WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTY-SEVEN.

When I was nothing but a child,

My pleasant little face would shine;
The painters surely would have smiled
To paint that little face of mine,-
What then? the pretty children, mind,
To me, were from the heart inclined.

Now, like an old master, I sit in state,

And they call me out in street and square;
And I'm to be had, like old Fritz the Great,
On pipe-heads, and on china ware;

But the pretty children, they keep afar :-
O dream of youth-time! O golden star!

A PARABLE.

Poems are colored window glasses!
Look into the church from the market square:
Nothing but gloom and darkness there!

Shrewd Sir Philistine sees things so:

Well may be narrow and captious grow,
Who all his life on the outside passes.

But come now, and inside we 'll go!
Now round the holy chapel gaze;
'Tis all one many-colored blaze:
Story and emblem, a pictured maze,
Flash by you:-'t is a noble show.
Here feel as sons of God baptized,
With hearts exalted and surprised.

ROBERT BURNS.

ROBERT BURNS,* eldest son of William Burness and Agnes Brown, his wife, was born 25th of January, 1759, in a clay-built cottage, raised by his father's own hands, on the banks of the Doon, in the district of Kyle and county of Ayr, and about two miles from the town of that name. The season in which this humble structure was reared, was severe and rough: the walls were weak and new; and some days after Robert's birth, a wind arose, which crushed the frail tenement, and the unconscious poet was carried unharmed to the shelter of a neighboring house.

He loved, when he grew up, to allude to this circumstance; and ironically claimed some commiseration for the stormy passions of one ushered into the world in a tempest. The rude edifice which we have mentioned is now an alehouse, and belongs to the shoemakers of Ayr; the recess in the wall, where the bed stood in which Burns was born, is pointed out to inquiring guests.

The mother of Burns was a native of the county of Ayr. Her birth was humble, and her personal attractions moderate; yet, in all other respects, she was a

* When Burns was about twenty-six years old, and had acquired some notoriety as a poet, he first began to write his name Burns, instead of Burness. It is one of the instances of that singularity by which he sought to distinguish himself.

remarkable woman. She was blessed with singular equanimity of temper; her religious feeling was deep and constant; she loved a well-regulated household; and it was frequently her pleasure to give wings to the weary hours of a chequered life by chanting old songs and ballads, of which she had a large store. In her looks she resembled her eldest son; her eyes were bright and intelligent; her perception of character, quick and keen. She lived to a great age, rejoiced in the fame of the poet, and partook of the fruits of his genius.

His father was from another district. He was the son of a farmer in Kincardineshire, and born on the lands of the noble family of Keith Marischall. The retainer, like his chief, fell into misfortunes; his household was scattered, and William Burness, with a small knowledge of farming, and a large stock of speculative theology, was obliged to leave his native place, at the age of nineteen, in search of better fortunes.

The elder Burns seems to have been but an indifferent judge of land; in a district where much fine ground is under cultivation, he sat down in a sterile and hungry spot, which no labor could render fruitful. He had commenced too on borrowed money: "the seasons, as well as the soil, proved churlish; and " stern factor," says Robert, "whose threatening letters set us all in tears," interposed, and he was compelled, after a six years' struggle, to relinquish the lease.

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The life of William Burness was one continued struggle, which he carried on with the honorable pride common among his countrymen, hoping to bet

ter his circumstances, and give his children a good education. Robert was first sent to a school about a

mile distant, in his sixth year. Afterwards a young man was engaged by his father and some of the neighbors to teach their children in common, his employers boarding him in turns. When the family had removed to another situation, which deprived them of this advantage, the good man endeavored to instruct his children himself, after the hard day's work. "In this way," says Gilbert Burns, the second son, who wrote an interesting life of the poet, "my two eldest sisters got all the education they received. obtained a little more school instruction by snatches, but the amount, altogether, was very inconsiderable. His chief acquisition was some acquaintance with French, and for this he was almost entirely indebted to himself. What other knowledge he obtained, he gathered from the few books, mostly odd volumes, which his father could contrive to borrow."

Robert

Of these early and interesting days, during which the future man was seen, like fruit shaping itself amid the unfolded bloom, we have a picture drawn by the poet's own hand, and touched off in his own vivid manner. "At seven years of age, I was," says he, "by no means a favorite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and participles.