Is it departing pangs my soul alarms? Again exalt the brute, and sink the man; Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, To rule their torrent in the allowed line; Oh, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine!1 It is strange that we so often hear of the faults of Burns, and of the defences advanced by his friends, and that so little notice has been taken of what at once attests the reality of those faults, and most powerfully pleads their pardon-the deep, unostentatious penitence of the bard himself. To the same period I am disposed to refer two translations of psalms, which appeared in the Edinburgh edition of his poems: THE FIRST PSAL M. The man, in life wherever placed, Who walks not in the wicked's way, Nor learns their guilty lore! Nor from the seat of scornful pride In Mr Dick's MS. is apparently an earlier copy of this poem, containing some variations expressive of deeper contrition than what here appears. After 'Again I might desert fair Virtue's way,' comes, Again by passion would be led astray.' The second line of the last stanza is, 'If one so black with crimes dare on thee call.' That man shall flourish like the trees But he whose blossom buds in guilt, For why? that God the good adore THE FIRST SIX VERSES OF THE NINETIETH PSALM. Oh Thou, the first, the greatest friend Of all the human race! Whose strong right hand has ever been Before the mountains heaved their heads Before this ponderous globe itself Arose at Thy command; That Power which raised and still upholds This universal frame, From countless, unbeginning time, Was ever still the same. Those mighty periods of years Which seem to us so vast, Thou giv'st the word: Thy creature, man Again Thou say'st: 'Ye sons of men, Return ye into nought!' Thou layest them with all their cares As with a flood Thou tak'st them off They flourish like the morning flower, But long ere night, cut down, it lies Probably the penitence of the poet lasted as long as his illness. We have to make a somewhat abrupt transition in turning from it to his acquaintance with a certain rough-witted person named John Rankine, who leased the farm of Adamhill, not far from Lochlea. Rankine was a prince of boon-companions, and mingled a good deal in the society of the neighbouring gentry, but was too free a liver to be on good terms with the stricter order of the clergy. Burns and he had taken to each other, no doubt in consequence of their community of feeling and thinking on many points. The youngest daughter of Rankine had a recollection of the poet's first visit to their house at Adamhill, and related that, on his coming into the parlour, he made a circuit, to avoid a small carpet in the centre, having probably at that time no acquaintance with carpets, and too great a veneration for them to tread upon them with his ploughman's shoes. Rankine amused the fancy of Burns by a trick which he played off upon a guest of rigid professions, which ended in filling the holy man thoroughly drunk. A less questionable specimen of his clever ambuscading talents was presented in a dream which he represented himself as having had, and of which Allan Cunningham gives an account.' In an epistle which Burns wrote about this time to Rankine, enclosing a batch of his poems, allusion is made to some of these circumstances :— EPISTLE TO JOHN RANKINE. Oh rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine, Will send you, Korah-like, a sinkin', choice Lord K, it is said, was in the practice of calling all his familiar acquaintances brutes. “Well, ye brute, how are ye to-day?" was his usual mode of salutation. Once in company, his lordship, having indulged in this rudeness more than his wont, turned to Rankine and exclaimed: "Brute, are ye dumb? Have ye no queer sly story to tell us?" "I have nae story," said Rankine; "but last night I had an odd dream." "Out with it by all means," said the other. "Well," said Rankine, "I dreamed I was dead, and that for keeping other than good company on earth, I was sent down stairs. When I knocked at the low door, wha should open it but the deil; he was in a rough humour, and said: 'Wha may ye be, and what's your name?' 'My name,' quoth I, is John Rankine, and my dwelling-place was Adamhill.' Gae wa' wi' ye,' quoth Satan, 'ye canna be here; ye're ane o' Lord K's brutes-hell's fou o' them already.'" This sharp rebuke, it is said, polished for the future his lordship's speech.'-Cunningham's edition of Burns. Ye hae sae mony cracks and cants, And fill them fou; And then their failings, flaws, and wants, Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it! But your curst wit, when it comes near it, Tears Think, wicked sinner, wha ye 're skaithing, harming Frae ony unregenerate heathen 'Alluding to a blue uniform and badge worn by a select number of privileged beggars in Scotland, usually called King's Bedesmen. Edie Ochiltree, in the Antiquary, is an example of the corps. * A song he had promised the author.-B. In August of this year, the poet resumes in his Commonplacebook the subject broken off in the last note: August. The foregoing was to have been an elaborate dissertation on the various species of men; but as I cannot please myself in the arrangement of my ideas, I must wait till further experience and nicer observation throw more light on the subject. In the meantime, I shall set down the following fragment, which, as it is the genuine language of my heart, will enable anybody to determine which of the classes I belong to: GREEN GROW THE RASHES. TUNE-Green grow the Rashes. There's nought but care on every hand, |