concentrated fire of his genius. Nevertheless, there is something in these poems, marred and defective as they are, which forbids the most fastidious student of poetry to pass them by."

11. Burns gives a beautiful account of his own art life in The Vision, where Coila,a "the tutelar genius and inspirer of the peasant youth in his clay-built hut," is represented as addressing him. The address must be understood as a picture of Burns himself, drawn by the poet's own hand.

α

II.-Coila's Address.

1. "With future hope I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely carolled, chiming phrase,
In uncouth rhymes,

Fired at the simple, artless lays

Of other times.

2. "I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or when the north his fleecy store
Drove through the sky,

I saw grim nature's visage hoar

Strike thy young eye.

3. "Or when the deep green-mantled earth
Warm cherished every flow'ret's birth,
And joy and music pouring forth

Coilla, the tutelary deity of Scotland (from Kyle, a district in Ayrshire), so named from Coilus, a Pictish monarch. Sometimes all Scotland is so called, as:

Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales,

Her heathy moors and winding vales.-Burns.

4. "When ripened fields and azure skies
Called forth the reapers' rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their evening joys,
And lonely stalk

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise
In pensive walk.

5. "When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong,
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
The adorèd name,

I taught thee how to pour in song,
To soothe thy flame.

6. "I taught thy manners-painting strains, The loves, the ways, of simple swains,

7. "Thou canst not learn, nor can I show, To paint with Thomson's landscape-glow; Or wake the bosom-melting throe,

With Shenstone's art;

Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow
Warm on the heart.

8. "Yet all beneath the unrivalled rose
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;
Though large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows

Adown the glade.

9. "Then never murmur nor repine; Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;

And, trust me, not Potosi's mine,
Nor king's regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
A rustic bard."

10. "And wear thou this"-she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head:
The polished leaves, and berries red,

.

Did rustling play ;

And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.

Burns's melody is at the best in his native dialect; and, indeed, there are very few of his poems that are not colored with it. In Tam o' Shanter and The Jolly Beggars he reaches his highest dramatic force, and displays the most varied powers. In The Vision of Liberty and in Bruce's Address are strains which still fire Scottish patriotism. Of the latter, Thomas Carlyle thus spoke :-"So long as there is warm blood in the heart of Scotchman or man, it will move in fierce thrills under this war-ode, the best, we believe, that was ever written by any pen."

III. Bruce's Address."

1. At Bannockburn the English lay,
The Scots they werena far away,

a The first two, or introductory verses, here given, do not properly belong to the Address as written by Burns, though frequently attributed to that poet. They were written by Sir Walter Scott, who is represented to have said to a friend, by whom he was found reading a volume of Burns's poems, that the opening of the address by Bruce was too abrupt, and should have been introduced by some description of the scene, or of the circumstances under which it was delivered. After some discussion, the friend asked Sir Walter what kind of an introduction he would have. 66 Why, something of this kind," rejoined Sir Walter, and, taking a pencil, he quickly wrote on the flyleaf of the volume of Burns the first two verses we have given above.

But waited for the break o' day
That glinted.in the east.

2. But soon the sun broke through the heath,
And lighted up that field o' death,
When Bruce, wi' soul-inspiring breath,
His heralds thus addressed :-

3. " Scots, wha hde wi' Wallace bled!
Scots, wham Bruce has often led!
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!

4. "Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour;

See approach proud Edward's power--
Chains and slavery!

5. "Wha will be a traitor knave, Wha can fill a coward's grave, Wha sae base as be a slave,

Let him turn and fice!

6. "Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',
Let him follow me!

7. "By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!

We will draw our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!

8. "Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow!

Let us do or die!"

As Burns was one day ploughing, he turned down with his plough a little flower, which incident he touches with pathetic grace in his verses

IV. To a Mountain Daisy.

1. Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;

For I maun' crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonny gem.

2. Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy carly, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,

Scarce reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

C

3. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's' maun shield:
But thou, beneath the random bield"

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie" stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.

4. There in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

a Wee, little.- maun, must.—c stoure, dust.—a bonny, beautiful. glinted, glanced.—wa, wall.-9 bield, shelter.—histie, dry, barren.

e