easy-tempered, soft, squeezable mortal-(laughter)—at the instigation of her gruff, severe, elder father, did to him. He was his own worst enemy, and the conscious enemy of no other human being. No man knew his faults so well as himself, and no man was ever more free from all manner of wilful falsehood. Listen to the three last verses from his "Bard's Epitaph," in which the worst, I believe, that could be said of him is confessed as frankly as if he believed that he was to be put upon his trial for the next hundred years, as he has been "Is there a man, whose judgment clear, Can others teach the course to steer, Here pause-and thro' the starting tear, The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn, and wise to know, But thoughtless follies laid him low Reader, attend-whether thy soul Know, prudent, cautious, self-control (Applause.) And now let us pass from the man, the philosopher, the prophet, the Poet, to those that by destiny he was appointed to teach and guide. Burns was the greatest gift of Providence to our country in his own generation. In point of gigantic force of intellect I think he was the greatest Scotsman of all time. (Applause.) And how did his contemporaries receive and appreciate this unprecedented, this priceless gift? That is one of the most searching questions that can have been put to Scotland and its thoughtful sons and daughters for the last hundred years, and it starts up to-night with importunate pertinacity, looming its biggest through the misty memories, the multitudinous opinions, fluctuating between the carping superfine gentility of Jeffrey and the inspired reverence of nature-worshipping, sympathetic Wordsworth, struggling and advancing to victory over prejudice, stupidity, and religious bigotry in the wide battlefield of the Anglo-Saxon world, under the sunlight, starlight, lamplight, midnights of a busy, restless, hundred years. (Applause.) I think I can say with a good conscience that the peasant brotherhood of Scotland, upon the whole, behaved loyally, tenderly, and justly to their gifted, impulsive peasant brother; that they rejoiced with their whole nature in his poetry as they had never before rejoiced in poetry-not even the inspired Psalms of David; that they sang his songs tunefully, or the reverse-(laughter)— with thorough appreciation of their strong sense and fiery sentiment; and that they gathered while they could-the cleverest of them—to hear him talk wherever and whenever they had an opportunity, as they never before or since crowded to hear any mere secular conversationalist, nor any one except a very new popular preachers. The representative intelligence of the peasantry of Scotland, repressing all manner of jealousy, and doing their utmost to gag the howling of cant and bigotry, have stood faithfully by Burns, from the time they discovered his abilities-and they discovered them early-till now. The moderate or rationalistic clergy of Scotland stood by him in his lifetime, and they have done so since. Carlyle laments that he became their "fighting man,” but what else could he have done had he not steered clear of religion altogether, a quite impossible thing for any true poet who is bound to deal with the great social forces, and especially with religion, which is the greatest of them all? The religion that cannot bear to be scrutinised by the highest talent of the age, that is, or ought to be, ruled by it, that cannot bear the purification of the acutest reason and the keenest satire, is too superfine for the realities of erring fallible human nature-is fit only to throw a putrid, phosphorescent glory over the mummeries, the hypocrisies, the phylacteries of those that do their worship by machinery, and that have no rooted convictions because they have never been perfected by suffering or proved by the tempests of doubt. To the best of my understanding and conviction, the educated, rational classes of Scotland, high and low, rich and poor, from the first appreciated and honoured Burns as no poet has ever been appreciated by the masses-I ought rather to say by the solid mass—of his countrymen. He was intelligible alike to peers, professors, and peasants; indeed, the peasantry had had, for understanding him, a better training than the peerage, because they had from childhood been learning his language and seeing the sights that were familiar to him. Some of the tribe of professors who were also unfortunately pedants did attempt to criticise and patronise him. Their lucubrations, for the most part, have tended to show that a man may be installed in a University Chair and yet may be an ass. (Laughter and applause.) But Dugald Stewart, Dr. Blacklock, Dr. Gregory, even Dr. Blair, whose sermons have afflicted so many young persons on Sunday evenings, and above all the rest, Professor Wilson showed that College learning does not destroy the power of appreciating natural genius when the critic is a man of strong intellect and clear insight, and not a mere parsing, philosophising, syllogising machine. (Laughter.) However, I admit that the tendency of College criticism has been somewhat to forget that the thunderbolt of original thought which is to travel through abysses of time does not require to be geometrically accurate in its form, and perfectly polished all over with academic sandpaper. (Laughter.) Its function is to fly far, to illuminate primeval darkness,. to burn up the effete of byegone eras, to melt or crush out from rubbish the ore of truth that can pass as gold into the intellectual currency of coming generations. (Applause.) My conviction, based upon more facts than I can enumerate, is that Burns never suffered from contact with any man of real intellect. He had something to teach the best, the cleverest of his contemporaries, and they had all something to teach him. His most dangerous and useless friends were his drinking friends pure and simple, for what valuable idea can emerge from the convolutions of a brain that is reeking with whisky? The writers of Ayr could drink, but they could also think; so could most of the clergy of that age-(laughter)—and I am inclined to believe that their plentifully strong toddy was more dangerous than their stinted, watery theology—(laughter)—especially to a man like Burns, who did not require a teacher in any field of temptation such as the heretical field. But there were men who forced their company upon his good nature, who could only drink and flatter him when in his company, and slander him when done with it. I wish that, if it could have saved Burns's life a year or two, all these flattering, tippling parasites had been drowned in a vat of Ferintosh or of Kilbagie, or some blend of superlative whiskies, that they would have been content to die in while drinking. (Laughter.) The ruling politicians of Burns's time, especially Pitt, "the Premier youth," have been greatly blamed for their neglect of Burns. Pitt was a bit of a poet himself at least, he had tried his hand at translating Homer, and succeeded better than most University young men. When appealed to on behalf of Burns, he said "literature will take care of itself." I am not sure that any of his successors, unless, perhaps, Mr. Disraeli, would have done more for Burns. Political magnates appear to be afraid of poets, and still more of satirists. Dean Swift and Sydney Smith ought to have been Bishops for certain, if unrivalled intellect could be discovered and appreciated by Prime Ministers. But the high political mind seems to be incapable of putting faith in any mental powers beyond high-class, decorous, industrious commonplace, and to be bound by its limited practical nature to distrust genius as a force that is abnormal, beyond calculation and control, and therefore dangerous. I wish that Pitt could have found some more congenial and appropritae occupation for Burns than "gauging auld wives' barrels," and in the meantime I believe that he would have done it if he could, for Pitt, like his father, was a noble, unselfish kind of man. But, of course, like all Prime Ministers, he was fettered by the traditions of the holders of his office, none of which are likely to take into account either the uses or the claims of genius. Pitt's latest, brightest, and liveliest biographer is to preside over a cognate monster meeting in Glasgow to-night-(applause)—and we will all feel inclined to believe all that he says in favour both of Burns and of Pitt, and anxious to learn what he, with his greater versatility and wider knowledge, would have done for Burns had he been in Pitt's place. (Applause.) How to utilise the gift of the highest genius must always be a difficult problem to the possessor of it, .and not less to the people for whose guidance and advancement it has been given; and woe be to the dunces and the infidels who scorn and despise it, whether they be in high places or in low; woe be to the kings of the earth and their advisers who help to send poets, before the full maturity of manhood, the dreary ways traversed by Chatterton and Burns; woe, more terrible still, to the country that breeds "mute inglorious Miltons" and Cromwells that cannot reach even through seas of blood the sceptre which they alone are fittest to wield. (Applause.) Notwithstanding of little help from high places, and of some obstruction from foolish men, as also, though not without a compensating inspiration, from unwise women, Burns has been one of the greatest benefactors of the human race, and more espceially of the Scottish race; and we have reasons innumerable and inexpressible to be thankful to Providence that his message of freedom, of emancipation from the bonds of Royal and aristocratic tyranny, of Pharisaic pretence, and of priestly, though Presbyterian superstition, was thought out and delivered in our hilly, heathery, barren, toil-devoted country, which no mere superficial tickling can cause to laugh with harvests; and we have further reason to be proud that the Scottish race, probably alone of all the mixed races on the earth, or that have ever been on it, was fit to listen to his message, to understand it, and, in fair measure, to welcome and applaud its utterance; for, be assured, no orator can stand far above the level of his audience, no prophet be much in advance of his age, no poet can charm and inspire with his own heaven-born revelation of the beautiful and the true, any multitude or race that has not been prepared by its history, its experience, and its destiny, to understand and joyfully accept that heaven-born revelation. (Applause.) Egypt, Judea, Greece, Rome, Germany, England, have each contributed to the miraculous, or all but miraculous advances of civilisation. Scotland, too, though a small country, has not failed in her share of the predestined work of human progress, and honour and glory be to the names of John Knox and David Hume, for they both fought for truth and freedom, though with very dissimilar weapons. Like honour to the names of Robert Bruce and of Robert Burns, for the one dealt a mortal blow to foreign, and' the other to domestic tyranny; also, honour and gratitude to their successors in the host of the true and the brave that have continued the fight, and have helped us forward towards that liberty of thought, and word, and deed, which is the long-delayed but inalienable birthright of the human race. (Applause.) In the course of the evening an enjoyable entertainment was given by Madame Annie Grey in the shape of a descriptive and musical song-lecture recital, entitled "Robert Burns," which had been specially prepared for the occasion. On the motion of Mr. Alexander Macdonald, a hearty vote of thanks was passed to all who had assisted in the evening's proceedings, and the meeting terminated with the singing of "Auld Lang Syne." THE DUNDEE BURNS SOCIETY. HE formation of a Burns Society in Dundee had been discussed privately amongst a few admirers of the Poet in the early months of 1896, the centennial year of Burns's death. The idea took form ultimately at a public meeting held in Lamb's Temperance Hotel on 10th April, when the project was considered, and favourably received. A provisional committee was appointed, and it was arranged to call another meeting early in the following month. Accordingly a similar meeting was held in the same place on 8th May, when a draft constitution was read and adopted, and the following office-bearers were elected :-President, Mr. A. H. Miller; vice-presidents, Mr. J. B. Macdonald and Mr. John Willocks; secretary, Mr. Robert Fulton; treasurer, Mr. A. C. Lamb; members of committee, Messrs. John Ramage, W. F. Black, George Scrymgeour, William Martin, John Smart, and George Sword. It was stated at this meeting that the United Literary and Recreative Society, Dundee, had decided to dissolve, and to hand over its assets to the new Dundee Burns Society. The committee in due course arranged that the inauguration of the Society should take place at a date near the 21st of July, the anniversary of the death of Robert Burns. CONVERSAZIONE. The Dundee Burns Society decided that no more fitting time could be selected for the holding of its inaugural gathering than the week in which all Scotsmen were celebrating the centenary of Burns's death. The meeting accordingly took place in the Victoria Art Galleries on Thursday, 23rd July, 1896, and was of the nature of a conversazione and concert, the proceedings having throughout a direct bearing upon the life and work of the National Poet. There was a large assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, among those present being:Mr. A. H. Millar, president of the Society, who occupied the chair; Sir John Leng, M.P.; Bailie Stevenson, Councillor Robertson, the Rev. Dr. K. C. Anderson, the Rev. Dr. R. A. Watson, Messrs. John Willocks, W. B. Irvine, Andrew Stewart, editor of the People's Friend; A. C. Lamb, John Maclauchlan, |