BURNS. 1759-1796. PRINCIPAL WORKS:-Most of Burns' productions are of the 'occasional' species. Some of the first to attract notice were Holy Willy's Prayer, a humorous satire upon the cant of the orthodox Kirk of the day-The Holy Fair, in a similar style-Address to the Deil, in which he ridicules the surviving popular notions of his countrymen as to the diabolic attributes: one of his best and most popular pieces.- Address to a Mouse, and On Searing Waterfowl, &c., are instances of feeling which exhibit him as one who could sympathise with all sentient and innocent life, however lowly, as well as appreciate the charms of the inanimate world. Tam O'Shanter, his chef-d'œuvre, and the most humorous of all his works; descriptive of the Gilpin-ride of a drunken rustic who imagines himself pursued by a legion of goblins. Amongst his other numerous desultory pieces The Jolly Beggars, Bruce's Address, A Vision of Liberty. The Cotter's Saturday Night, and the Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson, may be enumerated as the most considerable, and perhaps represent the order of merit and interest. The merits of Burns are his simple and idiomatic diction, apparent sensibility of feeling, lively humour and originality. He has been sometimes termed the Shakespeare, and sometimes the Byron of Scotland; with what sort of propriety of analogy it is difficult to perceive. In his comic pieces, it may be remarked, he employs his native dialect, while in his serious he adopts the smoother and more euphonious language of the South. Had he lived longer he might perhaps have produced something, if not more valuable, at least more ambitious than he ever attempted. Yet his peculiar genius lay apparently in the sonnet, and, especially, in the humorous style, rather than in the more ambitious flights of the art. Like so many others of the tuneful tribe,' he had emerged into fame from the obscure grades of society. LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTLAND ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING. Now Nature hangs her mantle green And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, But nought can glad the weary wight That fast in durance lies. Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, The merle, in his noontide bower, Now blooms the lily by the bank, May rove their sweets amang: I was the queen o' bonny France, Fu' lightly rase I in the morn, As blithe lay down at e'en: And mony a traitor there e; Yet here I lie in foreign bands, And never-ending care. But as for thee, thou false woman Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword Nor the balm that draps on wounds of woe My son my son ! may kinder stars And may those pleasures gild thy reign, God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, Or turn their hearts to thee: And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Remember him for me! Oh! soon to me may summer suns And in the narrow house o' death And the next flowers that deck the spring GOTHIC RUINS. YE holy walls that, still sublime, As through your ruins, hoar and gray- 'Tis the soft-chanted choral song, Like frostwork touch'd by southern gales; Her home these aisles and arches high! On an Evening View of the Ruins of Lincluden Abbey. |