would have saved both from much shame and sorrow; and while his subsequent marriage with the mother of his two sons atoned in some degree for this, the honourable feeling which dictated it must have suffered by so close a union with one who, however much he might still love her, he could not respect or look up to with that fine reverence with which we delight to look upon woman, in her true domestic sphere, as the emblem of all that is chaste and pure.

It was while suffering from the consequences of unrestrained passion, and the remorse which inevitably follows on sin, that the poet formed the resolution of abandoning for ever his native land. He conceived the idea of proceeding to the West Indies, and obtained the situation of an assistant overseer on an estate in the island of Jamaica. It was to raise the requisite funds to carry out this project that Burns resolved on publishing a collection of his poems by subscription. With the aid of Mr. Gavin Hamilton of Ayr, and other friends, he soon procured a sufficient number of subscribers to satisfy his moderate aims at that period, and accordingly, in 1786, his first work was published at Kilmarnock, under the title of "Poems chiefly in the Scottish Dialect." An impression of six hundred copies was speedily sold; and the reception of the work was such, that the poet passed almost at once from the position of a despised and mean fugitive, skulking in fear of a jail, to a man of acknowledged genius and vigorous intellect, who was greeted with universal admiration from high and low throughout his native district.

The clear profit of the Kilmarnock edition, after deducting all expenses, was £20; nine guineas of which were forthwith expended in the purchase of a steerage passage in a

vessel about to sail from Greenock to Jamaica. But a far different lot awaited the poet. An invitation to Edinburgh upset all the schemes of emigration. His reception in the capital of his native country was of the most gratifying character. A new and greatly extended edition of his works was brought out under the auspices of his new friends, and while his company was courted by all classes of society, whom he captivated alike by the brilliancy of his talents, the singular force of his conversational powers, and his attractive social qualities, he had the satisfaction of realizing the substantial fruits of such appreciation in the profits of this new edition of his poems, amounting to nearly £500. With characteristic generosity, he immediately expended a large portion of this sum on his family. He remitted £200 to his brother Gilbert, who still struggled on with the farm at Mossgiel; and the greater portion of the remainder was expended soon after in stocking the farm of Ellisland, situated about six miles from Dumfries, on the banks of the Nith. Here he brought home Jean Armour as his wife, and for a season there seemed good hope that the agricultural speculation would prosper, and leave the poet free in the enjoyment of the independent fruits of honest industry. In this, however, he was doomed to disappointment. Whether his convivial habits hastened this sad result or not, they certainly largely contributed to his misery and self-reproach in subsequent years. The poet had already looked forward to the possibility of obtaining some permanent situation from government, and he now applied for a subordinate post in the Excise. This he at length obtained, and endeavoured to hold along with his farm; but the duties of a gauger, though confined to the district in which his farm was situated, were little compatible with the requisite attention to agricultural

muses.

labours. The office, moreover, was one which exposed him to many temptations, and left little of that leisure which he had been able to snatch from the laborious, but more congenial agricultural labours, to devote to the It is sad, indeed, to reflect, that for one in every way so gifted, and who had already given such striking evidence of his powerful genius, no fitter provision could be found by his country than the post of an exiseman, with a salary of £70 a-year. Such an addition to his income as a farmer, small as it was, would have been a valuable assistance to him; but the demands on his time which the requisite duties involved, led to his farm being almost entirely neglected, and at the expiration of three years and a half, Ellisland was finally relinquished.

The remaining incidents of Burns's life are altogether sad and cheerless. Amid many privations, and the difficulties of so uncongenial an occupation, he still found time, both while he held the farm of Ellisland, and after his removal to Dumfries, to write some vigorous poems, as well as many of the beautiful songs which form an enduring national treasure. To this period belongs his inimitable poem of "Tam O'Shanter," as well as the many contributions to George Thomson's Scottish Melodies, all produced without the slightest thought of reward, and contributed, from pure patriotic feelings, to a collection of the national songs and tunes, then preparing by a stranger. It is a noble trait in the poet's history, that, while in such straitened circumstances that the sufferings incident to a severe attack of illness were greatly aggravated by pecuniary difficulties, he scornfully rejected the offer of money for his beautiful lyrical contributions to his country's melodies.

On the 21st of July 1796, in a mean and obscure alley

in the little town of Dumfries, the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, breathed his last. Poverty had, with only one brief and transient interval, attended him from the cradle to the grave; and though it cannot be overlooked that much of the blame for the failure of one so greatly gifted must lie with himself, yet it must ever be a source of painful reflection, that after having given to his country such marvellous evidences of genius and power, no fitter reward could be found for him than the mean employment of a gauger. Since his death, at the too early age of thirty-eight, tardy justice has been done to him by a liberal provision for his family, as well as by statues, monuments, and other posthumous memorials, by which a nation's penitence for the unwise neglect of its gifted sons is too frequently shown. But his works are his true monuments, and his songs have taken a hold on the hearts of his countrymen, such as can scarcely be matched in the enduring influence of any other lyrical poet. Had we nothing to look back to with sadness but the poet's honest struggles with poverty, this were a sufficient recompense.

"The glory dies not, and the grief is past."

To the influence of the two great, though greatly differing poets here named, may be ascribed much of the peculiar character and tone of feeling which has marked the poetry of the nineteenth century. There are some, however, which were contemporary with them, but whose style was already formed, and their chief works published, before the influence of their commanding genius had been felt; and of whom some notice is requisite here.

JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D.

BORN, 1735; DIED, 1803.

THE birth-place of the author of "The Minstrel," was the Scottish village of Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, where his father was a small trader and farmer. He was left an orphan at the age of seven, but with the assistance of his elder brother David, he became a student of Marischal College, Aberdeen, at the age of fourteen, and in 1793 took his Master of Arts degree there. While occupying the humble situation of parish-clerk at Fordoun, in the vicinity of his native village, his early poetical effusions attracted the attention of Lord Monboddo, Lord Gardenstown, and other patrons, with whose aid he successively passed through the gradations of Usher in the Grammar School at Aberdeen, Professor of Natural Philosophy in Marischal College, and finally of Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in the Aberdeen University. In 1770, he published his "Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth," a work which gained him, in addition to the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford, the substantial reward of a pension of £200 a-year from the King, George III. He died in 1803, at the age of sixty-eight.

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

BORN, 1752; Died, 1770.

THE remarkable boy, who palmed on the world the productions of his own poetical genius as the poems of Rowley, a priest of the 15th century, was born at Bristol,