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The toil-worn cotter frae his labour 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,

The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,

But blate and lathefu'," scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

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

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What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave; Weel pleased to think her bairn 's respected like the lave.12

O happy love!--where love like this is found!-
O heart-felt raptures!-bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare-

If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,

In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.

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11 Blate and lathefu', bashful and shy.

1 Stacher, stagger.

2 Flichterin', fluttering; specially applied to the gleeful running of children towards those to whom they are much attached.

3 Ingle, fire.

Tentie rin, attentively run.

7 Uncos, strange things. Haflins, half.

12 The lave, the rest.

13 Hawkie, cow.

14 Hallan, inner wall between the fire-place and door. See Note 31, page 392.

15 Her weel-hain'd kebbuck fell, her well-saved stinging cheese.

16 A twelvemonth old since flax was in flower.

4 Beluve, quickly.

6 Spiers, asks.

8 Eydent (or "ithand "), diligent. 10 Ben, within the house.

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Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art,

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
Oh, never, never, Scotia's realm desert;
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard,

In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

The volume printed at Kilmarnock found friends strong enough to keep Burns within his native Scotland. In April, 1787, a new edition of his poems was published at Edinburgh, and handsomely subscribed for. Thus encouraged, Burns was now able to send £200 to help his brother Gilbert at Mossgiel, take a farm of his own at Elliesland in March, 1787, and five months afterwards marry Jean Armour. He still poured out music; sending his lyrics as free gifts to Johnson's "Museum of Scottish Song," and giving his "Tam o' Shanter" to Captain Grose, as a legend of Alloway Kirk. The farm being unfruitful, he

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The youngling cottagers retire to rest:

The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request
That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest work of God;" 2
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind.
What is a lordling's pomp-a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

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Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content;

1 "See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs And mounts exulting on triumphant wings."

(Pope's "Windsor Forest," lines 111, 112.)

"A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God."

(Pope's "Essay on Man," Ep. iv., line 247.)

ROBERT BURNS.

From a Sketch by A. Nasmyth. Engraved for Lockhart's "Life of Burns" in "Constable's Miscellany" (1828).

tried to supplement it with a place in the Excise; but the duties of exciseman weakened still more his chance of thriving as a farmer, and in 1791 Burns gave up Elliesland, and obtained for the whole maintenance of his family a post in the Dumfries division of the Excise, with a salary of seventy pounds a year. Society at Dumfries had little sympathy with Burns's fervid interest in the French Revolution then afoot. Sad days of poverty and failing health came to their end for him in July, 1796, and those who had neglected him in life then found themselves a day's pleasure by making a great show of his funeral

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Wordsworth there was also Burns. The return of the sonnet-which had taken its flight from our shores on the establishment of French influence-was at the close of the last century one of the pleasant signs of a new spring for literature, and the first of the new sonnet writers were Charlotte Smith and W. L. Bowles. Of the sonnets also of Charlotte Smith, Coleridge had grateful recollection. Her life was a sad one, and its griefs intensified in all her verse the gloom that was in fashion. She was born in 1749, daughter of Mr. Nicholas Turner, of Stoke House, Surrey, and Bignor Park, Sussex. Her mother died when she was four years old. She was ill-educated at a fashionable school in Kensington till twelve years old, then brought into society, and married at fifteen to the stupid and dissipated son of a West India merchant, who took her to a dull house in the City. Her husband found his way into prison, where she spent seven months with him; she suffered poverty, she wrote for bread; parted from her husband, she worked for her family, and saw all her children die as they came to maturity. She was hasty, generous, romantic, and still patient in duty, writing sonnets in the character of Werter, whose sentimental sorrows represented faithfully the sickness of the time, and writing novels to support her children while they lived. In 1806 she followed all she had loved to the grave. She addressed one of

her sonnets

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Queen of the silver bow!-by thy pale beam,
Alone and pensive, I delight to stray,
And watch thy shadow trembling in the stream
Or mark the floating clouds that cross thy way.
And while I gaze, thy mild and placid light
Sheds a soft calm upon my troubled breast;
And oft I think, fair planet of the night,

That in thy orb the wretched may have rest:
The sufferers of the earth perhaps may go,
Released by death, to thy benignant sphere;
And the sad children of Despair and Woe
Forget in thee their cup of sorrow here.
Oh! that I soon may reach thy world serene,
Poor wearied pilgrim, in this toiling scene!

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Nymph of the rock! whose dauntless spirit braves
The beating storm, and bitter winds that howl
Round thy cold breast; and hear'st the bursting waves
And the deep thunder with unshaken soul;
Oh come! and show how vain the cares that press
On weak bosom, and how little worth
my
Is the false fleeting meteor, Happiness,

That still misleads the wanderers of the earth!
Strengthen'd by thee, this heart shall cease to melt
O'er ills that poor Humanity must bear;
Nor friends estranged or ties dissolved be felt
To leave regret and fruitless anguish there:
And when at length it heaves its latest sigh,
Thou and mild Hope shall teach me how to die!
This echoes other feelings of the time:-

TO A YOUNG MAN ENTERING THE WORLD.

Go now, ingenuous youth!-The trying hour
Is come the world demands that thou shouldst go
To active life; there titles, wealth, and power
May all be purchased; yet I joy to know
Thou wilt not pay their price. The base control
Of petty despots in their pedant reign
Already hast thou felt; and high disdain
Of tyrants is imprinted on thy soul-

Not where mistaken Glory in the field
Rears her red banner be thou ever found;
But against proud Oppression raise the shield
Of patriot daring. So shalt thou renowned
For the best virtues live; or that denied,
May'st die, as Hampden or as Sidney died!

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William Lisle Bowles, son of the vicar of King's Sutton, in Northamptonshire, was born in 1762 His sonnets were first published in 1789, and when Coleridge felt his young genius quickened by them. their author was a curate in Wiltshire. He obtained in 1833 a canonry in Salisbury Cathedral, and soon afterwards became rector of Bremhill, in Wiltshire. So he remained until his death in 1850. These are four of his sonnets:

AT DOVER CLIFFS.

On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood
Uplift their shadowing heads, and, at their feet,
Scarce hear the surge that has for ages beat,
Sure many a lonely wand'rer has stood;
And, whilst the lifted murmur met his ear,
And o'er the distant billows the still eve

Sail'd slow, has thought of all his heart must leave
To-morrow; of the friends he lov'd most dear;
Of social scenes, from which he wept to part:
But if, like me, he knew how fruitless all
The thoughts that would full fain the past recall,
Soon would he quell the risings of his heart,
And brave the wild winds and unhearing tide-
The world his country, and his God his guide.

THE TOUCH OF TIME.

O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on Sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceiv'd away;

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DE

LI

On Thee I rest my only hope at last,

And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, I may look back on every sorrow past, And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile— As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient show'r Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while :Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure, Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

HOPE.

As one who, long by wasting sickness worn,

Weary has watch'd the ling'ring night, and heard
Heartless the carol of the matin bird
Salute his lonely porch, now first at morn
Goes forth, leaving his melancholy bed;

He the green slope and level meadow views,
Delightful bath'd with slow-ascending dews;

Or marks the clouds, that o'er the mountain's head
In varying forms fantastic wander white;

Or turns his ear to every random song,

Heard the green river's winding marge along, The whilst each sense is steep'd in still delight: With such delight, o'er all my heart I feel,

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Sweet Hope! thy fragrance pure and healing incense steal!

DEATH IN THE HOME.

How blest with thee the path could I have trod
Of quiet life, above cold want's hard fate,
(And little wishing more) nor of the great
Envious, or their proud name! but it pleas'd God
To take thee to His mercy: thou didst go

In youth and beauty, go to thy death-bed;
Ev'n whilst on dreams of bliss we fondly fed,
Of years to come of comfort!-Be it so.
Ere this I have felt sorrow; and ev'n now

(Tho' sometimes the unbidden thought must start, 10 And half unman the miserable heart)

The cold dew I shall wipe from my sad brow, And say, since hopes of bliss on earth are vain, "Best friend, farewell, till we do meet again!"

The tone of sadness here also is partly reflected from the time, although it is the unaffected tone of a true voice that can blend hope with its sorrow. Let us compare with it the artificial verse of sentimentalists who think themselves sincere, and doubtless are so, but wanting power for deep thought or feeling, cut worthless thought into the patterns they admire as honest followers of fashion. There was a Mr. Merry, who wrote verse in a newspaper called The World, published by John Bell, Librarian to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. He called himself Della Crusca. There was a Countess Cowper, who metrically adored Della Crusca through that journal, and was in like manner adored by him. She called herself Anna Matilda. There was Mr. Parsons, who called himself Arley; Mr. Greathead, who called himself Bertie; Mr. Adney, who turned his name upside down, and was Yenda; Mr. Williams, who was Pasquin; Mrs. Robinson lisped verse with them as Julia, and all these people deluged The World with sentimental poems which the fashionable world of London greatly praised.

They were collected by Mr. Bell, in 1790, into two volumes, as "The British Album." Young Goethe's "Sorrows of the Young Werter," published in 1774, and young Schiller's "Robbers," published in 1781, were not without influence upon the feelings of these ladies and gentlemen. In The World of the 26th of July, 1787, Della Crusca produced this

ELEGY

Written after reading the Sorrows of Werter. Alas, poor Werter! to himself a prey,

The heart's excessive workings could not bear; But sought his native heaven the nearest way, And fled from grief, from anguish, and despair.

The joys of prejudice he scorned to own,
He pitied pride, and avarice, and power;
But oft on some rude rock at random thrown,
He welcomed midnight's melancholy hour.

To view the moon's pale glimpse illume the wave,
To list the sweeping blasts that sadly blow;
Down the rough steep, to hear the cat'racts rave;
Such were the pleasures of this man of woe.

An isolated being here he stood,

His strong sensations with how few could blend! The wise, the great, the gay, perhaps the good, They knew him not--they could not comprehend.

Charlotte alone, by nature was designed

To fill the vacuum of his generous breast;
He loved her beauty, he admired her mind;
He lost that Charlotte, and he sought for rest!
Sure he was right, for if th' Almighty hand,
That gave his pulse to throb, his sense to glow,
Gave him not strength his passions to withstand,
Ah! who shall blame him? he was forced to go.
For when the heart from every hope is torn,
When in another's arms the fair one lies;
While virtue goads with unrelenting thorn,
The frantic lover bears it not, but dies.

And since there are, amid this wond'rous world,
Some of a class distinct, of ardent mind,
Through woe's wild waves, by keen emotions hurled
As the tossed barks before the boist'rous wind;

Th' Eternal Power, to whom all thoughts arise,
Who every secret sentiment can view,
Melts at their flowing tears, their swelling sighs,
Then gives them force to bid the world adieu.

Anna Matilda had said to Della Crusca"O! seize again thy golden quill, And with its point my bosom thrill."

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By such invitations he was roused as much as an idle sentimentalist can be roused. This is, if 1 may so entitle the lines

DELLA CRUSCA ROUSED.
On the sea-shore with folded arms I stood,
The sun just sinking shot a level ray,
Luxuriant crimson glowed upon the flood,

And the curled surf was tinged with golden spray.

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