that Robert declared if the play were left, he would burn it; and Murdoch left the comedy of the 'School for Love,' in its place.

"The father now instructed his two sons, and other children; there were no boys of their own age in the neighborhood, and their father was almost their only companion. He conversed with them as though they were men; he taught them from Salmon's Geographical Grammar,' the situation and history of the different countries of the world; and from a book society in Ayr he procured Derham's 'Physico and Astro-Theology,' and Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation,' to give his sons some idea of astronomy and natural history. Robert read all these books with an avidity and industry scarcely to be equalled. From Stackhouse's "History of the Bible," then lately published in Kilmarnock, Robert collected a competent knowledge of ancient history; 'for,' says his brother, no book was so voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to damp his researches.' About this time, a relative inquired at a bookseller's shop in Ayr for a book to teach Robert to write letters, when, instead of the Complete Letter Writer,' he got by mistake a small collection of letters by the most eminent writers, with a few sensible directions for attaining an easy epistolary style, which book proved to Burns of the greatest consequence.

6

"Burns was about thirteen or fourteen, when his father, regretting that he and his brother wrote so ill, to remedy this defect sent them to the parish school of Dalrymple, between two and three miles distant, the nearest to them. Murdoch, the boys' former master, now settled in Ayr, as a teacher of the English language; he sent them Pope's Works, and some other poetry, the first they had an opportunity of reading, except that in the English Collection, and in the Edinburgh. Magazine, for 1772. Robert was now sent to Ayr, to revise his English grammar with his former teacher,' but he was shortly obliged to return to assist in the harvest. He then learned surveying at the parish school of Kirkoswald. He had learned French of Murdoch, and could soon read and

understand any French author in prose. He then attempted to learn Latin, but soon gave it up. Mrs. Paterson, of Ayr, now lent the boys the Spectator,' Pope's Translation of Homer, and several other books that were of use to them.

66

6

Thus, although Robert Burns was the child of poverty and toil, there were fortunate circumstances in his position. His parents were excellent persons; his father exerted himself as his instructor, and, cottager as he was, contrived to have something like the benefits of tuition for his two eldest sons; and the young poet became, comparatively speaking, a well educated man. His father had remarked, from a very early period, the bright intellect of his elder-born in particular, saying to his wife, 'Whoever may live to see it, something extraordinary will come from that boy!'

"It was not until his twenty-third year that Burns's reading was enlarged by the addition of Thompson, Shenstone, Sterne and Mackenzie. Other standard works soon followed. The great advantage of his learning was, that what books he had, he read and studied thoroughly-his attention was not distracted by a multitude of volumes, and his mind grew up with original and robust vigor; and, in the veriest shades of obscurity, he toiled, when a mere youth, to support his virtuous parents and their household; yet all this time he grasped at every opportunity of acquiring knowledge from men and books.

"Burns,' says Mr. Carruthers, came as a potent auxiliary or fellow-worker with Cowper, in bringing poetry into the channels of truth and nature.' There were only two years between the 'Task,' and the 'Cotter's Saturday Night.' No poetry was more instantaneously or universally popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland. There was the humor of Smollet, the pathos and tenderness of Sterne or Richardson, the real life of Fielding, and the description of Thompson-all united in the delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by the Ayrshire ploughman. His masterpiece is Tam o' Shanter; it was so considered by himself, and the judgment has been confirmed by Campbell, Wilson, Montgomery, and by almost every critic."

For THE ASHLAR.

"GOD TEMPERS THE WIND TO THE SHORN

LAMB."

My "controversy with a woman was not as to the authorship of this disputed passage, about which I have claimed no infallibility, but was caused by the following statement of the fair correspondent of THE ASHLAR: "As there is nothing to indicate its having been a quotation at that time, and as he was one who would not appropriate the sentiments or expression of another without crediting, we may safely conclude it to have been original with him."

I endeavored to show that "no conclusion could be more unsafe than this;" that its not being quoted was no evidence of its originality with him, and that but few writers had appropriated, without crediting, so many sentiments and expressions of others as had Lawrence Sterne. I incidentally translated three similar passages to show that they had for years been French proverbs, by which I meant, years before Sterne.

That this appeared in a collection of French proverbs, published in 1594-one hundred and nineteen years before the birth of Sterne, I have the authority of "Notes and Queries -London," which will probably be undisputed for reliability. "Holy George Herbert," who was born in 1593, one hundred and twenty years before the birth of Sterne, is "at least one person who used the expression, even as a quotation, prior to the time of Sterne." See "Jacula Prudentum: or, Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c., selected by Mr. George Herbert, late Orator of the University of Cambridge," which is, I believe, appended to all editions of Herbert's Poems. The name of the "unknown author" of this beautiful sentiment is HENRY ESTIENNE, who was born at Paris, in 1528, and died at Calais, in 1598. He was originally a printer, and became very learned, more particularly in Grecian Literature, and was distinguished as the author of a book called "The Theory of the Grecian Language.'

MADISON, WIS., May 20, 1859.

KEWASSA.

EXTRACTS FROM THE ANNUAL OFFICIAL ADDRESS OF BRO. A. G. MACKEY, GRAND SECRETARY OF THE G. L. OF S. C.

(CONTINUED.)

BRO. PERKINS lays down another principle of Masonic law, which well merits our attention. He says:

"Some of our Lodges and brethren do not appear to understand the difference between suspending for non-payment of dues and dropping from the roll for the same cause. I submitted my views on this subject a year ago, or at the previous communication; but it seems necessary to refer to it again. I held that no Mason can be suspended from the privileges of Masonry, except upon conviction after trial; and that striking his name from the roll of members of the Lodge, under a by-law, does not affect a brother's standing in the fraternity, nor debar him from any of the privileges of Masonry, except that of membership in the particular Lodge."

There can, I think, be no doubt that the Grand Master of Louisiana has, in this instance, made a most righteous decision. Suspension from the rights and privileges of Masonry is next to the severest penalty in the catalogue of masonic punishments. It is, as we have already said, masonic imprisonment the deprivation of rights guaranteed to every Mason on his first admission into the Order, and of which he was only to be deprived after fair trial and impartial judgment by his fellows.

Now, to say nothing of the inadequacy of the offense of non-payment of dues to the magnitude of the punishmentsince the offense may often arise from poverty, misfortune, pardonable neglect, or other causes beyond the control of the party implicated-to say nothing of all this-because the question here is not as to the nature of the crime, but as to the mode in which punishment is to be inflicted-it follows, from all the recognized principles of justice, law and common sense, that the crime should be first proved, and the accused be heard in his defense, before judgment be pronounced against him.

The suspension of a Mason by the mere operation of the by-laws of his Lodge, without any opportunity being given to him to explain or defend his conduct-to offer reasons why the law should not be enforced in his case, or to prove that he has not violated its provisions, would, under any other circumstances, and in relation to any other offense, be at once admitted everywhere to be a most manifest violation of all masonic law and equity. If the by-laws of a Lodge, for instance, prescribed suspension for habitual intemperance, and required the secretary to keep a record of the number of times that each member exceeded the strict limits of sobriety, who will dare to say that at any time, on the mere report of the secretary that a member had violated this bylaw, and was habitually intemperate, he should at once, without further action, and by the mere operation of the bylaw in question, be suspended from all the rights and privileges of Masonry? There is no one who does not see the obvious necessity in such a case, of a charge, a summons and a trial. To suspend the worst member of a Lodge under such a by-law, without these preliminary measures, would be so fatal a violation of the principles of Masonry, as justly to subject the Lodge to the severest reprehension of the Grand Lodge.

And yet, the fact that the offense is not intemperance, but non-payment of arrears, does not in the slightest degree involve a difference of principle. Admit, for the sake of argument, that the failure to pay Lodge dues is in itself a masonic offense, and that a Lodge is right to declare suspension an appropriate punishment for its commission; still there exists here, as in the more undoubted crime of habitual drunkenness, as necessary elements to the justice of the punishment, that there should be a trial-that the defaulting brother should have an opportunity to defend himself, and that the secretary who accuses him should be made to prove the truth of his charge, by the correctness of his accounts. This is the principle laid down by Bro. Perkins, "that no Mason can be suspended from the privileges of Masonry, except upon con