possessor should perhaps in all cases be raised above the necessity of bodily labour, unless indeed we should include under this term the exercise of the imitative arts, over which taste immediately presides. Delicacy of taste may be a blessing to him who has the disposal of his own time, and who can choose what book he shall read, of what diversion he shall partake, and what company he shall keep. To men so situated, the cultivation of taste affords a grateful occupation in itself, and opens a path to many other gratifications. To men of genius, in the possession of opulence and leisure, the cultivation of the taste may be said to be essential; since it affords employment to those faculties which, without employment, would destroy the happiness of the possessor, and corrects that morbid sensibility, or, to use the expression of Mr Hume, that delicacy of passion, which is the bane of the temperament of genius. Happy had it been for our bard, after he emerged from the condition of a peasant, had the delicacy of his taste equalled the sensibility of his passions, regulating all the effusions of his muse, and presiding over all his social enjoyments. But to the thousands who share the original condition of Burns, and who are doomed to pass their lives in the station in which they were born, delicacy of taste, were it even of easy attainment, would, if not a positive evil, be at least a doubtful blessing. Delicacy of taste may make many necessary labours irksome or disgusting; and should it render the cultivator of the soil unhappy in his situation, it presents no means by which that situation may be improved. Taste and literature, which diffuse so many charms throughout society, which sometimes secure to their votaries distinction while living, and which still more frequently obtain for them posthumous fame, seldom procure opulence, or even independence, when cultivated with the utmost attention, and can scarcely be pursued with advantage by the peasant in the short intervals of leisure which his occupations allow. Those who raise themselves from the condition of daily labour, are usually men who excel in the practice of some useful art, or who join habits of industry and sobriety to an acquaintance with some of the more common branches of knowledge. The penmanship of Butterworth, and the arithmetic of Cocker, may be studied by men in the humblest walks of life; and they will assist the peasant more in the pursuit of independence, than the study of Ho. mer or of Shakspeare, though he could comprehend, and even imitate, the beauties of those immortal bards.

These observations are not offered without some portion of doubt and hesitation. The subject has many relations, and would justify an ample discussion. It may be observed, on the other hand, that the first step to improvement is to awaken the desire of improvement, and that this will be most effectually done by such reading as interests the heart and excites the imagination. The greater part of the sacred

writings themselves, which in Scotland are more especially the manual of the poor, come under this description. It may be farther observed, that every human being is the proper judge of his own happiness, and, within the path of innocence, ought to be permitted to pursue it. Since it is the taste of the Scottish peasantry to give a preference to works of taste and of fancy, it may be presumed they find a superior gratification in the perusal of such works; and it may be added, that it is of more consequence they should be made happy in their original condition, than furnished with the means, or with the desire, of rising above it. Such considerations are doubtless of much weight; nevertheless, the previous reflections may deserve to be examined, and here we shall leave the subject.

Though the records of the society at Tarbolton are lost, and those of the society at Mauchline have not been transmitted, yet we may safely affirm, that our poet was a distinguished member of both these associations, which were well calculated to excite and to develope the powers of his mind. From seven to twelve persons constituted the society at Tarbolton, and such a number is best suited to the purposes of information. Where this is the object of these societies, the number should be such, that each person may have an opportunity of imparting his sentiments, as well as of receiving those of others; and the powers of private conversation are to be employed, not those of public debate. A limited society of this kind, where the subject of conversation is fixed beforehand, so that each member may revolve it previously in his mind, is perhaps one of the happiest contrivances hitherto discovered for shortening the acquisition of knowledge, and hastening the evolution of talents. Such an association requires indeed somewhat more of regulation than the rules of politeness established in common conversation; or rather, perhaps, it requires that the rules of politeness, which in animated conversation are liable to perpetual violation, should be vigorously enforced. The order of speech established in the club at Tarbolton, appears to have been more regular than was required in so small a society; where all that is necessary seems to be, the fixing on a member to whom every speaker shall address himself, and who shall in return secure the speaker from interruption. Conversation, which among men whom intimacy and friendship have relieved from reserve and restraint, is liable, when left to itself, to so many inequalities, and which, as it becomes rapid, so often diverges into separate and colla. teral branches, in which it is dissipated and lost, being kept within its channel by a simple limitation of this kind, which practice renders easy

* In several lists of book-societies among the poorer

classes in Scotland which the Editor has seen, works of by no means general, and it is not supposed that they are this description form a great part. These societies are increasing at present.

and familiar, flows along in one full stream, and becomes smoother and clearer, and deeper, as it flows. It may also be observed, that in this way the acquisition of knowledge becomes more pleasant and more easy, from the gradual improvement of the faculty employed to convey it. Though some attention has been paid to the eloquence of the senate and the bar, which in this, as in all other free governments, is productive of so much influence to a few who excel in it, yet little regard has been paid to the humbler exercise of speech in private conver. sation, an art that is of consequence to every description of persons under every form of government, and on which eloquence of every kind ought perhaps to be founded.

The first requisite of every kind of elocution, a distinct utterance, is the offspring of much time, and of long practice. Children are always defective in clear articulation, and so are young people, though in a less degree. What is called slurring in speech, prevails with some persons through life, especially in those who are taciturn. Articulation does not seem to reach its utmost degree of distinctness in men before the age of twenty, or upwards: in women it reaches this point somewhat earlier. Female occupations require much use of speech, because they are duties in detail. Besides, their occupations being generally sedentary, the respiration is left at liberty. Their nerves being more delicate, their sensibility as well as fancy is more lively; the natural consequence of which is, a more frequent utterance of thought, a greater fluency of speech, and a distinct articulation at an earlier age. But in men who have not mingled early and familiarly with the world, though rich perhaps in knowledge, and clear in apprehension, it is often painful to observe the difficulty with which their ideas are communicated by speech, through the want of those habits, that connect thoughts, words, and sounds together; which, when established, seem as if they had arisen spontaneously, but which, in truth, are the result of long and painful practice, and when analyzed, exhibit the phenomena of most curious and complicated

association.

may prevent those illusions of imagination, by which genius being bewildered, science is often debased, and error propagated through successive generations. And to men who, having cultivated letters or general science in the course of their education, are engaged in the active occupations of life, and no longer able to devote to study or to books the time requisite for improving or preserving their acquisitions, associations of this kind, where the mind may unbend from its usual cares in discussions of literature or science, afford the most pleasing, the most useful, and the most rational of gratifications.*

Whether, in the humble societies of which Le was a member, Burns acquired much direct information, may perhaps be questioned. It cannot however be doubted, that by collision, the faculties of his mind would be excited, that by practice, his habits of enunciation would be established, and thus we have some explanation of that early command of words and of expression which enabled him to pour forth his thoughts in language not unworthy of his genius, and which, of all his endowments, seemed, on his appearance in Edinburgh, the most extraordinary.† For associations of a literary nature, our poet acquired a considerable relish ; and happy bad it been for him, after he emerged from the condition of a peasant, if fortune had permitted him to enjoy them in the degree of which he was capable, so as to have fortified his principles of virtue by the purification of his taste, and given to the energies of his mind habits of exertion that might have excluded other associations, in which it must be acknowledged they were too often wasted, as well as debased.

The whole course of the Ayr is fine; but the banks of that river, as it bends to the eastward above Mauchline, are singularly beautiful,

* When letters and philosophy were cultivated in ancient Greece, the press had not multiplied the tablets of learning and science, and necessity produced the habit of studying as it were in common. Poets were found reciting their own verses in public assemblies; in public schools only philosophers delivered their speculations. were employed in appreciating and examining the works

The taste of the hearers, the ingenuity of the scholars,

of fancy and of speculation submitted to their consider

world before the composition, as well as the sentiments, were again and again retouched and improved. Death alone put the last seal on the labours of genius. Hence, and skill with which the monuments of Grecian literaperhaps, may be in part explained the extraordinary art ture that remain to us, appear to have been constructed.

It appears that our Poet made more preparation than might be supposed, for the discussions of the society at Tarbolton.-There was found some detached memoranda evidently prepared for these meetings; and, among in p. xliv. in which, as might be expected, he takes others, the heads of a speech on the question mentioned the imprudent side of the question. The following may serve as a farther specimen of the questions debated in the society at Tarbolton:-" Whether do we derive more happiness from love or friendship -Whether between friends, who have no reason to doubt each other's friendship, there should be any reserve?Whether is the savage man, or the peasant of a civilized country, in the most happy situation ?-Whether is a young man of the lower ranks of life likeliest to be well informed, or he who has just the education and happy, who has got a good education, and his mind information of those around him ?"

and they were frequented, as may be imagined, by our poet in his solitary walks. Here the muse often visited him. In one of these wanderings, he met among the woods a celebrated Beauty of the west of Scotland; a lady, of whom it is said, that the charms of her person correspond with the character of her mind. This incident gave rise, as might be expected, to a poem, of which an account will be found in the following letter, in which he enclosed it to the object of his inspiration:

TO MISS

"MADAM, Mossgiel, 18th Nov. 1786. POETS are such outre beings, so much the children of wayward fancy and capricious whim, that I believe the world generally allows them a larger latitude in the laws of propriety, than the sober sons of judgment and prudence. I mention this as an apology for the liberties that a nameless stranger has taken with you in the enclosed poem, which he begs leave to present you with. Whether it has poetical merit any way worthy of the theme, I am not the proper judge; but it is the best my abilities can produce; and what to a good heart will perhaps be a superior grace, it is equally sincere as fervent.

"The scenery was nearly taken from real life, though I dare say, madam, you do not recollect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed the poetic reveur as he wandered by you. I had roved out as chance directed in the favourite haunts of my muse, on the banks of the Ayr, to view nature in all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills; not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic heart. I listened to the feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand, with a congenial kindred regard, and frequently turned out of my path, lest I should disturb their little songs, or frighten them to another station. Surely, said I to myself, he must be a wretch indeed, who, regardless of your harmonious endeavour to please him, can eye your elusive flights to discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all the property nature gives you, your dearest comforts, your helpless nestlings. Even the hoary hawthorntwig that shot across the way, what heart at such a time but must have been interested in its welfare, and wished it preserved from the rudely browsing cattle, or the withering eastern blast? Such was the scene, and such the hour, when in a corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of Nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape, or met a poet's eye, those visionary bards excepted who hold commerce with aerial beings! Had Calumny and Villany taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such an object.

"What an hour of inspiration for a poet! It

would have raised plain, dull, historic prose into metaphor and measure.

"The enclosed song was the work of my return home; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might be expected from such a scene.

"I have the honour to be, "Madam,

"Your most obedient, and very "humble servant,

"ROBERT BURNS.'

'Twas even-the dewy fields were green,
On every blade the pearls hang ;*
The Zephyr wanton'd round the bean,
And bore its fragrant sweets alang;
In every glen the mavis sang,

All nature listening seemed the while,
Except where green-wood echoes rang,
Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle.

With careless step I onward strayed,
My heart rejoiced in nature's joy,
When musing in a lonely glade,

A maiden fair I chanc'd to spy;
Her look was like the morning's eye,
Her air like nature's vernal smile,
Perfection whispered passing by,

Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle!+

Fair is the morn in flowery May,

And sweet is night in autumn mild;
When roving through the garden gay,

Or wandering in the lonely wild:
But woman, nature's darling child!
There all her charms she does compile:
Even there her other works are foil'd
By the bonny lass o' Ballochmyle.
O had she been a country maid,

And I the happy country swain,
Though sheltered in the lowest shed

That ever rose on Scotland's plain. Through weary winter's wind and rain, With joy, with rapture, I would toil, And nightly to my bosom strain

The bonny lass o' Ballochmyle.

Then pride might climb the slippery steep,
Where fame and honours lofty shine;
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep,
Or downward seek the Indian mine:"
Give me the cot below the pine,

To tend the flocks or till the soil,
And every day have joys divine,

With the bonny lass o' Ballochmyle.

In the manuscript book in which our poet has recounted this incident, and into which the letter and poem are copied, he complains that the lady made no reply to his effusions, and this appears to have wounded his self-love. It is not, however, difficult to find an excuse for her silence. Burns was at that time little

*Hang, Scotticism for hung.

Variation. The lily's hue and rose's dye Bespoke the lass o' Ballochmyle.