steadiness is like the English fire, the grand cure for the English contempt of the tactician. Yours is an army of grenadiers; you are fit for nothing but assaults: but it must be owned that your troops of old managed that part of their business well, and I dare say that the art is not lost among you yet. Still, there are other matters to be thought of. Pray," said he, turning his keen eye on me, "can any one in the chateau tell how near is the French army to-night?" I acknowledged my ignorance. "I ask the question," said he, "because I think it by no means improbable, that they are at this moment marching down upon you. Not that they can afford to lose a brigade of cavalry a-night, and I therefore think you safe enough for the twelve hours to come; but I am far from answering for the next twenty-four. Dampierre commands them; I know him well--he is a bold and also a clever fellow; the loss of his cavalry last night will leave him no alternative but to attack you or to meet the guillotine. Those are fine times to make a general officer look about him. My last letters from the Rhine state that the two generals of the two covering armies on the frontier have been put under arrest, and that they are now both on their way to Paris, from which Custine and Beauharnais will never return with their heads on their shoulders."

I shuddered at this fate of brave men, overcome only by circumstances, and asked whether it was possible that such a system could last, or in any case could be endured by men with swords in their hands.

"It can, and will," was the reply. "Soldiers are the simplest race of mankind, when they come in contact with the cunning men of cities. An army, showy and even successful as it may be, is always an instrument and no more--a terrible instrument, I grant you, but as much in the hands of the civilian as one of your howitzers is in the hands of the men who load and fire it. At this moment sixty commissioners, ruffians and cut-throats to a man--fellows whom the true soldier abhors, and who are covered with blood from top to toe--are on their way from Paris to the headquarters of the fourteen armies of the republic. Woe be to the general who has a will of his own! Those fellows will arrest him in the midst of his own staff, carry him off in the presence of his army, and send him to give a popular holiday to the Parisians, by his execution within half an hour after his arrival. So much for the power of an army."

"But Frenchmen are human beings after all. Must not those horrors revolt human nature?" was my question, put with indignant sincerity. He looked at me with a quiet smile.

"You are romantic, Marston, but you are of an age that becomes romance. When you shall have lived as long as I have done, and seen as much of the world as myself, you will know that it is utterly selfish. It may be true, that some generous spirits are to be found here and there, some fond hearts to cling to, some noble natures which inspire an involuntary homage for their superiority; but you might as well expect to be lighted on your way by a succession of meteors. In the world, you will find that every man carries his lantern for himself; and that whether small or great his light, the first object is to guide his own steps, with not the slightest care whether yours may not be into the swamp--unless, indeed, he may have a particular object in bewildering you into the very heart of it. But now, to more pressing affairs than my honest and luckless philosophy. Get leave from your colonel to take a ride with me. I feel a sudden wish to know what Dampierre is doing; and a few hours, and as few leagues, may supply us with information on points which your brave countrymen seem so constitutionally to despise. But recollect that _I_ am a Prussian."

We returned to the table, which was crowded with visitors, and spent an hour or two in great enjoyment; for what enjoyment can be higher than the conversation of minds willing to give and receive intellectual pleasure? And Guiscard was never more animated, easy, and abundant, in communicating that pleasure. He was a model of the most accomplished order of the continental gentleman. He had commenced life as a scholar; a disappointment in his affections drove him into the army. He discovered that he was made for the profession; and, combining the accomplished diplomatist with the almost chivalric soldier, he had rapidly risen to the highest rank of the royal staff. But he had the still rarer qualities of a sincere heart, and was a firm and willing friend.

The orderly now returned with the leave for which I had applied. The post was left in charge of the captain of dragoons; and Guiscard and I, without mentioning our purpose, rode out quietly, as if to enjoy the cool of the evening. It was well worth enjoying. The storm had gone down at daybreak, and been succeeded by a glowing sun; the fields flourished again, and if I had been disposed to forget the tremendous business which might be preparing for the morrow, I might have lingered long over the matchless luxuriance of the Flemish landscape. There certainly never was one which gave slighter evidence of the approach of two hostile armies. From the first hill which we ascended, the view, for leagues round, exhibited nothing but the rich tranquillity of a country wholly agricultural; soft uplands, covered with cattle grazing; ploughed fields, purpling in the twilight; clumps of trees sheltering villages, from which the smoke of the evening fires rose slowly on the almost breathless air, giving an impression of the comfort and plenty of the meal within; and at intervals, some huge old chateau, with its buttressed and richly-wrought architecture--those carvings and colourings which so strikingly convey the idea of a past age of quaint luxury and lavish wealth--rose from the centre of its beech grove, glaring against the sunset, as if it had been suddenly covered with a sheet of gold. All was peace, and the few peasants whom we met, as the night fell, were all in the same tale, that there had been no patrols in their neighbourhood of late, and that, with the exception of the attack on the "outposts of the English," they had not heard or seen any thing of the French for a month before.

The night had now fallen, and though calm, it was one of remarkable darkness. We passed village after village, but by this time all were fast asleep, and except the disturbance of the house-dogs as we rode by, not a sound was to be heard. I felt every inclination to take my share of "nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," and proposed to my companion to turn our horses into the first farm-yard, and "borrow an hour" or two's rest from the farmer's hospitality, and clean straw.

"I agree with you," was the answer, "that Dampierre is clearly not on this road; but that is no reason why he may not be on some other. On considering the matter, I think that we have been wrong in looking for him here; for his national adroitness is much more likely to have tried a movement in any other direction. He may be marching on either the right or the left of the spot where we are standing. And if he is the officer which I believe him to be, he is trying this game at this moment."

"What then is to be done, but ride back to our quarters, unless we should prefer being cut off by his advance?" was my question.

"One thing is to be done," was the reply--"we must not let ourselves be laughed at; and if we return with nothing more for our night's work than the story that we slept in a Flemish barn, we shall be laughed at. So far as I am concerned, I care nothing for the sneers of ignorance; but, my young friend, your late conduct has inevitably made you an object of envy already; and the only way to pluck the sting out of envy, is by giving the envious some new service to think of."

We now agreed to separate, and examine the country to the right and left for an hour precisely, meeting at one of the villages in the road, if no advance of the enemy were discernible within that time. We parted, and I commenced as comfortless an expedition as it would be easy to imagine. The Flemish cross-roads, never very passable, were now deep in mire; the rivulets, of which they are generally the conduits, had been swelled by the storm of the night before; and I floundered on for nearly the appointed time, in the full perplexity of a stray traveller. I was on the point of returning, when I observed a sudden light rising above some farm-houses, about half a league off. The light rapidly strengthened, and I rode forward, in some degree guided by its illumination. But after blazing fiercely for a while, it sank as suddenly as it rose; and I was again left bewildered among hedges and ditches. But a loud hum of voices, followed by the sound of many footsteps, now convinced me that a large body of men were near; though whether peasants roused by the fire, or battalions, I was still unable to discover. While I stood under cover of a clump of trees by the roadside, the question was settled by the march of a patrol of cavalry, followed at brief intervals by squadrons and light troops intermixed. It was evident that Dampierre meditated a surprise of the British forces, and that the whole of his skirmishers were already in motion. How long this movement had continued, or how near the enemy might already have approached to the British camp, was entirely beyond my conjecture; and for the first few moments, the probability of the surprise, and the possibility of my being already so completely within the range of the French march as to preclude my bearing the intelligence in sufficient time, made the drops of anxiety and perturbation roll down my forehead. But every thing must be tried. I no longer attempted to wind my way back through the network of lanes; but, in the spirit of an English sportsman, took the country in a straight line towards the British quarters. My horse, a thorough English hunter, evidently preferred leaping the Flemish fences to wading his way through the swamps; and I had the honour of bringing the first information, and the happiness of finding that I had brought it just in the right time.

The camp was immediately under arms; every preparation was made in a silence which gave me a high conception of the capabilities of the British soldier for every species of service; and, without a sound among ten thousand men, we waited for the approach of the enemy.

Dampierre's manoeuvre had been a dashing one--conceived and managed with the skill of an able officer. His purpose had been to throw his main body into the rear of our position; and while he drew off our attention by a false attack on our front, avail himself of the confusion of a night attack to crush us. Whether the fighting qualities of the Englishman would not have made him repent of his plan under any circumstances, is no longer the question; but the surprise was now wholly his own. The first volley which we poured into his columns, as they crept up stealthily towards our line, was so heavy that it finished the battle. By the blaze of the musketry, we could see the French masses actually rolling back upon each other, staggering and shaken like landsmen at sea, or like any man in an earthquake. Our cavalry were now ordered to follow; but the enemy were too quick in making their escape; and the intersected nature of the country forbade any continued pursuit. A few shots from our howitzers, which ripped up the ground after them, were all that we could send as our parting present; and the engagement, which began in such silence and sternness, finished in roars of laughter from all our battalions.

Day broke, and the order was issued to follow the French general. The troops, animated by the prospect of coming to action at last, and utterly wearied with the idleness of the camp, received the intelligence with shouts; and the whole moved rapidly forward. Dampierre, before his march of the previous night, had provided for casualty, by forming an intrenched camp in the famous position of Famars. It was strong by nature, and he had added to its strength by covering it with fieldworks, and a powerful artillery. It was late in the day before we came within sight of it; and its strength, from the height of its glacis--the natural glacis made by a succession of sloping hills--was all displayed to full and formidable advantage. The troops, fatigued with the length of the march under the burning sun of one of the hottest days which I ever felt, were halted at the foot of the heights; and the plans of attack proposed were various enough to have perplexed the Aulic Council itself. Lines of circumvallation, or bombardment, or waiting the effect of famine, were successively urged. But the British style prevailed at last over the scientific. The Guards were ordered to head the column which was to storm the lines in front, and columns on the right and left were put in motion at the same instant. We rushed forward under a general discharge of the French artillery and musketry, and in a quarter of an hour the position was in our hands. The difficulty of its approach, and the broken nature of the ground in its rear, enabled the French general to make his retreat with the chief part of his forces. But our prize was well worth the trouble; for we brought back two thousand prisoners, and the whole artillery in position.

The war had now begun in earnest; and our advance was unintermitted. On the eighth day from the storm of Famars, we again came in sight of Dampierre. He was now the assailant; our army, which had never exceeded ten thousand men, (such was the military parsimony of those days,) with the Prussian troops, and some of the smaller German contingents, were now unwisely spread to cover a line of nearly thirty miles. The French general had seized the opportunity of retaliating his ill fortune upon the allied troops. At daybreak we were roused by the tidings that the French had broken through our weak extended line in several places, and had got into the rear of the whole army. The force of the enemy, its direction, or its object, were alike matters of total ignorance; and, for some hours, it was impossible to obtain any exact information.

It was in vain that we adopted all the usual expedients, of detaching officers, examining peasants, or judging of the progress of the engagement by the sound of the advancing or retreating fire. We had only to wait, drawn up ready for action, and take our chance of the result. Of all the contingencies of the field, none is more perplexing; but I had a personal source of anxiety to add to the general vexation. I had every reason to believe that my excellent friend, Guiscard, had either fallen into the hands of the enemy, or had been killed on the night when we separated. If either misfortune had occurred, it was solely in consequence of his zeal for my character, and the thought inexpressibly distressed me. I had made the most persevering enquiries for him, but without any success; or rather, with a painful gathering of facts, all which told against my feelings. His horse had been found straying through the country; his helmet had been also found; and a fragment of a sabre, in a spot evidently much trampled, and which, therefore, appeared to be the scene of the personal rencontre in which he had probably fallen. Every thing had been found but his body.

At length, the firing, which had continued with more or less steadiness during the day, approached our position and we were ordered to advance. The country was now a portion of an ancient forest, and it was difficult to see in front of us beyond a few hundred yards. As we made way, we could hear not only the musketry but the shouting of the troops engaged; as, growing constantly more impatient, we pressed on, a mounted officer came galloping towards us. Judge of my astonishment and delight when I saw Guiscard. As he reined up beside me--

"I have not a moment," said he, "to speak to you; you shall hear of my adventures by and by. I was in as much fear for you as you probably were for me. But now, tell me where I am to look for the officer in command of the column."

The general was soon found, and Guiscard communicated to him that the enemy had concentrated his chief force directly in front of us, where a Prussian column had been posted; that the Prussians had resisted vigorously several successive attacks; but that the force converging on it was too powerful, and that it must speedily retire. "Then let it retire," was the general's reply, "and we shall take their place."

"Pardon me, general," was the prompt suggestion of the pupil of a more experienced school; "but, if you will permit me, I shall ride back to my countrymen, inform them of your advance, and make them hold their position until you come out from the forest upon the enemy's flank."

His opinion was received, and he put spurs to his horse and was gone. We now moved with all speed to the right of our former direction; and after half an hour's toiling through the intricacies of a wood on which no axe seemed to have fallen since the Deluge, passed round the enemy, and came full upon their rear. A few volleys, thrown in upon them in this state of alarm, broke them; the Prussian fire in front, and our's in the rear, made their disorder irreparable. In this crisis, Dampierre rushed forward with a group of aides-de-camp to restore the engagement, striking the fugitives with his sabre, and desperately exposing his person to the balls which now fell thick as hail around him. For a while he seemed to bear a charmed life; but a rifleman of the Prussian hulans took a sure aim. He fired, and I saw the unfortunate general fall from his horse. He had died instantly. A more gallant death, and scarcely a more expeditious one, than awaited the unsuccessful generals of the merciless Republic. We buried him on the spot where he fell, with the honours due to a distinguished soldier. Before nightfall the French had retired in all quarters; and the remnant of the troops hurried across the Flemish frontier, utterly disheartened and ruined.

This engagement, which was known long after as the battle of the forest of Vicogne, cleared the Netherlands, raised the fame of the British troops to the highest pitch, and left in their hands four thousand prisoners.

The councils of the allied camp now assumed a bolder tone. France was before us. The popular enthusiasm had been cooled by time and calamity. Defeat had taught the nation the folly of supposing that it could contend single-handed with Europe; and the only obstacle to our march to Paris was the line of fortresses erected by Louis XIV. The most powerful of those fortresses lay in the road by which the British columns were advancing; and it was with a singular mixture of rejoicing and anxiety, of ardour and awe, that I saw, at the breaking of a brilliant morning, spread beneath me the strong city of Valenciennes.

IT IS NO FICTION.

"Oh! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that _I have bad dreams_."--_Hamlet_.

"I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings."--SHAKSPEARE.

I have been a dreamer all my life. The earliest recollections of my childhood are of dreams of greatness. My boyhood's visions were peopled with warlike tumults. There were no spring mornings to my brain even in early youth; my heart was clouded with shadow, and sadness reigned when mirth and careless glee should have been pre-eminent. My manhood has been a fitful, feverish, and painful existence. I have outlived all whom I ever cared for; I have seen those whom I idolized lie before me cold and senseless; and now, with every event vividly impressed upon my memory, each tone of the voice of her I loved dropping like liquid fire into my brain, and drying up the tears that would weep away my anguish--feeling all this with intensity, and longing for the free air of heaven, I find myself alone--desolate--and HERE!!

Oh! the horror of this prison-solitude--the anxious watching for the pale morning after sleepless nights--the horrible nights when fantastic shapes are alone visible, mocking at and jeering me--when the only sounds I hear are the ravings of some wretched maniac, confined, like myself, because we have made for ourselves a world, and our imaginations have created a presiding divinity; and, should a laugh disturb the silence, it is the outbreak of a maddened spirit seeking relief from thought--a laugh frightful, because a mockery--sad in its boisterousness--"_the laugh which laughs not_."

For many weary years I have been pent up in this prison, pining for freedom, hoping for things which never existed, conjuring up anticipations of a brighter future, calling upon her who made

"The starlight of my boyhood,"

to look down upon me from her blest abode, and woo me back to calmness by one gentle word, one loving glance; and then sinking into hopeless, bitter despondency, when I remembered that she was gone, and that I should see her no more.

Sometimes I can think of her in her exquisite beauty, and my soul drinks in, as it were, the sweet and liquid tones of the voice which once spoke peace to me, and, fancying her again before me, I sink into an unquiet slumber, till some hideous dream oppresses me, and I see the fair brow of my "Julia" contracted, withered; and instead of her silvery voice of enchantment, a hissing sound escapes the lips I have worshipped. I rise, and try to approach, but she recedes. I awake--I start from my uneasy bed--I find this horrible picture, which bore the impress of reality, is but a dream. I awake to the consciousness that my beloved is dead, and that my eyes will gaze upon her beauty no more.

How few there are in this busy world who, when passing those abodes of wretchedness--"private madhouses"--can imagine the agony, the misery, the despair that dwells there! But to my history.

I was the only child of General Sir Frederick and Lady Charlotte B----. I was reared in luxury; the rude air was scarcely allowed to blow upon my delicate frame. I can remember now, though years have passed, and sorrow has bowed me--I can remember the happy days when my wearied head was pillowed on the bosom of my mother, and, after she had sung me to sleep with some wild melody, she would place me in my small luxurious cot, and watch over me with those deep-loving eyes, and be the first to comfort and re-assure me if uneasy dreams--for even then I was a dreamer--made me awake to sorrow. But my mother died. Even now I shudder at the recollection of the desolateness of my agony when I knew I had looked on her for the last time. Even now I can feel the coldness which crept over me as I laid my cheek to hers. My blood was frozen. I could not weep. Oh! tears would have been a relief, but they were denied me; and though I saw her taken from my embrace, and her beloved form laid in the vault, I could still gaze with speechless agony--but I wept not.

How I wished for the quiet of the grave; for even then there was a whirlwind within my bosom, and my sensitive heart shrank from holding converse with, or bestowing confidence on another as freely or unreservedly as I had done with the dear being whom I had lost.

Shortly after this event my father was ordered upon foreign service, and my childhood was passed among relatives who were strangers to me. It was a childhood without love. I remembered my mother, and none could supply her place. I could not trust in another as I had trusted in her. In my sorrows, real or imaginary, none other could comfort me. I longed for my childhood's resting-place, where I might again pillow my aching head, and sleep once more the calm sleep hallowed by a mother's matchless love.

At an early age I was sent to one of our great public schools, and there, although I endured some hardships, yet I experienced also something like the pleasures and pastimes of boyhood.

From having been a weakly, delicate child, I grew strong and active; but a gloom was ever upon me.

In my moments of relaxation I would join some of my companions in their games of play; but even then a dark phantom pursued me, and I would fancy a shadowless spirit was after me: if I ran it always followed me with its noiseless steps, and my constant fear was, that it would overtake me. This was _madness_--aye, I can see it now--_it was madness coming upon me_.

I frequently used to endeavour to dispel the illusion by reading; but if I raised my eyes from my book there was the figure, looking at me and sighing, and its lips would move to speak--_but there was no sound_.

I have sat for hours watching this bane of my existence. I have sat till my eyes were fixed from fright, and I have tried to move, but I felt chained to the spot, and the fetters that appeared to bind me, seemed of cold heavy steel, that fell on my whole body and paralyzed me. Then I could feel my heart growing dead, and yet throbbing with those dull, audible throbs, till at last I have shrieked in the agony of my horror, and only then would the dark being leave me--but _it left me moody and mad_.

I had one friend at school who would soothe me by gentle words, and tell me my fears were but fancy, and he would hold my hands until I slept, and lost, for a time at least, the phantom which pursued me.

That friend is dead. I have outlived _him_. _Why should the madman live?_

When I was about sixteen a new life opened to me. There came as a visitor to one of the ladies belonging to the establishment, a young and lovely girl. I first saw her at the private chapel belonging to the school. The moment I looked at her a gush of hitherto unknown pleasure came to my heart. I felt that I could love her.

I saw her again and again. I have stood for hours by the house in which she was, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Sometimes I was successful--more frequently not--but it was something to hope for. Once I fancied that her eye fell upon me. Oh, how I was repaid by that one pure glance!

While she remained at ----, my life was one of bright and vivid fancy, and I was cheered by the angel Hope; but at length her visit came to a termination; yet, though I knew she had departed, I would go daily to my accustomed watching place, and gaze until I fancied the beautiful girl was again before me.

At the usual period my school days ended, and my college life began. I was entered at Christ Church, Oxford. I read hard, and obtained the highest honours. My fame was brilliant. I was talked of, and marked by my superiors as a rising man.

Shortly afterwards, I was returned as one of the members of a family borough in my native county, and my first speech in Parliament met with general applause. The world called me a fortunate man. Oh! they little knew the nights of horror I passed--the battling I had with my attendant phantom, which still pursued me, blighted me. But I was mad; and the excitement of madness was called energy.

How often I have laughed them to scorn, as I have sat alone with the dark spirit!

My sole ambition was that the girl whom I had seen and admired might hear of my career; and that, with honours crowded upon me, I might see her again, that I might place my laurel crown at her feet, lay bare my heart's best feelings, my undying love for her, and prove to her how entire was my devotion, how earnest my worship.

I saw many young and lovely girls; and I was told that mothers looked upon me as a desirable match--but I was true to my first love. I remembered her in the perfection of maiden beauty--I wished for none other; and to see _her_ again was my sole hope in life.

After a season of unceasing gaiety and dissipation--sick of London and its vanities--I determined to travel, and for seven years I was absent from my native land.

I was recalled to attend the deathbed of my father. I had seen but little of him; he had no sympathy with me, and in heart we were strangers to each other. He was proud of my talents, and I was an only son; but he never bestowed any real affection on me. I honoured him because he was my parent; but I never loved him as I ought to have loved a father.

He died, and I succeeded to the baronetcy and estates; but I was already tired of life--wretched in the midst of my splendour. In a word--_I was mad_.

At the table of a friend I met a man a few years my senior, whom I had known at school. We renewed our acquaintance; and I accepted an invitation to dine at his house, to meet some old schoolfellows.

I consented to go, but not cheerfully, for a moody state of mind was coming over me. I can remember the struggle, the exertion it was to dress for the party. Twenty times I was tempted to send a message saying I was too unwell to go, but my better angel prevailed--and I went. To what an eventful period was that evening but the prelude!

My friend met and welcomed me with a cordiality which somewhat cheered me; but I had a weight on my spirits from which I could not rouse myself, and most reluctantly accompanied Sir Charles Tracey, with faltering steps and an aching heart and brow, into the inner drawing-room, to be introduced to his wife, Lady Tracey.

She was seated on a low ottoman, with her back to the door, reading. She arose as her husband presented me to her as his old friend, Sir Frederick B----. She turned towards me, and for a moment I was overpowered. I beheld before me the creature I had so long pined for--so earnestly searched for--whose memory I had so devotedly and entirely worshipped.

With exquisite grace she extended her hand to welcome her husband's guest, and as I held those small taper fingers in mine, thick coming fancies crowded upon me. I was again the schoolboy--the anxious, ardent schoolboy, longing even for a look from this lovely woman, whose hand I now held in mine.

Hot tears rushed into my eyes, and I bent over the fair hand to conceal them.

This momentary cloud passed away, and while seated by her, I forgot that we had ever been parted, and imagination peopled a world of love--a paradise of hope.

"But she in these fond feelings had no share."

The years which had passed, had changed her from a lovely girl into the more matured loveliness of the matron.

When I had last seen her, her hair, which was a rich and shining black, hung in natural and graceful curls over her beautiful and classically formed head. Now the thick and luxuriant mass was gathered into a knot behind, and laid in soft bands over her pure and polished brow.

Her eyes were of that deep full blue which is so rare, and were large and bright, and full of fire and spirit, which at times gave an appearance of haughtiness to her noble countenance; her throat, neck, and arms, were white as ivory, and formed in the most perfect mould; her height was commanding, and her figure exquisitely proportioned.

Before she spoke I could only look at her with wonder, that any thing so glorious could be earthly; but the instant she addressed me, a peculiar witchery played over her features and about her mouth; and my wonder was instantly changed into love and adoration, and I drank in with eagerness the silvery sweetness of her voice.

I fancied on this night that Lady Tracey bestowed more attention on me than on her other guests; for women have an intuitive tact in discovering when a man admires devotedly.

For that night I lost my dark phantom, I slept a sweet sleep, dreaming of things which could never be accomplished; and my waking vision, as wild and improbable, was that she might one day return my love.

I would not lose sight of my newly found treasure. I called at her residence. I was admitted. Again I gazed; and worshipped. Lady Tracey looked more lovely by daylight than with the full blaze of candle-light upon her beauty. There was a delicacy about her complexion no daylight could impair; but it spoke also of a delicacy of constitution which made me tremble as I gazed.

The fascination of her manner, the elegance of her movements, her light and airy tread, her musical voice, her bright but subdued laugh; all these combined made me idolize her.

There is but one sun in heaven: there was but one Julia to my eyes on earth. Her shadow had fallen on my heart, as the sun on an island far away from land in the lonely sea. It was filled with light and verdure, and all my best feelings were warmed to ripeness by her glowing smile.

We conversed together on poetry, music, history, the arts; and I discovered she possessed a refined and superior intellect. A sparkling tincture of satire mingled with her mention of men and things; but while she did this with perfect temper and gentleness, it gave a brilliancy to her conversation not to be described. She expressed a wish for a book which I had the happiness to possess; here was an opportunity for another visit. Again and again we met, and I was intoxicated with love; but I saw no reciprocal feeling on her part. She was the same gentle and charming being; but she bestowed no _love_ upon the poor visionary who adored her.

On the days we met I was gay and happy; but on the intervening ones I was in despair. All my darkest thoughts came back upon me, fraught with even greater horrors. I tried to battle with my evil spirit, but I could not subdue it. It grasped me tightly in its fetters; and I had no respite until I was again in the presence of my Julia. The smallest sound of her voice, with its silvery sweetness, broke the sad chain which had bound me, and I was free to look--to love--to worship again. Oh, why did not these moments of rapture last for ever! This holy calm, like an enchanted circle, into which my spirit of evil dared not venture, why was it broken? Why did sickness, and sorrow, and _madness_--yes, furious, hopeless, desponding madness--darken those sunny days? Why did death come to her, and thick clouds to me?

The sky mocks me with its gemmed radiance. The stars shine on brightly; but they fail to give light and hope to me. I have gazed on them with her. I have seen her stand with her fair brow raised, and her lovely face bathed in moonlight; but, as the pale beams danced around her, to my eyes her own glory dimmed all other brightness.

The winds howl, and the trees wave to and fro in the tempest, and with every blast comes a shriek, as if Julia were in despair, and I arise to rush to her rescue; but the clanking chain of the maniac binds me. I try to break my bonds, but they clasp me; and my hideous companion, the phantom, jeers at me; and I hear the voice of my beloved receding further and further from me, till, with an agonized moan, it dies away in the distance.

And this the world calls fancy--the fantastic vision of a madman's brain!

There was never a voice like _her_ voice; and though the winds rage tempestuously among the waving branches of the storm-tossed trees, I hear the liquid music of her accents above all, and I strain my eyes to catch a glimpse of her person, but there is nothing; and I crouch down again in my chains and my madness on my desolate bed, feeling how utterly--how entirely, I am alone.

An interruption occurred in our intercourse, in consequence of Sir Charles Tracey being obliged to go abroad, on business connected with the state. His lady accompanied him, and they were absent for some months. How I spent these months, I scarcely know. I avoided all society--I felt moody--wretched--despairing. I grew violent. Restraint became necessary. Then, indeed, I _knew_ that _I was mad_. Life was a blank; and some weeks passed while this dark cloud was upon me.

At last, though my recovery had been a work of time, I was _called_ convalescent, and the violence of my frenzy abated.

I heard with joy that Sir Charles and his lady had returned to town. I thought the hour would never come when I might set out on my visit.

I flew, rather than walked, to her residence. I felt startled and alarmed as I trode the streets; for I had not been out for months, and I fancied every one stared at me--that everyone knew _I was mad_; but the one darling hope of seeing _her_ cheered me on.

At last I reached the house. I was admitted; and in a moment I was by the side of Julia. She was looking pale and ill, but very lovely.

I rushed towards her. I knelt by her side. I took her cold hand in mine, and kissed it ardently. A bright colour suffused her cheek. She endeavoured to withdraw her hand from my grasp; but the demon was within me. I held that pale, small, fragile hand firmly; and pressed it again and again to my lips, and my throbbing, bursting heart. I laughed aloud and wildly, and she looked at me fearfully. She had discovered my secret, and she saw that _I was mad_.

"You, too, have been ill?" she said.

The honied accents of that beloved voice fell on my ear like dew to the parched flower. I was calmed in a moment, and I endeavoured to look coldly on her who was life--light--all to me in this world.

I found she had been dangerously ill, and I felt, as I looked on her imperial loveliness, that she was not destined long for this world.

Daily I saw her. I could not see enough of one I loved so desperately; and I feigned calmness while I endured agony--but my madness ruined me at last.

One wretched day--I spoke to her of love. I told her of my devotion--my hopeless devotion for so many years. I knelt by her side--I passed my arm round her waist--and for one brief moment I rested my scorching, maddened brow upon her bosom. It was only a moment of reality--but an eternity of bliss in the recollection.

I strained her fragile form to my breast. I kissed her pale cheeks--her brow--her lips. She moved not. I found she had fainted. I thought she was dead, and my brain reeled.

I raised her beautiful form in my arms, and laid her gently on a couch.

She was like marble--so cold, and pale, and breathless. I called no one to my assistance--I was the madman--the desperate, heart-broken madman--and I saw before me the ruin I had wrought.

How long this lasted I cannot tell; I only know my feelings were worked to frenzy. I called upon her by name; I conjured her to look at me, to speak to me once--but once more.

I longed for tears to cool the burning heat of my brain. In my agony, I laughed and shrieked aloud; I could not control myself.

She opened her eyes, those large, bright, lustrous eyes, and looked, I thought, kindly on me. How those glances entered my soul!

"Speak to me, Julia, forgive me," I said. She smiled, and extended her hand. Her eyes were in a moment fixed and glassy. She tried to speak, when, O God! as her lips separated, the life-blood gushed from her heart, and the purple stream flowed over her neck and bosom.

I was paralyzed--I moved not--I looked on horror-stricken.

She made one movement with her hand, and then it fell lifeless by her side. She gave one deep sigh, and all was over. I saw that she was dead, but I wept not. I stood by, a miserable madman, my heart heaving with agony, but my eyes refusing to weep, and laughing that violent, horrible laugh, that mockery of mirth which belongs only to the maniac's ravings.

I stood by the couch--I bathed my burning forehead with her blood--I saw that beautiful being cold and motionless, her eyes closed, and the lofty brow damp with the dews of death. I saw this and yet lived on.

There was stillness, and gloom, and death, around me, but I was not alone. I felt that creeping consciousness that my evil spirit was near. I raised my eyes and saw the phantom--the dark and hideous one; my old companion as standing by me--muttering and mocking at my grief. I shrank from the fiend.

I drew closer to the loved form of her I adored. I took her cold hand and placed it on my burning brow. I can feel the death-like coldness now where that small hand lay. I closed my eyes and tried to pray; but fiendish shouts of laughter rang in my ears, and I felt that an _evil spirit_ was by my side. My whole frame quivered with suppressed agony. I turned. I saw it move; and the shadowless hand was raised as if to touch the precious and costly form of her I loved. I can remember no more; all after for some time was gloom and misery. * * *

Wild spirits are dancing around me, bearing in their arms the dear form of my Julia. Sometimes her voice breaks the stillness of my chamber in the darkness of night, for I never sleep--my brain is _too hot for sleep_. Sometimes I am roused by feeling the softness of her light taper fingers on my brow, and then I start from my uneasy and wretched bed to look for her once more; but instead of her I see my dark spirit the demon, watching me with that untired eye, following me with that noiseless step, that shadowless form, and then falling on my bed, I bury my face in my pillow, and try to pray for peace, and for tears--but both are denied me.

The sun mocks me with his bright, clear, dancing beams speaking of life, and hope, and joy. It brings back the memory of that wretched day when I had killed by my burning passions the only woman I had ever loved.

She was, indeed, the sun of my gloom; and, without her, I am as a captive in a darkened cell, through the gratings of which thoughts of her stream in, and make a dim twilight--a sad satisfaction. Oh! if I were to be false to her, my soul would be a void; my memory, a curse; my heart, a heap of ashes.

I see again, with terrible reality, that graceful form--that regal face--dead, yet smiling--as I last saw her in that curtained chamber, with the sun shining in glory through the crimson drapery, and shedding a warm glow on the inanimate features.

Even now I see her. I see that last look of unsullied purity and fear. I feel again that warm blood, as it trickled down and fell on my hands and face, as I knelt before her. It fell on my forehead, and I know that it is eating in, deeper and deeper, towards my brain.

Her last words ring in my ears; her last smile is my beacon, my only ray of hope, luring me on towards a happier future.

There is a fire kindled within me that will dry up every thought but recollection of her; for every circumstance connected with her is impressed on my memory with a vivid distinctness.

Can it be?--the thought sometimes occurs to me, with a balmy and consoling power, like that fragrant wind from the Spicy Islands, which the mariner feels blowing cool upon his brow, as he lies becalmed, in the still noon, on the wide and desert sea? Can it be, that the devotion of a lifetime--such as my devotion has been--may be repaid by association in eternity?

May I dare to hope to live hereafter in the shadow of her glory? Shall we meet again in that bright land?

No--the vision is too joyous for the poor maniac, her murderer. I shall see her no more--we are separated for ever!

Hell--deep, deep hell--is the madman's portion; and heaven, that pure and distant clime, is thy resting-place for ever--thy radiant home--thy peaceful haven--my lost--my adored--my sainted Julia!

THE BURNS' FESTIVAL.

Scotland has of late years been exposed to perilous influences. Unused, from its older form of representation, to popular excitement, and stimulated by example from without, the nation threw itself headlong into the revolutionary current which swept the whole empire at the period of Parliamentary Reform, and, with characteristic fervour, seemed inclined to riot in the novel element. Whenever symptoms of such a disposition appear in the body politic, there is manifest danger that, in the new accession of power, the old and sacred landmarks may be disregarded, and little heed be given to the mutual dependence and common interests of every class of society. Thus agitated and disturbed, the Scottish people, once jealously national, and so proud of that nationality that it had passed into a byword throughout Europe, might have lost their cohesive power, loosened the cord which bound the social rods together, and formed themselves into separate sections with apparently hostile interests. Fortunately, however, there was a strong counteracting influence. Even when the storm was wildest, and the clash of conflicting opinions most discordant, it was impossible to eradicate from the minds of any order the vast and stirring memories of the past. New rights might, indeed, be claimed; but it was not alleged that there had been any abuse of the old. Nothing had occurred to weaken the esteem with which the lower ranks were accustomed to regard the ancient aristocracy of the country; and accordingly, throughout the whole of that protracted contest, fervid and determined as it was, there was less rancour shown than might have been expected in the course of so great a political change. As the excitement subsided, the kindly feeling, which never had been extinguished, began more palpably to revive. Before the epoch of agitation approached, we were a peaceful and a happy people. The peerage, the gentry, the yeomen, and the peasantry--all classes were bound together with the links of respect and of affection. The old hereditary attachment between the orders had not been broken. The poor man was proud of the noble, because the noble bore a name conspicuous in the annals of his country; because he was the descendant of those who had fought and died for Scotland, and who had identified their honourable renown with hers; because he was a man every way worthy to bear the titles so gloriously achieved; and, more than all perhaps, because he loved and venerated the poor. And for that love and veneration the noble had ample grounds. Ancient as his race might be, the yeomanry and peasantry of Scotland were yet as ancient in theirs. Not one step of honour could his fathers have gained without the help of the fathers of those who were now living upon his hereditary soil; and the old spell-words of the land were common to them both. Nor was there to be found in wide Europe a better or a braver race. They were industrious, faithful, loyal; they were attached without servility, independent without rudeness, and intelligent to a degree that excited the admiration and the wonder of the stranger. No wonder that the mere thought of estrangement, in such a society as this, should have stricken the bravest bosom with terror, and woe, and dismay! Yet so troublous was the aspect of Europe then, that such fear was not utterly unfelt; and it was the apprehension of that calamity, more than any other worldly cause, that dimmed the soul and darkened the spirit of that great and good man, Sir Walter Scott, in his declining years; for all his large affections were bound up and entwined with the interests of Scotland, and, had the sacrifice been required of him, he would gladly have laid down his life to avert from her the perils which he then foresaw.

These few remarks we cannot consider as inappropriate to our present subject. We have once more been joyful spectators of a truly national gathering. Once more we have seen Scotsmen, of every grade and degree, assemble together without a tinge of party purpose, to do honour to the memory of a poet who sprang from the ranks of the people, and who was heart and soul a Scotsman in his feelings, his inspiration, and, it may be, in his errors and his prejudices also. It was a stirring and exciting spectacle, such as no other country could have exhibited--to behold peer and senator, poet and historian and peasant--the great and the small, the lettered and the simple of the land--unite, after fifty years of silence, in deep and sincere homage to the genius of one humble man. Nor did they assemble there because his genius was greater than God, in his bounty, had bestowed upon others, but because he had used it for the glory and exaltation of his country; because he loved her with an ardour the most vivid and extreme; because he had shed the light entrusted to his charge both on the lofty dwelling and on the lowly hearth, but most brightly and cheeringly upon the latter, for that was his peculiar charge. We feel assured that the events of that day, and the sentiments which were then inspired and uttered, will produce a marked effect upon the disposition of the country at large. It seemed as if all classes had spontaneously assembled to join hands above the grave of Robert Burns, and then and there to renew the vow of enduring reconciliation and love.

We shall now proceed to give a short account of the proceedings of the day. In our climate, the state of the weather on public occasions is always regarded with anxiety; for enthusiasm, however warm, is apt to expire beneath a deluge of northern rain. On the previous evening the sky promised well. A brilliant sunset and a warm wind seemed security for a placid morrow; and although the glare of the great furnaces in the neighbourhood of Glasgow glowed somewhat ominously large as the night wore on, we retired to rest rather in hope than resignation. But dismal, indeed, was the prospect when we awoke. A vaporous grey mist had entirely usurped the heavens, and the plash of weary rain resounded through the pluvious metropolis of the west. Fortunately, we were not ignorant of the fact, that Glasgow is under the peculiar tutelage of the Pleiades; and accordingly we proceeded to the railway, trusting that matters might mend so soon as we lost sight of the stupendous chimney-stalk of St Rollox. Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, and the early hour, every town, as we passed along, seemed in a state of the greatest excitement. There were bands of music, deputations of mason lodges, and the rival brotherhood of Odd Fellows, with hundreds of men and women, all clad in holiday attire, awaiting the arrival of the train at every station. It is a marvel to us, how half of these expectants could have found their way to Ayr. Carriage after carriage was linked to the already exorbitant train, until the engine groaned audibly, and almost refused to proceed. Still the rain continued to fall, and it was not until after we had left Irvine, and were rounding the margin of the bay towards Ayr, that the sky brightened up and disclosed the great panorama of the sea, with Ailsa and Arran looming in the distance, and steamers from every direction ploughing their way into the port. The streets of Ayr were swarming with people, and sounding with the crash of music. There were arches on the bridge, flags streaming from windows, and bells tolling from the steeples--symptoms of a jubilee as great as if Royalty had descended unawares, and the whole district had arisen to pay honour to its Queen. The inns were thronged to excess, and the waiters in absolute despair. What a multitude of salmon must have died to furnish that morning's meal! Yet every face looked bright and happy, as became those who had engaged in such a pilgrimage. Then the burst of music became louder and more frequent, as band after band, preceding the trades and other public bodies, filed past towards the rendezvous of the great Procession. This was on what is called the Low Green; and the admirable arrangements made by the committee of management--of which Mr Ballantine of Castlehill was convener, and Messrs Bone and Gray secretaries--were manifest. Mr Thwaites undertook the marshaling of the whole. Here, first, the grandeur of the National Festival was displayed, while the immense multitudes that had come trooping in from all quarters stood congregated in orderly muster, a mighty host, bound in unity by one soul, stretching far and wide from the towers of Ayr to the sea. Suddenly, at signal given, the Procession began to deploy, in admirable order, with streaming banners and crashes of music, and shouts from the accompanying thousands that rent the sky; and we were warned that it was time to proceed, if we wished to obtain a place upon the Platform erected on the banks of Doon.

A unit in the stream of population, we skirted the noble race-course, and reached the Platform just before the head of the Procession had arrived. It was erected in a magnificent situation. Behind was the monument of Burns, and the sweet habitation of Mr Auld, with old Alloway Kirk a little further off. Before it was the immense Pavilion erected for the banquet, all gay with flags and streamers. To the right, were the woods that fringe the romantic Doon, at that point concealed from sight; but not so the Old Bridge, which spans it, with its arch of triumphal evergreen. Every slope beyond was studded with groups of people, content to view the spectacle from afar. The Carrick hills reached far away beyond; and, on the other side, were the town and broad bay of Ayr, and Arran with all its mountains. But we had little leisure then to look around us. On the Platform were collected many of the Ladies and Gentlemen of the county--Sir David Hunter Blair; James Campbell, Esq. of Craigie; W. A. Cunninghame, Esq. of Fairlie; A. Boyle, Esq. of Shewalton, &c.; Archibald Hastie, Esq. M.P.; A. Buchanan, Esq., Charles Neaves, Esq. Mr Sheriff Campbell, Mr Sheriff Bell, Mr Carruthers, &c. &c.; some of the most distinguished of those who had come from afar, and conspicuous in front the surviving Kindred of Burns. There stood, with his beautiful Countess, the noble and manly Eglinton, _preux chevalier_ of his day, and fitting representative of that ancient house of Montgomery, so famous in the annals and peerage of Scotland, and of France. There was the venerable and venerated Lord Justice-General Boyle, the President of the Scottish Courts, and chief magistrate of the land, with the snows of more than seventy winters lying lightly and gracefully upon his head. There stood Wilson, never more fitly in his place than here; for of the many who have interposed to shield the memory of Burns from detraction, he had spoken with the most generous spirit and collected purpose, and came now to rejoice in the common triumph. There, too, were Alison, the sound and strong historian; Chambers, whose delicate generosity to the relatives of Burns, independently of the services he has rendered to our national literature, made him one of the fittest spectators of the scene; and a host of other distinguished men, well and aptly representing the aristocracy and the learning of the country. Many strangers, too, had come to grace the festival; amongst whom, it may be allowed us to specify the names of Mrs S. C. Hall, the charming authoress, and her accomplished husband. We looked in vain for some whose presence there would have given an additional interest to the scene. We would fain have seen the poets of the sister countries represented by Wordsworth and Moore. That might not be; but their sympathies were not withheld.

Among that brilliant group, there stood an elderly female, dressed in deep black, and three men, all past the meridian of life, with quiet, thoughtful looks, and unpretending aspect. These were the sister and the sons of Burns. His sister!--and half a century has wellnigh gone past since the hot heart of the brother was stricken cold, and the manly music of his voice made dumb for ever! Was it too much to believe that, through these many long years of her earthly pilgrimage--sometimes, we fear, darkened by want and neglect--that sister had always clung to the memory of the departed dead, in the hope that the day would arrive when his genius should receive the homage of a new generation, to atone for the apathy and coldness of that which had passed away? What emotions must have thrilled the bosom of that venerable woman, as she gazed on the stirring spectacle before her, and saw her lingering hopes far more than thoroughly realized! What a glorious welcome, too, for the sons to their native land! They had left it--not quite as the poor man does--but with heavy difficulties before them. They had wrestled their way onwards through half the journey of life, and now, on their return, they were greeted with a welcome which it were almost worth the struggles of a life to obtain. All this they owed to their father; and honoured among the honourable that day were the lineage and kindred of Burns.

Beneath and around the Platform there were thousands already congregated. If any one had wished to paint the character of the Scottish peasantry in its loftiest and most endearing light, the subjects were there before him. Old patriarchal men, on whose venerable temples time had bleached the white locks of age to the softness of those of infancy, stood leaning upon their grandchildren, proud, and yet wondering at the honours which were that day paid to him, whom, long, long ago, reaching away through the vista of memory, they remembered to have seen in their youth. So familiarized were they with his image, and the glorious language he had uttered, that they had almost forgotten the greatness and universality of his fame; and now, when brought forth from their cottages in the far glens and muirlands of the south, they could scarcely believe that the great, and gifted, and beautiful of the land, had come together for no other purpose than to celebrate the genius of their old companion. But they were proud, as they well might be; for it was a privilege even to have beheld him, and in that homage they recognised and felt the tribute that was paid to their order. The instinctive decency of Scottish feeling had accorded to these men a fitting and conspicuous place. Around them were the women of their families of all ages--from the matron in her coif to the bashful maiden with the snood--and even children; for few were left at home on that day of general jubilee. These, and a vast concourse of strangers, already occupied the ground.

Meanwhile the Procession had wound its enormous length from Ayr along a road almost choked up with spectators. Every wall and gate had its burden, and numerous Flibbertigibbets sat perched upon the branches of the trees. The solitary constable of the burgh was not present to preserve order, or, if he was, his apparition was totally unrequired. The old bell of Alloway Kirk was set in motion as the head of the column appeared, and continued ringing until all were past. The whole land was alive. Each road and lane poured forth its separate concourse to swell the ranks of the great Procession. The weather, after one heavy final shower, cleared up; or, if not clear, resolved itself into that indescribable mixture of sunshine and cloud which sets off the beauties of the undulating landscape so well, light alternating with shadow, and, on the ridges of the distant hills, contending radiance and gloom.

On they went, with banners flying and a perfect storm of music, across the new Bridge of Doon, deploying along the road on the opposite side of the river, and finally recrossing by the old bridge, from which they filed past in front of the Platform. The order of the Procession was as follows:--

BAND OF THE 87TH FUSILIERS. Provost, Magistrates, Town-Council, and Trades of Ayr.

FIVE BAGPIPERS IN HIGHLAND COSTUME.

FARMERS AND SHEPHERDS.

Dalrymple Burns's Club, with banners and music. Motto, "Firm."

KILWINNING BAND. Kilwinning Mother Lodge of Freemasons.

CUMNOCK BAND. London Newmilns Lodge.

IRVINE BAND. Troon Navigation Lodge. Girvan Masons. St James's, Tarbolton. St John's, Ayr. Thistle and Rose, Stevenston. St John's, Largs. Glasgow Star.

ST ANDREW'S BAND. Royal Arch, Maybole. St Paul's, Ayr. St Andrew's, Ayr. St John's, Girvan. St James's, Kilmarnock. St Peter's, Galston. St John's, New Cumnock. Junior or Knights Templars, Maybole.

SALTCOATS BAND. St John's, Dalry.

KILBARCHAN BAND. St John's, Greenock. Shoemakers as follows:-- Champion. British Prince and attendants. Indian Prince and Train.

CATRINE BAND. King Crispin and Train. Souter Johnie, in character. Highland Chieftains.

GREENOCK BAND. Lodge of Odd Fellows.

BAND. Robert Burns's Lodge, Beith.

AYR BAND. Banks of Ayr Lodge of Odd Fellows. Sir T. Makdougall Brisbane Lodge, Largs. Ancient Order of Foresters, Glasgow. Captain mounted, with Bow and Arrows.

KILMARNOCK BAND. Kilmarnock Burns's Lodge of Foresters. Weavers from Maybole.

MAYBOLE BAND. Tailors of Maybole.

MAUCHLINE BAND. Boxmakers of Mauchline, with large Scotch Thistle, carried shoulder-high by Four men, and Banner, inscribed,

"I turn'd my weeder-clips aside, And spared the Symbol dear."

The Party were on the Establishment of Messrs W. and A. Smith. The Thistle grew near to Mossgiel.

Caledonian Union Odd Fellows, Dunlop. (Deputations of the Magistracy joined in the Procession from Dumbarton, Dunlop, Maybole, and Irvine.)

The effect of the Procession as seen from the Platform almost baffles the power of description. The wailing of the bagpipes and the crash of the bands were heard from the bosom of deep wood-thicket behind, long before the ranks became visible. At length, among the trees that skirted the opposite banks, there was a glittering of lances, and a lifting of banners, and a dark-growing line of men, in closest order, marching as if to battle. Gradually it flowed on, in continuous stream, file succeeding to file without gap or intermission, until the head of the column appeared recrossing by the Old Bridge, and winding up the road towards the Platform; and still new banners rose up behind, and fresh strains of music burst forth amidst the leafy screen. And now they reached the platform: lance and flag were lowered in honour of those who stood bareheaded above, and deafening were the cheers that ushered in the arrival of the national pageant. The spectacle was most imposing, and must have conveyed to the minds of the strangers present a vivid impression of the energy and enthusiasm so deeply implanted in the Scottish character, and always so irresistibly manifested at the touching of a national chord. The most interesting part of the Procession by far was the array of Farmers and Shepherds, the flower of the west-country yeomanry, attired in the graceful plaid. Of that same breed of men, of tall and compact mould and hardy sinew, was Robert Burns; nor is it possible to imagine any thing more animated than the appearance of those stalwart sons of the soil, as they lingered for a moment before the platform, and looked with wistful eyes at the sons of the Poet, if haply they might trace in their lineaments some resemblance to the features of him whom, from their infancy, they had learned to love. Then came the Freemasons, and King Crispin with his train, and the Archers, and much more of old Scottish device, until there seemed no end to the flowing tide of population, all keen, and joyful, and exultant. But the full burst of enthusiasm was reserved for the close. In the rear of all appeared an enormous Thistle borne shoulder high; and no sooner was the national emblem in sight, than a universal and long-continued cheer burst forth from the many thousands who were now congregated in the plain beyond. Alas, for that thistle! Though Burns, as the inscription bore,

"Had turn'd his weeder-clips aside, And spared the symbol dear,"

such was not the fate of the offspring plant. Scarcely had it reached the platform, when Christopher North violently possessed himself of one branch, the Lord Justice-General seized upon another, and in the twinkling of an eye it was torn into fragments, and its rough leaves and rougher flowers displayed upon manly bosoms, from which it would have been difficult to wrest them again. So closed the Procession--but not the gathering. Deafening were the cheers which followed for Burns--for his Sons--for Professor Wilson--for Lord Eglinton; until the last remnant of reserve gave way, and a torrent of people swept forward to obtain, if possible, a pressure of their hands that were gladly and gratefully held forth. Descending from the Platform, we entered the meadow-ground beyond, where the multitude were now assembled. One of the bands struck up the beautiful air--"Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon;" and immediately the People, as if actuated by one common impulse, took up the strain, and a loftier swell of music never rose beneath the cope of heaven. We thought of the fine lines of Elliott--

"To other words, while forest echoes ring, 'Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon,' they sing; And far below, the drover, with a start Awaking, listens to the well-known strain, Which brings Schehallion's shadow to his heart, And Scotia's loveliest vales: then sleeps again, And dreams on Loxley's banks of Dunsinane."

Few could abstain from tears as the last glorious note died solemnly away into the skies. We looked down from the top of the pavilion-stairs upon the vast multitude beneath. There could not have been less than 80,000 souls collected upon the ground. Of all that mighty mass, not one man had thrown discredit upon the harmony and order of the day. Every face glowed with happiness and congratulation, as if conscious that a good work had been done, and that the nation had at length discharged the duty which she owed to one of her most gifted sons.

THE BANQUET.

The company began to enter the Pavilion almost immediately after the close of the Procession, and the chair was taken about two o'clock. The Pavilion was erected in a field of twenty-two acres, adjoining to the Monument, and was a magnificent building. It measured not less than 120 feet by 110, forming nearly a perfect square. The roof, supported by two rows of pillars, was covered with waterproof felt, and the building inside was lined with white cloth, festooned with crimson. In the centre of the roof was a radiation of the same colours. The tables and seats were arranged in parallel lines from the head to the foot of the apartment, rising with a gentle inclination from the middle on both sides. At each end there was an elevated table for the Chairman, Croupier, and their respective supporters; and on the two remaining sides of the square there were _vis-a-vis_ galleries for the instrumental band and glee-singers, a pianoforte for the accompaniment to Mr Templeton being placed in front of the latter, at which Mr Blewitt took his station. Mr Templeton, between the speeches, sang, with great power and sweetness, appropriate songs from Burns; and Mr Blewitt's performance was admirable. Mr Wilson came from Paris to the Festival; but unfortunately was prevented by severe illness from delighting the assembly with his exquisite strains. The hall was lighted by twenty-two glass windows, shaded with white cloth. The chairman and croupier's seats were of oak, made of the rafters of Alloway Kirk; and several splendid silver vases decorated their tables. The hall was seated to accommodate 2000 persons, and was entirely filled, although not inconveniently crowded.

The distinguishing feature of the pavilion was the number of ladies who were present. A great room exclusively filled with men, is at best a dull and sombre spectacle; and so far from social, that it always conveys to us a gross idea of selfishness. The mere scenic effect on this occasion was immensely heightened by the adoption of the polite rule; nor can it be doubted that the tone of the meeting underwent a similar improvement.

The Chairman, the Right Hon. the Earl of Eglinton, was supported on the right by Robert Burns, Esq., late of the Stamps and Taxes, Somerset House, London, eldest son of the poet; Major Burns, youngest son of the poet; Miss Begg, niece of the poet; Henry Glassford Bell, Esq., Sheriff-Substitute of Lanarkshire; Rev. Mr Cuthill, Ayr; Mr Robert Burns Begg, teacher, Kinross, nephew of the poet; Miss Begg, the younger niece of the poet; Mr and Mrs Thomson of Dumfries, (the latter the Jessie Lewars of the bard, who tended his deathbed;)--on the left, by Colonel Burns, second son of the poet; Mrs Begg, sister of the poet; Sir John M'Neill, Bart., late Plenipotentiary to the Court of Persia; the Right Hon. Lord Justice-General; the Countess of Eglinton; Sir D. H. Blair, Bart., of Blairquhan. The Croupier, Professor Wilson, was supported on the right by Archibald Alison, Esq., Sheriff of Lanarkshire, and author of the History of Europe; Colonel Mure of Caldwell, author of Travels in Greece; William E. Aytoun, Esq., Advocate; A. Hastie, Esq., M.P. for Paisley; Jas. Oswald, Esq., M.P. for Glasgow;--on the left by Sir James Campbell, Glasgow; Provost Miller, Ayr; James Ballantine, Esq. of Castlehill; Charles Mackay, Esq., London; James Campbell, Esq. of Craigie.

The Rev. Mr CUTHILL of Ayr asked the blessing.

The Earl of EGLINTON, after the usual loyal toasts, rose and spoke as follows:--Ladies and gentlemen, The subject of the toast which I have now the honour to bring before your notice, is one of such paramount importance on this occasion, and is so deeply interesting, not only to those whom I am addressing, but to all to whom genius is dear, that I could have wished that it had been committed to more worthy hands; more especially when I see the great assemblage collected here--the distinguished persons who grace our board to-day. It is only because I conceive that my official position renders me the most formal and fitting, though most inefficient, mouthpiece of the inhabitants of this county, that I have ventured to present myself before you on this occasion, and to undertake the onerous, though most gratifying, duty of proposing, in such an assemblage, the thrilling toast--"The Memory of Burns." This is not a meeting for the purpose of recreation and amusement--it is not a banquet at which a certain number of toasts are placed on paper, which must be received with due marks of approbation--it is the enthusiastic desire of a whole people to pay honour to their greatest countryman. It is the spontaneous outpouring of a nation's feeling towards the illustrious dead, and the wish to extend the hand of welcome and of friendship to those whom he has left behind. Here on the very spot where the Poet first drew breath, on the very ground which his genius has hallowed, beside the Old Kirk which his verse has immortalized, beneath the monument which an admiring and repentant people have raised to his memory, we meet after the lapse of years, to pay our homage at the shrine of genius. The master mind who has sung the "Isle of Palms"--who has revelled in the immortal "Noctes"--and who has already done that justice to the memory of Burns which a brother poet alone can do--Christopher himself is here, anxious to pay his tribute of admiration to a kindred spirit. The historian who has depicted, with a Gibbon's hand, the eventful period of the French empire, and the glorious victories of Wellington, is here--a Clio, as it were, offering a garland to Erato. The distinguished head of the Scottish bench is here. In short, every town and every district, every class and every age, has come forward to pay homage to their poet. The honest lads whom he so praised, and whose greatest boast it is that they belong to the land of Burns, are here. The fair lasses whom he so loved and sung, have flocked hither to justify, by their loveliness, their poet's words. While the descendant of those who dwelt in the "Castle o' Montgomerie," feels himself only too highly honoured by being permitted to propose the memory of him who wandered then unknown along the banks of Fail. How little could the pious old man who dwelt in yon humble cottage, when he read the "big ha' bible"--"his lyart haffets wearing thin and bare"--have guessed that the infant prattling on his knee was to be the pride and admiration of his country; that that infant was to be enrolled a chief among the poetic band; that he was to take his place as one of the brightest planets that glitter round the mighty sun of the Bard of Avon! In originality second to none, in the fervent expression of deep feeling, and in the keen perception of the beauties of nature, equal to any who ever reveled in the bright fairyland of poesy, well may we rejoice that Burns is our own--well may we rejoice that no other land can claim to be the birthplace of our Homer except the hallowed spot on which we stand! Oh! that he could have foreseen the futurity of fame he has created to himself--oh! that he could have foreseen this day, when the poet and the historian, the manly and the fair, the peer and the peasant, vie with each other in paying their tribute of admiration to the untaught but mighty genius whom we hail as the first of Scottish poets! It might have alleviated the dreary days of his sojourn at Mossgiel--it might have lightened the last hours of his pilgrimage upon earth. And well does he deserve such homage. He who portrayed the "Cottar's Saturday Night" in strains that are unrivaled in simplicity, and yet fervour--in solemnity, and in truth--He who breathed forth the patriotic words which tell of the glories of Wallace, and immortalize alike the poet and the hero--He who culled inspiration from the modest daisy, and yet thundered forth the heroic strains of "The Song of Death"--He who murmured words which appear the very incarnation of poetry and of love, and yet hurled forth the bitterest shafts of satire--a Poet by the hand of nature, despising, as it were, the rules of art, and yet triumphing over those very rules which he set at nought--at whose name every Scottish heart beats high--whose name has become a household word in the cottage as in the palace--to whom shall we pay our homage, of whom shall we be proud, if it is not our own immortal Burns? But I feel that I am detaining you too long. I feel that, in the presence of a Wilson and an Alison, I am not a fit person to dilate upon the genius of Burns. I am but an admirer of the poet like yourselves. There are those present who are brother poets and kindred geniuses--men who, like Burns, have gained for themselves a glorious immortality. To them will I commit the grateful task of more fully displaying before you, decked out by their eloquence, the excellences of the poet, the genius of the man, and to welcome his sons to the land of their father: and I will only ask you, in their presence--on the ground which his genius has rendered sacred--on the "banks and braes o' bonny Doon"--to join with me in drinking an overflowing bumper, and giving it every expression of enthusiasm which you can, to "The Memory of Burns!"

Mr ROBERT BURNS rose along with his brothers, and was received with enthusiastic cheering. He said--My lord, ladies, and gentlemen, Of course it cannot be expected, at a meeting such as the present, that the sons of Burns should expatiate on the merits and genius of their deceased father. Around them are an immense number of admirers, who, by their presence here this day, bear a sufficient testimony to the opinion in which they hold his memory, and the high esteem in which they hold his genius. In the language of the late Sir Christopher Wren, though very differently applied, the sons of Burns can say, that to obtain a living testimony to their father's genius they have only to look around them. I beg, in name of my aunt, brothers, and myself, to return our heartfelt and grateful thanks for the honour that has this day been paid to my father's memory.

PROFESSOR WILSON then rose and said--Were this Festival but to commemorate the genius of Burns, and it were asked, what need now for such commemoration, since his fame is coextensive with the literature of the land, and enshrined in every household? I might answer, that although admiration of the poet be wide as the world, yet we, his compatriots, to whom he is especially dear, rejoice to see the universal sentiment concentered in one great assemblage of his own people: that we meet in thousands and tens of thousands to honour him, who delights each single one of us at his own hearth. But this commemoration expresses, too, if not a profounder, a more tender sentiment; for it is to welcome his sons to the land he has illustrated, so that we may at once indulge our national pride in a great name, and gratify in filial hearts the most pious of affections. There was, in former times, a custom of crowning great poets. No such ovation honoured our bard, though he too tasted of human applause, felt its delights, and knew the trials that attend it. Which would Burns himself have preferred, a celebration like this in his lifetime, or fifty years after his death? I venture to say, he would have preferred the posthumous as the finer incense. The honour and its object are then seen in juster proportion; for death confers an elevation which the candid soul of the poet would have considered, and such honour he would rather have reserved for his manes, than have encountered it with his living infirmities. And could he have foreseen the day, when they for whom at times he was sorely troubled, should, after many years of separation, return to the hut where himself was born, and near it, within the shadow of his monument, be welcomed for his sake by the lords and ladies of the land; and--dearer thought still to his manly breast--by the children and the children's children of people of his own degree, whose hearts he sought to thrill by his first voice of inspiration; surely had the Vision been sweeter to his soul than even that immortal one, in which the Genius of the Land bound the holly round his head, the lyric crown that it will wear for ever.

Of his three Sons sitting here, one only can remember their father's face--those large lustrous eyes of his, so full of many meanings, as they darkened in thought, melted in melancholy, or kindled in mirth, but never turned on his children, or on their excellent mother, but with one of tender or intense affection. That son may even on this day have remembrance of his father's head, with its dark clusters not unmixed with gray, and those eyes closed, lying upon the bed of death. Nor, should it for a moment placidly appear, is such image unsuitable to this festival. For in bidding welcome to his sons to their father's land, I feel that, while you have conferred on me a high honour, you have likewise imposed on me a solemn duty; and, however inadequately I may discharge it, I trust that in nought shall I do any violence to the spirit either of humanity or of truth.

I shall speak reverently of Burns's character in hearing of his sons; but not even in their hearing must I forget what is due always to established judgment of the everlasting right. Like all other mortal beings; he had his faults--great even in the eyes of men--grievous in the eyes of Heaven. Never are they to be thought of without sorrow, were it but for the misery with which he himself repented them. But as there is a moral in every man's life, even in its outward condition imperfectly understood, how much more affecting when we read it in confessions wrung out by remorse from the greatly gifted, the gloriously endowed! But it is not his faults that are remembered here--assuredly not these we meet to honour. To deny error to be error, or to extenuate its blame, _that_ makes the outrage upon sacred truth; but to forget that it exists, or if not wholly so, to think of it along with that under-current of melancholy emotion at all times accompanying our meditations on the mixed characters of men--_that_ is not only allowable, but it is ordered--it is a privilege dear to humanity--and well indeed might he tremble for himself who should in this be deaf to the voice of nature crying from the tomb.

And mark how graciously in this does time aid the inclinations of charity! Its shadows soften what they may not hide. In the distance, discordances that once jarred painfully on our ears are now undistinguishable--lost in the music sweet and solemn, that comes from afar with the sound of a great man's name. It is consolatory to see, that the faults of them whom their people honour grow fainter and fainter in the national memory, while their virtues wax brighter and more bright; and if injustice have been done to them in life, (and who now shall dare to deny that cruelest injustice was done to Burns?) each succeeding generation becomes more and more dutiful to the dead--desirous to repair the wrong by profounder homage. As it is by his virtues that man may best hope to live in the memory of man, is there not something unnatural, something monstrous, in seeking to eternize here below, that of which the proper doom is obscurity and oblivion? How beneficent thus becomes the power of example! The good that men do then indeed "lives after them"--all that was ethereal in their being alone survives--and thus ought our cherished memories of our best men--and Burns was among our best--to be invested with all consistent excellences; for far better may their virtues instruct us by the love which they inspire, than ever could their vices by aversion.

To dwell on the goodnesses of the great shows that we are at least lovers of virtue--that we may ourselves be aspiring to reach her serene abodes. But to dwell on their faults, and still more to ransack that we may record them, _that_ is the low industry of envy, which, grown into a habit, becomes malice, at once hardening and embittering the heart. Such, beyond all doubt, in the case of our great poet, was the source of many "a malignant truth and lie," fondly penned, and carefully corrected for the press, by a class of calumniators that may never be extinct; for, by very antipathy of nature, the mean hate the magnanimous, the groveling them who soar. And thus, for many a year, we heard "souls ignoble born to be forgot" vehemently expostulating with some puny phantom of their own heated fancy, as if _it_ were the majestic shade of Burns evoked from his Mausoleum for contumely and insult.

Often, too, have we been told by persons somewhat presumptuously assuming the office of our instructors, to beware how we suffer our admiration of genius to seduce us from our reverence of virtue. Never cease to remember--has been still their cry--how far superior is moral to intellectual worth. Nay, they have told us that they are not akin in nature. But akin they are; and grief and pity 'tis that ever they should be disunited. But mark in what a hateful, because hypocritical spirit, such advices as these have not seldom been proffered, till salutary truths were perverted by misapplication into pernicious falsehoods. For these malignant counsellors sought not to elevate virtue, but to degrade genius; and never in any other instance have they stood forth more glaringly self-convicted of the most wretched ignorance of the nature both of the one and the other, than in their wilful blindness to so many of the noblest attributes of humanity in the character of Burns. Both gifts are alike from heaven, and both alike tend heavenward. Therefore we lament to see genius soiled by earthly stain; therefore we lament to see virtue, where no genius is, fall before the tempter. But we, in our own clear natural perceptions, refuse the counsels of those who with the very breath of their warning would blight the wreath bound round the heads of the Muses' sons by a people's gratitude--who, in affected zeal for religion and morality, have so deeply violated the spirit of both, by vile misrepresentations, gross exaggerations, and merciless denunciations of the frailties of our common nature in illustrious men--men who, in spite of their aberrations, more or less deplorable, from the right path, were not only in their prevailing moods devout worshippers of virtue, but in the main tenor or their lives exemplary to their brethren. And such a man was Burns. In boyhood--youth--manhood--where such peasant as he? And if in trouble and in trial, from which his country may well turn in self-reproach, he stood not always fast, yet shame and sin it were, and indelible infamy, were she not _now_ to judge his life as Christianity commands. Preyed upon, alas! by those anxieties that pierce deepest into the noblest hearts--anxieties for the sakes--even on account of the very means of subsistence--of his own household and his own hearth--yet was he in his declining, shall we call them disastrous years, on the whole faithful to the divine spirit with which it had pleased Heaven to endow him--on the whole obedient to its best inspirations; while he rejoiced to illumine the paths of poverty with light which indeed was light on heaven, and from an inexhaustible fancy, teeming to the genial warmth of the heart in midst of chill and gloom, continued to the very last to strew along the weary ways of this world flowers so beautiful in their freshness, that to eyes too familiar with tears they looked as if dropped from heaven.

These are sentiments with which I rejoice to hear the sympathy of this great assemblage thus unequivocally expressed--for my words but awaken thoughts lodged deep in all considerate hearts. For which of us is there in whom, known or unknown, alas! there is not much that needs to be forgiven? Which of us that is not more akin to Burns in his fleshly frailties then in his diviner spirit? That conviction regards not merely solemn and public celebrations of reverential memory--such as this; it pervades the tenor of our daily life, runs in our heart's-blood, sits at our hearths, wings our loftiest dreams of human exaltation. How, on this earth, could we love, or revere, or emulate, if, in our contemplation of the human being, we could not sunder the noble, the fair, the gracious, the august, from the dregs of mortality, from the dust that hangs perishably about him the imperishable? We judge in love, that in love we may be judged. At our hearthsides, we gain more than we dared desire, by mutual mercy; at our hearthsides, we bestow and receive a better love, by this power of soft and magnanimous oblivion. We are ourselves the gainers, when thus we honour the great dead. _They_ hear not--_they_ feel not, excepting by an illusion of our own moved imaginations, which fill up chasms of awful, impassable separation; but _we_ hear--_we_ feel; and the echo of the acclaim which hills and skies have this day repeated, we can carry home in our hearts, where it shall settle down into the composure of love and pity, and admiration and gratitude, felt to be due for ever to our great poet's shade.

In no other spirit could genius have ever dared, in elegies and hymns, to seek to perpetuate at once a whole people's triumph, and a whole people's grief, by celebration of king, sage, priest, or poet, gone to his reward. From the natural infirmities of his meanest subject, what King was ever free? Against the golden rim that rounds his mortal temples come the same throbbings from blood in disease or passion hurrying from heart to brain, as disturb the aching head of the poor hind on his pallet of straw. But the king had been a guardian, a restorer, a deliverer; therefore his sins are buried or burned with his body; and all over the land he saved, generation after generation continues to cry aloud--"O king, live for ever!" The Sage who, by long meditation on man's nature and man's life, has seen how liberty rests on law, rights on obligations, and that his passions must be fettered, that his will be free--how often has he been overcome, when wrestling in agony with the powers of evil, in that seclusion from all trouble in which reverent admiration nevertheless believes that wisdom for ever serenely dwells! The Servant of God, has he always kept his heart pure from the world, nor ever held up in prayer other than spotless hands? A humble confession of his own utter unworthiness would be his reply alike to scoffer and to him who believes. But, unterrified by plague and pestilence, he had carried comfort into houses deserted but by sin and despair; or he had sailed away, as he truly believed for ever, to savage lands, away from the quiet homes of Christian men--among whom he might have hoped to lead a life of peace, it may be of affluence and honour--for his Divine Master's sake, and for sake of them sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. Therefore his name dies not, and all Christendom calls it blest. From such benefactors as these there may seem to be, but there is not, a deep descent to them who have done their service by what one of the greatest of them all has called "the vision and the faculty divine"--them to whom have been largely given the powers of fancy and imagination and creative thought, that they might move men's hearts, and raise men's souls, by the reflection of their own passions and affections in poetry, which is still an inspired speech. Nor have men, in their judgment of the true Poets, dealt otherwise with them than with patriot kings, benign legislators, and holy priests. Them, too, when of the highest, all nations and ages have reverenced in their gratitude. Whatever is good and great in man's being seems shadowed in the name of Milton; and though he was a very man in the storms of civil strife that shook down the throne at the shedding of the blood of kings, nevertheless, we devoutly believe with Wordsworth, that

"His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."

But not of such as he only, who "in darkness, and with danger compassed round," soared "beyond this visible diurnal sphere," and whose song was of mercy and judgment, have men wisely resolved to dwell only on what is pure and high and cognate with their thoughts of heaven. Still, as we keep descending from height to height in the regions of song, we desire to regard with love the genius that beautifies wherever it settles down; and, if pity will steal in for human misfortunes, or for human frailties reproach, our love suffers no abatement, and religious men feel that there is piety in pilgrimage to such honoured graves. So feel we now at this commemoration. For our Poet we now claim the privilege, at once bright and austere, of death. We feel that our Burns is brought within the justification of all celebrations of human names; and that, in thus honouring his memory, we virtuously exercise the imaginative rights of enthusiasm owned by every people that has produced its great men.

And with a more especial propriety do we claim this justice in our triumphal celebration of poets, who, like Burns, were led by the character of their minds to derive the matter and impulse of their song, in a stricter sense, from themselves. For they have laid bare to all eyes many of their own weaknesses, at the side of their higher and purer aspirations. Unreserved children of sincerity, by the very open-heartedness which is one great cause of their commanding power, and contagiously diffuses every zealous affection originating in their nobility of nature--by this grown to excess, made negligent of instinctive self-defence, and heedless of misconstruction, or overcome by importunate and clinging temptations--to what charges have they not been exposed from that proneness to disparaging judgments so common in little minds! For such judgments are easy indeed to the very lowest understandings, and regard things that are visible to eyes that may seldom have commerced with things that are above. But they who know Burns as we know him, know that by this sometimes unregulated and unguarded sympathy with all appertaining to his kind, and especially to his own order, he was enabled to receive into himself all modes of their simple, but not undiversified life, so that his poetry murmurs their loves and joys from a thousand fountains. And suppose--which was the case--that this unguarded sympathy, this quick sensibility, and this vivid capacity of happiness which the moment brings, and the frankness of impulse, and the strength of desire, and the warmth of blood, which have made him what he greatly is, which have been fire and music in his song, and manhood, and courage, and endurance, and independence in his life, have at times betrayed or overmastered him--to turn against him all this self-painting and self-revealing, is it not ungrateful, barbarous, inhuman? Can he be indeed a true lover of his kind, who would record in judgment against such a man words that have escaped him in the fervour of the pleading designed to uphold great causes dear to humanity?--who would ignobly strike the self-disarmed?--scornfully insult him who, kneeling at the Muses' confessional, whispers secrets that take wings and fly abroad to the uttermost parts of the earth? Can they be lovers of the people who do so? who find it in their hearts thus to think, and speak, and write of Robert Burns?--He who has reconciled poverty to its lot, toil to its taskwork, care to its burden--nay, I would say even--grief to its grave? And by one Immortal Song has sanctified for ever the poor man's Cot--by such a picture as only genius, in the inspiring power of piety, could have painted; has given enduring life to the image--how tender and how true!--of the Happy Night passing by sweet transition from this worky world into the Hallowed Day, by God's appointment breathing a heavenly calm over all Christian regions in their rest--nowhere else so profoundly--and may it never be broken!--as over the hills and valleys of our beloved, and yet religious land!

It cannot be said that the best biographers of Burns, and his best critics, have not done, or desired to do, justice to his character as well as to his genius; and, according as the truth has been more entirely and fearlessly spoken, has he appeared the nobler and nobler man. All our best poets, too, have exultingly sung the worth, while they mourned the fate of him, the brightest of the brotherhood. But above, and below, and round about all that they have been uttering, has all along been heard a voice, which they who know how to listen for it can hear, and which has pronounced a decision in his favour not to be reversed; for on earth it cannot be carried to a higher tribunal. A voice heard of old on great national emergencies, when it struck terror into the hearts of tyrants, who quaked, and quailed, and quitted for aye our land before "the unconquered Caledonian spear"--nor, since our union with noblest England, ever slack to join with her's and fervid Erin's sons, the thrice-repeated cry by which battle-fields are cleared; but happier, far happier to hear, in its low deep tone of peace. For then it is like the sound of distant waterfalls, the murmur of summer woods, or the sea rolling in its rest. I mean the Voice of the People of Scotland--the Voice of her Peasantry and her Trades--of all who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow--her Working Men.

I presume not to draw their character. But this much I will say, that in the long run they know whom it is fitting they should honour and love. They will not be dictated to in their choice of the names that with them shall be household words. Never, at any period of their history, have they been lightly moved; but, when moved, their meaning was not to be mistaken; tenacious their living grasp as the clutch of death; though force may wrench the weapon from their hands, no force can wrench the worship from their hearts. They may not be conversant with our written annals; but in our oral traditions they are familiar with historic truths--grand truths conceived according to the People's idea of their own national mind, as their hearts have kindled in imagination of heroic or holy men. Imaginary but real--for we all believe that men as good, as wise, as brave, have been amongst us as ever fancy fabled for a people's reverence. What manner of men have been their darlings? It would be hard to say; for their love is not exclusive--it is comprehensive. In the national memory live for ever characters how widely different!--with all the shades, fainter or darker, of human infirmity! For theirs is not the sickly taste that craves for perfection where no frailties are. They do not demand in one and the same personage inconsistent virtues. But they do demand sincerity, and integrity, and resolution, and independence, and an open front, and an eye that fears not to look in the face of clay! And have not the grave and thoughtful Scottish people always regarded with more especial affection those who have struggled with adversity--who have been tried by temptations from without or from within--now triumphant, now overcome--but, alike in victory or defeat, testifying by their conduct that they were animated by no other desire so steadily as by love of their country and its people's good? Not those who have been favourites of fortune, even though worthy of the smiles in which they basked; but those who rose superior to fortune, who could not frown them down. Nor have they withheld their homage from the unfortunate in this world of chance and change, if, in abasement of condition, by doing its duties they upheld the dignity of their own nature, and looked round them on their honest brethren in poverty with pride.

And how will such a people receive a great National Poet? How did they receive Burns? With instant exultation. At once, they knew of themselves, before critics and philosophers had time to tell them, that a great Genius of their own had risen, and they felt a sudden charm diffused over their daily life. By an inexplicable law, humour and pathos are dependent on the same constitution of mind; and in his Poems they found the very soul of mirth, the very soul of sadness, as they thought it good with him to be merry, or to remember with him, "that man was made to mourn." But besides what I have said of them, the people of Scotland hold in the world's repute--signally so--the name of a religious people. Many of them, the descendants of the old covenanters, heirs of the stern zeal which took up arms for the purity of the national faith--still tinged, it may be, by the breath of the flame that then passed over the land--retain a certain severity of religious judgment in questions of moral transgression, which is known to make a part of hereditary Scottish manners--especially in rural districts, where manners best retain their stamp. But the sound natural understanding of the Scottish peasant, I use the liberty to say, admits, to take their place at the side of one another, objects of his liberal and comprehensive regard, which might appear, to superficial observation and shallow judgment, to stand upon such different grounds, as that the approbation of the one should exclude the admiration of the other. But not so. Nature in him is various as it is vigorous. He does not, with an over-jealous scrutiny, vainly try to reduce into seeming consistency affections spontaneously springing from many sources. Truth lies at the bottom; and, conscious of truth, he does not mistrust or question his own promptings. An awful reverence, the acknowledgment of a Law without appeal or error--Supreme, Sacred, Irresistible--rules in his judgment of other men's actions, and of his own. Nevertheless, under shelter and sanction of that rule, he feels, loves, admires, like a man. Religion has raised and guards in him--it does not extinguish--the natural human heart. If the martyrs of his worship to him are holy--holy, too, are his country's heroes. And holy her poets--if such she have--who have sung--as during his too short life above them all sang Burns--for Scotland's sake. Dear is the band that ties the humbly educated man to the true national poet. To many in the upper classes he is, perhaps, but one among a thousand artificers of amusement who entertain and scatter the tedium of their idler hours. To the peasant the book lies upon his shelf a household treasure. There he finds depicted himself--his own works and his own ways. There he finds a cordial for his drooping spirits, nutriment for his wearied strength. Burns is his brother--his helper in time of need, when fretfulness and impatience are replaced with placidity by his strains, or of a sudden with a mounting joy. And far oftener than they who know not our peasantry would believe, before their souls awakened from torpor he is a luminous and benign presence in the dark hut; for, in its purity and power, his best poetry is felt to be inspired, and subordinate to the voice of heaven.

And will such a people endure to hear their own Poet wronged? No, no. Think not to instruct _them_ in the right spirit of judgment. They have read the Scriptures, perhaps, to better purpose than their revilers, and know better how to use the lessons learned there, applicable alike to us all--the lessons, searching and merciful, which proscribe mutual judgment amongst beings, all, in the eye of absolute Holiness and Truth, stained, erring, worthless: And none so well as aged religious men in such dwellings know, from their own experience, from what they have witnessed among their neighbours, and from what they have read of the lives of good and faithful servants, out of the heart of what moral storms and shipwrecks, that threatened to swallow the strong swimmer in the middle passage of life, has often been landed safe at last, the rescued worshipper upon the firm land of quiet duties, and of years exempt from the hurricane of the passions! Thus thoughtfully guided in their opinion of him, who died young--cut off long before the period when others, under the gracious permission of overruling mercy, have begun to redeem their errors, and fortified perhaps by a sacred office, to enter upon a new life--they will for ever solemnly cherish the memory of the Poet of the Poor. And in such sentiments there can be no doubt but that all his countrymen share; who will, therefore rightfully hold out between Burns and all enemies a shield which clattering shafts may not pierce. They are proud of him, as a lowly father is proud of an illustrious son. The rank and splendour attained reflects glory down, but resolves not, nor weakens one single tie.

Ay, for many a deep reason the Scottish people love their own Robert Burns. Never was the personal character of poet so strongly and endearingly exhibited in his song. They love him, because he loved his own order, nor ever desired for a single hour to quit it. They love him, because he loved the very humblest condition of humanity, where every thing good was only the more commended to his manly mind by disadvantages of social position. They love him, because he saw with just anger, how much the judgments of "silly coward man" are determined by such accidents, to the neglect or contempt of native worth. They love him for his independence. What wonder! To be brought into contact with rank and wealth--a world inviting to ambition, and tempting to a thousand desires--and to choose rather to remain lowly and poor, than seek an easier or a brighter lot, by courting favour from the rich and great--was a legitimate ground of pride, if any ground of pride be legitimate. He gave a tongue to this pride, and the boast is inscribed in words of fire in the Manual of the Poor. It was an exuberant feeling, as all his feelings were exuberant, and he let them all overflow. But sometimes, forsooth! he did not express them in sufficiently polite or courteous phrase! And that too was well. He stood up not for himself only, but for the great class to which he belonged, and which in his days--and too often in ours--had been insulted by the pride of superior station, when unsupported by personal merit, to every bold peasant a thing of scorn. They love him, because he vindicated the ways of God to man, by showing that there was more genius and virtue in huts, than was dreamt of in the world's philosophy. They love him for his truthful pictures of the poor. Not there are seen slaves sullenly labouring, or madly leaping in their chains; but in nature's bondage, content with their toil, sedate in their sufferings, in their recreations full of mirth--are seen Free Men. The portraiture, upon the whole, is felt by us--and they know it--to demand at times pity as a due; but challenges always respect, and more than respect, for the condition which it glorifies. The Land of Burns! What mean we by the words? Something more, surely, than that Fortune, in mere blindness, had produced a great poet here? We look for the inspiring landscape, and here it is; but what could all its beauties have availed, had not a people inhabited it possessing all the sentiments, thoughts, aspirations, to which nature willed to give a voice in him of her choicest melody? Nothing prodigious, after all, in the birth of such a poet among such a people. Was any thing greater in the son than the austere resignation of the father? In his humble compeers there was much of the same tender affection, sturdy independence, strong sense, self-reliance, as in him; and so has Scotland been prolific, throughout her lower orders, of men who have made a figure in her literature and her history; but to Burns nature gave a finer organization, a more powerful heart, and an ampler brain, imbued with that mystery we call genius, and he stands forth conspicuous above all her sons.

From the character I have sketched of the Scottish people, of old and at this day, it might perhaps be expected that much of their poetry would be of a stern, fierce, or even ferocious kind--the poetry of bloodshed and destruction. Yet not so. Ballads enow, indeed, there are, embued with the true warlike spirit--narrative of exploits of heroes. But many a fragmentary verse, preserved by its own beauty, survives to prove that gentlest poetry has ever been the produce both of heathery mountain and broomy brae; but the names of the sweet singers are heard no more, and the plough has gone over their graves. And they had their music too, plaintive or dirge-like, as it sighed for the absent, or wailed for the dead. The fragments were caught up, as they floated about in decay; and by him, the sweetest lyrist of them all, were often revivified by a happy word that let in a soul, or, by a few touches of his genius, the fragment became a whole, so exquisitely moulded, that none may tell what lines belong to Burns, and what to the poet of ancient days. They all belong to him now, for but for him they would have perished utterly; while his own matchless lyrics, altogether original, find the breath of life on the lips of a people who have gotten them all by heart. What a triumph of the divine faculty thus to translate the inarticulate language of nature into every answering modulation of human speech! And with such felicity, that the verse is now as national as the music! Throughout all these exquisite songs, we see the power of an element which we, raised by rank and education into ignorance, might not have surmised in the mind of the people. The love-songs of Burns are prominent in the poetry of the world by their purity. Love, truly felt and understood, in the bosom of a Scottish peasant, has produced a crowd of strains which are owned for the genuine and chaste language of the passion, by highly as well as by lowly born--by cultured and by ruder minds--that may charm in haughty saloons, not less than under smoke-blackened roofs. Impassioned beyond all the songs of passion, yet, in the fearless fervour of remembered transports, pure as hymeneals; and dear, therefore, for ever to Scottish maidens in hours when hearts are wooed and won; dear, therefore, for ever to Scottish matrons, who, at household work, are happy to hear them from their daughters' lips. And he, too, is the Poet of their friendships. At stanzas instinct with blythe and cordial amities, more brotherly the grasp of peasant's in peasant's toil-hardened hands! The kindliness of their nature, not chilled, though oppressed with care, how ready at his bidding--at the repeated air of a few exquisite but unsought-for words of his--to start up all alive! He is the Poet of all their humanities. His Daisy has made all the flowers of Scotland dear. His moorland has its wild inhabitants, whose cry is sweet. For sake of the old dumb fellow-servant which his farmer gratefully addresses on entering on another year of labour, how many of its kind have been fed or spared? In the winter storm 'tis useless to think of the sailor on his slippery shrouds; but the "outland eerie cattle" he teaches his feres to care for in the drifting snow. In what jocund strains he celebrates their amusements, their recreations, their festivals, passionately pursued with all their pith by a people in the business of life grave and determined as if it left no hours for play! Gait, dress, domicile, furniture, throughout all his poetry, are Scottish as their dialect; and sometimes, in the pride of his heart, he rejoices by such nationality to provoke some alien's smile. The sickle, the scythe, and the flail, the spade, the mattock, and the hoe, have been taken up more cheerfully by many a toil-worn cottar, because of the poetry with which Burns has invested the very implements of labour. Now and then, too, here and there peals forth the clangour of the war-trumpet. But Burns is not, in the vulgar sense, a military poet; nor are the Scottish, in a vulgar sense, a military people. He and they best love tranquil scenes and the secure peace of home. They are prompt for war, if war be needed--no more. Therefore two or three glorious strains he has that call to the martial virtue quiescent in their bosoms--echoes from the warfare of their ancient self-deliverance--menacings--a prophetical _Nemo me impune lacesset_, should a future foe dare to insult the beloved soil. So nourishes his poetry all that is tender and all that is stern in the national character. So does it inspire his people with pride and contentment in their own peculiar lot; and as _that_ is at once both poetical and practical patriotism, the poet who thus lightens and brightens it is the best of patriots.

I have been speaking of Burns as the poet of the country--and his is the rural, the rustic muse. But we know well that the charm of his poetry has equal power for the inhabitants of towns and cities. Occupations, familiar objects, habitual thoughts, are indeed very different for the two great divisions of the people; but there is a brotherhood both of consanguinity and of lot. Labour--the hand pledged to constant toil--the daily support of life, won by its daily wrestle with a seemingly adverse but friendly necessity--in these they are all commoners with one another. He who cheers, who solaces, who inspirits, who honours, who exalts the lot of the labourer, is the poet alike of all the sons of industry. The mechanic who inhabits a smoky atmosphere, and in whose ear an unwholesome din from workshop and thoroughfare rings hourly, hangs from his rafter the caged linnet; and the strain that should gush free from blossomed or green bough, that should mix in the murmur of the brook, mixes in and consoles the perpetual noise of the loom or the forge. Thus Burns sings more especially to those whose manner of life he entirely shares; but he sings a precious memento to those who walk in other and less pleasant ways. Give then the people knowledge, without stint, for it nurtures the soul. But let us never forget, that the mind of man has other cravings--that it draws nourishment from thoughts, beautiful and tender, such as lay reviving dews on the drooping fancy, and are needed the more by him to whom they are not wafted fresh from the face of nature. This virtue of these pastoral and rural strains to penetrate and permeate conditions of existence different from those in which they had their origin, appears wheresoever we follow them. In the mine, in the dungeon, upon the great waters, in remote lands under fiery skies, Burns's poetry goes with his countrymen. Faithfully portrayed, the image of Scotland lives there; and thus she holds, more palpably felt, her hand upon the hearts of her children, whom the constraint of fortune or ambitious enterprise carries afar from the natal shores. Unrepining and unrepentant exiles, to whom the haunting recollection of hearth and field breathes in that dearest poetry, not with homesick sinkings of heart, but with home-invigorated hopes that the day will come when their eyes shall have their desire, and their feet again feel the greensward and the heather-bent of Scotland. Thus is there but one soul in this our great National Festival; while to swell the multitudes that from morning light continued flocking towards old Ayr, till at mid-day they gathered into one mighty mass in front of Burns's Monument, came enthusiastic crowds from countless villages and towns, from our metropolis, and from the great City of the West, along with the sons of the soil dwelling all round the breezy uplands of Kyle, and in regions that stretch away to the stormy mountains of Morven.

Sons of Burns! Inheritors of the name which we proudly revere, you claim in the glad solemnity which now unites us, a privileged and more fondly affectionate part. To the honour with which we would deck the memory of your father, your presence, and that of your respected relatives, nor less that of her sitting in honour by their side, who, though not of his blood, did the duties of a daughter at his dying bed, give an impressive living reality; and while we pay this tribute to the poet, whose glory, beyond that of any other, we blend with the renown of Scotland, it is a satisfaction to us, that we pour not out our praises in the dull cold ear of death. Your lives have been past for many years asunder; and now that you are freed from the duties that kept you so long from one another, your intercourse, wherever and whenever permitted by your respective lots to be renewed, will derive additional enjoyment from the recollection of this day--a sacred day indeed to brothers, dwelling--even if apart--in unity and peace. And there is one whose warmest feelings, I have the best reason to know, are now with you and us, as well on your own account as for the sake of your great parent, whose character he respects as much as he admires his genius, though it has pleased Heaven to visit him with such affliction as might well deaden even in such a heart as his all satisfaction even with this festival. But two years ago, and James Burnes was the proud and happy father of three sons, all worthy of their race. One only now survives; and may he in due time return from India to be a comfort, if but for a short, a sacred season, to his old age! But Sir Alexander Burnes--a name that will not die--and his gallant brother have perished, as all the world knows, in the flower of their life--foully murdered in a barbarous land. For them many eyes have wept; and their country, whom they served so faithfully, deplores them among her devoted heroes. Our sympathy may not soothe such grief as his; yet it will not be refused, coming to him along with our sorrow for the honoured dead. Such a father of such sons has far other consolations.

In no other way more acceptable to yourselves could I hope to welcome you, than by thus striving to give an imperfect utterance to some of the many thoughts and feelings that have been crowding into my mind and heart concerning your father. And I have felt all along that there was not only no impropriety in my doing so, after the address of our Noble Chairman, but that it was even the more required of me that I should speak in a kindred spirit, by that very address, altogether so worthy of his high character, and so admirably appropriate to the purpose of this memorable day. Not now for the first time, by many times, has he shown how well he understands the ties by which, in a country like this, men of high are connected with men of humble birth, and how amply he is endowed with the qualities that best secure attachment between the Castle and the Cottage. We rise to welcome you to your Father's land.

Mr ROBERT BURNS replied in the following terms:--My lord, and ladies and gentlemen, You may be assured that the sons of Burns feel all that they ought to feel on an occasion so peculiarly gratifying to them, and on account of so nobly generous a welcome to the Banks of Doon. In whatever land they have wandered--wherever they have gone--they have invariably found a kind reception prepared for them by the genius and fame of their father; and, under the providence of Almighty God, they owe to the admirers of his genius all that they have, and what competencies they now enjoy. We have no claim to attention individually--we are all aware that genius, and more particularly poetic genius, is not hereditary, and in this case the mantle of Elijah has not descended upon Elisha. The sons of Burns have grateful hearts, and will remember, so long as they live, the honour which has this day been conferred upon them by the noble and the illustrious of our own land, and many generous and kind spirits from other lands--some from the far West, a country composed of the great and the free, and altogether a kindred people. We beg to return our most heartfelt thanks to this numerous and highly respectable company for the honour which has been done us this day.

Sir JOHN M'NEILL spoke as follows:--My lord, ladies, and gentlemen--We have now accomplished the main purpose of this assembly. We have done honour to the memory of Burns, and have welcomed his sons to the land of their father. After the address--which I may be permitted to call the address of manly eloquence--which you have heard from our Noble Chairman; after the oration--which I may be permitted to designate as solemn and beautiful--which you have heard from our worthy Vice-chairman--I should be inexcusable were I to detain you long with the subject which has been entrusted to me. The range of English poetry is so vast--it is profuse in so many beauties and excellences, and many of its great names are approached with so much habitual veneration, that I feel great diffidence and difficulty in addressing you on a subject on which my opinions can have little weight, and my judgment is no authority; but to you, whose minds have been stirred with the lofty thoughts of the Poets of England, and are familiar with their beauties, nothing is needed to stimulate you to admire that which I am sure has been the object of your continual admiration, and the subject of your unfailing delight. We have been sometimes accused of a nationality which is too narrow and exclusive; but I hope and believe that the accusation is founded on misapprehension of our feelings. It is true that, as Scotsmen, we love Scotland above every other spot on earth--that we love it as our early home, and our father's house. We cherish our feelings of nationality as we cherish our domestic affections, of which they are in truth a part. But while we have these feelings, we glory in the might and the majesty of that great country, with which, for the happiness of both, we have long been united as one nation. We are proud of the victories of Cressy, of Agincourt, and of Poictiers, as if they had been won by our own ancestors. And I may venture to say there is not in this great assembly one who is not proud that he can claim to be the countryman of Spenser, and Shakspeare, and Milton, and Wordsworth, and of every one in that long list of glorious Englishmen, who have shed a lustre and conferred a dignity upon our language more bright and more majestic than illuminates and exalts the living literature of any other land. There is, I think, in the history of the progress of the human intellect, nothing more surprising than the sudden growth of literature in England to the summit of its excellence. No sooner had tranquillity been restored after the long civil wars of the Roses--no sooner had men's minds been set free to enter the fields of speculation opened up by the Reformation, than in the short space of the life of one man--than in the space of seventy years, there arose such men as Spenser, and Milton, and Shakspeare, and Sydney, and Raleigh, and Bacon, and Hobbes, and Cudworth, and a whole phalanx of other great men, inferior only to them in the brightness of original genius. How glorious must have been the soil which could bring to maturity a harvest of such teeming abundance! There are probably many among us who can even now remember with exultation when the first ray of light was cast on their minds from the genius of Spenser--as the first glimmering of day comes to him whose sealed eyes are opened to the light of heaven, discovering objects at first dimly and then more clearly, we at length gazed in wonder and in joy on a creation vaster far, and far more lovely, than it had entered into our hearts to conceive. And if, in our maturer years, we return to live an hour with him in the regions of fairyland that enchanted our youth--if some of the flowers seem less bright, if the murmur of the waters is a more pensive sound, if a soberer light pervade the scene, and if some of the illusions are broken for ever, we still discover in every stanza beauties which escaped our earlier observation, and we never lose our relish for that rich play of fancy, like the eastern fountain, whose spray descends in pearls and in gems. But, above all, when we look upon him with mature feelings, we can appreciate that lofty strain of godly philosophy which he, the father of our poetry, bequeathed, and which has been followed by his successors. When we call to mind the influence produced on a people by the poetry of a nation--when we call to mind that whatever is desired to be inculcated, whether for good or for evil, the power of poetry has been employed to advance it, even from the times when the Monarch-Minstrel of Israel glorified his Maker in Psalms, to the latest attempts which have been made to propagate treason, immorality, or atheism--when we thus think of these things, we may learn how much of gratitude is due to those men who, having had the precious ointment of poetic genius poured abundantly on their heads, have felt and acknowledged that they were thereby consecrated to the cause of virtue--who have never forgotten that there was a time when

"The sacred name Of poet and of prophet was the same."

Such men are Spenser, Milton--such is Wordsworth. Of Milton I shall not venture to speak. He stands alone in his sanctuary, which I would not profane even by imperfect praise. But it is my duty to speak of Wordsworth. Dwelling in his high and lofty philosophy, he finds nothing that God has made common or unclean--he finds nothing in human society too humble, nothing in external nature too lowly, to be made the fit exponents of the bounty and goodness of the Most High. In the loftier aspirations of such a mind, there must be much that is obscure to every inferior intelligence; and it may be that its vast expanse can only be but dimly visible--it may be that the clouds of incense rising from the altar may veil from common eyes some portion of the stately temple they perfume; but we pity the man who should therefore close his eyes on a scene of beauty and sublimity, or turn back from the threshold of the noble edifice in which he has been invited to survey the majesty of creative genius, and where he will be taught to find "Books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every thing."

"Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, The poets who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays."

--"Wordsworth and the Poets of England."

HENRY GLASSFORD BELL, Esq., advocate, said--My lord, I feel it to be a great distinction and privilege to have been requested to take a part in the proceedings of this day. It is a day which will not soon pass from the recollection of those who have partaken in its admirably-conducted festivities. In assembling to do honour to the memory of Burns, in no idle or frivolous spirit, but impressed with those elevated emotions which have so plainly animated the whole of this mighty gathering, we have a right to feel that we do honour to ourselves as individuals, and as a nation. Our assembling has been prompted by a love of all that is purest and best in our national genius, as represented by our national poet. It has been prompted, too, by that indomitable love of our native land which Burns felt and sang--a love founded on admiration, which grows with our growth and strengthens with our strength, of all that external nature here presents to us--on profound respect for our inestimable and time-hallowed institutions; and in never-dying delight in all that kindred spirits have here shared with us--in all that higher spirits have here achieved for us. No poet ever possessed greater influence in disseminating and strengthening such sentiments, than Burns. My lord, it has been well said that wherever an humble artisan, in the crowded haunts of labour or of trade, feels a consciousness of his own dignity--is stirred with a desire for the beautiful, or haunted with a dream of knowledge, or learns to appreciate the distinction between the "guinea's stamp" and the "gowd," _there_ the royal and gentle spirit of Robert Burns, lion-like in its boldness, and dove-like in its tenderness, still glows, elevates, and inspires. This spirit is also here, and has been evidenced in many ways; perhaps in none more than in this, that in doing honour to the genius of Burns, we are irresistibly led to acknowledge, and speak of the debts we owe to the intellectual achievements of other great minds, not in Scotland only, but in the sister countries. We have just heard, from the eloquent lips of Sir John M'Neill, the well-deserved praises of the English bards. Will this meeting refuse a similar cup of welcome, and of thanks, to the poets of Green Erin? Will this meeting, where so many bright eyes rain influence, and manly hearts beat high, not hail with simultaneous delight the name of one who shines conspicuous as the very poet of youth, of love, and of beauty--the poet, with deference be it spoken, of better things than even beauty--of gentle thoughts and exquisite associations, that give additional sweetness to the twilight hour, and to the enjoyments of home a more endearing loveliness; the poet, too, of his own high-souled country, through whose harp the common breeze of Ireland changes, as it passes, into articulate melody--a harp that will never be permitted to hang mute on Tara's walls, as long as

"Erin! the tear and the smile in thine eye Blend like the rainbow that melts in thy sky!"

How many voices have to-day murmured a wish that he were here! But the echo of the acclaim with which we greet the name of Moore will reach him in his solitude, and he will feel, what Burns died too young to feel, that it is something worth living for to have gained a nation's gratitude. Of Maturin and others now dead, I must not pause to speak. But let me be privileged to express, in name of this meeting, our respect and admiration for the best of the living dramatists--one deeply imbued with the spirit of the Elizabethan age--one who has rescued our stage from the reproach which seemed ready to fall upon it--one to whose exuberant poetical fertility, and bold originality of thought, we are indebted for such beautiful creations as "Virginius" and "William Tell," the "Hunchback" and the "Love Chase,"--our valued friend, James Sheridan Knowles. And I might have stopped here, had it not been that I have to-day seen that not the gifted sons alone, but also some of the gifted daughters of Ireland, have come as pilgrims to the shrine of Burns; that one in particular, one of the most distinguished of that fair sisterhood who give, by their talents, additional lustre to the genius of the present day, has paid her first visit to Scotland, that she might be present on this occasion, and whom have myself seen moved even to tears by the glory of the gathering. She is one who has lately thrown additional light on the antiquities, manners, scenery, and beautiful traditions of Ireland--one, whose graceful and truly feminine works are known to us all, and whom we are proud to see among us--Mrs S. C. Hall. My lord, feebly and briefly as I have spoken of these great names, I must not trespass longer on your time, but beg to propose the health of "Moore and the Irish Poets."

ARCHIBALD ALISON, Esq., Sheriff of Lanarkshire, spoke as follows:--We have listened with admiration to the eloquent strains in which the first in rank and the first in genius have proposed the memory of the immortal bard whose genius we are this day assembled to celebrate; but I know not whether the toast which I have now to propose, has not equal claims to our enthusiasm. Your kindness and that of the committee, has intrusted to me the memory of three illustrious men--the far-famed successors of Burns, who have drank deep at the fountains of his genius, and proved themselves the worthy inheritors of his inspiration. And Scotland, I rejoice to say, can claim them all as her own. For if the Tweed has been immortalized by the grave of Scott, the Clyde can boast the birthplace of Campbell, and the mountains of the Dee first inspired the muse of Byron. I rejoice at that burst of patriotic feeling--I hail it as a presage, that as Ayrshire has raised a graceful monument to Burns, and Edinburgh has erected a noble structure to the Author of Waverley, so Glasgow will ere long raise a worthy tribute to the bard whose name will never die while Hope pours its balm through the human heart; and Aberdeen will worthily commemorate the far-famed traveller, who first inhaled the inspiration of nature amidst the clouds of Loch-nagarr, and afterwards poured the light of his genius over those lands of the sun where his descending orb set--

"Not as in northern climes obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light."

Scotland, my lord, may well be proud of such men, but she can no longer call these exclusively her own; their names have become household words in every land. Mankind claims them as the common inheritance of the human race. Look around us, and we shall see on every side decisive proofs how far and wide admiration for their genius has sunk in the hearts of man. What is it that attracts strangers from every part of the world into this distant land, and has more than compensated a remote situation and a churlish soil, and given to our own Northern Isle a splendour unknown to the regions of the sun? What is it which has brought together this mighty assemblage, and united the ardent and the generous from every part of the world, from the Ural mountains to the banks of the Mississippi, on the shores of an island in the Atlantic? My lord, it is neither the magnificence of our cities, nor the beauty of our valleys, the animation of our harbours, nor the stillness of our mountains; it is neither our sounding cataracts, nor our spreading lakes; neither the wilds of nature we have subdued so strenuously, nor the blue hills we have loved so well. These beauties, great as they are, have been equaled in other lands; these marvels, wondrous though they be, have parallels in other climes. It is the genius of her sons which has given Scotland her proud pre-eminence; this it is, more even than the shades of Bruce, of Wallace, and of Mary, which has rendered her scenes classic ground to the whole civilized world, and now brings pilgrims from the most distant parts of the earth, as on this day, to worship at the shrine of genius.

"Yet Albyn! yet the praise be thine, Thy scenes with story to combine; Thou bid'st him who by Roslin strays List to the tale of other days. Midst Cartlane crags thou showest the cave, The refuge of thy champion brave; Giving each rock a storied tale, Pouring a lay through every dale; Knitting, as with a moral band, Thy story to thy native land; Combining thus the interest high Which genius lends to beauty's eye!"

But, my lord, the poet who conceived those beautiful lines, has himself done more than all our ancestors' valour to immortalize the land of his birth; for he has united the interest of truth with the charms of fiction, and peopled the realm not only with the shadows of time, but the creations of genius. In those brilliant creations, as in the glassy wave, we behold mirrored the lights, the shadows, the forms of reality; and yet

"So pure, so fair, the mirror gave, As if there lay beneath the wave, Secure from trouble, toil, and care, A world than earthly world more fair."

Years have rolled on, but they have taken nothing, they have added much to the fame of those illustrious men.

"Time but the impression deeper makes, As streams their channels deeper wear."

The voice of ages has spoken: it has given Campbell and Byron the highest place with Burns in lyric poetry, and destined Scott

"To rival all but Shakspeare's name below."

Their names now shine in unapproachable splendour, far removed, like the fixed stars, from the clouds and the rivalry of a lower world. To the end of time they will maintain their exalted station. Never will the cultivated traveller traverse the sea of Archipelago, that the "Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece," will not recur to his recollection; never will he approach the shores of Loch Katrine, that the image of Ellen Douglas will not be present to his memory; never will he gaze on the cliffs of Britain, that he will not thrill at the exploits of the "Mariners of England, who guard our native seas." Whence has arisen this great, this universally acknowledged celebrity? My lord, it is hard to say whether we have most to admire the brilliancy of their fancy or the creations of their genius, the beauty of their verses or the magic of their language, the elevation of their thoughts or the pathos of their conceptions. But there is one whose recent death we all deplore, but who has lighted "the torch of Hope at nature's funeral pile," who has gained a yet higher inspiration. In Campbell it is the moral purposes to which he has directed his mighty powers which is the real secret of his success, the lofty objects to which he has devoted his life, which have proved his passport to immortality. It is because he has unceasingly contended for the best interests of humanity, because he has ever asserted the dignity of the human soul, because he has never forgotten that amidst all the distinctions of time,

"The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that."

Because he has regarded himself as the high-priest of Nature, and the world which we inhabit as the abode not merely of human care and human joys, but as the temple of the living God, in which praise is due, and where service is to be performed.--"The memory of Scott, Byron, and Campbell."

WILLIAM E. AYTOUN, Esq., advocate, said--We are met here to-day not only to pay due honour to the memory of that bard whose genius has consecrated this spot, and the scenes around it, as classic ground for ever, but for a wider, a more important, and even a more generous purpose. I look upon this assemblage as a great national gathering--a meeting not only of the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, but of kindly strangers also, to testify our reverence and affection for the living lights of fame that are still burning amongst us, and our undying gratitude and exultation for those who have already passed away. Thus, though they belong to the sister countries, we have paid due homage to the venerable name of Wordsworth and to the sparkling genius of Moore. Thus the heart of every one that hears me burned within him--am I not right?--when we saw our own noble Wilson rise amidst us, and heard him, with an eloquence the most pure--for it flowed spontaneously from his soul--speak, as perhaps no other man could speak, of the genius of the immortal dead. Thus, too, we have heard the tribute so touchingly paid to Campbell, who now sleeps among the sages, and the statesmen, and the warriors, and the poets of famous England; and to him who has a happier and a holier sepulture still--for he lies within the bosom of his own dear native land--to Scott, the master-spirit of the age, for whom we well may mourn, since we dare not hope to look upon his like again! I have now, in a few words, to entreat your patience whilst I speak of two other Scottish poets whose memory is yet green amongst us--both reared, like Robert Burns, at the lowly hearth of the peasant--both pursuing, like him, through every discouragement and difficulty, the pathway towards honourable renown--and both the authors of strains which bear the stamp of immortality. And first, let me allude to one of them whom I knew and dearly loved. Who is there that has not heard of the Ettrick Shepherd--of him whose inspiration descended as lightly as the breeze that blows along the mountain side--who saw, amongst the lonely and sequestered glens of the south, from eyelids touched with fairy ointment, such visions as are vouchsafed to the minstrel alone--the dream of sweet Kilmeny, too spiritual for the taint of earth? I shall not attempt any comparison--for I am not here to criticise--between his genius and that of other men, on whom God in his bounty has bestowed the great and the marvellous gift. The songs and the poetry of the Shepherd are now the nation's own, as indeed they long have been; and amidst the minstrelsy of the choir who have made the name of Scotland and her peasantry familiar throughout the wide reach of the habitable world the clear wild notes of the Forest will for ever be heard to ring. I have seen him many times by the banks of his own romantic Yarrow; I have sat with him in the calm and sunny weather by the margin of Saint Mary's Lake; I have seen his eyes sparkle and his cheek flush as he spoke out some old heroic ballad of the days of the Douglas and the Græme, and I have felt, as I listened to the accents of his manly voice, that whilst Scotland could produce amongst her children such men as him beside me, her ancient spirit had not departed from her, nor the star of her glory grown pale! For he was a man, indeed, cast in nature's happiest mould. True-hearted, and brave, and generous, and sincere; alive to every kindly impulse, and fresh at the core to the last, he lived among his native hills the blameless life of the shepherd and the poet; and on the day when he was laid beneath the sod in the lonely kirkyard of Ettrick, there was not one dry eye amongst the hundreds that lingered round his grave. Of the other sweet singer, too--of Allan Cunningham, the leal-hearted and kindly Allan--I might say much; but why should I detain you further? Does not his name alone recall to your recollection many a sweet song that has thrilled the bosom of the village maiden with an emotion that a princess need not blush to own? Honour, then, to the poets!--whether they speak out loud and trumpet-tongued, to find audience in the hearts of the great, and the mighty, and the brave--or whether, in lowlier and more simple accents, but not less sacred in their mission, they bring comfort and consolation to the poor. As the sweep of the rainbow, which has its arch in heaven, and its shafts resting upon the surface of the earth--as the sunshine which falls with equal bounty upon the palace and the hut--is the all-pervading and universal spirit of poetry; and what less can we do to those men who have collected and scattered it around us, than to hail them as the benefactors of their race? That has been the purpose of our gathering, and we have held it in a fitting spot. Proud, indeed, may be the district that can claim within herself the birthplaces of Burns and of Cunningham; and proud may we all be--and we are proud, from yourself, my lord, to the humblest individual who bore a part in the proceedings of this memorable day--that we have the opportunity of testifying our respect to the genius that will defy the encroachment of time: and which has shed, and will continue to shed, a splendour and a glory around the land that we love so well! My lord, I am honoured in having to propose "The memory of the Ettrick Shepherd, and of Allan Cunningham."

Sir D. H. BLAIR, Bart., of Blairquhan, said--My Lord Eglinton and gentlemen, I have been requested to give the next toast, which I very much wish had fallen into abler hands. It is a toast, my lord, that is as well calculated to call forth enthusiastic bursts of eloquence as any we have listened to with such delight to-day; but as on that account I feel quite unable to do it adequate justice, I must trust to that acclamation by which I am confident it will be received, without any effort on my part. We all recollect the words of our immortal bard, when, in alluding to the manner in which nature had finished this fair creation, he says--

"Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, And then she made the lasses O!"

I am sure every man in this assembly will join me in an enthusiastic bumper to the health of the "Countess of Eglinton, and the ladies who have honoured this meeting with their presence."

Colonel MURE of Caldwell, said--In obedience to the order of our noble chairman, I have to request a bumper to the Peasantry of Scotland. In order justly to appreciate the claims of this most estimable class of our fellow-citizens upon our sympathies, I must remind you that to it pre-eminently belongs the honour of having given birth to the remarkable man whose memory we are this day met to celebrate. I must remind you, that while the fact of Burns having raised himself from the rank of a Scottish ploughman, by the innate force of heaven-born genius, to the level of the greatest and most original poets of any age or country, is the noblest feature of his history, the peasantry of Scotland, in their turn, may be entitled to feel pride, even in the presence of the proudest nobles of their land, when they remember that from them, and not from the privileged orders of society, our greatest national genius was destined to arise. And, in fact, the most striking, and perhaps the most valuable feature in the poetical character of Burns, is the marked ascendancy which the spirit and habits of the peasant, the genius of the man, as it were, continued to exercise on the genius of the poet, even during the most brilliant periods of his subsequent career. Even amid that rich variety of subjects, in the treatment of which his instinctive refinement and delicacy of taste enabled him to combine, with all the higher powers of the man, the courtly graces of the gentleman and scholar--still his happiest effort, the masterpiece of his genius, in which his own mind is displayed in the most agreeable light, and his inspiration breathes forth with the greatest brilliancy and beauty, will be found to be dictated by the associations of his early rustic days. When I reflect, therefore, how copious, how graphic, how true are his own descriptions of the character of the Scottish peasantry, in all its varieties of grave or of gay, of light or of shadow, I cannot but feel it is a sort of presumption to offer in a company, who must be all so familiar with these descriptions, any crude remark of my own, on the more interesting features of those to which they refer. I shall, however, do my best to season the few comments which I am in some degree bound to offer on the subject allotted to me, by taking the poet's works as my text-book. Were I called upon, therefore, to name the virtues of our peasantry, which chiefly claim our respect and admiration, I should point first to their industry, frugality, and contentment, as those which prominently adorn their own class of society above all others, and also to their piety and their patriotism, as shared, I would fain hope equally, or at least largely, by the mass of our fellow-citizens. Where, then, shall we find a more spirited picture of the influence and effects of the three former qualities--above all, of that most inestimable blessing, contentment--than in the brilliant little poem which bears the humble title of the "Twa Dogs," where, after so graphically describing the honest toils, often the severe hardships, inseparable from the peasant's lot, he goes on to say, that yet

"They're nae sae wretched's ane wad think, Though constantly on poortith's brink; They're sae accustom'd wi' the sight, The view of it gi'es little fright; And how it comes I never kent yet, They're maistly wonderfu' contented; And buirdly chiels and clever hizzies Are bred in such a way as this is."

But where are we, after all, to look for the source of this beautiful attribute of contentment? Is it not in the still more admirable one of their piety? It is here almost superfluous to make any close appeal to our poet's authority--to that most sublime description, so familiar to you all, where the old peasant on the Saturday night collects his scattered family, at the close of the long week's labour, around his humble but happy cottage fireside, and, after a few sweet but hard-earned hours of social enjoyment, instils, before retiring to repose, from the open Word of God, into their minds those lessons of Divine wisdom which were to guide them during the next week, and through life, in the paths of religion and virtue. Are not such scenes to this day common in our cottages, still, as of old, I firmly believe, the favourite abodes of the genuine spirit of simple Scottish piety? Then as to the last, if not the least, in the above list of the virtues of our peasants--their patriotism. To whom, I would ask, but to the peasantry of Scotland, does our poet so beautifully appeal as having bled with Wallace? To whom, but to our peasantry, did our national hero look--and never look in vain--for support in his gallant effort to restore the fallen fortunes of his country, at the period when our doughty knights and nobles--happily but for a season--had been reduced, by the intrigues or intimidation of our powerful enemy, to crouch submissive beneath the throne of his usurpation. And can we doubt that this proud spirit of patriotism still burns as warm in their hearts as then, if no longer, by God's blessing, so fearfully or so desperately called into action; or that when after, as our poet again has it,

"They lay aside their private cares To mind the Kirk and State affairs They'll talk of patronage and priests Wi' kindling fury in their breasts, Or tell what new taxation's coming, And ferlie at the folks in Lunnan."

But I have already detained you too long--if not longer than the interest of the subject, at least than my power of doing justice to it entitles me. I shall therefore conclude by pronouncing a grace over our bumper, also supplied from the stores of the Poet, and the sentiments of which every one here present, I am sure, will cordially sympathize--

"O Scotia! my dear, my native soil, For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content."

Sir JAMES CAMPBELL of Glasgow said--In proposing the toast with which I have been entrusted, I shall content myself by simply expressing my deep regret that, under any circumstances, I could so inadequately express my own sentiments and feelings of admiration--in all the acceptations of that word--of "the Land of Burns." I am aware, however, that I have the honour of addressing an assemblage who can appreciate, who do appreciate, and who, by their appearance here, and the interest so many of them have taken in the proceedings and associations of this day, give ample proof of their high estimation of, and attachment to, "the Land of Burns." I am aware, also, that I have the honour to address not a few of those who have, with the pencil or with the pen, done homage to the classical, patriotic, and poetical claims of that land. I feel satisfied, indeed, that there is not an individual in this most interesting and splendid assemblage, who does not greatly prize and admire the fertile soil and landscape beauty of that land; whose bosom glows not with an honest pride at the intelligence, enterprise, and patriotism of the men of that land; and, above all, who does not honour and admire the beauty and accomplishments of the ladies of that land. And therefore is it, my lord, that, without further preface, I would call upon this assembly to dedicate a bumper to "The Land of Burns."

Lord EGLINTON said--Ladies and Gentlemen, Except the toast which I have had the honour and happiness of bringing before you to-day, there is not one which gives me greater pleasure to see committed to my charge than that which I am now about to bring before your notice--I mean the "Provost and Magistrates of Ayr;" and along with it, though not down on the card, my feelings will not allow me to leave out the Interests of Ayr. On such an occasion as this, and so late in the day, I will not occupy your time by dilating on the interest which I feel in that Town, or of the knowledge which I have of the Provost and the Magistrates. From that knowledge I feel convinced that the interests of Ayr could not be placed in more worthy hands. In addition to the respect felt towards them as the Magistrates of the County Town, we all feel gratitude to them for the assistance, support, and countenance, they have given to our proceedings on this occasion.

Provost MILLER said--Permit me to return my best thanks, on behalf of my colleagues and myself, for the flattering compliment which has just been paid to them. The manner in which the toast was introduced by the noble lord was particularly gratifying to me; and I am sure it will be appreciated by the entire corporation. I beg to assure the noble lord that the recognition of "Auld Ayr" at a meeting so peculiarly interesting as the present, and combining, as it does, so much of the rank, talent, and worth of the land, will be highly appreciated by the "honest men and bonnie lasses" for which it has been characterized by the immortal bard in honour of whose memory we are this day met.

The LORD JUSTICE-GENERAL rose amidst much applause. He said--Ladies and gentlemen, after the uncommon success which has attended every part of the proceedings at this meeting to-day, I am confident that I anticipate the unanimous concurrence of this great assembly I have now the honour to address, when I state that there appears, in addition to many toasts drunk with so much enthusiasm, one that remains as a debt of gratitude due by this assembly. I consider it a most fortunate circumstance attending this meeting, that we have been presided over by the Noble Lord in the chair. I am sure that the most enthusiastic admirers of Burns must be gratified in thinking that the proceedings of this day have been conducted by my noble friend in so admirable a manner. Every person must be satisfied that it was impossible the proceedings of this day could have been commenced in a happier strain. Without further comment, I beg leave to propose that we drink the health of our excellent Chairman.

Lord EGLINTON, in reply, said--My Lord Justice, and ladies and gentlemen, I assure you I feel most deeply grateful to you for the honour you have paid me, as I always ought to be when my health is proposed and drunk at a meeting of Scotchmen. But I assure you I never felt more deeply grateful, or more highly sensible of that honour, than I do at the present moment, when my health is proposed by such a man as the Lord Justice-General, and when it has been received--and, I am proud to say, enthusiastically received--by an assemblage met for such a purpose as to do honour to the memory of our greatest poet. But, gentlemen, I will not at this late hour of the day, and in a temple, as it were, dedicated to the Muses--I will not occupy your time by returning thanks for drinking the health of one who has no merit. But, before we part, there is a toast which claims our especial consideration--"the health of Professor Wilson." Had it not been for the modesty of the Professor, it ought to have been proposed at a much earlier part of the evening. On such an occasion as this, when we have met from all parts of Scotland, to do honour to the memory of the greatest genius Scotland ever knew, it surely is not only proper, but our bounden duty, to drink the health of the greatest genius which Scotland possesses now. The memories of others have been drunk to-night, and have been received with that deep feeling which Scotchmen feel towards the memory of genius, but the toast which I am now proposing is one which has this additional merit, that the subject of it is alive and hearty, and able to continue, as you have heard to-day, in that career which has hitherto so much delighted his countrymen. In the presence of Professor Wilson I cannot dilate, as I could wish to do, on the character of that gentleman. I will only ask you to drink with me his health in a way that will show that you can pay honour to genius alive, as you can do honour to departed worth.

Professor WILSON rose and simply bowed his acknowledgments.

The Earl of EGLINTON then rose and said--Ladies and Gentlemen,

"Nae man can tether time nor tide; The hour approaches--Tam maun ride."

This brought the proceedings to a close.

We have thought it due--not less to the character of the meeting than to the sincere and fervid eloquence of the speakers--to place upon our pages an authentic record of the whole proceedings of the day. This "great national gathering," as it was aptly denominated, must be of enduring and not ephemeral interest, and will be remembered, and spoken of, and quoted, long after events of greater apparent importance have passed away into oblivion. The outpourings of a nation's heart are immortal. The tributes that were paid, in the ages long since gone by, to the poets of Greece and of Italy, have outlived the most enduring monuments of marble, and we dare not hesitate now to recognise a triumph which will be as everlasting as theirs.

We feel that little comment is necessary upon the various addresses that are given above. But we should not be justified--and no man who was there that day would forgive us--if we passed over in silence the manly and distinguished manner in which Lord Eglinton discharged the duties of the chair. Scotland, as we have already had occasion to say, is proud, and justly so, of her aristocracy; but there is not one of them all, through the whole length and breadth of the land, to whom she can point more exultingly than to this young nobleman. His opening address would have done honour to one long trained in the schools of oratory, and that was its smallest merit. The emphatic and earnest tone of admiration in which he spoke of the peasantry of his country--his generous and touching allusions to Burns in his earlier years, to what he had done and suffered, and to the honours so long withheld, and now so brilliantly conferred--and the patriotic fervour which pervaded his whole address--carried along with him not only the applauses, but the hearts of the whole assemblage. Lord Eglinton may well look back with pride and satisfaction to the proceedings of that day; for he has secured the affections of thousands who already respected his name.

Of the other speeches, eloquent and impressive as they were, we shall--with only one exception--speak collectively; and the highest praise we can give is to say, that they were every way worthy of the occasion, of the subjects which they celebrated, and of the men by whom they were uttered. There was a delicate propriety in the feeling which excluded from the list of toasts the names of the living poets, with the great and glorious exceptions of Wordsworth and Moore, now beyond all cavil at the head of the literature of their respective countries. Their presence, though ardently hoped for, was hardly to be expected on this occasion; for their advanced years, and the distant journey they must have undertaken, were serious obstacles; but their apologetic letters, full of deep feeling and sympathy, were received, and the reception which greeted their names, showed the respect and love which the Scottish people entertain for the greatness and universality of their fame. Deep also and thrilling was the emotion evinced at the mention of the illustrious dead, who have passed away into their graves in the fulness and maturity of their fame. Strange and powerful is the spell which lies in the mere plain utterance of their names! Scott, and Byron, and Campbell, (just laid in the noblest mausoleum of the world,) the Ettrick Shepherd, and Allan Cunningham--what names for a country to record in its annals, in the brief space of one generation!

But the speech to which all looked forward with the utmost expectation and anxiety, was that of Professor Wilson. His zeal in the cause of Burns, his earnest and reiterated defence of his reputation, were so well known, that on this occasion, when the balance might be held as finally struck, and when the nation, by its own voluntary act, had recognized the position which its poet, through all time coming must maintain, it would have been felt as a vast and serious omission if the last elegy had not been uttered by the greatest vindicator of his fame. It _was_ so uttered, and none but those who listened to that address can conceive the effect which it produced. Elsewhere than in these pages we should assuredly have attempted some comment upon it. As it is, we shall borrow an opinion of the provincial press, from the pen, we believe, of the Editor of the _Dumfries-shire Herald_, Mr Aird, himself a spectator of the scene, and a man of high intellect and imagination, whose remarks we have been led to adopt, not from the eulogy they contain, but from their just and reverential truth:--

"The remarkable speech of the day was Professor Wilson's. Since the time when in his 'bright and shining youth' he walked seventy miles to be present at a Burns' meeting, and electrified it with a new and peculiar fervour of eloquence, such as had never been heard among us before, how manifold, how multiform have been this man's generous vindications of our great Bard! Now broad in humour; now sportive and playful; now sarcastic, scornful, and searching; now calmly philosophic in criticism; now thoughtful and solemn, large of reverent discourse, 'looking before and after,' with all the sweetest by-plays of humanity, with every reconciling softness of charity--such, in turns, and in quickest intermingled tissue of the ethereal woof, have been the many illustrations which this large-minded, large-hearted Scotchman, in whose character there is neither corner nor cranny, has poured in the very prodigality of his affectionate abundance around and over the name and the fame of Robert Burns. It became him--and he knew it--that on this great and consummating occasion, so full of reconcilement betwixt human frailty and human worth, his address, on which so much expectation waited, should be a last SOLEMN REQUIEM over the grave of the illustrious dead, pronounced not merely to the congregation of the day, but to mankind in general, and to every future age. With those long, heart-drawn, lingering, slow-expiring tones, solemn as a cathedral chant, the whole of this sacred piece of service (for we can call it nothing else) was to us like some mournful oratorio by Mozart, soft at once and sublime. Some might be disappointed that they heard nothing on this occasion of the varied play of Christopher North; but the heart of Scotland, in its calm retirement, will appreciate this holy oration, as worthily hallowing and sanctifying her meeting."

The proceedings in that Pavilion were a just and fitting conclusion to the splendid jubilee of the day. Some no doubt were absent, whom the public would gladly have seen there; for, on an occasion like this, the general wish must have been, that all the greatness, and talent, and learning of the land should have united in the National Festival. But that absence, though regretted, did not, in any degree, lessen the enthusiasm. Indeed, as we looked around the meeting, and saw, unelevated to any conspicuous place, Delta, and Chambers, and Ferrier, and a hundred other distinguished men, not only content, but proud to bear testimony by their simple presence to the genuine purpose of the assembly, it was hardly possible to wish for more. Every individual feeling was merged in the common desire, that the day should be consecrated to its own peculiar object; and consecrated it was, if unanimity, and eloquence, and tears, and the outpouring of all that is lofty, and generous, and sincere, can consecrate aught on earth--where error and frailty must abide, but where the judgment of man in his weakness, may not, and dare not, usurp the functions of the All-seeing and Eternal Judge.

And now we close the hasty record of a scene that will be remembered so long as Scotland is a nation. Some there may be--for there are malignant and jaundiced spirits every where--who may sneer at the solemnities we have witnessed; and it is well that they should do so, for the praise of such men is no honour--far better that it should be withheld. We conclude by again adopting the language of Mr Aird, which leaves no word unsaid.

"Such has been the tribute of a country to her national poet. She furnished him with the rich materials of his song--with her dear victories set in blood; with the imperishable memory of her independence; with the character of her sons and daughters, simple as water, but strong as the waterfall; with her snatches of old-world minstrelsy, surely never composed by mortal man, but spilt from the overflowing soul of sorrow and gladness; with her music, twin-born, say rather one with her minstrelsy; with her fairy belief, the most delicately beautiful mythology in the history of the human mind, and strangely contrasted with the rugged character of her people, a people of sturt and strife; with her heroic faith; with the graves of her headless martyrs, in green shaw or on grim moor, visited by many a slip of sunshine streaming down from behind the cloud in the still autumnal afternoon. These, and all the other priceless elements of 'the auld Scottish glory,' he--the national bard--compacted and crystallized into a Poetry which, by innumerable points of sympathetic contact, carries back into the national heart, by ever-conducting issue, the thoughts and feelings which itself first gave forth to his plastic genius; and thus there is an eternal interchange of cause and effect, to the perpetuation and propagation of patriotism, and all that constitutes national spirit and character.

"THEREFORE it was fitting that such a national tribute should be paid to such a national benefactor."

STANZAS FOR THE BURNS' FESTIVAL.

BY DELTA.

I.

Stir the beal-fire, wave the banner, Bid the thundering cannon sound-- Rend the skies with acclamation, Stun the woods and waters round-- Till the echoes of our gathering Turn the world's admiring gaze To this act of duteous homage Scotland to her poet pays. Fill the banks and braes with music, Be it loud and low by turns-- This we owe the deathless glory, That the hapless fate of Burns.

II.

Born within the lowly cottage To a destiny obscure, Doom'd through youth's exulting spring-time But to labour and endure-- Yet Despair he elbow'd from him; Nature breathed with holy joy, In the hues of morn and evening, On the eyelids of the boy; And his country's Genius bound him Laurels for his sun-burn'd brow, When inspired and proud she found him, Like Elisha, at the plough.

III.

On, exulting in his magic, Swept the gifted peasant on-- Though his feet were on the greensward, Light from heaven around him shone; At his conjuration, demons Issued from their darkness drear; Hovering round on silver pinions, Angels stoop'd his songs to hear; Bow'd the Passions to his bidding, Terror gaunt, and Pity calm; Like the organ pour'd his thunder, Like the lute his fairy psalm.

IV.

Lo, when clover-swathes lay round him, Or his feet the furrow press'd, He could mourn the sever'd daisy, Or the mouse's ruin'd nest; Woven of gloom and glory, visions Haunting throng'd his twilight hour; Birds enthrall'd him with sweet music, Tempests with their tones of power; Eagle-wing'd his mounting spirit Custom's rusty fetters spurn'd; Tasso-like, for Jean he melted Wallace-like, for Scotland burn'd!

V.

Scotland!--dear to him was Scotland, In her sons and in her daughters, In her Highlands,--Lowlands,--Islands,-- Regal woods, and rushing waters;-- In the glory of her story, When her tartans fired the field,-- Scotland! oft betray'd--beleagur'd-- Scotland! never known to yield! Dear to him her Doric language,-- Thrill'd his heart-strings at her name;-- And he left her more than rubies, In the riches of his fame.

VI.

Sons of England!--Sons of Erin! Ye who, journeying from afar, Throng with us the shire of Coila, Led by Burns's guiding star-- Proud we greet you--ye will join us, As, on this triumphant day, To the champions of his genius Grateful thanks we duly pay-- Currie--Chambers--Lockhart--Wilson-- Carlyle--who his bones to save From the wolfish fiend, Detraction, Couch'd like lions round his grave.

VII.

Daughter of the poet's mother! Here we hail thee with delight; Shower'd be every earthly blessing On thy locks of silver white!-- Sons of Burns, a hearty welcome, Welcome home from India's strand, To a heart-loved land far dearer, Since your glorious Father's land:-- Words are worthless--look around you-- Labour'd tomes far less could say To the sons of such a father, Than the sight of such a day!

VIII.

Judge not ye, whose thoughts are fingers, Of the hands that witch the lyre-- Greenland has its mountain icebergs, Ætna has its heart of fire; Calculation has its plummet; Self-control its iron rules; Genius has its sparkling fountains; Dulness has its stagnant pools; Like a halcyon on the waters, Burns's chart disdain'd a plan-- In his soarings he was heavenly, In his sinkings he was man.

IX.

As the sun from out the orient Pours a wider, warmer light, Till he floods both earth and ocean, Blazing from the zenith's height; So the glory of our poet, In its deathless power serene, Shines--as rolling time advances-- Warmer felt, and wider seen: First Doon's banks and braes contain'd it, Then his country form'd its span; Now the wide world is its empire, And its throne the heart of man.

X.

Home returning, each will carry Proud remembrance of this day, When exulted Scotland's bosom Homage to her bard to pay;-- When our jubilee to brighten, Eglinton with Wilson vied, Wealth's regards and Rank's distinctions For the season set aside; And the peasant, peer, and poet, Each put forth an equal claim, For the twining of his laurel In the wreath of Burns's fame!

* * * * *

_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._