years, his father had shone before his family in that priestly character which presents Scottish humble life in one of its most beautiful aspects. Robert had begun, some time before the old man's death, to take a part in the family devotions, reading the chapter' and giving out the psalm. After the death of William Burness, it fell to the poet by right of ancient custom, he being the eldest born, to take on himself the whole function of the family-priest, and he conducted the cottage-worship every night when at home during the whole time of his residence at Mossgiel. More than this, his sister and another surviving member of the household speak in the warmest terms of the style of his prayers. The latter individual' states, that he has never since listened to anything equal to these addresses. These facts, it will be admitted, form an interesting prelude to the beautiful poem in which Burns has placed in everlasting remembrance this phase of the rustic life of Scotland. Gilbert Burns gives us an account of what immediately prompted his brother to compose this immortal work. 'He had frequently,' says Gilbert, 'remarked to me that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase "Let us worship God," used by a decent sober head of a family introducing family-worship. To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for the Cotter's Saturday Night.' It needs only further to be remarked, that the poet found a model in one of the best poems of his predecessor Fergusson, entitled The Farmer's Ingle.

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.2

'Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destiny obscure;

Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short and simple annals of the poor.'-GRAY.

My loved, my honoured, much-respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;

With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end:

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise.
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequestered scene;

The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;

Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween!

1 Mr William Ronald, now a farmer in the neighbourhood of Beith, in Ayrshire (1854).

2

? Probably the first verse and inscription to Mr Aiken were added afterwards.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh:
The black'ning trains o' craws to their
The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,

repose:

Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

And

noise

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;

Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher through
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinking bonnily,

His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,

And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun':
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neibor 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.

With joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other's weelfare kindly spiers:
The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the vicw.

The mother, wi' her needle and her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new-

The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

anxiety

By and by

inquires

news

The opening verse of The Farmer's Ingle bears a considerable resemblance to this:

'Whan gloamin' gray out-owre the welkin keeks,
Whan Bawtie ca's the owsen to the byre,

Whan Thrasher John, sair dung, his barn-door steeks,
Whan lusty lasses at the dighting tire:

What bangs fu' leal the e'ening's coming cauld,
And gars snaw-tappit winter freeze in vain;
Gars dowie mortals look baith blithe and bauld,
Nor fleyed wi' a' the puirtith o' the plain;
Begin, my Muse, and chant in hamely strain.'

jaded-shuts

winnowing

beats-truly

makes

frightened

Their master's and their mistress's command,
The younkers a' are warned to obey;
And mind their labours wi' an eydent hand,

And ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk or play:
'And oh! be sure to fear the Lord alway!
And mind your duty, duly, morn and night!
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray,
Implore His counsel and assisting might:

They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!'

But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor,

To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sces the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek,

With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;

diligent

dally

Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake.

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben;

A strappin' youth; he taks the mother's eye;
Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill-ta'en;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,

But blate and lathefu', scarce can weel behave; bashful-hesitating
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave:

Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. other people

Oh happy love!-where love like this is found!
Oh heartfelt raptures!-bliss beyond compare!

I've paced much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare:
'If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,

One cordial in this melancholy vale,

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,

Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.'

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,
A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!

That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth!

Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled?

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?
Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild?

But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food;
The soupe their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:
The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell,

And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it guid; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,

porridge

COW

porch

cheese-biting

How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. twelvemonth

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace,
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride;
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;

gray temples

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And Let us worship GoD!' he says, with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures risc,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name,
Or noble Elgin bects the heavenward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickled ear no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hac they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page-
How Abram was the friend of GoD on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lic
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme-

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed:
How HE, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head :
How his first followers and servants sped,
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;

selects

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.

71

Then kneeling down to HEAVEN'S ETERNAL KING,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope 'springs exulting on triumphant wing,'
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;

But, haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;
And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their several way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That HE, who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,

Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide;

But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 'An honest man's the noblest work of God;' And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp?-a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined! Oh 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!
And oh! may Heaven their simple lives prevent

From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!

Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while,

And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

1 Pope's Windsor Forest.-B.