ROBERT BURNS

Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. By ROBERT BURNS, Kilmarnock.

When an author we know nothing of solicits our attention, we are but too apt to treat him with the same reluctant civility we show to a person who has come unbidden into company. Yet talents and address will gradually diminish the distance of our behaviour, and when the first unfavourable impression has worn off, the author may become a favourite, and the stranger a friend. The poems we have just announced may probably have to struggle with the pride of learning and the partiality of refinement; yet they are intitled to particular indulgence.

Who are you, Mr. Burns? will some surly critic say. At what university have you been educated? what languages do you understand? what authors have you particularly studied? whether has Aristotle or Horace directed your taste? who has praised your poems, and under whose patronage are they published? In short, what qualifications intitle you to instruct or entertain us? To the questions of such a catechism, perhaps honest Robert Burns would make no satisfactory answers. My good Sir, he might say, I am a poor country man; I was bred up at the school of Kilmarnock; I understand no languages but my own; I have studied Allan Ramsay and Ferguson. My poems have been praised at many a fireside; and I ask no patronage for them, if they deserve none. I have not looked on mankind through the spectacle of books. An ounce of mother-wit, you know, is worth a pound of clergy; and Homer and Ossian, for any thing that I have heard, could neither write nor read.'

The author is indeed a striking example of native genius bursting through the obscurity of poverty and the obstructions of laborious life. He is said to be a common ploughman; and when we consider him in this light, we cannot help regretting that wayward fate had not placed him in a more favoured situation. Those who view him with the severity of lettered criticism, and judge him by the fastidious rules of art, will discover that he has not the doric simplicity of Ramsay, nor the brilliant imagination of Ferguson; but to those who admire the exertions of untutored fancy, and are blind to many faults for the sake of numberless beauties, his poems will afford singular gratification. His observations on human characters are acute and sagacious, and his descriptions are lively and just. Of rustic pleasantry he has a rich fund; and some of his softer scenes are touched with inimitable delicacy. He seems to be a boon companion, and often startles us with a dash of libertinism, which will keep some readers at a distance. Some of his subjects are serious, but those of the humorous kind are the best. It is not meant, however, to enter into a minute investigation of his merits, as the copious extracts we have subjoined will enable our readers to judge for themselves. The Character Horace gives to Osellus is particularly applicable to him.

Rusticus abnormis sapiens, crassaque Minerva.

[Quotes Address to the Deil, from the Epistle to a Brother Bard, from Description of a Sermon in the Fields, and from Hallowe'en.]-The Edinburgh Magazine.

Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. By Robert Burns. Printed at Kilmarnock.

We have had occasion to examine a number of poetical productions, written by persons in the lower rank of life, and who had hardly received any education; but we do not recollect to have ever met with a more signal instance of true and uncultivated genius, than in the author of these Poems. His occupation is that of a common ploughman; and his life has hitherto been spent in struggling with poverty. But all the rigours of fortune have not been able to repress the frequent efforts of his lively and vigorous imagination. Some of these poems are of a serious cast; but the strain which seems most natural to the author, is the sportive and humorous. It is to be regretted, that the Scottish dialect, in which these poems are written, must obscure the native beauties with which they appear to abound, and renders the sense often unintelligible to an English reader. Should it, however, prove true, that the author has been taken under the patronage of a great lady in Scotland, and that a celebrated professor has interested himself in the cultivation of his talents, there is reason to hope, that his distinguished genius may yet be exerted in such a manner as to afford more general delight. In the meantime, we must admire the generous enthusiasm of his untutored muse; and bestow the tribute of just applause on one whose name will be transmitted to posterity with honour.-The Critical Review.

those, who are so delighted with their own thoughts that they cannot forbear from putting them into rhyme, to examine those thoughts till they themselves understand them? No man will ever be a poet, till his mind be sufficiently powerful to sustain this labour.-The Monthly Review.

WORDSWORTH'S Descriptive sketches 17

we are unable to comprehend: but the climax of the passage is, that, were there such a spot of holy ground as is here so sublimely described, unfound by Pain and her sad family, Nature's God had surely given that spot to man, though its woods were undiscovered.

Let us proceed,

'But doubly pitying Nature loves to show'r
Soft on his wounded heart her healing pow'r,
Who plods o'er hills and vales his road forlorn,
Wooing her varying charms from eve to morn.
No sad vacuities his heart annoy,

Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;

For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale;

He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale;

For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,

And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!

Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,

And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread;
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?
Upwards he looks-and calls it luxury;
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend,

In every babbling brook he finds a friend.'

Here we find that doubly pitying Nature is very kind to the traveller, but that this traveller has a wounded heart and plods his road forlorn. In the next line but one we discover that—

'No sad vacuities his heart annoy;

Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy.'

The flowers, though they have lost themselves, or are lost, exhale their idle sweets for him; the spire peeps for him; sod-seats, forests, clouds, nature's charities, and babbling brooks, all are to him luxury and friendship. He is the happiest of mortals, and plods, is forlorn, and has a wounded heart. How often shall we in vain advise