AN EXPOSTULATION ON A REBUKE ADMINISTERED BY MRS. LAWRIE.

RUSTICITY'S ungainly form

May cloud the highest mind;
But when the heart is nobly warm,
The good excuse will find.

Propriety's cold cautious rules

Warm Fervour may o'erlook ;
But spare poor Sensibility

The ungentle, harsh rebuke.

ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH.

EDINA! Scotia's darling seat!

All hail thy palaces and towers,
Where once beneath a monarch's feet
Sat Legislation's sovereign powers!
From marking wildly-scattered flowers,
As on the banks of Ayr I strayed,
And singing, lone, the lingering hours,
I shelter in thy honoured shade.

Here wealth still swells the golden tide,
As busy Trade his labour plies;
There Architecture's noble pride

Bids elegance and splendour rise; Here Justice, from her native skies,

High wields her balance and her rod; There Learning, with his eagle eyes, Seeks Science in her coy abode.

Thy sons, Edina! social, kind,

With open arms the stranger hail; Their views enlarged, their liberal mind, Above the narrow, rural vale; Attentive still to Sorrow's wail,

Or modest Merit's silent claim; And never may their sources fail!

And never envy blot their name!

Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn,
Gay as the gilded summer sky,
Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn,

Dear as the raptured thrill of joy! Fair Burnet1 strikes th' adoring eye, Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine;

1 "Fair B. is heavenly Miss Burnet, daughter to Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have had the honour to be more than once. There has not been anything nearly like her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great Creator has formed since Milton's Eve on the first day of her existence."-B.

I see the Sire of Love on high,
And own his work indeed divine!

There, watching high the least alarms,

Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar; Like some bold veteran, gray in arms,

And marked with many a seamy scar.
The ponderous wall and massy bar,

Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock,
Have oft withstood assailing war,
And oft repelled the invader's shock.

With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears,
I view that noble, stately dome,
Where Scotia's kings of other years,

Famed heroes! had their royal home. Alas, how changed the times to come! Their royal name low in the dust! Their hapless race wild wandering roam, Though rigid law cries out, 'Twas just!

Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,
Whose ancestors, in days of yore,
Through hostile ranks and ruined gaps
Old Scotia's bloody lion bore.
Even I who sing in rustic lore,

Haply, my sires have left their shed, And faced grim danger's loudest roar, Bold-following where your fathers led!

Edina! Scotia's darling seat!

All hail thy palaces and towers,
Where once beneath a monarch's feet
Sat Legislation's sovereign powers!
From marking wildly-scattered flowers,
As on the banks of Ayr I strayed,
And singing, lone, the lingering hours,
I shelter in thy honoured shade.

ODE ON THE CHEVALIER'S BIRTHDAY.

We have Burns's own authority for saying, that Jacobitism was not a deep feeling in his mind. It was, nevertheless, a sentiment which he at this time took no pains to conceal A romantic feeling regarding his country, and its ancient independent condition, an antipathy towards the representatives of the old religious Whigs of Scotland, a sympathy springing from his own circumstances with all that was depressed by or in opposition to fortune perhaps a shade of manly impatience with the cant of loyalty, as indulged in at that day-appear to have combined, with some notion about his own ancestral history, to throw Burns into this vain and insubstantial profession. Charles Edward was still alive, but lost in the sottishness which so sadly fell upon a mind once ardent and apparently capable of better things. A few generous souls, perhaps none of them of very high standing in society, kept his memory alive by an an

nual symposium on his birthday [Dec. 31]. Burns attending one of these occasions, acted in the capacity of poet-laureate, and produced an ode, of which Dr. Currie has preserved a few stanzas.

*

*

FALSE flatterer, Hope, away!1

Nor think to lure us as in days of yore;
We solemnise this sorrowing natal-day
To prove our loyal truth; we can no more;
And owning Heaven's mysterious sway,
Submissive low adore.

*

Ye honoured mighty dead!

Who nobly perished in the glorious cause,
Your king, your country, and her laws!

From great Dundee who smiling victory led, And fell a martyr in her arms (What breast of northern ice but warms?) To bold Balmerino's undying name,

Whose soul of fire, lighted at heaven's high

flame,

Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim.

Nor unavenged your fate shall be,
It only lags the fatal hour;

Your blood shall with incessant cry

1 "In the first part of this ode there is some beautiful imagery, which the poet afterwards interwove in the Chevalier's Lament." - CURRIE.