member any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but (considering what literary emoluments have been since his day) the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling.

"I remember on this occasion I mention, I thought Burns's acquaintance with English Poetry was rather limited, and also, that having twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and of Fergusson, he talked of them with too much humility as bis models; there was, doubtless, national predilection in his estimate.

"This is all I can tell you about Burns. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the Laird. I do not speak in malem partem, when I say, I never saw a man in company with his superiors in station and information, more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark this.-I do not know anything I can add to these recollections of forty years since." -Lockhart's Life of Burns.

One of the few good poets of America, has honored the memory of Scotia's favourite son with the following charming verses:

TO A ROSE,

BROUGHT FROM NEAR ALLOWAY KIRK, IN AUTUMN, 1822.

Wild rose of Alloway! my thanks

Thou 'minds't me of that autumn noon,

When first we met upon "the banks

And braes o' bonny Doon."

Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough,
My sunny hour was glad and brief,
We've cross'd the winter sea, and thou
Art withered-flower and leaf.

And will not thy death-doom be mine,
The doom of all things wrought of clay,
And wither'd my life's leaf like thine,
Wild rose of Alloway,

Not so his memory, for whose sake
My bosom bore thee far and long;
His-who a humbler flower could make
Immortal as his song.

The memory of Burns-a name

That calls, when brimmed her festal cup, A nation's glory, and her shame,

In silent sadness up.

A nation's glory-be the rest

Forgot-she's canonized his mind,

And it is joy to speak the best
We may of human kind.

I've stood beside the cottage bed,

Where the bard-peasant first drew breath; A straw-thatched roof above his head, A straw-wrought couch beneath.

And I have stood beside the pile,

His monument-that tells to Heaven
The homage of earth's proudest isle,
To that bard-peasant given !

Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot,
Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour,
And know, however low his lot,
A Poet's pride and power.

The pride that lifted Burns from earth,
The power that gave a child of song
Ascendency o'er rank and birth-

The rich, the brave, the strong.

And if despondency weigh down
Thy spirit's fluttering pinions, then,
Despair-thy name is written on
The roll of common men.

There have been loftier themes than his,
And longer scrolls, and louder lyres,

And lays lit up with poesy's

Purer and holier fires.

Yet read the names that know not death,
Few nobler ones than BURNS are there,
And few have worn a greener wreath
Than that which binds his hair.

His is that language of the heart,

In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light up the cheek:

And his, that music, to whose tone
The common pulse of man keeps time,
In cot or castle's mirth or moan,

In cold or sunny clime.

And who hath heard his song, nor knelt
Before its spell with willing knee,
And listened, and believed, and felt
The poet's mastery.

O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm,
O'er the heart's sunshine, and its showers,
O'er passion's moments, bright and warm,
O'er reason's dark, cold hours:

On fields where brave men

"die or do,"

In halls where rings the banquet's mirth, Where mourners weep, where lovers woo, From throne to cottage hearth?

What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed,

What wild vows falter on the tongue, When "Scots wha hea wi' Wallace bled," Or “Auld lang Syne" is sung!

Pure hopes, that lift the soul above,

Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise,
And dreams of youth, and truth, and love,
With "Logan's" banks and braes.

And when he breathes his master-lay
Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall,

All passions in our frame of clay
Come thronging at his call;

Imagination's world of air,

And our own world, its gloom and glee,

Wit, pathos, poetry are there,

And death's sublimity.

And BURNS, though brief the race he ran,
Though rough and dark the path he trod,
Lived-died-in form and soul a man,
The image of his God.

Through care, and pain, and want, and woe,
With wounds that only death could heal,
Tortures, the poor alone can know,

The proud alone can feel;

He kept his honesty and truth,

His independent tongue and pen,
And moved, in manhood and in youth,
Pride of his fellow men.

Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong,
A hate of tyrant and of knave,
A love of right, a scorn of wrong,
Of coward, and of slave ;

A kind, true heart, a spirit high,

That could not fear, and would not bow, Were written in his manly eye,

And on his manly brow.

Praise to the bard!-his words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven,
The birds of fame are flown.

Praise to the man! a nation stood
Beside his coffin with wet eyes,
Her brave, her beautiful, her good,
As when a lov'd one dies.

And still, as on his funeral day,

Men stand his cold earth-couch around,

With the mute homage that we pay
To consecrated ground.

And consecrated ground it is,

The last, the hallow'd home of one

Who lives upon all memories,

Though with the buried gone.

Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confin'd:
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.

Sages with Wisdom's garland wreathed,
Crowned kings, and mitred priests of power,
And warriors with their bright swords sheathed,
The mightiest of the hour;

And lowlier names, whose humble home
Is lit by fortune's dimmer star,

Are there o'er wave and mountain come,
From countries near and far;

Pilgrims, whose wandering feet have prest
The Switzer's snows, the Arab's sand,
Or trod the piled leaves of the West,
My own green forest-land.

All ask the cottage of his birth,

Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung,
And gather feelings not of earth
His fields and streams among.

They linger by the Doon's low trees,
And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr,
And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries!
The Poet's tomb is there.

But what to them the sculptor's art,
His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns?
Wear they not graven on the heart
The name of ROBERT BURNS?

F. G. HALLECK.

The remains of Alloway Kirk, of which the above is a correct representation, lay within a few yards of the road leading from Ayr to Carrick. It is a place of extreme antiquity, but has been long decaying. Burns rendered it very conspicuous by his inimitable Tam O'Shanter.

In the burial ground lie the remains of the poet's father, over whom is placed a stone, which bears the following inscription.