siasm as he saw her
scenery, and as he sung her praise; while to many in foreign parts she
is chiefly interesting as being (what a portion of her has long been
called) the Land of Burns.

The real successors of Burns, it is thus manifest, were not Tannahill or
Macneil, but Sir Walter Scott, Campbell, Aird, Delta, Galt, Allan
Cunningham, and Professor Wilson. To all of these, Burns, along with
Nature, united in teaching the lessons of simplicity, of brawny
strength, of clear common sense, and of the propriety of staying at home
instead of gadding abroad in search of inspiration. All of these have
been, like Burns, more or less intensely Scottish in their subjects and
in their spirit.

That Burns' errors as a man have exerted a pernicious influence on many
since, is, we fear, undeniable. He had been taught, by the lives of the
"wits," to consider aberration, eccentricity, and "devil-may-careism" as
prime badges of genius, and he proceeded accordingly to astonish the
natives, many of whom, in their turn, set themselves to copy his faults.
But when we subtract some half-dozen pieces, either coarse in language
or equivocal in purpose, the influence of his poetry may be considered
good. (We of course say nothing here of the volume called the "Merry
Muses," still extant to disgrace his memory.) It is doubtful if his
"Willie brew'd a peck o' Maut" ever made a drunkard, but it is certain
that his "Cottar's Saturday Night" has converted sinners, edified the
godly, and made some erect family altars. It has been worth a thousand
homilies. And, taking his songs as a whole, they have done much to stir
the flames of pure love, of patriotism, of genuine sentiment, and of a
taste for the beauties of nature. And it is remarkable that all his
followers and imitators have, almost without exception, avoided his
faults while emulating his beauties; and there is not a sentence in
Scott, or Campbell, or Aird, or Delta, and not many in Wilson or Galt,
that can be charged with indelicacy, or even coarseness. So that, on the
whole, we may assert that, whatever evil he did by the example of his
life, he has done very little--but, on the contrary, much good, both
artistically and morally, by the influence of his poetry.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
HENRY SCOTT RIDDELL, 1
The wild glen sae green,