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And through the trees I view the embattled tower,
Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soft musings as I tread

The walk, still verdant, under oak and elms,
Whose outspread branches over-arch the glade.
The roof, though moveable through all its length
As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed,
And, intercepting in their silent fall

The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreast warbles still, but is content

With slender notes, and more than half suppressed:
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice,
That tinkle in the withered leaves below.
Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,

And Learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and wisdom,1 far from being one,
Have oft-times no connection: knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,

The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

THE MILLENNIUM.2

O SCENES surpassing fable, and yet true—

Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see,

Knowledge and wisdom, &c.-See note 1, p. 96, and also p. 232.

2 "We doubt," says the Rev. Thomas Dale, in his Life of Cowper, "whether any thing in the whole range of English poetry, the Messiah of Pope itself not excepted, can afford any parallel to the exquisite grouping of prophetic imagery in that splendid passage which describes the Millennial glory of the Church, commencing

"O scenes surpassing fable, &c."

Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?
Rivers of gladness water all the earth,

And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach
Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field
Laughs with abundance: and the land, once lean,
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,

Exults to see its thistly curse repealed.
The various seasons woven into one,
And that one season an eternal spring,
The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence,
For there is none to covet, all are full.
The lion, and the libbard, and the bear,
Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon
Together, or all gambol in the shade

Of the same grove, and drink one common stream:
Antipathies are none. No foe to man

Lurks in the serpent now: the mother sees,
And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand
Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm,
To stroke his azure neck, or to receive
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue.
All creatures worship man, and all mankind
One Lord, one Father. Error has no place;
That creeping pestilence is driven away;

The breath of heaven has chased it. In the heart
No passion touches a discordant string;
But all is harmony and love. Disease
Is not the pure and uncontaminate blood
Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age.
One song employs all nations; and all cry,
'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!'
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round.
Behold the measure of the promise filled;
See Salem built, the labour of a God!
Bright as a Sun the sacred city shines;
All kingdoms and all princes of the earth
Flock to that light; the glory of all lands
Flows into her; unbounded is her joy,

And endless her increase. Thy rams are there,

Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar1 there:
The looms of Ormus and the mines of Ind,
And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there.
Praise is in all her gates, upon her walls
And in her streets, and in her spacious courts,
Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there
Kneels with the native of the farthest west;
And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand,
And worships. Her report has travelled forth
Into all lands; from every clime they come
To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy,
O Sion! an assembly such as earth
Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see.

BURNS.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-Robert Burns was born January 25th, 1759, in a clay-built cottage, raised by his father's own hands, on the banks of the Doon, in the district of Kyle, Ayrshire. At the age of six he was sent to school, and appears to have been a diligent little student. At an early age he assisted his father in his farming business, continuing his education at intervals. When about twenty, he composed several of the poems which afterwards distinguished his name. After various domestic trials, when on the point of leaving England for Jamaica, where he had got a situation, the publication of his poems awakened so much interest in their author, that he abandoned his purpose, and after an unsuccessful experiment in farming, obtained an appointment in the excise. He died at Dumfries, in the year 1796.

PRINCIPAL WORKS.-Amongst many brief, but beautiful poems, it is difficult to particularise the principal-but perhaps those entitled "Tam o' Shanter"- "The Cotter's Saturday Night"-"To a Mountain Daisy"-"The Twa Dogs"-"To Mary in Heaven"-may be designated the best.

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"Nebaioth and Kedar-the sons of Ishmael, and progenitors of the Arabs, in the prophetic Scriptures here alluded to, [see Isaiah Ix, throughout,] may be reasonably considered as representatives of the Gentiles at large."

CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE.-"The excellence of Burns is indeed among the rarest, whether in poetry or prose; but, at the same time, it is plain and easily recognised-it is his sincerity his indisputable air of truth. Here are no fabulous woes or joys; no hollow fantastic sentimentalities; no wiredrawn refinings, either in thought or feeling; the passion that is traced before us has glowed in a living heart; the opinion he utters has risen in his own understanding, and been a light to his own steps. He does not write from hearsay, but from sight and experience: they are the scenes that he has lived and laboured amongst that he describes; those scenes, rude and humble as they are, have kindled beautiful emotions in his soul -noble thoughts and definite resolves-and he speaks forth what is in him, not from any outward call of vanity or interest, but because his heart is too full to be silent. He speaks it too with such modulation as he can, and though but in homely rustic jingle, it is his own, and genuine. This is the grand secret for finding readers and retaining them: let him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself. But independently of this essential gift of true poetic feeling, there is a certain rugged, sterling worth pervades whatever Burns has written. A virtue, as of green fields and mountain breezes, dwells in his poetry-it is redolent of natural life, and of hardy, natural men. There is a decisive strength in him, and yet frequently a sweet native gracefulness. He is tender, and he is vehement; yet without constraint or visible effort. He melts the heart, or inflames it with a power which seems habitual and familiar to him. He has a consonance in his bosom for every note of human feeling; the high and the low-the sad and the ludicrous-the mournful and the joyful are welcome in their turns, to his all-conceiving spirit. And then, with what a prompt and eager force he grasps his subject, be it what it may! How he fixes, as it were, the full image of the matter in his eye, full and clear in every lineament, and catches the real type and essence of it, among a thousand incidents and superficial circumstances-no one of which misleads him! No poet, of any age or nature, is more graphic than Burns. The characteristic features disclose themselves to him at a glance. Three lines from his hand, and we have a likeness!"I

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.1

NOVEMBER chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;2
The shortening winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The blackening trains o' craws to their repose;
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

The expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher thro'
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee.
His wee bit ingle,5 blinkin' bonnily,

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,

An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil.

Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out amang the farmers roun';
Some ca" the pleugh, some herd, some tenties rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposit her sair-won penny-fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

1 "The Cotter's Saturday Night is tender and moral, solemn and devotional, and rises at length into a strain of grandeur and sublimity which modern poetry has not surpassed. The noble sentiments of patriotism, with which it concludes, correspond with the rest of the poem. In no age or country have the pastoral muses breathed such elevated accents, if the Messiah of Pope be excepted, which is indeed a pastoral in form only:" Dr. Currie.

The Cotter, in the Saturday Night,' is an exact copy of my father in his manners, his family devotion, and exhortations; yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us were ever at service out among the farmers round:"" Gilbert Burns, brother of the Author.

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2 Sugh-the continued rushing noise of wind or water. Stacher-stagger. Flichterin-fluttering. 5 Wee bit ingle-little fire or fire-place. Belyve-by Ca'-drive. Tentie-carefully, heedfully.

and bye.

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