enter his mind. Song was, in fact, to him merely the language of love; and whatever he put into his magic cauldron, whether esteem, or respect, or reverence, the result was always the same. Pour what you chose into the conjuror's bottle, nothing came out but love.

The beautiful Lucy Johnstone, says Allan Cunningham, married to Oswald, of Auchencruive, was the heroine of "Wat ye wha's in yon town," a lady of lofty station, an heiress, and a toast-and thus she is sung by the married gauger:

O, wat ye wha's in yon town,
Ye see the e'enin sun upon?
The fairest dame's in yon town,
That e'enin sun is shining on.

Now haply down yon gay green shaw,
She wanders by yon spreading tree;
How blest ye flow'rs that round her blaw,
Ye catch the glances o' her e'e!

How blest ye birds that round her sing,
And welcome in the blooming year!
And doubly welcome be the spring,
The season to my Lucy dear.

The sun blinks blithe on yon town,
And on yon bonnie braes of Ayr;

But my delight in yon town,

And dearest bliss, is Lucy fair.

Without my love, not a' the charms
O' Paradise could yield me joy;
But gie me Lucy in my arms,
And welcome Lapland's dreary sky!

My cave wad be a lover's bower,
Tho' raging winter rent the air;
And she a lovely little flower,

That I wad tent and shelter there.

O sweet is she in yon town,

Yon sinkin sun's gane down upon;
A fairer than's in yon town

If

His setting beam ne'er shone upon.

angry fate is sworn my foe,

And suffering I am doom'd to bear;
I careless quit aught else below,

But spare me-spare me, Lucy dear!

For while life's dearest blood is warm,
Ae thought frae her shall ne'er depart,
And she-as fairest is her form!
She has the truest, kindest heart!
O, wat ye wha's in yon town,
Ye see the e'enin sun upon?
The fairest dame's in yon town

That e'enin sun is shining on.

On a visit for a single day to the minister of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, he is very much pleased with the beauty and manners of his host's young daughter, the blue-eyed Jean Jeffrey. What was the form this feeling took

in song? He threatens, if she refuses his love, to die for her sake!

I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen,
A gate, I fear I'll dearly rue;
I gat my death frae twa sweet een,
Twa lovely een o' bonnie blue,
"Twas not her golden ringlets bright;
Her lips, like roses, wat wi' dew,
Her heaving bosom, lily-white-
It was her een sae bonnie blue.

She talk'd, she smil'd, my heart she wyl’d;
She charm'd my soul-I wist na how;
And ay the stound, the deadly wound,
Cam frae her een sae bonnie blue.
But spare to speak, and spare to speed;
She'll aiblins listen to my vow:
Should she refuse, I'll lay my dead

To her twa een sae bonnie blue.

Many other instances might be given, but these will suffice to relieve the memory of the poet from the imputation of being a professed Lothario. Burns, in fact, seems to have been a hypocrite the wrong way, and to have affected more vices than he possessed. It is not indeed surprising that the number of those amorous effusions should have given rise to the reports of his dissolute life. He wrote so constantly in the character of a passionate admirer of the fair sex, that at last people thought "himself must be the hero of his story." You may have heard

of an actor, who was placed so constantly before the audience in the character of a swindler, and sometimes even as first or second murderer in a melodrama, that he applied to the manager for a change of parts; for the baker had begun to refuse him credit, and his landlady expected to be strangled in her sleep. suffers from the same cause. worse amatory poems, he thought a better man.

Burns's reputation If he had written would have been With this explanation

we can look on his most rapturous effusions as exercises of his genius, and not manifestations of his inconstancy. "Wilt thou be my Dearie ?" seems rather a free-and-easy question if addressed to any mortal mixture of earth's mould, but soars away into the region where passion loses all its grossness when directed to an abstraction, or even, as the biographers maintain, to the mother of a belted earl:

Wilt thou be my dearie ?

When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart-
Wilt thou let me cheer thee ?
By the treasure of my soul,
That's the love I bear thee!
I swear and vow that only thou
Shall ever be my dearie.

Only thou, I swear and vow,

Shall ever be my dearie.

Lassie, say thou lo'es me;
Or if thou wilt no be my ain,

Say na thou'lt refuse me :
If it winna, canna be,

Thou, for thine may choose me,
Let me, lassie, quickly die,
Trusting that thou lo'es me.
Lassie, let me quickly die,

Trusting that thou lo'es me.

It requires also some acquaintance with the actual meaning of Burns' words to enter fully into the sense of his song to Chloris.

Sae flaxen were her ringlets,

Her eyebrows of a darker hue,
Bewitchingly o'er-arching

Twa laughin' een o' bonnie blue.
Her smiling sae wyling,

Wad make a wretch forget his woe;
What pleasure, what treasure,

Unto these rosy lips to grow:
Such was my Chloris' bonnie face,
When first her bonnie face I saw ;
And aye my Chloris' dearest charm,
She says she lo'es me best of a'.

Like harmony her motion;

Her pretty ankle is a spy

Betraying fair proportion,

Wad mak a saint forget the sky.
Sae warming, sae charming,

Her faultless form and gracefu' air;

Ilk feature-auld Nature

Declar'd that she could do nae mair:
Hers are the willing chains o' love,
By conquering beauty's sovereign law;
And aye my Chloris' dearest charın,
She says she lo'es me best of a'.