obert Burns,--the hard, struggling, erring,
suffering, manly life, of which his poetry is the imperishable record.
He was what his birth, his temperament, his circumstances, his genius
made him. He owed but little to books, and the books to which he owed
anything were written in his mother tongue. His English reading, which
was not extensive, harmed him rather than helped him. No English
author taught or could teach him anything. He was not English, but
Scottish,--Scottish in his nature and genius, Scottish to his heart's
core,--the singer of the Scottish people, their greatest poet, and the
greatest poet of his time.

[Illustration: Signature: R. H. Stoddard]

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT

My loved, my honored, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end;
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequestered scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh[1];
The shortening winter day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The blackening trains o' craws to their repose
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor 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,
And weary, o'er the moor his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
The expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher[2] through
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee.
His wee bit ingle,[3] blinking bonnily,
His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil.

Belyve[4] the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie[5] rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town.
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a br