A stranger freak of burgess criticism is every-day fare in the odd world peopled by the biographers of Robert Burns. The nature of Burns, one would think, was simplicity itself; it could hardly puzzle a ploughman, and two sailors out of three would call him brother. But he lit up the whole of that nature by his marvellous genius for expression, and grave personages have been occupied ever since in discussing the dualism of his character, and professing to find some dark mystery in the existence of this, that, or the other trait a love of pleasure, a hatred of shams, a deep sense of religion. It is common human nature, after all, that is the mystery, but they seem never to have met with it, and treat it as if it were the poet's eccentricity. They are all agog to worship him, and when they have made an image of him in their own likeness, and given it a tin-pot head that exactly hits their taste, they break into noisy lamentation over the discovery that the original was human, and had feet of clay. They deem "Mary in Heaven" so admirable that they could find it in their hearts to regret that she was ever on earth.-RALEIGH, WALTER, 1897, Style, p. 76.

It is of importance that we recognize the fact that in Burns the two literary estates, English and Scottish, were united. Until his time there was a sharp distinction between Scottish and English literature; but after him the literature of the two countries became one, both in nature and in name. This was but natural, when we consider that something of the original impulse which moved Burns's genius was English. When the riches of this noble Scottish house, and of that sister house of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, awaited union in a royal heir, there came a peasant lad from the "auld clay biggin'" in Ayrshire, who, with the simple and graceful dignity of one of nature's noblemen, claimed his own, and there was added a new hereditary peer to the House of Fame.-GEORGE, ANDREW J., 1897, Carlyle's Essay on Burns, p. 114.

Burns. The most amazing price ever realised for a modern book was that of £572 for "Poems chiefly in the Scottish dialect. By Robert Burns. Kilmarnock, 1786." The original price of this octavo volume was three shillings. The history of the very fine copy sold in Edinburgh in

February 1898 is traced back about eighty years by a writer in Literature. In 1870 it was sold for six guineas to G. B. Simpson, of Dundee, who sold it in 1879, with some other books, to A. C. Lamb for £124. The price of the Kilmarnock Burns has steadily advanced from £3, 10s. in 1858 to £111 in 1888, and then it made the immense leap to £572.-WHEATLEY, HENRY B., 1898, Prices of Books, p. 257.

In his relation to Nature there was this great difference between Burns and his literary contemporaries and immediate pedecessors, that whereas even the best of them wrote rather as pleased spectators of the country, with all its infinite variety of form and colour, of life and sound, of calm and storm, he sang as one into whose very inmost heart the power of these things had entered. For the first time in English literature the burning ardour of a passionate soul went out in tumultuous joy towards Nature. The hills and woods, the streams and dells were to Burns not merely enjoyable scenes to be visited and described. They became part of his very being. In their changeful aspects he found the counterpart of his own variable moods; they ministered to his joys, they soothed his sorrows. They yielded him a companionship that never palled, a sympathy that never failed. They kindled his poetic ardour, and became themselves the subjects of his song. He loved them with all the overpowering intensity of his affectionate nature, and his feelings found vent in an exuberance of appreciation which had never before been heard in verse.-GEIKIE, SIR ARCHIBALD, 1898, Types of Scenery and their Influence on Literature, p. 26.

I venture to assume that I have advanced enough to vindicate my postulate, that throughout Fergusson's poems saturated the mind, heart, imagination, affection, and memory, and imposed subjects and forms and elect words on Robert Burns. That, when all is said, Robert Burns still stands by head and shoulders above Robert Fergusson and beyond all possible comparison Scotland's supremest singer; that his was the larger, stronger soul, the richer imagination, the more inspired utterance, the more seeing eyes, the broader intellect, does not alter the fact of wide, deep, and pervasive obligations to his precursor. Mentally as physically he was stalwart where Fergusson was fragile; he was

Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.*-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1775, Letter to Macpherson, Jan. 20.

"Why dost thou build the tower, son of the winged days? Soon will thou depart with thy fathers. The blast from the desert shall rush through thy hall, and sound upon the bossy shield." Do you recollect, dear Madam, when I stopped with you at the gate of Belleville, I repeated those lines, and observed what a suitable inscription they might prove for the front of poor James Macpherson's new house. It would appear I was moved by a prophetic impulse when I predicted that he never would see it finished. . . . He felt the approaches of death, and hoped no relief from medicine, though his life was not such that one would like to look back on at that awful period: indeed whose is? It pleased the Almighty to render his last scene most affecting and exemplary. He died last Tuesday evening; and, from the minute he was confined, till a very little before he expired, never ceased imploring the Divine mercy in the most earnest and pathetic manner. People about him were overawed and melted at the fervour and bitterness of his penitence; he frequently and earnestly entreated the prayers of good serious people of the lower class who were admitted. He was a very good-natured man; and now, that he had got all his schemes of interest and ambition fulfilled, he seemed to reflect and grow domestic, and showed, of late, a great inclination to be an indulgent landlord, and very liberal to the poor; of which I could relate various instances, more tender and interesting than flashy or ostentatious. His heart and temper were orignally good; his religious principles were, I fear, unfixed, and fluctuating. But the primary cause that so much genius, taste, benevolence and prosperity, did not produce or diffuse more happiness, was his living a stranger to comforts of domestic life, from which unhappy connexions excluded him. GRANT, MRS. ANNE, 1796, To Mrs. Macintosh, Feb. 20; Letters from the Mountains, vol. II.

*The original of this well-known letter was sold by auction in 1875, for £50-SAUNDERS, BAILEY, 1894, The Life and Letters of James Macpherson, p. 250.

A Scottish Chatterton of maturer growth who did not commit suicide.COLLIER, WILLIAM FRANCIS, 1861, A History of English Literature, p. 353.

As an original writer Macpherson became more and more discredited, but as an individual more and more wealthy; and, to prove that no honour lies beyond the grasp of unprincipled mediocrity, he was buried in Poet's Corner.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 336.

He went up to London-was appointed to go with Governor Johnston to Florida, in America; remained there at Pensacola, a year or more; but quarrelled with his chief (he had rare aptitude for quarrelling) and came back in 1766. Some English historical work followed; but with little success or profit. Yet he was a canny Scotchman, and so laid his plans that he became agent for some rich nabob of India (from these pickings winning a great fortune eventually); entered Parliament in 1780; had a country house at Putney, where he entertained lavishly; and at last built a great show place in the highlands near to his birth-place-which one may see to-day-with an obelisk to his memory, looking down on the valley of the Spey; and not so far away from the old coachroad, that passes through Killiecrankie, from Blair Athol to Inverness, but the

coach man can show it-as he did to mewith his whip. Yet if his book

of Ossianic poems was ten-fold better than it is, it would hardly give an enduring, or a brilliant gloss to the memory of James Macpherson. MITCHELL, DONALD G., 1895, English Lands Letters and Kings, Queen Anne and the Georges, pp. 224, 228.

If none but the great deserved a biography, this book would not have been written. For Macpherson was in no sense a great man: he was a miscellaneous writer of considerable talent, a busy journalist, a member of Parliament, an agent for an Indian prince, a popular and prosperous citizen; and, beyond the fact that he brought out the Ossianic poems at the age of twenty-five, he did little in the sixty. years of his life that would entitle him to permanent remembrance. This work of his youth was, as he declared, translated from Gaelic fragments found in the Scottish Highlands. By its wonderful success, and its no less wonderful influence on

The big, burly politician lived in society. As he grew elderly, rich, and prosperous, Macpherson's heart yearned for his old Highland district, and he turned his eyes to Badenoch; there he resolved. to buy land and build a home within sight of his native mountains. Two or three small farms were bought on the banks of the Spey and soon a villa, bearing the cockney title of "Belleville," which had been designed by his friend Adam, the architect, rose in the wilds, two miles from Kingussie. People long remembered the great man from London, who came every year, bedizened with rings and gold seals, and clad in fur-edged coat. They told stories of the grand state he kept up as a Highland chief, his splendid table, his home filled with guests; of his sallying forth in the morning and bringing bibulous lairds from houses far and near, who in the dining-room, from whose walls portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds looked down, kept high revelry till they and the nights were far spent. But good things, too, were told of Macpherson, pleasant to remember; of his refusing from a grateful Government the forfeited estate of Cluny Macpherson, which was thereupon. restored to its rightful owner; his generosity to the poor, whom he employed at high wages, which no Badenoch man had ever dreamed of; his kindly remembrance of all about his native Ruthven. Now that his ambition was satisfied, now that his struggle with poverty and obscurity was over he could be the pleasant, affable man, the kindly landlord, and the genial host. -GRAHAM, HENRY GREY, 1901, Scottish Men of Letters in the Eighteenth Century, p. 238.

POEMS OF OSSIAN

Several gentlemen of the Highlands and Isles, generously gave me all the assistance in their power, and it was by their means I was enabled to complete the Epic Poem. How far it comes up to the rules of the Epopoeia is the province of criticism to examine. It is only my business to lay it before the reader as I have found it.

A man diffident of his abilities might ascribe his own compositions to a person whose remote antiquity and whose situation when alive might well answer for faults which would be inexcusable in a writer of this age. But of this I am persuaded that some will

think, notwithstanding the disadvantages with which the works ascribed to Ossian

appear, it would be a very uncommon instance of self-denial in me to disown them, were they really of my composition.MACPHERSON, JAMES, 1762, Fingal, Preface.

It is as beautiful as Homer.-GRIMM, FRIEDRICH MELCHIOR, 1762, Correspondance Littéraire, April.

There we find the fire and enthusiasm of the most early times, combined with an amazing degree of regularity and art. We find tenderness, and even delicacy of sentiment, greatly predominant over fierceness and barbarity. Our hearts are melted with the softest feelings, and at the same time elevated with the highest ideas of magnanimity, generosity, and true heroism. BLAIR, HUGH, 1763, Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian.

Ossian sublimest, simplest bard of all Whom English infidels Macpherson call. -CHURCHILL, CHARLES, 1763, The Prophecy of Famine.

I never was able to discover in his most

unguarded moments that he was any other than the collector and translator of the works of Ossian, or assumed any other merit that might be derived from thence. But I have heard him express the greatest contempt and disdain for those who thought him the fabricator of them. If there was any person who asserted that Macpherson had owned it to himself, even that would not shake my faith; for I knew him to be of a temper, when he was teased and fretted, to carry his indignation that far. CARLYLE, ALEXANDER, 1769-70, Report of the Highland Society, App. p. 68.

I have no less zeal for the "Poems of

Ossian," than if I had been born on one of his favourite mountains; and I shall be very glad to see history confirm all that his poetry has set forth.-MONTAGU, ELIZABETH, 1771, Letter to Lord Kames, Oct. 3.

Homer has been superseded in my heart by the divine Ossian. Through what a world does this angelic bard carry me! With him I wander over barren wastes and frightful wilds; surrounded by whirlwinds and hurricanes, trace by the feeble light of the moon the shades of our noble ancestors; hear from the mountainous heights, intermingled with the roaring of waves and cataracts, their plaintive tones stealing from cavernous recesses; while the pensive monody of some love-stricken. maiden, who heaves her departing sighs over the moss-clad grave of the warrior by whom she was adored, makes up the inarticulate concert. I trace this bard, with his silver locks, as he wanders in the valley and explores the footsteps of his fathers.

Alas! no vestige remains but their tombs. His thought then hangs on the silver moon, as her sinking beams play upon the rippling main; and the remembrance of deeds past and gone recurs to the hero's mind-deeds of times when he gloried in the approach of danger, and emulation nerved his whole frame; when the pale orb shone upon his bark, laden with the spoils of his enemy, and illuminated his triumphant return. When I see depicted on his countenance a bosom full of woe; when I behold his heroic greatness sinking into the grave, and he exclaims, as he throws a glance at the cold sod which is to lie upon him: "Hither will the traveler who is sensible of my worth bend his weary steps, and seek the soul-enlivening bard, the illustrious son of Fingal; his foot will tread upon my tomb, but his eyes shall never behold me;" at this time it is, my dear friend, that, like some renowned and chivalrous knight, I could instantly draw my sword; rescue my prince from a long, irksome existence. of langour and pain; and then finish by plunging the weapon into my own breast, that I might accompany the demi-god whom my hand had emancipated.GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG, 1774, Sorrows of Werther, Letter lxviii.

Doctor Johnson having asserted in his late publication that the Translator of Ossian's Poems "never could show the

original, nor can it be shown by any other," I hereby declare that the originals of "Fingal" and other poems of Ossian lay in my shop for many months in the year 1762, for the inspection of the curious. The public were not only apprised of their lying there for inspection, but even proposals for publishing the originals of the poems of Ossian were dispersed through the kingdom, and advertised in the newspapers. Upon finding that a number of subscribers sufficient to bear the expenses were not likely to appear, I returned the manuscript to the proprietor, in whose hands. they still remain.-BECKET, THOMAS, 1775, To the Public, Jan. 19.

I see you entertain a great doubt with regard to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian. You are certainly right in so doing. It is indeed strange that any men of sense could have imagined it possible, that above twenty thousand verses, along with numberless historical facts, could have been preserved by oral tradition during fifty generations, by the rudest, perhaps, of all the European nations, the most necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled. Where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Men run with great avidity to give their evidence in favour of what flatters their passions and their natural prejudices. You are therefore over and above indulgent to us in speaking of the matter with hesitation.-HUME, DAVID, 1776, Letter to Gibbon, March 18; Gibbon's Memoirs, ed. Hill, p. 197.

Mr. Tyrrwhit has at last published the Bristol poems. He does not give up the antiquity, yet fairly leaves everybody to ascribe them to Chatterton, if they please, which I think the internal evidence must force every one to do, unless the amazing prodigy of Chatterton's producing them should not seem a larger miracle than Rowley's and Canning's anticipation of the style of very modern poetry. Psalmanazar alone seems to have surpassed the genius of Chatterton, and when that lad could perform such feats, as he certainly did, what difficulty is there in believing that Macpherson forged the cold skeleton of an epic poem, that is more insipid than "Leonidas?"-WALPOLE, HORACE, 1777, To Rev. William Mason, Feb. 17; Letters, ed. Cunningham, vol. VI, p. 412.