the share of the general effect which belongs to each particular feature of the scene. But the power of observing and distinguishing the finer or the nobler lineaments of nature, is not sufficient. This constitutes only taste, which numbers enjoy without being able to impart their impressions. For the last purpose, the aid of genius is required, which invents the means of communicating to others, by a warm and faithful transcript of its objects, the emotions which these objects had awakened in itself. The taste of a painter enables him to discern the great lines on which grace or sublimity depend; but it is by his genius that he traces them with such a truth of execution as to secure their effect. In like manner, the poet is led, by a nice perception of the circumstances which had affected himself, to make choice of these, and of these alone, for conveying the affection to others; and the introduction of a circumstance included in no former enumeration, is accompanied with that pleasure which it is the province of genius, by novelty of discovery, to create. Still, however, he may fail from imperfect execution, if he do not possess a masterly command of language, which is his only medium of expression; but when he selects, from an exuberant store, words and phrases of the most significant power for conveying ideas, selected with equal felicity, he then approaches the consummation of imitative art. VOL. II.

T

To genius of this character, the pretensions of Burns may be maintained, from numberless passages of his writings. In what poet shall we find a more concise yet more complete representation of a visible scene, than is presented in the four following lines?

"The cauld blue north was streaming forth
"Her lights wi' hissing eirie din ;
"Athort the lift they start and shift,

"Like Fortune's favours, lost and win."

Here every word is big with emphatic meaning. It is a separate stroke of that slight but skilful outline, which brings the whole scene to the eye with greater force and distinctness, than a picture filled with the most ample and elaborate finishing. So powerfully does it affect the imagi nation, that we almost seem to grow chill as we read. The last line is rather complementary, the mind being so intensely engaged by the material objects, that the moral analogy comes upon it unexpectedly. But it was the practice of Burns to let the current of his ideas flow with little restraint; and hence we find him mingling the pathetic with the sprightly, the solemn with the ludicrous, and, in the present instance, the sentimental with the descriptive.

A passage no less striking, we meet with in a stanza most happily picturing a furious snowstorm, where the same discriminating sensibility, and the same power of verbal execution, will be

perceived by all to whom the language is intelli

gible:

"Now biting Boreas, fell and dour,

"Sharp, shivers through the leafless bower,
"And Phoebus gi'es a short liv'd glour,
Far south the lift,

"Dim-darkening through the flaky shower,
Or whirling drift."

Who can read these lines without beholding the dun and labouring gloom, with all its adjuncts, before his eyes? The few circumstances exhibited, are marked with a strength, and preferred with a judgment, which rouse the activity of the mind, and introduce whatever association can supply.

Though the lofty and energetic spirit of Burns appears to have delighted more in the sublime than in the beautiful; yet, in his delineations of softer and brighter scenery, we shall easily discover the pencil of genius. A summer morning is thus described:

"The rising sun o'er Galston muirs

"Wi' glorious light was glintin,
"The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
"The lavrocks they were chauntin.”

Here only three images are introduced, yet more are not required to place the reader where the poet was placed when he wrote. Thomson gives a description of a summer morning, enriched with details, and embellished with splendid ela

boration, yet it presents (at least to my mind) nothing which does not offer itself as a natural accompaniment to the stenographic sketch, if I may use the metaphor, thrown off by his countryman with such rapid facility. In this passage we have an example of the skill of Burns, in his nice adaptation of words. Of all the terms which any language affords, few could so significantly express the peculiar motion of the hare, when she moves with caution, but without alarm, as the word hirplin. In this manner language is extended. A number of words which are little else than synonimes, to persons who are at no pains, or who have no power to define and discriminate, convey to one more anxious for the enjoyment produced by variety and precision of thought, different shades of significance, which he separates with ease. He afterwards employs them to express the meaning which they had conveyed to himself, and they come by his authority and adoption to be legitimated. In almost every page of Burns we may find examples of unusual skill in his choice of words. As I have been accidentally led to point out a term descriptive of peculiar motion, I shall subjoin a few more of the same class, and if I succeed, under this restriction, it will naturally be inferred, that, on all subjects, instances of similar felicity are equally abundant in the works of the poet." When Hughoc he came doytin

"by."-" Down some trottin burn's meander." "Awa ye squatter'd like a drake."-" The "wheels o' life gae down hill scrievin "-The two following passages are singularly rich in terms of the same description:

"Here farmers gash, in ridin graith,

"Gaed hoddin by their cotters;

"There swankies young, in braw braid-claith,
"Are springin' o'er the gutters ;

"The lasses skelpin barefit, thrang," &c.

"Thou never braindgt, an fech't an flisket,
"But thy cauld tail thou wad hae whisket,
"An spread abreed thy weel fill'd brisket,
"Wi' pith and power,

"Till spritty knowes wad rair't and risket,
"And slypet owre."

HOLY FAIR.

THE FARMER TO HIS AULD MARE.

In representations of human character, the power of Burns was no less conspicuous, than in his portraits of external nature. When describing, with satirical humour, the character of country squires, he recollects that they are in general disposed to treat their rustic dependents with affable liberality and indulgence, and that there are but a few unpardonable offences which never fail to kindle their resentment, and to call forth their power of oppression. These he catches with penetrating observation, and enumerates with happy brevity in six lines, of which the