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may be traced to an old stall-ballad, entitled the 'Life and Age of Man,' which Cromek recovered, and which opens thus:

Upon the sixteen hunder year

Of God and fifty-three,

Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear,

As writings testifie;

On January the sixteenth day,

As I did ly alone,

With many a sigh and sob did say,

Ah! man is made to moan.

Burns, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, says: 'I had an old granduncle with whom my mother lived while in her girlish years; the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere he died; during which time, his highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing the simple old song of the "Life and Age of Man."

We now come to a poem, already cited in part, which illustrates, better than any other of its author's works, the home life of the Burnes family, and the character of its head. William Burnes had been in the habit, in accordance with an old Scottish custom which has not yet died out, of conducting family worship. After his death, it fell to the poet, as the eldest son, to take on himself the function of family priest, and he conducted the cottage-worship every night when at home during the whole time of his residence at Mossgiel. William Ronald, who for a time was 'gaudsman' in Lochlea, and subsequently became a farmer on his own account near Beith, in Ayrshire, used to declare that he had never since listened to anything equal to Burns's exercises; and Mrs Begg was in the habit of saying the same thing. These facts form an interesting prelude to the poem in which Burns has placed on everlasting record this phase of the rustic life of Scotland. Gilbert Burns gives us an account of what immediately prompted his brother to compose this poem. He had frequently,' says Gilbert, remarked to me that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase "Let us worship God," used by a decent sober head of a family introducing family-worship. To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for "The Cotter's Saturday Night."' It must be noted that the poet found a model in one of the best poems of his predecessor Fergusson, entitled 'The Farmer's Ingle.'

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.*

INSCRIBED TO R. AIKEN, ESQ. †

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short and simple annals of the poor.-GRAY.

My lov'd, my honor'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;

The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;

Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there I ween!

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;

The short'ning winter-day is near a close; ‡

whistling sound

* Sainte-Beuve, in an article on Aloïsius Bertrand, after quoting that author's description of the interior of a farmhouse, whither he had gone for shelter from a storm, says: 'By the side of this, we may set the poet Burns's famous piece, "The Cotter's Saturday Night." We should then see in what respect, quite apart from poetic form, the latter maintains a great superiority. For, where Bertrand strives, above all, to be picturesque, Burns shows himself in addition to this-cordial, moral, Christian, patriotic. His episode of Jenny introduces and personifies the chastity of emotion; the Bible, read aloud, casts a religious glow over the whole scene. Then come those lofty thoughts upon the greatness of old Scotland, which is based on such home-scenes as this: Sic fortis Etruria crevit. Lockhart has probably given the final word of British criticism upon a poem whose weaknesses are as obvious as its merits, when he said: 'In spite of many feeble lines and some heavy stanzas, it appears to me that even Burns's genius would suffer more in estimation by being contemplated in the absence of this poem, than of any other single poem he has left us.'

+ Probably the first verse and the inscription to Mr Aiken were added later.
The opening verse of 'The Farmer's Ingle' bears a considerable resemblance to this:

Whan gloamin' gray out-owre the welkin keeks,
Whan Bawtie ca's the owsen to the byre,

Whan Thrasher John, sair dung, his barn-door steeks,
Whan lusty lasses at the dighting tire:

What bangs fu' leal the e'ening's coming cauld,
And gars snaw-tappit winter freeze in vain ;
Gars dowie mortals look baith blithe and bauld,
Nor fleyed wi' a' the puirtith o' the plain;
Begin, my Muse, and chant in hamely strain.'

peeps drives jaded-shuts

winnowing beats-truly

makes

doleful

frightened

The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;

The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes,-
This night his weekly moil is at an end,

Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through

To meet their dad,' wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,

crows

stagger

fluttering

His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,

The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,

anxiety

And make him quite forget his labor and his toil.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drappin in,

At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neibor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu' bloom-love sparkling in her e'e-
Comes hame; perhaps, to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other's welfare kindly spiers:
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.
The parents partial eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view;

The mother, wi' her needle and her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new;
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

By-and-by

attentively

private

hard-earned wages

inquires

news

Makes-clothes

[graphic]

Th expectant wee. things toddlin, stacker through.
To meet their dad, wi flichterin noise and glee.

W YOUR RA

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