the glories of Wallace, and immortalize
alike the poet and the hero--He who culled inspiration from the modest
daisy, and yet thundered forth the heroic strains of "The Song of
Death"--He who murmured words which appear the very incarnation of
poetry and of love, and yet hurled forth the bitterest shafts of
satire--a Poet by the hand of nature, despising, as it were, the rules
of art, and yet triumphing over those very rules which he set at
nought--at whose name every Scottish heart beats high--whose name has
become a household word in the cottage as in the palace--to whom shall
we pay our homage, of whom shall we be proud, if it is not our own
immortal Burns? But I feel that I am detaining you too long. I feel
that, in the presence of a Wilson and an Alison, I am not a fit person
to dilate upon the genius of Burns. I am but an admirer of the poet like
yourselves. There are those present who are brother poets and kindred
geniuses--men who, like Burns, have gained for themselves a glorious
immortality. To them will I commit the grateful task of more fully
displaying before you, decked out by their eloquence, the excellences of
the poet, the genius of the man, and to welcome his sons to the land of
their father: and I will only ask you, in their presence--on the ground
which his genius has rendered sacred--on the "banks and braes o' bonny
Doon"--to join with me in drinking an overflowing bumper, and giving it
every expression of enthusiasm which you can, to "The Memory of Burns!"

Mr ROBERT BURNS rose along with his brothers, and was received with
enthusiastic cheering. He said--My lord, ladies, and gentlemen, Of
course it cannot be expected, at a meeting such as the present, that the
sons of Burns should expatiate on the merits and genius of their
deceased father. Around them are an immense number of admirers, who, by
their presence here this day, bear a sufficient testimony to the opinion
in which they hold his memory, and the high esteem in which they hold
his genius. In the language of the late Sir Christopher Wren, though
very differently applied, the sons of Burns can say, that to obtain a
living testimony to their father's genius they have only to look around
them. I beg, in name of my aunt, brothers, and myself, to return our
heartfelt and grateful thanks for the honour that has this day been paid
to my father's memory.

PROFESSOR WILSON then rose and said--Were this Festival but to
commemorate the genius of Burn