the humane. He writes a poem on a small animal, so dreadfully vulgar that it is never even mentioned in polite society-a nasty, creeping, disgusting reptile, which appeared one day on a lady's bonnet at church. He wrote another poem on a wretched little mouse turned up by a plough, whereas it is evident he ought only to have written about lions and elephants; and altogether, when we examine his performances through the golden spectacles of Almack's and high life, we wonder the man has attained any reputation at all. Alas! that Parnassus is not covered with Turkey carpets, and the fount of Helicon composed of Eau de Cologne! But, perhaps, it is only with "hecklers" and farmers like himself that he is popular-hobnailed fellows who would wear holes in the Turkey carpet, and never perceive the scented Helicon, though held in gobletfuls under their nose? Let us leave them with their congenial poet, and shut him out of our boudoirs and drawing-rooms. But every drawing-room in England would be darkened if Burns was shut out; every library would feel a positive want, if that vulgar person's dirty little volume was excluded. And why is this? All our criticism is contained in the simple answer-The man was natural. The man had a soul. Without this, all the refinement in the world, and all the correctness, and

all the poetry are of no use—we stand unmoved amidst a cannonade of simile and trope; but with this, there is nothing with which we cannot sympathize. There is nothing vulgar or revolting when ennobled by a true and sensitive heart. As to lowness,-that amazing weapon in the armoury of fools,-what is there low in the admiration a peasant breathes out to his sweetheart?—in the description of an honest labourer's cottage, with "the big ha' Bible, aince his father's pride," placed reverently on the table?—or even in animated pictures of the sports of "Halloween" and the jovialities of "Souter Johnnie?" Our esteemed and celebrated friend, Jeames Plush, Esq., may call these things "low," and express his contempt for them to Mary Hann; but we, who are not gifted with integuments of purple velvet, come to a very different decision. We tell our Mary Hanns that there is something so purifying in warm and real affection, that there is nothing low in the strains where such feelings are expressed; nay, that there is something elevating to humanity itself in the sincerity and simplicity of those rustic songs-that rank, station, wealth, learning, all sink into the shade when the one great string is struck. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin!" And this was the power of Robert Burns. If I were quite sure my friend Mr. Plush was fairly

out of hearing, I would quote in proof of this a frightfully vulgar-looking story-but which isn't vulgar in the slightest degree—which, though it is only about tippling shoemakers and whiskyloving farmers, is as free from "lowness" as if it were about sporting dukes and right honourable members of the Cabinet. It is the tale of "Tam o' Shanter," and his encounter with the witches:

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak' the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' gettin fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonny lasses.)
O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou wasna sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;

That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;
She prophesy'd, that late or soon,

Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon;
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

Ah, gentle dames; it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises !

But to our tale :-Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou' for weeks thegither!
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter;
And ay the ale was growing better:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle—
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himself among the nappy:
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;

Or like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white-then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.

Nae man can tether time or tide;

The hour approaches Tam maun ride;

That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling show'rs rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd;
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellow'd:
That night, a child might understand,
The de'il had business on his hand.

Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,

Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;

Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet;
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet
Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.—

By this time he was cross the ford,
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane;