stice to the memory of Burns
which a brother poet alone can do--Christopher himself is here, anxious
to pay his tribute of admiration to a kindred spirit. The historian who
has depicted, with a Gibbon's hand, the eventful period of the French
empire, and the glorious victories of Wellington, is here--a Clio, as it
were, offering a garland to Erato. The distinguished head of the
Scottish bench is here. In short, every town and every district, every
class and every age, has come forward to pay homage to their poet. The
honest lads whom he so praised, and whose greatest boast it is that they
belong to the land of Burns, are here. The fair lasses whom he so loved
and sung, have flocked hither to justify, by their loveliness, their
poet's words. While the descendant of those who dwelt in the "Castle o'
Montgomerie," feels himself only too highly honoured by being permitted
to propose the memory of him who wandered then unknown along the banks
of Fail. How little could the pious old man who dwelt in yon humble
cottage, when he read the "big ha' bible"--"his lyart haffets wearing
thin and bare"--have guessed that the infant prattling on his knee was
to be the pride and admiration of his country; that that infant was to
be enrolled a chief among the poetic band; that he was to take his place
as one of the brightest planets that glitter round the mighty sun of the
Bard of Avon! In originality second to none, in the fervent expression
of deep feeling, and in the keen perception of the beauties of nature,
equal to any who ever reveled in the bright fairyland of poesy, well may
we rejoice that Burns is our own--well may we rejoice that no other land
can claim to be the birthplace of our Homer except the hallowed spot on
which we stand! Oh! that he could have foreseen the futurity of fame he
has created to himself--oh! that he could have foreseen this day, when
the poet and the historian, the manly and the fair, the peer and the
peasant, vie with each other in paying their tribute of admiration to
the untaught but mighty genius whom we hail as the first of Scottish
poets! It might have alleviated the dreary days of his sojourn at
Mossgiel--it might have lightened the last hours of his pilgrimage upon
earth. And well does he deserve such homage. He who portrayed the
"Cottar's Saturday Night" in strains that are unrivaled in simplicity,
and yet fervour--in solemnity, and in truth--He who breathed forth the
patriotic words which tell of