A Winter with Robert Burns: Being Annals of His Patrons and Associates in Edinburgh During the Year 1786-7, and Details of His Inauguration as Poet-laureate of the Can: Kil

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"[With] lithographed key to the picture, and fac-simile of the autograph of Burns on the Bible presented to Highland Mary, now in the Burns Monument, Banks o' Doon. The inauguration of Burns was made the subject of a fine painting by Stewart Watson, R.S.A. The minutes of the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge record the initiation which is represented in the Picture, along with the names of many celebrated characters of that day, some of whom were present on the occasion. Burns is represented as about to be crowned with the poetic wreath by the master of the Lodge, and the interior is painted with consummate ability. The picture was afterwards engraved, and a limited number thrown off for subscribers. A few copies, coloured by the artist, are rare. This little work was compiled as a guide to the painting, with a sketch of Burns in connexion with the order of Masonry, and biographical notices of the characters represented in the painting. The appendix closes with 'Lines on seeing Mr. Stewart Watson's picture of Burns,' supposed to written by W. Pringle"--Gibson.
 

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Page 101 - Thro' weary life this lesson learn, That man was made to mourn. Many and sharp the numerous ills Inwoven with our frame! More pointed still We make ourselves, Regret, remorse, and shame! And man, whose heaven-erected face The smiles of love adorn, Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn...
Page 165 - ... such, it carries with it a lesson of deep, impressive significance. Surely it would become such a man, furnished for the highest of all enterprises, that of being the Poet of his Age, to consider well what it is that he attempts, and in what spirit he attempts it. For the words of Milton are true in all times, and were never truer than in this: ' He who would write heroic poems must make his whole life a heroic poem.
Page 107 - ... her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with an eye that never winks, and a wing that never tires — crowned, as she is, with the spoils of every art, and decked with the wreath of every muse, from the deep and scrutinizing researches of her Hume, to the sweet and simple, but not less sublime and pathetic, morality of her Burns...
Page 164 - We know nothing," thus writes he, " or next to nothing, of the structure of our souls, so we cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some...
Page 107 - Hume, to the sweet and simple, but not the less sublime and pathetic morality of her Burns — how, from the bosom of a country like that, genius and character and talents should be banished to a distant, barbarous soil; condemned to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice and base-born profligacy for twice the period that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance of human life?
Page 27 - To give my counsels all in one, Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ; Preserve the dignity of Man, With soul erect ; And trust, the Universal Plan Will all protect. "And wear thou this...
Page 38 - Kings may be blest, but Tarn was glorious, O'er a' the ills o
Page 106 - There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity, which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and delights in catching at the improbability of circumstances, as its best ground of faith. To what other cause, gentlemen, can you ascribe that in the wise, the reflecting, and the philosophic nation of Great Britain, a printer has been...
Page 84 - My lov'd, my honour'd, 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 sequester'd scene, The native feelings strong, the guileless ways, What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there I ween! November chill blaws loud wi...
Page 31 - Caledonia, and Caledonia's Bard, Brother Burns," which rung through the whole assembly with multiplied honours and repeated acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing would happen, I was downright thunderstruck, and, trembling in every nerve, made the best return in my power. Just as I had finished, some of the grand officers said, so loud that I could hear, with a most comforting accent,

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