may

triumph of his fancy, overpowered our feelings with the tide of paffion, or enlightened our reas fon with the investigation of hidden truths. It be true, that " in the olden time" genius had fome advantages which tended to its vigour and its growth; but it is not unlikely that, even in these degenerate days, it rises much oftener than it is obferved; that in "the ignorant present time" our pofterity may find names which they will dignify, though we neglected, and pay to their memory thofe honours which their cotemporaries had denied them.

There is, however, a natural, and indeed a. fortunate vanity in trying to redress this wrong which genius is exposed to fuffer. In the dif covery of talents generally unknown, men are. apt to indulge the fame fond partiality as in all other difcoveries which themfelves have made; and hence we have had repeated inftances of painters and of poets, who have been drawn from obfcure fituations, and held forth to public, notice and applause by the extravagant encomiums of their introductors, yet in a fhort time have funk again to their former obfcurity; whofe merit, though perhaps fomewhat neglected, did not appear to have been much undervalued by the world, and could not support, by its own intrinfic excellence, that fuperior place

VOL. III.

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which

which the enthusiasm of its patrons would have affigned it.

I know not if I fhall be accufed of fuch enthusiasm and partiality, when I introduce to the notice of my readers a poet of our own country, with whose writings I have lately become acquainted; but if I am not greatly deceived, I think I may safely pronounce him a genius of no ordinary rank. The perfon to whom I allude is ROBERT BURNS, an Ayrshire ploughman, whose poems were fome time ago published in a county town in the weft of Scotland, with no other ambition, it would feem, than to circulate among the inhabitants of the county where he was born, to obtain a little fame from those who had heard of, his talents. I hope I fhall not be thought to affume too much, if I endeavour to place him in a higher point of view, to call for a verdict of his country on the merit of his works, and to claim for him thofe honours which their excellence appears to deserve.

In mentioning the circumftance of his humble station, I mean not to reft his pretenfions folely on that title, or to urge the merits of his poetry when confidered in relation to the lownefs of his birth, and the little opportunity of improvement which his education could afford. These particulars, indeed, might excite our

wonder

wonder at his productions; but his poetry, confidered abstractedly, and without the apologies arifing from his fituation, feems to me fully entitled to command our feelings, and to obtain our applause. One bar, indeed, his birth and education have opposed to his fame, the language in which most of his poems are written. Even in Scotland, the provincial dialect which Ramfay and he have used is now read with a difficulty which greatly damps the pleasure of the reader in England it cannot be read at all, without such a conftant reference to a gloffary, as nearly to deftroy that pleasure.

Some of his productions, however, especially those of the grave style, are almost English. From one of those I shall first present my readers with an extract, in which I think they will difcover a high tone of feeling, a power and energy of expression, particularly and strongly characteristic of the mind and the voice of a poet. 'Tis from his poem entitled the Vifion, in which the Genius of his native country, Ayrshire, is thus fuppofed to address him:

With future hope, I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,

Thy rudely carolled, chiming phrase,

In uncouth rhymes,

Of other times.

Fir'd at the Gimple, artlefs lays

I faw thee feek the founding fhore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or, when the North his fleecy store

Drove through the sky,

I faw grim Nature's visage hoar

Strike thy young eye.

Or when the deep-green mantled earth,
Warm-cherished every flowret's birth,
And joy and music pouring forth

In every grove,

I faw thee eye the general mirth

With boundless love.

When ripen'd fields and azure skies
Called forth the reapers' rustling noise,
I faw thee leave their evening joys,

And lonely ftalk,

To vent thy bofom's swelling rife

In penfive walk.

When youthful love, warm-blushing, Arong,
Keen-fhivering, fhot thy nerves along,
Thofe accents, grateful to thy tongue,

Th' adored name,

I taught thee how to pour in fong,

To foothe thy flame.

I faw thy pulfe's maddening play,

Wild, fend thee Pleafure's devious way,

Mifled by Fancy's meteor-ray,

By Paffion driven;

But yet the light that led aftray

Was light from Heaven.

Of

Of trains like the above, folemn and fublime, with that rapt and inspired melancholy in which the Poet lifts his eye "above this visible "diurnal fphere," the Poems intitled Defpond ency, the Lament, Winter, a Dirge, and the Invocation to Ruin, afford no lefs ftriking examples. Of the tender and the moral, fpecimens equally advantageous might be drawn from the elegiac verses, intitled, Man was made to mourn, from The Cottar's Saturday Night, the Stanzas To à Moufe, or thofe To a MountainDaily, on turning it down with the plough in April 1786. This laft Poem I fhall infert entire, not from its fuperior merit, but because its length fuits the bounds of my Paper.

* Wee, modeft, crimfon-tipped flower,
Thou's met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush amang the ftoure

Thy flender ftem;

To fpare the now is paft my power,

Thou bonie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neighbour sweet,
The bony Lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mong the dewy weet

Wi' fpreckled breast,
When upward-fpringing, blythe to greet
The purpling eaft,

* Wee, little; maxn, must; ftoure, duft; weet, wet, a fubAantive; could, cold; glinted, peep'd; bield, shelter; fane, Rone, qui's, walls; hiftie, diy, chapt, barren.

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Cauld