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 EDITED BY JXUNN INGHAM . 
 
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 (ftt i]mTnn*G . Citl)n^ijrapl)iTO i- prmicni . 
 
 II 7, ,F U UTO N (ST R E LT, N . Y . 
 
 ^ 1860 
 
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 Hail, Caledonia ! land of song and story, — 
 Land of the fair, the virtuous and the brave ! 
 
 The brightest star that sheds on thee its glory- 
 Rose from the darkness of thy Burns's grave : 
 
 That star shall be a light among the nations 
 When prouder orbs have faded and grown dim. 
 
 And hailed with pride by coming generations. 
 For man yet knows not all he owes to him. 
 
 His strains have nerved the feeble 'gainst oppression, — 
 
 Aroused in true men's hearts a scorn of wrong, — 
 Pointed the hopeless to man's sure progi-ession. 
 
 And taught the weak to suffer and be strong. 
 Lessons like these the soul of man shall cherish 
 
 While through his heart the ardent life-blood springs : 
 One burning thought, at least, can never perish — 
 
 An honest man's above the might of kings. 
 
 While noble souls shall glow with warm emotion, — 
 
 While Woman loves and Genius pants for fame, — 
 While Truth and Freedom claim man's deep devotion. 
 
 True hearts shall throb responsive to his name. 
 Then weep not, Scotland, though thy minstrel slumbers ; 
 
 Still lives the spirit of his song sublime, — 
 Still shall the music of his deathless numbers 
 
 Thrill in all hearts and vibrate through all time. 
 
 J. c. 
 
 1 
 
OFFICERS AND MEMBERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BURNS CLUB 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CITY OF NEW YOEIv. 
 
 J^:srXJA.I4Y 35tli, 1859. 
 
 President, 
 JOSEPH CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 First Y ice- President. 
 JOSEPH LAING. 
 
 Second Vice-Pi^esident. 
 DR. JOHN D. NORCOTT.* 
 
 Recording Secretary. 
 PJCHARD COCHRANE. 
 
 Corresponding Secretary. 
 VAIR CLIREHUGH, Je. 
 
 Treasurer. 
 ROBERT MELDRUM. 
 
 * Since deceased. 
 
4 members' names. 
 
 
 Members. 
 
 Jas. Nicholson. 
 
 David Rutherford. 
 
 Wm. Burns. 
 
 RoBT. Burnet. 
 
 "W. S. Clirehugh. 
 
 Geo. Nimmo. 
 
 Wm. Hepburn. 
 
 Wm. Wakefield. 
 
 ROBT. N"eILSON. 
 
 John A, Parks. 
 
 Wm. Lang. 
 
 Wm. Park. 
 
 Chas. Burns. 
 
 Thos. Gow. 
 
 Edward Fisher. 
 
 John A. McLean. 
 
 T. C. Latto. 
 
 RoBT. Gun. 
 
 Edward Kearney. 
 
 Wm. Manson. 
 
 John Robertson. 
 
 John R. Hunter. 
 
 Chas. Burt. 
 
 John McDonough. 
 
 Wm. Robertson. 
 
 Dr. Wm. Johnston. 
 
 Geo. Rintoul. 
 
 John R. Watson. 
 
 John B. Muir. 
 
 Frederick Hale. 
 
 John Burt. 
 
 Thos. Howitt. 
 
 Jas. L. Dick. 
 
 H. H. Dow. 
 
 Daniel Eraser. 
 
 Dr. Jas. Norval. 
 
 Thos. McRae. 
 
 Jas. Blane. 
 
 RoBT. Donald. 
 
 T. C. GoURLAT. 
 
 John White. 
 
 RoBT. McISTiE. 
 
 John Fell. 
 
 Wm. H. Morrison. 
 
 W. G. COUTTS. 
 
 Wm. Robertson. 
 
 John W. Sumner. 
 
 John Stewart. 
 
 RoBT. Davidson. 
 
 Jas. Quee. 
 
 Wm. Inglis. 
 
 Daniel Dove. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ^- 
 
 The Twenty-fifth of January, 1859, was a day worthy to 
 be kept in perennial remembrance. On that day, in every 
 part of the civilized globe, there was accorded to the memory 
 of a man of genius, and to the manly sentiments which he had 
 expressed, a tribute of homage more sincere, spontaneous, and 
 universal, than the world had ever before witnessed. In every 
 land, the lofty and the lowly, the humble and the proud, — 
 men of mighty intellect, and plain unlettered men, — met to 
 honor the memory of one whose simple songs and honest, man- 
 ful utterances had furnished a " touch of nature which made 
 the whole world kin," — and to render the simultaneous ver- 
 dict that " the man of independent mind is king of men." 
 Eloquence poured forth its loftiest strains, and rough, uncul- 
 tured men felt their noblest instincts stir within them, and were 
 elevated and refined by the inspiration of the hour. 
 
 And when, on that day, — in the lordly hall or the humble 
 cot, — the strong proud man, the tender woman, or the lisping 
 
(• PREFACE. 
 
 child, witli mingled admiration, love and pity, syllabled the 
 name of Robert Burns, no doubt could linger that his name 
 had become a Power in the earth never more to be forgotten, 
 contemned, or ignored. The musical words of the poor peas- 
 ant, glowing with the nobleness of his own soul, had borne 
 their eternal truths to the heart of Humanity, there to be en- 
 shrined, to operate in the history and modify the destiny of 
 his race forever. 
 
 Among the many brilliant demonstrations on that day, in 
 Great Britain and America, it will not be questioned that the 
 celebration by the Burns Club of JSTew York should be classed 
 among those entitled to the highest consideration. The ora- 
 tion delivered on the evening preceding the Anniversary, by 
 one of the most eminent and popular orators of the day, was 
 of itself a distinguishing feature. At the Anniversary Festi- 
 val at the Astor House, one of the most illustrious poets, as 
 well as one of the most respected citizens, of America, lent his 
 fame and his presence to the occasion, as the honorary presid- 
 ing officer; while at his side another, whose fame is identified 
 with the name of Bnrns, added lustre to the gathering. The 
 Pulpit, the Press, and the Bar furnished some of their ablest 
 representatives ; and men eminent in every honorable position 
 presented an assembly distinguished for intellectual excellence 
 and high character, probably never surpassed in the city of 
 'New York on any similar occasion. And in all the world on 
 that day, the pervading sentiment of the occasion found no 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 7 
 
 more eloquent expression tlian that which fell upon the ears of 
 those within the Astor House. This attempt, therefore, to fur- 
 nish some account of a commemoration so rare and so remark- 
 able, will not be regarded with surprise. 
 
 The proceedings which are reported in the following pages, 
 and the tributes of intellect and genius which are annexed, 
 have been collected in this volume with the design of furnish- 
 ing in a proper form a record worthy of preservation, to those 
 who participated on the occasion, and to others who may de- 
 sire to have combined in an appropriate setting the gems of 
 eloquence which added brilliance to the commemoration. 
 
 It is designed, also, to place copies of this memorial in the 
 public libraries of the city ; and when the first Centennial 
 Birth-day of Burns has receded far in the past, they may be 
 found of occasional value for reference, by the curious or the 
 interested. Time will increase rather than diminish the value 
 of such a record. Whatever social or political revolutions 
 may occur in the progress of events, it seems now not unrea- 
 sonable to hope and believe that the sentiments which have 
 given to Burns such influence in the hearts of his fellow-men, 
 may in the future meet even a more willing and universal 
 acceptance than they do to-day. And probably a hundred 
 years hence his memory will be honored as ardently as now. 
 And should some two or three of these little books survive 
 the chance and change of a century of years, the men of that 
 time, when they meet to celebrate the Second Centennial 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Birth-clay of the Bard, may rejoice to find, in the record of 
 eminent men who have honored the First, some of the " few 
 immortal names that were not born to die :" some who, like 
 Burns, have been proved the benefactors of their race, and 
 whose memories, like his, are fresh and green in the hearts of 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 Janiuary 25, 1860. 
 
THE 
 
 CElSTTEISriSriAL 
 
 BIRTH-DAY OF ROBERT BURNS 
 
 AS CELEBRATED BY THE 
 
 $i ikt iitg $t '^m Unit, 
 
 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 FoK several months previous to the close of the year 1858, 
 the Burns Club held in contemplation the approaching Centen- 
 nial Anniversary, with the view of adopting such measures 
 as should seem best adapted to render their celebration worthy 
 the occasion, and such as would be expected of the empire 
 city of America. Being also disposed to promote an appro- 
 priate enthusiasm and concert of action throughout the North 
 American continent, they issued, early in October, 1858, a Cir- 
 cular, of which the following is a copy : 
 
 AsTOR House, New York, October, 1858. 
 
 The Bums Club of the City of New York being desirous of celebrating 
 the approaching centennial anniversary of the Birth-day of Scotland's 
 most honored Poet, Robert Burns, in a manner worthy the occasion and 
 creditable to the chief city of the Western Hemisphere ; and believing 
 that such celebration should, as far as possible, be united and general 
 throughout the North American continent, take this method of announcing 
 to kindred associations in the cities of Great Britain, the United States and 
 the British Provinces, that they will be gratified to make arrangements 
 with them for such co-operation as may be practicable for the purpose of 
 
10 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 giving united expression to those sentiments of reverence for the memory 
 and admiration for the genius of the Poet of Humanity, which, while 
 especially natural and becoming to his countrymen, find an echo and a 
 sympathy in the hearts of the people of America, and of every civilized 
 nation. 
 
 It is the design of the Burns Club of New York to celebrate the occa- 
 sion by a Festival Dinner at the Astor House ; by telegraphic exchanges 
 with the princiijal cities of Scotland and other parts of Great Britain, if 
 practicable ; and by such other ceremonies as may be deemed appropriate 
 and judicious. The participation and cn-operation of the Clubs of this 
 country and the Canadas, and also of such other associations as may feel 
 an interest in the cocasion, are earnestly desired, either by written com- 
 munication, telegraphic dispatches, or delegations, the jireliminaries of 
 which may be arranged by previous correspondence. Any suggestions 
 which may tend to render the demonstration more general, united and 
 effective, Avill be cordially entertained. 
 
 Communications with reference to the proposed arrangements may be 
 addressed to Vair Clirehugh, Corresponding Secretary of the Burns Club 
 of the city of New York, at the Astor House. 
 
 The foregoing Circular, signed by the proper officers, was 
 extensively distributed in the principal cities of the United 
 States, the Canadas, and Great Britain. The Press of this city 
 and country, generally, aided very cordially in giving publicity 
 to the design expressed therein : in many instances publishing 
 the circular entire, and referring to it editorially. Several of 
 the leading newspapers of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and 
 other places in Great Britain, also accorded to it special and 
 favorable notice. There is reason to believe that the extensive 
 distribution of this circular contributed in a large degree to the 
 brilliant general result on the day of the Anniversary. Com- 
 munications were received from all parts of the United States, 
 from Great Britain and elsewhere, giving evidence that in many 
 instances it had suggested a celebration of the day where none 
 had been contemplated, and stimulated enthusiasm where prepa- 
 rations had been made. 
 
 [It is proper to remark, that at the time the circular was 
 
PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 11 
 
 issued, the immediate practical operation and success of the 
 great Atlantic Telegraph was generally anticipated. And it 
 would indeed have been a peculiarly fitting and crowning 
 consummation of the celebration, if those who were assembled 
 in the Old World and the New, to honor the memor}^ of 
 KoBEET Burns, could on that day have been united, as it were, 
 by actual contact.] 
 
 Anions: other arraiio-ements made bv the Burns Club for 
 the celebration of the Centennial Anniversary, invitations were 
 issued, at the suggestion of the presiding oflScers, to Mr. "William 
 CuLLEN Bryant and Mr. Edward M. Archibald, to occupy 
 the honorary positions of Chairman and Croupier, at the 
 Festival at the Astor House, which invitations were courte- 
 ously accepted by those gentlemen. It was also decided 
 that an oration by some able and distinguished man would 
 be an appropriate and eiFective feature. Application was 
 accordingly made, for this purpose, to Bev. Henry Ward 
 Beecher ; and that gentleman having acceded to the propo- 
 sition, the large hall of the Cooper Institute was engaged for 
 the evening of Monday, Jan. "24, 1859. The result exceeded 
 all anticipation. Long before the hour appointed, on the even- 
 ing named, an eager crowd had assembled ; and upon the 
 opening of the doors the hall w^as filled in every part, every 
 seat in the auditorium and upon the platform being occupied. 
 
 The JSf. Y. Herald of Jan. 25, 1859, speaking of this assem- 
 bly, says: "The doors of the Institute were thrown open to 
 the public at seven o'clock, and in half an hour after, every 
 available seat in the auditorium was occupied, as well as the 
 special seats prepared on the platform. Among the audience 
 we noticed some of our most prominent and intellectual cit- 
 izens." 
 
 The Scottish American Journal of Jan. 29, 1859, in intro- 
 
12 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 ducing its report of the oration, remarked : "There were three 
 thousand people present, and among the audience were several 
 of the most prominent citizens of Kew York. Although the 
 hour for the commencement of the lecture was eight o'clock, 
 between six and seven the doors were besieged by large num- 
 bers of ladies and gentlemen eager to gain admission. The 
 lecturer met with a very enthusiastic reception, and through- 
 out the course of his address, which occupied an hour and a 
 quarter in delivery, was warmly applauded." 
 
 The President of the Club introduced Mr. Beecher to the 
 audience, and acknowledged the courtesy of the " Societ}^ of 
 Mechanics and Tradesmen," who had kindly conceded to the 
 Burns Club their right to the use of the Cooper Institute for 
 that evening. Mr. Beecher then proceeded to deliver the 
 address which will be found in the ensuing pages. 
 
ir^t i^ti^t 
 
 RTGV. HENRY ^WATIJD BEKCHER. 
 
 I COME upon your invitation, gentlemen of the Burns Chib, 
 friends and fellow-citizens, to celebrate with one half of the 
 civilized world, and with the whole world of letters, the birth 
 of a farmer's boy, who became a ploughman, a flax-dresser, an 
 exciseman and ganger, and who was reputed also to have 
 become a poet. One hundred years ago, January 25th, 1759, 
 Agnes Brown Burness gave to the world her son, Robert 
 Burns. The father and the mother were Scotch. The son 
 only took Scotland on his way into the whole world. While 
 we allow Scotchmen a suitable national pride in their chief 
 poet, we cannot allow the world to be robbed of their right 
 and interest in Burns. And yet there never was born to that 
 land, so fertile in men, a truer Scotchman ; and it is the pecu- 
 liar admiration and glory of the man, that in spite of obscu- 
 rity, bred to all the local influences, Scotch in bone, in muscle, 
 in culture, and in dialect, he rose higher than the special and 
 national, and achieved his glory in those elements which unite 
 mankind, and make all nations of one blood. While men of 
 science are groping about the signs of external man, and 
 debating the origin and unity of races, a poet strikes the fun- 
 damental chords, and all races, peoples, and tongues hear, un- 
 derstand, and agree ; so that the poet is, after all, the true 
 ethnologist. The human heart is his harp, and he who knows 
 
14 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 how to toncli tliat with skill, belongs to no country, can be 
 shut in by no language, nor sequestered by any age. He be- 
 longs to the world and to the race. 
 
 The father of Burns, William Burness — the poet contracted 
 the name when he published his first volume — was a genuine 
 man in his way. He had a head, and a heart, and a pair of 
 hands, all of which were kept exceedingly busy in prolonging 
 a desperate fight for life and comfort. He was a man of stern 
 probity, of the deepest religious convictions, and of an indom- 
 itable will. He expected much of all his family, but was 
 sterner with himself than with any other. His only amuse- 
 ment was speculative theology, but that did not injure his 
 morals, for he was a man of scrupulous integrity to the last — 
 clean to the very fountain of honor ; yet was irascible, and 
 when unduly thwarted, violent in temper. He held up his 
 head like a brave swimmer in a rough sea, until the waves 
 fairly beat him down. William Burness never prospered. 
 His son says of him ; " Stubborn, ungainly integrity, and 
 headlong, ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying circum- 
 stances in the path of fortune." It is not the rigor of integ- 
 rity which stands in any man's way. It is the indiscriminate 
 stifii'ening of everything by the rigor of pride saturated with 
 conscience ; for God has built the human form to combine the 
 utmost stiflfness with the utmost litheness. There are bones 
 for stiffness, and there are joints for limberness. So with the 
 character. It is to be built upon the sternest elements of truth 
 and justice, but somewhere there must be litheness and plia- 
 bleness. If there are no joints in the character, no supple 
 motion, and if the tastes, opinions and prejudices, likes and 
 dislikes, are all solidified into a multiplex conscience, no man 
 can get along in life. It was a little too much of this ossifica- 
 tion which made William Burness too stilf to fight well. 
 
ORATIOISr. 
 
 15 
 
 Some parents seem to be the mere antecedents of their chil- 
 dren. As ships sometimes are built far up the stream where 
 timber abounds and only float down and out of the estuary, so 
 it would seem of some men that they owe their natures to their 
 grand-parents or some body far up the stream of generations. 
 Burns' father possessed very much the same character as his 
 son. The same moral honesty, the same pride, the same vio- 
 lence of feeling, the same penetration of men, the same breadth 
 of understanding, the same impatience of restraint from without, 
 the same unfitness for thriving in worldly matters, the same 
 longing for wealth, for its independence, and contempt for the 
 means of getting wealth, belonged to the father and the more 
 illustrious son. Only, besides the father, Robert Burns carried 
 in him a great deal of the mother ; and if he had carried more 
 he would have been better, for the father is the bush and the 
 mother is the blossom, and the fruit germ is always in or 
 under the blossom. Agnes Brown was a woman of humble 
 birth, that is, she was born as every body else is born. It will 
 not do to say " king's babe and beggar's brat." Being born 
 is a very humble business at any rate, and there is very little 
 difl:erence in crying, in sleeping, in eating, for in the cradled 
 unconsciousness of babes the world over, there is very much 
 of a sameness. It is very plain that she was effectually born, 
 however. It is thought by some that men have lived in a world 
 before this and that they are set out a second time here — though 
 it would be difficult to imagine in many cases what they grew 
 in, if this was the second growth, yet Agnes Brown was an 
 exception ; she brought along with her from that dim source of 
 human life, wherever or whatever it was, the seed of many rare 
 and precious faculties. Central and strong was her heart. It 
 had that deep nature which religion always gives. It is faith 
 in the invisible and in the infinite that rolls out the sea into an 
 
16 BUENS CENTENNIAL CELEBEATION. 
 
 unhedged ocean and makes the thought long and deep. Any 
 nature without depth of moral feeling is but a river pilot steer- 
 ing a light craft near the river banks, and thumping along at 
 every turn upon the sand or mod. As the stream of her life 
 ran far above the bottom, it did not carry many ripples upon 
 its surface. She was calm, gentle, and of a heavenly temper. 
 She was a good house-keeper, which is a very brave and noble 
 thing in woman, and a thing often requiring more mind and 
 tact than to govern a nation, as nations are governed. But 
 while she wronght and arranged, she chatted and snng, for 
 Burns' mother was the mother of Burns' poetry. Her songs 
 and ballads were in great store and of a moral aim. The song 
 which she loved most to sing and Burns most loved to hear, 
 was " The Life and Age of Man," comparing the periods of 
 human life to the months of the year ; and Burns says of his 
 grand-uncle that during many years of his blindness he had no 
 greater enjoyment than that of crying, while his mother sang 
 that ballad to him. Ah, how many sweet sounds there are in 
 this world, how many sounds of air and water, how many songs 
 of birds and sounds of musical instruments ; but when all is 
 said, neither has man invented any musical instrument, nor has 
 nature in all her choir and orchestra any thing which for sweet- 
 ness is like a mother's voice singing through the house, while 
 she labors — songs, hymns, and ballads — the children sleep, 
 dream of angels, and awake and say " Mother !" With such a 
 father and such a mother. Burns could not help himself. Of 
 course he must be an Apollo's arrow with such a mother for a 
 bow, and with such a father for a string ; and the bow abides 
 in its strength, and the string is uncut, and the arrow still flies, 
 and sounds in flying. The father of Burns had just built, and 
 poorly built, a clay cottage on the banks of the Doon, county 
 of Ayr, and scarcely had the poet learned to live, that is, to 
 
ORATION. 
 
 17 
 
 cry, before a rnde storm beat down the tenement. That storm 
 never spent itself, but bleAv after him all his life long. He was 
 wont, in the days of his trouble, with gloomy playfulness, to 
 attribute the violence of his passions to the tempest -which 
 ushered himself into the woi-ld ; and these passions certainly 
 succeeded in blowing down the clay-bnilt tenement in which he 
 himself dwelt. As a child we have little record of him except 
 his own reminiscences in his various letters. He Avas not pre- 
 cocious. His earlier years seem to have been purely receptive. 
 He was unconsciously receiving his education. It was a good 
 education. There was no Latin nor Greek in it ; but as he did 
 not intend to sing in those tongues, there was no special reason 
 in his case for learning them. They were dead languages ; he 
 was a living man — a living singer. His father and mother 
 taught him morals and religion. An old servant, Jenny Wil- 
 son, took charge of his imagination, fired and fed it by such a 
 collection of tales and songs concerning devils, fairies, brownies, 
 spiinkies, warlocks, w^raiths, apparitions, cantraps, giants, en- 
 chanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery, as I suppose no 
 poet had ever received before or since. But Burns' imagination 
 was not superstitious, notwithstanding such a beginning ; it was 
 eminently simple, natural, and transparent ; so that these tales 
 only stimulated but did not subdue, nor even educate his ima- 
 gination. They fell upon his young fancy as coarse fertilizers 
 upon the farmer's field, which enter in the earth black and 
 noisome, but re-appear as flowers, seeds, and fruit. Kature was 
 also at work in his education. I mean the physical world 
 without him held up to him clouds or cloudless heavens, morn- 
 ing and evening, rivers, thickets, rocks and ravines, birds, 
 flowers, and harvest-fields, and whatever else comes into the 
 ear-gate or the eye-gate. Some natures gain nothing from this 
 great school-master, Nature. They are like dogs in Raphael's 
 3 
 
18 BUKXS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Studio, or in Michael Angelo's house; the}" get meat there, but 
 never learn to paint or to carve. But other men are sensitive 
 to all that nature does, as if God stood visibly before them and 
 showed his hand while drawing forms and laying on the colors ; 
 and Burns was one of these. 
 
 But great pains was taken with 3'oung Burns to give him 
 all the advantage of the school learning that the times, the 
 neighborhood, and his parents' scanty means could supply. 
 A Scotch farmer's house is itself no mean school. There is 
 learned at least a deal of local history and legendary lore 
 which books are not apt to contain. There the child is taught 
 to ponder and dispute in speculative theology — a practice 
 which in education is of wonderful power. Whatever we may 
 think of the truth or the wisdom of the elements of specu- 
 lative theology, no man can be from his childhood tauglit to 
 go forth in these wide-reaching views of divine government 
 and human destiny, without having a deej) place in his 
 nature touched ; and no man can mount to the great spec- 
 ulations of free will and divine decrees, and do battle with 
 them without gaining both dialectic skill and some arousing 
 of the imagination. But though Burns declined from the rigid 
 faith of the kirk, and leaned towards new lights, yet he had 
 breathed an atmosphere which affected his mind to the end. 
 In succession, he went to school to Mr. Campbell — (I mention 
 the names of these men, who are great, because of their con- 
 nection with him) — and afterwards to Mr. Murdock in the 
 town of Ayr. At nineteen he spent a short time at school 
 at Kirkeswold, where he learned mensuration, engineering, and 
 what not. In the meantime Burns had read Bunyan, who if 
 once read will be remembered forever. He says — " The idea 
 I formed of modern manners and literature and criticism, I got 
 from the Spectator. These with Pope's works, which could 
 
ORATION. 
 
 19 
 
 add nothing to Burns' only as an aid in smoothing his 
 style, some plays in Shakspeare, Dickson on Agriculture, 
 Locke on the Understanding, (and a better one was never 
 put on,) — Stackhonse's History of the Bible, Boyle's Lec- 
 tures, Allan Ramsay's works, Taylor's Scriptural History of 
 Original Sin, a Select Collection of English Songs, and Har- 
 vey's Meditations, formed the whole of my readings." These 
 books were well enough, for in sooth neither schoolmaster nor 
 books made Robert Burns. He did not derive his tempestuous 
 nature from books. His tender love, his sympathy, his per- 
 sonal relationship to whatever in nature was beautiful, his 
 penetration of human life, his mournful melancholy, his love 
 of man, of liberty, of power, and grandeur, — the roots of Burns' 
 works, you shall not find in any of these books. They are 
 good books. It is the reader who makes a good book. They 
 were great books when Burns read them ; but you shall not 
 find his teachers there. It was the created and unwritten 
 book of God that taught Robert Burns. Let us look at him at 
 fourteen. He was a coarse, awkward, graceless, lubberly boy ; 
 of a silent way, not given to mirth, not quick, and utterly 
 unlike a poet. But he knew how to work. As early as four- 
 teen he became skillful as a ploughman, and at fifteen he was 
 the head workman on his father's farm. Let it be said here 
 that Burns was never a lazy, shiftless man, who took to poetry 
 as a fair excuse for neglecting hard work. No man ever 
 worked more patiently or uncomplainingly than did he ; and 
 though for years he fought desperately against discouragement 
 on his father's farm, when he afterwards became a farmer for 
 himself, he never shrank from toil — the rudest, coarsest, and 
 most uncongenial to his poetic temperament. 
 
 But we must not anticipate. Burns is now twenty ; but 
 his hand is on the harp. His life is fairly begun — the sad life 
 
20 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 of a glorious man full of noble impulses stumbling in a rongh 
 way, full of the most congenial and tender affections, grasp- 
 ing mankind by the heart, and aiming in all his essential 
 works to crown his human life with goodness. But before we 
 venture upon that career of mingled good and ill, we must stop 
 and ask what Burns was — for there are some who press upon 
 him vehemently with the sins of his life, and some who as 
 rashly defend them at the expense of good morals. 
 
 That he violated his own moral sense, his own solemn and 
 bitter words do show. Difficult indeed is it to equal the 
 awful solemnity of Burns' bitter words. He was liis own 
 Biiadamanthns. He carried conviviality to excess, violated 
 his own principles of virtue, and grafted license upon love. 
 
 Burns is not helped when we denj' these mournful facts of 
 his sad life, or when we palliate them to a degree which shall 
 make them less guilty in a poet than in every man. Let them 
 stand if they are facts. We must recognize them. In draw- 
 ing his character, while we give it all the lights, we must not 
 shrink from the fidelity of the shadows also. But although 
 immoralities are never to be excused by what a man is not, 
 yet what a man is will determine the severity and leniency of 
 our condemnation. How a ship behaves upon the sea, depends 
 not alone upon the skill of those who manage her, but also 
 upon the way in which it was built. How was Burns built? 
 Burns was endowed wi'h a masculine understanding, clear and 
 penetrating, that saw things by their whole, intuitively, and 
 not in detail. His mind was logical in thought, not in things. 
 He was wiser as a thinker than as an actor, for the part of the 
 mind, which is the ground of the instinct which gives manage- 
 ment, tact, and thrift in the common things of life, was not 
 eminent in him. He inherited a pride, which wrought in him 
 a most intense sense of personality, which gave him a very 
 
ORATION. 
 
 21 
 
 high ideal of manliness, which inspired an undying longing 
 for a well-earned glory, which made him suspicious of all 
 above him, and a patron and protector of all below him — a 
 pride which, acting in one way, sustained him under a load of 
 ill-success, and which, turning inward, ate his heart out, be- 
 cause he conld not rise. I know not from which parent he 
 took his heart; from botli of them, I think. He was generous, 
 like his father, who was more kind to others than to himself. 
 He had the depth and tenderness of his mother's heart, but 
 not her calmness and evenness. Her heart lay tranquil, like 
 one of the sweet lakes of Scotland. His beat as the ocean 
 beats and surges on the western shore of Scotland. It has 
 been the fashion to speak of Burns as having a liglit fancy, 
 easily kindled by the glance of beauty, and as easily extin- 
 guished. Nothino- can be more nntrne. JSTo heart was ever 
 truer or more enduring in its affections. He never loved to 
 cast off; but each love was but another link, not always 
 golden, of that long chain of which his heart was the immo- 
 vable staple. He loved men, he loved animals, and whatever 
 grew, if it only grew in Scotland. His loving nature was won- 
 derful. No man can form any estimate of either the good or 
 bad that was in him, who does not study Burns' heart, whose 
 tides were as deep as the ocean's, and sometimes as tempestu- 
 ous. That he was more susceptible to women than men is not 
 strange. The same thing has happened before. And though 
 he best loved woman, woman was not the only subject of his 
 affection. In his better moods, universal being circled into 
 his affections. His nature overspread universal human life, 
 as the great arch overspreads the world with benign brightness 
 by day, and drops down upon it mute dews by night. And 
 to this we must add that peculiar kind of emotion, which you 
 may call fancy, imagination, or poetic vision — that divine 
 
22 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 element of the sonl which teaches it to see the soul of things, 
 and not their material bodies, which clothes everything it looks 
 upon with beauty and grace, which works with sounds, forms, 
 and movements, and evolves a subtle grace in them all. The 
 soul that has this divine element is as a di^^ine wardrobe ; the 
 eye, ear, and mind are almoners going forth and clothing all 
 things with a radiant apparel. 
 
 Besides these faculties, there were two other elements which 
 largely influenced Bui-ns' life and determined his character. 
 The first is his hereditary taint of melancholy. Tlie other 
 was his temperament. From his earliest life, and in all his 
 poems, we see that dark and desponding tone which so won- 
 derfully contrasts with other salient traits of his character. 
 At times it seems as if the great world of despondency swung 
 round between liim and the sun, and he lay in fearful eclipse, 
 hopeless, gloomy, wretched, and tormented. Had his life been 
 successful, it may be believed that with vigorous health, and 
 with praise which would gratify his pride, and with full op- 
 portunity to put forth his unvexed powers, he would have 
 risen above this malady. But strong in youth, it grew stronger 
 when evil habits broke his constitution and povertj^ was pinch- 
 ing him with want more and more. And his own moral na- 
 ture adding remorse to despondency, this natural hypochondria 
 became almost a fatal malady. Nor is it less important that 
 we should consider his temperament, for on that depends 
 much of the credit which some men have both for prudence 
 and self-control, and the reverse. We believe that later phy- 
 siologists agree in this, that in the human system there is a 
 portion of the nervous matter, whose function is to produce 
 general sensibility without regard to the special faculties of 
 the mind. Thus, a sound of music falling upon two ears, fills 
 one with the most thrilling sensibility, while the other receives 
 
ORATION. 
 
 23 
 
 it calmly ; not that the musical faculty is more acute in one 
 than the other, but tliat the whole nervous system receives 
 more readily. This fact becomes more apparent in morbid 
 states of health. The sounds M'hicli are of no consequence at 
 other times fill the whole mind with excessive emotion ; so that 
 in estimating the power of feeling in any man, we must look 
 to the development and combination of the separate faculties 
 of mind in their normal creative power, and then next to the 
 general sensibility of the whole nervous system, under the 
 influence of which the special faculties are attempered. Some 
 men with strong minds and hearts have a low temperament 
 and are deficient in general sensibility. Their feelings are 
 gradually worked up ; they have an equable nature ; they 
 heat as iron heats. Some men heat as powder heats ; that is, 
 a touch and explosion. It is not a trouble to some men to 
 maintain an equable, temperate medium ; they are by nature 
 cool, unimpassioned, and unexcitable. The sins of such men 
 are usually the sins that collect upon the not-doing side of life, 
 moth, mildew, mold, mistletoe, rust. But such men are unfit 
 judges for those who have imperious sensibilities. Men who 
 hear thunder as if it were the hand of a friend knocking at 
 the door are not fit to judge of men in whose ear the same 
 hand knocking at the door sounds like thunder. Robert Burns 
 was eminently a man who had this excessive sensibility. He 
 overflowed witli strength of feeling. His capacity for gen- 
 erating sensibility was prodigious. His one nature carried 
 enough for twenty common men of mere force of feeling. He 
 never trickled drop by drop prudentially, but he gushed. He 
 never ran a slender thread of silv^er water ; he came down, 
 booming, all broad, like one of his own streams, when a 
 shower has touched and broken upon the mountain ; and there 
 never was any proportion between the cause and the efiect : 
 
24 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 a mouse, a flower, a hare had him in their power whatever 
 time his heart was opened. The daisy wliich went under when 
 he ploughed was not so much subjected to the iron plough- 
 share as he was to the toucli of the daisy's modest look. All 
 the powers of his nature were subjected to this same sudden 
 overflow. He thought as dragoons charge. He felt life as 
 prairies feel autumnal fires, with their leaping flames outrun- 
 ning the fleetest deer and all before them, and leaving, alas, 
 too often ashes and smoke behind them. He sufl'ered as if 
 fiends possessed him, and enjoyed as if angels carried him in 
 their bosom. There he stands, like the mountains of his own 
 land — often capped with storms, oftener shrouded with mists, 
 and scarred with ravines ; often thundering with the sound of 
 rushing waters which dashed down the valley, tearing up 
 roads and sweeping away bridges. But there, also, birds 
 brooded and sung; sweet flowers found foot-room ; pure lakes 
 and rock-bound brooks looked silently up to God ; the spice- 
 bush, and vines purple with berries, and grass, and moaning 
 pines and wind-waved larches — these all held fellowship — the 
 stern and the gentle, the rugged and the beautiful, the pure 
 and the turbid, the inassive, and the sweetest, tenderest little- 
 ness of beaut}^ ! Strange fellowship of opposition in the one 
 man ! The world has never seen his like ! 
 
 I^ow, our problem is— how was this very sensitive creature — 
 proud, loving, ambitious, yearning, ringing with every imagina- 
 tion, with a head better for thought than for things, with a heart 
 that every body could kindle and nobody put out — how was he 
 to make his way upM^ards in life, from poverty and wretched- 
 ness into large success ? It is not the question, how shall a man 
 carry a small cup half full without spilling, but hovv shall a 
 man carry a great cup brimfull, over a rough road, and in a 
 stormy night, without spilling? It is not, how well a machine 
 
ORATION. 
 
 25 
 
 can raise just steam enough to get along ; but how an engine 
 shall get along that makes more steam than it can overwork or 
 cast off, trembling with inward intensit}^ as it runs with open 
 throttle and open furnace doors, singing at every seam and 
 hissing at every rivet ? The question we propound to you, is 
 not what is right, what is duty — all are agreed as to that — but 
 what shall this Kobert Burns do 'i With that natuie of his, 
 compounded of such astonishing opposites — with the profound- 
 est melancholy, and a sociability varying from a smile to roaring 
 revelry — with an overflowing heart of kindness and love, and a 
 pride as high and stern as the lordliest monarch on his throne — 
 with an understanding so clear and practical that no shams or 
 cant could for a moment deceive or mystify it — with an ima- 
 gination so strong and transparent that it gave another nature 
 than its own to every thing, and almost every person — with an 
 honor and conscience so high that he would sooner have died 
 than spoken a falsehood or broken a plighted word ; and with 
 such a fancy, that all things were magnified and distorted — his 
 friends were angels and his enemies devils; homely faces, hand- 
 some; simple and common natures, divine; good men, hideous ; 
 and upright men, wicked ; with such a keen relish for life, that 
 he thrilled all his companions with merriment, as a drum wakes 
 a camp, and yet despising the world, and walking above 
 men, as shadows — yearning for immortality ! It is one of the 
 strangest, the richest, and most remarkable of human histories 
 the world has ever recorded. 
 
 Gilbert, the eldest brother, the plain honest brother; Robert, 
 the wonderfully compounded man, w^ere at school togetlier. 
 Robert was the dunce, Gilbert was the merry and witty one ; 
 Robert was as little known to himself as to others. One thing 
 was plain ; he was no sentimental laggard. His father had a 
 hard farm and a desperate strife for a livelihood. Robert made 
 
26 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 at fortune with a resolution, industry and patience which would 
 have conquered, if it could have been done by fine furrows 
 and the handsome cast of the hand in sowing seed. At the 
 age of thirteen, he assisted in all the labors of the farm. At 
 fourteen, he feared no competitor with scythe, sickle or plough. 
 At fifteen, he was the principal laborer on the farm ; and at this 
 age he would appear to have had the very stuff, out of which 
 to have made a plodding yeoman. He speaks of his sufferings, 
 and of his doom as the tramp and moil of a galley-slave. In 
 this way, and all this time, he Avas seizing every thing in his 
 way, and pushing in every direction, studying all the nicer 
 shades of the language, a critic as he styles himself, in verbs 
 and substantives. In his labors he carried with him a book of 
 National Songs. He pored over these Scotch ballads, every 
 word of which was to him like the voice of a spirit, calling 
 him by name. Next Burns goes to school at Kirkeswald to 
 learn surveying. He is nineteen ; he is unfolding and with 
 very little to help him, and with no one to understand him. 
 He is full of all manner of strange things of a most contrary 
 description, but all alike in being strong and impetuous. Here 
 his social nature unfolds, and his intuitive sense of character 
 displays itself. He learns to read men, and a yet more dan- 
 gerous literature, for his studies were all stopped short by fall- 
 ing in love with a damsel living next door. He went out to 
 take an observation of the sun, saw her, and stopped. He goes 
 home, hungering for letters and improving his style by every 
 diligence, and opening correspondence w^th every man who 
 could write a creditable letter. His soul was struggling and it 
 had no helper. Again, he is at home upon his father's farm, at 
 Lockley. He is twenty 3'ears of age, and reading Mackenzie 
 and Sterne, both sentimentalists ; one poor and feeble, and the 
 other strong and evil. That great nature, all alive, had no 
 
ORATION. 
 
 27 
 
 legitimate channel yet. No man said to liim, "God sent you, 
 Burns, into life to be a poet;" but every man said to him, 
 " Burns, you are born to be a farmer." Burns thought so too. 
 He tried to be one. All his understanding, conscience and filial 
 piety were forcing him into a kind of life, which was both 
 uncongenial and unnatural. Is it surprising that nature, denied 
 in her highest endowments, should re-act somewhere, and that 
 Burns, who in his social life possessed a power of conversation 
 which gave him superiority to all about him, should sometimes 
 overflow with revelry ? 
 
 But affairs were dark at Lockley. The farm will do better 
 with flax, and Robert goes to Irvine to learn flax dressing, while 
 his father and Gilbert remain at home to raise the crop. He is 
 twenty-two years of age, with a soul fully awake, and all his 
 powers beating in hitn for some natural exercise ; his poetry, 
 his love, his rugged patriotism, his philosophic meditations, and 
 his rare and exquisite sensibility for natural beauty — are all set 
 down to break flax and hatchel it. This is good work for a 
 poet. Why, yes, poets, artists, and geniuses can do any thing? 
 if they only know that they are artists, poets, and geniuses ; 
 and that a homely tool is the mere means by which they are to 
 attain to better things. But if they do not know their mission, 
 if they are coming and going with all the moods of contraband 
 sensibility, ignorant of their mission, and supposing that life's 
 business is flax dressing, and that they are wasting their life- 
 power in that engrossing and delightful business ; is it strange 
 that there should be such rebellion ? 
 
 This many-sided but all insided man, had not yet concen- 
 trated himself on any thing that was appropriate to him. The 
 forces he was striving to use were secondary, but those which 
 were his real and predestined elements were only allowed to 
 play alternatively. So he was inverting his life on the very 
 
28 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 threshold, and aiming at the wrong thing conscientiously, and 
 only by stealth employing the glorious elements for whose very 
 sake he had been born into the world. What a strange posi- 
 tion ! At one time he appears as a disputant at Calvinistic 
 theology — a good occupation — at another time rollicking with 
 high felloM^s at a smuggling life, more full of force and brave 
 daring than of moral honesty. At another he is in love and 
 jilted ; then lamenting his fate; then, yet worse, he is obliged 
 to endure public censure for the violation of rectitude, which 
 no man despised more than he. Next he is writing to his 
 father, and his very sincerity in contrast with his vain ways, 
 makes it seem the more extraordinary. He says : 
 
 " The weakness of my nervous system has so debilitated my 
 mind, that I dare neither review the past events or look into 
 futurity, for the least anxiety or perturbation produces the 
 most unhappy effects upon my whole frame ; and sometimes, 
 when for an hour or two my spirits are enlightened and I glim- 
 mer into futurity, I am quite transported at the thought that 
 ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid eternal adieu to all the 
 pains, uneasiness, and disquietudes of this weary life ; for, I as- 
 sure you, I am heartily tired of it. But if I do not deceive 
 myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it."' 
 
 This letter was dated the 23rd of December. Three days 
 afterward his mind was won back so that he consented to join 
 in a carouse to welcome in the 'New Year; and as the merri- 
 ment of that occasion ran high, a spark caught the flax, and 
 the work of six months was burned in as many minutes. 
 
 The next two years, his twenty-third and twenty-fourth, his 
 outward life was dull ; his real life, sociality — good and bad. 
 His poetry was good in the main ; but it was yet poetry as a 
 relaxation — as a resource from unprofitable life. He says — 
 " My passions once lighted raged up like so many devils until 
 
ORATION. 
 
 29 
 
 they got vent in rhyme. Then the conning over my verses, 
 like a spell, soothed all into quiet." 
 
 With all that flow of soul in him ; with his rebounding from 
 the highest conviviality to the lowest despondency ; with his 
 yearnings and longings for, he knew not what ; with a sensibil- 
 ity that every object caused to tremble ; with an ambition un- 
 derneath them all, wliich tossed and rocked him as the ocean 
 swells and rocks the boats and ships in the bay, — he was yet 
 trying to make himself think that he was to be a farmer. He 
 bitterly felt this, what two years afterwards he plainly ex- 
 presses — " Oh ! for a little of the cart-horse part of human 
 nature!" 
 
 Here was one of the most wonderful men ever born, who 
 though not humble in the estimate of himself, never dreamed 
 of his real place ; and, in his most noble audacitj^, never as- 
 serted for himself a tithe of what the world now eagerly heaps 
 upon him. Here w^as this brave fellow, with his heart hot and 
 his head inspired with all manner of fancies, tender and sub- 
 lime, who was endeavoring in the most patient and conscien- 
 tious way possible, not to be what he was made for, and to be 
 what he was not fitted for. 
 
 James Gray, who taught the High School at Dumfries, says 
 of Burns — "In our solitary walks on summer mornings, the 
 simplest flowret by the way-side, every seat of rural simplicity 
 and happiness, every creature that seemed to drink of the joy 
 of the season, awakened the sympathy of his heart which flowed 
 in spontaneous music from his lips ; and every new opening 
 beauty, or the magnificence of the scene before him, called forth 
 the poetry of his soul." 
 
 It was not his fault that God made him a poet. It was not 
 his fault that his heart was a heart upon which nature played. 
 It was not his fault that he did not know where his strength lay. 
 
30 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 At the age of twenty-five liis fatlier died, and his brother 
 Gilbert, himself, and liis mother had taken a farm. Now he 
 means to settle this vexed question. 'Now he means to be a 
 farmer in earnest ; to tlirive and do w^ell. " I had entered upon 
 this farm," he says, " with a full resolution — Come, go to ! I 
 will be wise. I read farming books, I attended markets, I cal- 
 culated crops, and, in short, in spite of the devil and the world 
 and the flesh, I believe I should have been a wise man, but the 
 first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from 
 a late harvest, we lost half our crops." 
 
 No, not yet. Burns could not be a farmer first, then a poet. 
 He would never thrive until his real genius had a full oppor- 
 tunity of expression. When once he had poured his life forth 
 in its true channels, and had felt that at length he had touched 
 the aim of his being, then he might have become secondarily a 
 good farmer ; but not now. And thus while he bought poor 
 seed for farming, he was sowing good seed for poetry. For 
 besides his bitter theological invective, he this year planted for 
 immortality such poems as Halloween, and the Cotter's Satur- 
 day Night. Though he had a late harvest of liis land, it was 
 early and good in his brain. 
 
 At length, at twenty-six years of age, he ventured to write 
 " Robert Burns, Poet ;" and even then it M^as a title of honor, 
 and not his real name. Even now, his being a poet is some- 
 thing aside from the real purpose of his life. On the first of 
 August, 1786, he published the first volume of his poems, by 
 which he realized One Hundred Dollars. One Hundred Dol- 
 lars ! Many an enterprising publisher would have been glad 
 to give him a thousand — for that matter, ten thousand — dollars 
 for one of them. 
 
 He had got into great trouble. The mother of his babes was 
 not his wife. Persecution hung over him ; his farming labors 
 
ORATION. 
 
 31 
 
 were disastrous, and lie determined, as the last resort of a broken- 
 down and discouraged man, to go to Jamaica as an overseer of 
 a plantation, 1 think I see Robert Burns on a plantation, with 
 a whip under his arm ! I think I see Robert Burns following 
 a gang of slaves, and chaunting "A man's a man for a' that." 
 Poor Burns was in a very bad way, but he was not as bad as 
 that. 
 
 A new era dawned. By the fame of his published poems, 
 he was summoned to Edinburgh, and for nearly a year he was 
 courted and honored, and feted, in that splendid metropolis of 
 the north, by men who then attracted universal attention, and 
 yet became more eminent for being the friends of Burns. His 
 modesty, his self-possession, his wonderful conversation, before 
 which learned and practiced talkers bowed and acknowledged 
 that the ploughman was their master; his brilliant wit and 
 overflowing humor; his wonderful insight into human life; his 
 passionate earnestness and eloquence, his sweetness, and good 
 heartedness ; all his social qualities show that if Burns had 
 from the first been placed in favorable circumstances, there 
 would have been fewer shadows to mar the brilliancy of a fair 
 fame. It is abundantly plain that if he had found as many 
 friends to establish him in life, as he found afterwards to build 
 his monument, the world would not have had such a melan- 
 choly story of his sufferings and death. But so it is. This 
 world is made for men who need no help while alive ; and 
 there are always reasons found for not helping men whom the 
 world afterwards mourns to the end ; and yet, while they mourn, 
 their tears fall upon other men who are just as much neglected 
 as those for whom they weep. 
 
 Burns with the profits of his book now takes a farm at Ellis- 
 land, about forty miles from his own. He married Jean Ar- 
 mour, whom he had long loved and would have married before. 
 
32 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 
 
 if her lather had consented. Burns now being a man of repu- 
 tation, a national poet, turns from the dissipations of Edinboro' 
 to become in earnest a farmer. The ilhision is not out yet, for 
 he says to a correspondent, " as, till within these eighteen 
 months, I never was the wealthy master of ten guineas, my 
 knowledge of business is to learn ; skill in the sober science of 
 life is my most serious and hearty study." This was very well, 
 you say. Every one can but wish that being so much, it had 
 been more, and that snug, practical sagacity had been added to 
 his poetical temperament. A man must have two natures to 
 be a poet and a prosperous business man. They seldom are 
 united ; yet, as it was, Burns vowed most solemnly and most 
 foolishly two impossible things, namely, that he would forego 
 poetry and all its temptations, and embrace industry in all its 
 drudging particulars, and " Heaven be my helper," for it will 
 take a strong effort to bring my mind to the routine of business. 
 I have discharged the army of all my former pursuits, fancies 
 and pleasures. So, now, we shall have Robert Burns without 
 an eye, except for profits. No more flowers are to grace his 
 vision, no more clouds are to sail above his head, no more 
 brooks to rush along under fringing bushes, no more heart- 
 throbs of patriotic fervor, and no more deep and sad out-look- 
 ings upon human life, no more humorous conceptions of human 
 folly and fashion. Robert Burns forswears all this. The mouse 
 may And no house, the hare may die in the thicket, the birds 
 may interpret their own musical lingo ; as for Burns, he is going 
 to lay aside poetry and attend to the crops. Thus this great 
 soul, with the whole fitness of life before it, dare not embrace 
 it, and wMth the whole unfitness of his nature makes a covenant 
 with business for life. It turned out, as one might imagine ; 
 and not a great ways to New Year's day, 1789, he writes : 
 " I have some favorite flowers in spring, among which are 
 
ORATION. 
 
 the mountain daisy, the have-bell, the fox-glove, the -svild bvier- 
 rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view 
 and hang over with particular delight. I never hear the lond, 
 solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer morn, or the wild 
 mixing cadence of a troop of grey plovers, in an autumnal 
 morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusi- 
 asm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what 
 can this be owing?" 
 
 Ah, indeed, to what? It is not to farming evidently that it 
 is owing. And these symptoms of back-sliding from farming 
 to poetry ended in open apostacy, for within four days after 
 this. Burns wi'ites in a letter to Dr. Moore : " The character 
 and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure, but now 
 my pride. * * * Poesy 1 am determined to prosecute with 
 all my vigor." 
 
 His doubts becoming confirmed that his farming would not 
 be remunerative, much against his taste, and repugnant to his 
 nature, he thought of becotning an excise-man ; but he says, his 
 wife and children reconciled him to ir. Fifty pounds a year 
 are the temptation. Fifty pounds a year ! Acknowledged to 
 be the first poet of Scotland, driven to destitution, and to tak- 
 ing a most dangerous occupation for his farailj^'s sake, that he 
 might be sure of bread ! His fears that he sliould make poor 
 work with the farm were soon more than fears. He writes 
 to a friend in December, 1789: "I am writing you on a 
 farm. * * * My poor distracted mind is torn, and so 
 jaded, and so wrecked, so be-deviled M'ith the attempt to 
 make one guinea do the business of three, that I detest, abhor, 
 and swoon at the word business." There's a man to make 
 
 money 
 
 He writes to Mr, Plill : — " I want a Shakspeare; I want like- 
 wise an English Dictionary, Johnson's, I suppose, is best. In 
 5 
 
3i BUENS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 these and all my prose commissions, the cheapest is always the 
 best for nie." 
 
 The duties of excise-man were just the kind to spoil a far- 
 mer, and we must add to spoil a man. For although it was 
 not, as he terms it, a pleasant task, yet to be on horseback 
 mainly, nnder the whole heaven dashing to and fro amidst 
 beautiful scenery, and meeting jovial men, and being enter- 
 tained by those jovial men, who would gladly fill an hour witli 
 a man of Burns' genius, overflowing gaiety, and strong common 
 sense, was as pleasant as it proved dangerous. 
 
 His stay at Ellisland was short. He removed to Dumfries 
 in 1791, to be occupied solely with the excise duties. Here he 
 dwelt live years. Let those who have a heart for morbid anat- 
 omy pursue the desponding poet in his uncongenial occupation, 
 •udiile rebounding from it into convivialities and pleasures 
 which his whole moral nature condemned wnth boiling indig- 
 nation, and which almost literally seethed him in remorse. 
 The English tongue has no language of remorse that surpasses 
 Burns' in some of his letters. But I have no heart for such 
 scenes. 
 
 The last five years of his life were wonderfully fruitful of 
 exquisite poetry. It was from Dumfries he sent more than a 
 hundred songs wliich will live as long as the human heart 
 sliall inspire the lips. His last letters were to friends beseech- 
 ing some small levies to save him from jail and his family from 
 starvation, and the money was refused. Yet so scrupulous was 
 this man in respect to his expenses that when he died he owed 
 no man a penny in the world. 
 
 At length on the 21st of July, 1796, Robert Burns was per- 
 mitted to depart out of that mortal tenement — to give to dust 
 again that body which for thirty-seven years bore one of the 
 most wonderful natures that time has ever known. Ko man 
 
ORATION. 
 
 35 
 
 has ever dreamed of making Burns a saint, and no one need 
 dispute his moral claims, l^o man can write anything upon 
 liis weaknesses and faults and sins which will not seem pale 
 and lifeless beside liis own recorded words. There is nothing 
 in the English language in testimony of domestic virtues more 
 earnest, wholesome, and conscientious than his own. There are 
 no wailings more agonizing for tlie violation of ])nrity ; no suf- 
 fering that unites in its expression such simple, heartfelt con- 
 fession of wrong with such pleadings against an indiscriminate 
 judgment against him ; and neither moralist nor judge can ever 
 add anything to the effectiveness of Burns' condemnation of 
 those errors which clouded his life, eclipsed his joy, and at last 
 ended his career. For my own part, in pursuing the necessary 
 investigation for this task, which the partiality of his country- 
 men (and now my countrymen,) have imposed upon me, I 
 vibrated continually between smiles and tears, between adini- 
 ration and sorrow, between wonder and pity, between rever- 
 ence and condemnation. But amidst all these oppositions and 
 conflicting opinions, steadily from the beginning Burns has 
 grown upon my heart. I have felt at every step more and 
 more tenderly the sorrow of one that loves, and when I have 
 laid him in the grave it is with the grief of one who buries a 
 brother or son. No man could keep company with him, even 
 with the shadows of this wonderful creature, and not feel his 
 power. Ilis vitality is beyond all example; his fullness inex- 
 haustible ; his richness beyond all terms. Every letter, every 
 sentence, teems — untrained, irregular and wild, yet you feel 
 that he is master even in your criticisms, and in your judg- 
 ments you find and feel that he is superior. There was more 
 put into the making of Burns than in any man in his age. 
 That which he has given to us of himself does by no means 
 express or interpret the whole of what he was. A great deal 
 
n 
 
 36 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 of his nature is like undng gold and unwashed diamonds. 
 His songs and poems are like gold which you find in the Cali- 
 fornian rivers, scattered particles, indicating how rich are the 
 veins from which the)' were disintegrated. His letters are as 
 wonderful as his poems, and his conversation is regarded as 
 richer than either. While a half idiot was picking up, in 
 London, evcr^^ little contemptible acorn that fell from the 
 rugged branches of that gnarled old oak, Johnson, I would 
 that some dainty Ariel could have waited upon the inspired 
 ploughman, and stamped into record the inexhaustible flow 
 of his wonderful and rapturous conversation. But for the 
 most part it fell upon wasteful ears of men, unfit to know its 
 worth. The multitude of Biirns's thonglits and most brilliant 
 expressions hang in the past as crystals and white stalactites 
 hang in unexplored caves, wonderfully beautiful, but forever 
 hidden in darkness. 
 
 Such is the vitality of Burns, that there is not a place where 
 he put his foot, where there has not sprung np historical flow- 
 ers ; and men, eminent before, have added to their eminence 
 if Burns took them by the hand. The spots that wei'e hoary 
 with historic glory were destined to receive additional attrac- 
 tion if Burns visited them and touched them with his pen. 
 Such vital force and such richness of soul had he, that there 
 is no spot on the face of the last ten years of his life that was 
 not crowded with memorials. His foot-prints, now a hundred 
 years old, are yet warm. Artists, poets, historians, laymen of 
 every name follow them with eager enthusiasm and with full 
 cry. Alive, his cry of dying despair could not wring a pitiful 
 ten pounds from indebted hands to save him from ruin. To- 
 day, he has made the world rich. Alive, he could not earn 
 food and raiment, nor control his livelihood ; but since the 
 drop]3ing of the flesh he has clothed millions Avith garments 
 
ORATION. 
 
 37 
 
 of jov and fed them with the food of manhood and sturdy 
 courage. His life was a failure until he died. Ever since it 
 has been a marvelous success ; and death, that overthrew him, 
 like the wind that scatters the dry seeds from the autumn 
 boughs and whirls them away over the land, has scattered 
 his thoughts into all the earth, to live and grow while there 
 is soil in the human mind to receive the seeds of genius. Had 
 he known the future, it would have consoled his heart, so 
 yearning for sympathy, so longing and hankering for a true 
 fame amidst the io-noble stru2:2;les of his battling life. That 
 sturdy soul felt the true meaning of manhood and the supe- 
 riority of manhood to the mere trappings of place and adven- 
 titious glory ; and he walks crowned with praise and wreathed 
 with loving smiles in all the habitable globe. He is the insep- 
 arable companion of the Scot wherever he goes, and where is 
 there a nook or isle of the earth where. the Scotchman does not 
 go to make much out of a little, and make it easy? Where- 
 ever he goes Burns goes with him. He is read in the camp, 
 in the tropical forest, by the glare of torches in the South, and 
 the light of the aurora-boreal is in the Korth. There is not a 
 white hawthorn that blossoms in any spot upon the globe that 
 has not been noade dear by Burns ; and Scotland in her joys 
 and sorrows, and in her whole heart is known throughout the 
 earth as much by the songs of Burns as by her boasted sons, 
 noble as they are, and by her historians. Strange the power 
 of the unfleshed spirit. 
 
 Burns shows that it is not books that teach men to wrestle 
 with the passions of the human life, but a heart. There is this 
 rough-clad son of earth touching the marrow of things in his 
 cold and sequestered nook, pondering over things which sad- 
 dened the heart of the great legislator, which tinged Homer's 
 view of life, and which engaged the minds of Plato and So- 
 
38 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 crates and every thinking man to the Advent, and since then. 
 I think the worst things of Burns were written early — his bit- 
 ter invectives and raillery. As he lived to see real trouble 
 and to struggle with the stream of life, his stream of poetry, 
 with some sad exceptions, ran clearer. His most exquisite 
 songs, his finest delineations of nature, his most noble strains 
 and thoughtful appeals were the fruits of his middle and later 
 life. But it seems a mockery almost to speak of the later 
 periods of a life which ended before most men's lives are 
 earnestly begun. At forty men are fully men. Burns had 
 been dead three years, when the number of forty was counted 
 from the day of his birth. And had it pleased Him who 
 wielded this bright star in our firmament, to have permitted 
 it to be advanced, until it filled out its orbit here, what might 
 we not have inherited? Had his life reached as far as his 
 father's or mother's we should now be speaking of those works 
 we have from his hands as the mere first fruits of liis labors. 
 All we now possess, perad venture, would then have seemed 
 like his own harebells and daisies. To him it was given to 
 lift up the lowly. No finer genius has ever delineated the 
 external forms of nature. No poet has ever better sung the 
 humors of his fellow men. He lifted up the superstitions of 
 the time and gave them beauty ; and gathering up the lower 
 thoughts of men, and shedding the light of his genius upon 
 them, has made them beautiful forever. He danced with 
 witches in the kirk yard, and followed with them through the 
 grim air. He hung flowers even upon the brow of Satan ; 
 Milton did the same ; and I think the reverence of the one, 
 and the veneration of the other was about alike. But all these 
 were the mere externals of poetry. The life and power of his 
 work was in that deep moral element which pervaded his 
 nature and gave out such sacred grandeur, and which lifted 
 
ORATION". 
 
 39 
 
 upon the eternal future such trembling and agonizing glances. 
 The power of Bui-ns's songs consists in their moral tone. If 
 that were dissolved from them, they, too, would dissolve and 
 fall in pieces. It is not wit nor humor, nor pathos, which was 
 the centre of Burns. When you look upon a tree, it is not 
 the wood — the root, which strikes the eye ; it is the thousand 
 branches and ten thousand leaves and buds and blossoms. 
 And yet that sober, solid centre of wood is that which enables 
 the tree to support so many boughs, to shake so many leaves, 
 and shed its perfume abroad. Thus it is with Burns. Some 
 leaves fall from his boughs, worm-eaten ; some of the branches 
 may be maimed or cankered ; but the great tree, the centre, 
 the substance, stands up hearty, healthy, human, and divine. 
 Some have supposed that our solar system, in its vast trav- 
 erses of space, strikes at times aerial streams of warmth or 
 cold, making some years memorable over othei's for the degree 
 of heat or cold wliich attends them ; so the world seems to 
 swing througli vast cycles of ideas. The time in which Burns 
 lived was eminent for the outburst, all over the civilized world, 
 of the spirit of Liberty. This divine spirit came forth as did 
 Lazarus from the sepulchre, bound hand and foot, and in the 
 habiliments of the grave. Liberty in politics ran wantonly 
 into license, and liberty in religion Avent into blind infidelity. 
 Yet the spirit of liberty pervaded the world ; and no man in 
 all that period was a more faithful apostle of liberty than Burns. 
 It did not develop itself in political theories or philosophical 
 speculation. It did not touch the external forms of society at 
 all ; it Avent to the root of all things — the ineradicable worth 
 of man as a child of God — a frail experimental creature of 
 time, a lingering, wistful, expectant of a better state. The 
 dignity and rights of the individual inspired Burns, and burned 
 like an unquenchable fire upon the altar of his soul. He had 
 
40 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 no enmity to kings — but always first and last in his earliest 
 poetry as well as in the latest, he bore M'itness with all the 
 fidelity of an apostle and poAver of the poet to the fundamental 
 doctrine that essential Manhood is the only greatness, and that 
 nothing can exalt a man but himself, and nothing degrade him 
 but himself. Through his whole life, this life for man was 
 eminently not for him who had wealth, learning, influence, 
 position, and power, but for man in his simple nature, as given 
 by God. No tenderer heart ever cheered the sorrowful and 
 the needy. No poet ever poured upon the heart more balm 
 or fragrance than he. No name has ever made manhood more 
 resonant in virtues, or more nobly invested man with honesty, 
 reliance, patience, contentment, and self-respect, than Burns. 
 His poems are a torch that never goes out, to all who are in 
 dai-k places ; and no man harassed by trouble, distracted by 
 temptation, overcome by passion, and plunged in remorse, 
 but M'ill find language for his woes in the poetry of Burns. 
 He himself has felt the sins and ills of the flesh, and no man, 
 among the school of poets, ever was so true to his kind, 
 rejoicing with those that rejoice, and weeping with those that 
 weep ; and the nation which read Burns in the nursery could 
 never have tyrants in the Parliament House. The men who 
 drink at Burns's spring will be too stnrdy for oppression, too 
 courageous for power to tamper with, and with too much self- 
 respect for blandishments and bribes. Burns had pre-eminently 
 this love for man in all his moods, Aveaknesses, sorrows, joys, 
 hopes, and fears for life, and for eternal life. He is universal 
 in his sympathy. He loves the very shoe-latches of the poor 
 Scotch peasant. He loves the very daisy his shoe trod upon. 
 Terrible often with rage that sounds as thunder in the moun- 
 tains, yet it is love both personal and general that marks the 
 poems of Burns, and that gives them their wondrous vitality. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 41 
 
 and will never let them die so long as a soul yearns, or hearts 
 desire to be tenderly cheered. 
 
 Finally, to-night let us give to the memory of Burns some- 
 thing of that food of love and praise which his own soul hun- 
 gered for, his life long, and never had. If he has faults, let us, 
 like them of old, walking backward with reverence and affec- 
 tion, cast a mantle upon them. If every man within these 
 twenty-four hours the world around who shall speak the name 
 of Burns with fond admiration were registered as his subjects, 
 no king on earth would have such a realm. Finally, could 
 each feeling be changed into a flower, and cast down before 
 his memory, a mountain would ai'ise, and he would sit upon a 
 rose of blossoms now at length without a thorn. 
 
 [When Mr. Beecher had concluded his eloquent address, he 
 received the congratulations of a number of distinguished citi- 
 zens, and was tendered the thanks of the audience by acclama- 
 tion.] 
 6 
 
h^ tfjeiitiiHiii Ji^tliial 
 
 ASTOR HOUSE 
 
 On Tuesday evening, January 25, 1859, the Centennial An- 
 niversary was celebrated by a Festival at the Astor House. The 
 established character of this time-honored and popular hotel, 
 together with the fact that, in previous years, many a brilliant 
 assembly had gathered there to honor the memory of Burns, 
 commended it to the committee of arrangements as peculiarly 
 appropriate for this celebration. 
 
 The courteous host, Mr. Charles A. Stetson, with his asso- 
 ciates and assistants, had made ample arrangements for the 
 reception and accommodation of the company. The dinner 
 was to be served in the spacious dining-room, three tables 
 being arranged in parallel lines, at the head of which, upon a 
 dais, was the table designed for the accommodation of the 
 Chairman and guests. The room was appropriately decorated 
 with the national flags of America, England, Scotland, and 
 Ireland ; and a number of illustrative paintings, several of 
 which were executed expressly for this occasion. Among 
 them was one, eighteen by twenty-five feet, painted by James 
 L. Dick, a member of the Club, representing Burns at the 
 Flow, and the Genius of Foetry casting her mantle over him. 
 There were also four large paintings by Hillyard, represent- 
 ing the Return from Labor, from the " Cotter's Saturday 
 Night ;" a scene from " Tarn O'Shanter ;" Burns's Cottage ; 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 
 
 43 
 
 and his Monument at Ayr. A large portrait of Burns, draped 
 with flags, was suspended at the head of the room ; on the 
 right, a tine portrait of Washington ; on the left, one of Frank- 
 lin : the two last painted by Yanderlyn and Duplessis. In 
 front of the guests' table were placed a bust of Burns and one 
 of Walter Scott — that of Burns was crowned with a laurel 
 wreath, and was a copy of the much admired original ex- 
 ecuted by J. C. King, of Boston, who was present among the 
 guests. 
 
 Various articles of interest, in connection with Burns, were 
 contributed for the occasion. Among them : — A piece of 
 bark, elegantly framed, cut from a tree on Burns's farm, on 
 which is carved the inscription " E. Burns, 1779 ;" presented 
 by the wife of the poet to Mr, Renwick, now of this city ; also 
 an old Jacobite song book, well worn, formerly in possession 
 of Burns, contributed by the same gentleman : — A lock of 
 Bnrns's hair, and an impression of his seal, furnished by Mr, 
 Dinwiddie, Secretary of St. Andrews' Society : — Yarious other 
 articles, for use or ornament, were furnished by Messrs, Wm. 
 Gibson, J, 0, McRae, T. Lynch, Captain Wm. Manson, and 
 others. 
 
 At an early hour the company began to assemble. Every 
 seat had been disposed of, and large as was the number pres- 
 ent, it might have been greatly increased, as in several 
 instances high premiums were offered for tickets, A number 
 of gentlemen were present in full Highland costume, represent- 
 ing the Caledonian Club. The members and guests wore ap- 
 propriate badges of rich silk tartan. 
 
 At the proper time the company proceeded to the dining- 
 room, and remained standing in their places, awaiting the 
 entrance of the Honorary Chairman and guests, who appeared 
 immediately after, preceded by a piper in full costume, and 
 
44 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 escorted by the President of the Club. Ou the appearance of 
 Mr. Bryant, and as he passed througli the long lines of the 
 company to the head of the room, he was greeted with simul- 
 taneous enthusiasm. 
 
 Before the company were seated, grace was said by Rev. 
 Henky Wakd Beecher. 
 
 The names of the guests and others are annexed. 
 
 at the head of the koom, upon the dais. 
 
 The Honorary Chairman, 
 WILLIAM CITLLEN BRYANT, 
 
 SUPPORTED By 
 
 FiTz Greene IIalleck, 
 
 Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 
 Rev. Samuel Osgood, 
 James T. Brady, 
 Charles Gould, 
 Horace Greeley, 
 Parke Godwin, 
 Louis R. Mignot, 
 
 Gulian C. Yerplanck, 
 Hon. D. F. TiEMANN, 
 Dr. John W. Francis, 
 Peter Cooper, 
 J. C. King (of Boston), 
 Wm. S. Thayer, 
 H. W. L. Barnes, 
 J. Cunningham, 
 
 EepresCnting Burns Clnb. 
 
 AT THE CENTEAL TABLE, FACING THE CHAIE. 
 
 The Honorary Vice President, 
 EDWARD M. ARCHIBALD (H. B. M. Consul,) 
 
 SUPPORTED BY 
 
 Dr. J. C. Beales, 
 
 Pres. St. George's Society. 
 Adam Norrie, 
 
 Pres. St. Andrews Society. 
 Richard Bell, 
 
 William Young, 
 
 Editor K Y. Albion. 
 Mr. Andrews, 
 
 late U. S. Con. Gen. in Can'a. 
 Major Gen. Chas. W. Sanford, 
 
 represent. St. Patrick's Soc. Dr. Ward. 
 

 THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL 
 
 45 
 
 
 ON THE RIGHT AND LEFT. 
 
 
 
 Joseph Latng, 
 
 
 
 First Vice President of the Club. 
 
 
 
 John D. N^orcott, 
 
 
 
 Second Vice President. 
 
 
 THE COMPANY GENERALLY, INCLUDING 
 
 MEMBERS. 
 
 Robert Dinwiddie, 
 
 Robert McClellan, 
 
 J. Coleridge Hart, 
 
 Jas. W. Maitland, 
 
 Stuart Garden, 
 
 John Morton, 
 
 Robert Gordox, 
 
 Alex. Gaw, 
 
 Col. Wm. Halsey, 
 
 John Betts, 
 
 Isaac Hoose, 
 
 Col. Thos. Tate, 
 
 Geo. Cruikshank, 
 
 Timothy Waters, 
 
 Jas. Somerville, 
 
 James F. White, 
 
 William Templar, 
 
 John Somerville, 
 
 John McClure, 
 
 Geo. Mitchell, 
 
 James C. Derby, 
 
 Thos. C. M. Paton, 
 
 John Parker, 
 
 Edwin Jackson, 
 
 "Wm. Paton, 
 
 Rob't Struthers, 
 
 John K. Allen, 
 
 L. Agnew, 
 
 Wm. H. Morrison, 
 
 Henry S. Allen, 
 
 Jas. B. Cochran, 
 
 John Haybourn, 
 
 Geo. Nimmo, 
 
 John Grierson, 
 
 David B. Drysdale, 
 
 Wm. Hepburn, 
 
 John Roberton, 
 
 Thos. Weldon, 
 
 Wm. Wakefield, 
 
 Callender, 
 
 John T. Howell, 
 
 Rob't Neilson, 
 
 Anderson, 
 
 Clutt, 
 
 John A. Parks, 
 
 Benj. B. Tilt, 
 
 Robert Cross, 
 
 Wm. Lang, 
 
 Jas. Harvey, 
 
 I. A. Morand, 
 
 Wm. Park, 
 
 John H. Raymond, 
 
 J. C. McRae, 
 
 Chas. Burns, 
 
 Thos. Blackburn, 
 
 P. Stevenson, 
 
 Thos. Gow, 
 
 Arch'd Park, 
 
 Wm. Mathews, 
 
 Edward Fisher, 
 
 Henry Sibree, 
 
 L. McIxTOSH (Iowa), 
 
 John A. McLean, 
 
 John Whittaker, 
 
 Captain Reid, 
 
 T. C. Latto, 
 
 H. Crabtree, 
 
 Geo. Brodie, 
 
 Rob't Gun, 
 
 Geo. Marshall, 
 
 Chas.'Burt, 
 
 Edward Kearney, 
 
 Edward Courtlandt, 
 
 C. D. Newman, 
 
 Wm. Manson, 
 
 Andrew S. Eadie, 
 
 David Miranda, 
 
 John Robertson, 
 
 T. B. Peddie, 
 
 Geo. Simpson, 
 
 John R. Hunter, 
 
 John L. Bailey, 
 
 Jas. G. Maeder, 
 
 Wm. Brough, 
 
46 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Robert Rait, 
 J. T. Miller (Montreal), 
 John Ireland, 
 Edward Walker, 
 Alex. McEwen, 
 Alex. Campbell, 
 John J. Mum, 
 John Steuart, 
 J. Fred. Milward, 
 Geo. a. Clark, 
 Peter McLeod, 
 F. Nicholson, 
 
 Emerson, 
 
 Armstrong, 
 
 J. Cameron, 
 M. Conachie, 
 Adam Stodart, 
 Jas. Wotherspoon, 
 Wm. McNab, 
 R. W. Turner, 
 Thos. Glendinning, 
 Wm. B. Edgar, 
 Robt. Edgar, 
 Adam Farish, 
 Alex. M. McKay, 
 Jas. Picken, 
 
 Brown, 
 
 Alex. Cross, 
 Alfred R. Booth, 
 Jas. Cumming, 
 DAVID Lamb, 
 John Moffat, 
 
 C. S. Grafulla, 
 Dr. F. GouRAUD, 
 Frank Leslie, 
 James Renwick, 
 G. Swan, 
 T. Horn, Jr., 
 T. Lynch, 
 Geo. H. Andrews, 
 John McAuliffe, 
 H. Maass, 
 John Foster, 
 Page Gale, 
 F. Kellers, 
 
 Verden, 
 
 Benj. F. Miller, 
 Geo. S. Hartt, 
 Henry Hillyard, 
 
 Moorhead, 
 
 John Aitken, Sen,, 
 Richard Cochrane, 
 Robert Meldrum, 
 W. S. Clirehugh, 
 Vair Clirehugh, Jr., 
 Jas. Watson, 
 L. Markey, 
 J. M. Morrison, 
 Rob't Macfarlane, 
 Jas. Nicholson, 
 David Rutherford, 
 Wm. Burns, 
 John Crabtree, 
 David Stewart, 
 
 John McDonough, 
 Wm. Robertson, 
 Dr. Wm. Johnson, 
 Geo. Rintoul, 
 John R. Watson, 
 John Muir, 
 Fred'k Hale, 
 John Burt, 
 Thos. Howitt, 
 Jas. L. Dick, 
 H. H. Dow, 
 Daniel Eraser, 
 Dr. Jas. Norval, 
 Thos. McRae, 
 Jas. Blane, 
 Rob't Donald, 
 
 T. C. GOURLAY, 
 
 John White, 
 Rob't McNie, 
 John Fell, 
 WiL H. Morrison, 
 W. G. Coutts, 
 Wm. B. Robertson, 
 John W. Sumner, 
 John Stewart, 
 Rob't Davidson, 
 Jas. Quee, 
 Daniel Dove, 
 Rob't Burnet, 
 Wm. Cleland, 
 W. W. Wotherspoon, 
 F. G, Fontaine. 
 
 [The names of upward of two hundred of the persons pres- 
 sent at the Festival are given in the foregoing list. About fiftj' 
 others were present, but it has not been practicable to obtain 
 their names in season for this publication.] 
 
 The press of the city was represented by a number of gen- 
 tlemen as reporters for the Scottish American Journal^ Thnes^ 
 Tribune^ Herald^ Express, Sim, and other papers, who occu- 
 pied seats at the central table near the Chairman. 
 
THE CENTENAKY FESTIVAL. 47 
 
 Of the dinner it need only be said that it was served in the 
 usual excellent style of the Astor House. Every delicacy was 
 supplied in profusion, and every article was of the choicest 
 quality. The tables were adorned with numerous pieces of 
 ornamental confectionary and pastry, among which were rep- 
 resented : Burns and Highland Mary ; Burns' Monument ; The 
 Return of the Laborer ; Tarn O'Shanter and the Witches ; 
 " Here are we met, three merry boys ;" Scotch Pavilion ; Lyric 
 Cottage ; Temple of Worth ; Highland Tower ; Alloway Kirk ; 
 Burns' Birthplace. At dinner and during the evening appro- 
 priate music was supplied by Robertson's excellent band ; and 
 Mr. Cleland performed a number of national airs on the 
 Scottish pipes. 
 
 When the cloth was removed, 
 
 Mr. J. Cunningham said, that as the President of the Club, 
 he had the honor of presenting Mr. William Cullen Bryant 
 as the Honorary Chairman, and Mr. Edward M. Archibald as 
 the Honorary Yice-President of the occasion. He said the 
 thanks of the Club were due to those gentlemen for the cor- 
 diality with which they had accepted the positions which had 
 been tendered them ; also to the press of the city and country 
 for the courtesy displayed in giving publicity to the objects 
 and purposes of the Club ; and to Messrs. G. Swan and J. 
 Horn, jr., for the free use of the telegraph lines under their 
 control. He also expressed the fraternal feeling of the Club 
 with all other associations engaged in celebrating the occasion. 
 After adding a few remarks relative to the business of the 
 evening, he read a few of the following letters, addressed to 
 Yair Clirehugh, Jr., Esq., Corresponding Secretary of the 
 Club, which were received with hearty applause. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 FROM WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 SuNNYSiDE, Nov. 22d, 1858. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I feel properly sensible of the honor done me by the Burns Club in inviting 
 me to the dinner with which they propose to celebrate the Centennial Anniversary 
 of the birth of the poet, Robert Burns ; but I regret to say that the state of my 
 health obliges me to excuse myself from accepting any invitation of the kind. 
 
 With great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Washington Irving. 
 
 from HON. JAMES BUCHANAN, PRESIDENT U. S. 
 
 Washington, 15 January, 1859. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have received your kind invitation, on behalf of "The Burns Club of the 
 City of New York," to be present at the festival dinner, to be given in honor of the 
 Centennial Anniversary of the poet's birth. I should esteem it a great pleasure 
 as well as a high privilege to be with you on this occasion ; but my public duties 
 here render it impossible. 
 
 Poor Burns I I have always deplored his hard fate. He has ever been a favorite 
 of mine. The child of genius and of misfortune, he is read every where and by all 
 classes throughout the estent of our country, and his natural pathos has reached 
 all hearts. Yours very respectfully, 
 
 James Buchanan. 
 
 FROM rev. JOHN THOMSON. 
 
 11 Varick Place, N. Y., 13th Dec, 1858. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 By reason of family affliction I am prevented taking part this winter in any pub- 
 lic or social entertainment. Had it been otherwise with me than it is, I would have 
 availed myself at once of the kind invitation of the Burns Club, that I might have 
 shown my appreciation of the character and works of our great national, but greatly 
 misunderstood poet. I have the pleasure to be, dear Sirs, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 John Thomson. 
 
 FROM rev. henry W. BELLOWS. 
 
 New York, Dec. 14, 1858. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I am much honored by the invitation of the " Burns Club of the City of 
 New York," to its dinner on the 25th January. The state of my health does not 
 allow me to make positive engagements so far ahead ; yet I am not wiUing to cut 
 
myself off from the pleasure of so delightful a reunion. If jou will allow me to 
 come, if my health al the time permits, I shall have the greatest pleasure in accept- 
 ing your invitation. I will, with your permission, send you positive word, as the 
 day approaches. Very respectfully yours. 
 
 Hexry W. Bellows. 
 
 FROM REV. GEO. AV. BETHUNE, 
 
 Brooklyn, Dec. 14, 1858. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 I sincerely regret that my engagements will not permit me to accept the 
 invitation with whicli I have been lionored by the Burns Club of New Yorlc, to 
 dine with them on the Centennial Anniversary of Burns' birth. As a Scotsman's 
 bairn and an ardent student of Scotch literature, I heartily sympathise with your 
 admiration of Scotland's greatest lyrical poet, and it would be a delightful privilege 
 to share in the aspirations and entertainments of your festival. As it is, I must 
 bear the deprivation as I may. With many thanks for your kind remembrance of 
 me and my best wishes for yourself and associates, 
 
 I am very respectfull}'. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 Geo. W. Bethune. 
 
 from rev. e. h. chapin. 
 
 134 12th Street, Jan. 3d, 1859. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I very much regret that an engagement out of town prevents my acceptance 
 of your invitation to the dinner in honor of tlie Centennial Anniversary of the 
 birth of Robert Burns. It will be a festival at which I should be proud to be 
 present, and had Burns never written any thing but "A man's a man for a' that," 
 I would cheerfully go miles to express my admiration for him, and my love. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Yery respectfully yours, 
 
 E. H. Chapin. 
 
 FROM LORD NAPIER. 
 
 H. B. M. Legation, 
 Washington, Nov. 20th, 1858. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 19th instant, 
 conveying to me an invitation to attend the dinner to be given at the Astor House 
 in honor of the Centennial Anniversary of the birth of the poet Robert Burns, on 
 the 25th of January next. 
 
 I regret that my engagements at Washington will not permit me to be present 
 on the occasion referred to. I am. Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Napier. 
 
50 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 from hon. edward everett. 
 
 Boston, 29 Nov., 1858. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of the 19th reached me, a day or two since, kindly inviting me 
 to attend the dinner to be given at the Astor House on the 25th of January next, 
 in honor of the Centennial Anniversary of the poet Burns. 
 
 I am greatly indebted to you for the honor of this invitation. Owing to a condi- 
 tional engagement in another quarter, the fulfilment of which depends upon circum- 
 stances not yet decided, it is not in my power at present to return a positive 
 answer. 
 
 It will give me great pleasure to be present, if possible, on an occasion of so 
 much interest. I remain, dear Sir, 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Edward Everett. 
 
 FROM OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 Boston, Nov. 27th, 1858. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I regret that my imperative engagements in Boston will not allow me to 
 have the pleasure of being present at the Centennial Anniversary celebration of the 
 birth day of Robert Burns, by the Burns Club of New York. 
 
 If I had by good fortune been present at the coming anniversary — as a native of 
 the sister isle might be excused for saying — and had been unexpectedly called 
 upon for a word in honor of the occasion, I should, on the spur of the moment 
 have ventured to give the following : 
 
 The memory of tlie monarch minstrel who made the dialect of a province the 
 language of the universal heart throughout a mighty empire, and the realms 
 which its arms and arts have colonized : his melodies are the life-winged thistle- 
 down that sows the emblem of Scottish truth, and manhood, and sentiment, as far 
 as it can fly upon the winds of Heaven I Yours verv truly, 
 
 6. W. Holmes. 
 
 from henry W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Cambridge, Dec. 1, 1858. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have had the honor of receiving the invitation of the Burns Club to attend 
 their dinner on the 25th of January. 
 
 I feel much gratified by this attention, and regret extremely that my engagements 
 will not permit me to accept it. 
 
 Begging you to make my best acknowledgments to the gentlemen of the Club, 
 
 I remain, dear Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 from bayard TAYLOR. 
 
 Boston, Dec. 17, 1858. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have delayed answering your invitation, hoping that it might be pos- 
 sible for me to be with you on the evening of the 25th of January next. My 
 engagements, however, oblige me to relinquish all hope of it. 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 51 
 
 I was fortunate enough to be present at the pubhc welcome given to the sons of 
 Burns on their return from India, on the banks of the Doou, on the 6tb of August, 
 1844, and the venerable face of the poet's sister is still distinctly impressed on my 
 memory. Reverencing as I do, the name, the genius, and the manhood of Burns, I 
 should rejoice in being able to unite with your club and my brotlier authors in 
 doing fitting honor to liis memory. If I can possibly find time, I will send a leaf 
 for the garland which will be laid upon his grave. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Bayard Taylor. 
 
 FKUM JOIIX G. SAXE. 
 
 Burlington, Vt., Dec. 10, 1858. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 Nothing could gratify me more than to accept your invitation to attend 
 the dinner to be given at the Astor House, January 25th, 1859, in honor of the 
 Centennial Anniversary of the birth-day of the poet, Robert Burns; yet I have 
 little hope that my lecture-engagements will allow me to be present on that occa- 
 sion. I beg to assure you, however, that in the spirit of your festival I shall be of 
 your number, as a cordial and devout admirer of Robert Burns — 
 
 -that mightiest poet of the heart, 
 
 Whom nature blessed beyond the reach of ar</" 
 
 and whom all true men, every where, love and praise. Thanking you for the high 
 honor proposed to me by your invitation, I am. 
 
 Very trulj^ yours, 
 
 John G. Saxe. 
 
 FROM DION BOURCICAULT. 
 
 Willard's Hotel, 
 "Washington, D. C, 4 Jan., 1859. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I regret to say that my professional engagements will most probably oblige 
 me to be aijsent from New York on the date of tlie Centennial Anniversary. 
 
 Deeply symjoathising with your object, I feel that I have lost one of the most 
 pleasant and most intellectual of all the associations with which life is speckled — 
 no brighter beacon could a man look back to in after days than a " Night wi' 
 Burns." 
 
 Should I be able to escape, I wiU promptly appear. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Dion Bourcicault. 
 
 from the governor of the state of new YORK. 
 
 State of New York, 
 
 Executive Departjuent, 
 
 Albany, January, 1859. 
 Sir: 
 
 Your kind letter of the 8t]i inst., inviting me on behalf of the Burns Club of 
 the City of New York, to be present at the festival dinner to be given at the Astor 
 
015 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 House on the 25th of this month, in honor of the birth of the poet, Robert Burns, is 
 before me. 
 
 I need not say to you that it would afford me great pleasure to be present on the 
 occasion you name, but my official duties will prevent my absence from Albany at 
 that time, when not only the members of your club, but thousands of others in 
 Europe and America will celebrate the birth of the people's poet. It was a happy 
 idea that both continents should join in celelirating the birth day of Robert Burns, 
 whose simple poems awake responsive emotions alike in the hearts and homes of 
 his native land, in the cabins of the pioneers upon our western prairies, and in the 
 huts of the Australian shepherds. He wins alike the hearts of the cultivated and 
 the uncultivated, and his fame must continue to increase while that of others — more 
 petted during their lives — is gradually passing away. 
 
 Begging you to present to the Burns Club of the City of New York my regrets 
 that I cannot be with them in person at their festival, and my wishes for their 
 prosperity, I am yours. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 E. D. Morgan. 
 
 FROM HUGH MAXWELL. 
 
 New York, Dec. 3d, 1858. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I return my very sincere thanks for the kind invitation to participate with 
 the gentlemen of the Burns Club in the festival proposed in honor of the memory 
 of the immortal poet. 
 
 Having declined for several years to attend the festivals on public occasions, I 
 regret it will not be in my power, consistent with former declinations, to be present 
 at j'our honored festival. 
 
 My heart warms to the memor}"- of Burns, to the scenes he has so sweetly sung, 
 and no one would be more delighted to do honor to his memory. 
 
 I am very respectfully. 
 
 Your friend and obedient servant, 
 
 H. Maxwell. 
 
 from JOHN L. LEWIS, GR.\ND MASTER, ETC. 
 
 Office of the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted 
 Masons of the State of New York. 
 
 Penn Yan, New York, January 20th, 1859. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Absence from home has prevented an earlier response to your kind invi- 
 tation extended by the ''Burns Club," to me as the Grand Master of the Masonic 
 Fraternity in this State to attend the festival dinner to be given on Tuesday next in 
 honor of the Centennial Anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. 
 
 Most gladly would I be present, did my engagements permit, to unite in doing 
 honor to the character and memory of Burns as the man, the jjoet, and the Mason, 
 and to testify as the present chief representative of the Craft in the State of New 
 York our high appreciation of the genius which has shed such undj-ing lustre 
 upon our simple annals as a brotherhood — for he was our brother. Of all the 
 revered dead who while living have been enrolled in our ranks abroad, his is the 
 name which is ever present as a vivid and glowing reality. The farewells which he 
 sang to his brethren at Tarbolton with such affecting pathos still touch an answer- 
 
ing chord in many a heart, and still tremble upon the lips of the thousands of his 
 brethren in all lands. They are a memento of their gifted author wherever his 
 peculiar dialect of the English tongue still kindles fond memories ; or the " Sons of 
 Light" are assembled, when "that hieroglyphic light" is glowing; and while they 
 awaken tender emotions in others, they are never disconnected from the remem- 
 brance of him, who first breathed their beautiful melody. And yet this was but 
 one of his undying strains of feeling, and of beaut}' ! 
 
 The ol)ject of the "Burns Club" in renewing afresh such genial memories by an 
 observance of the anniversary of the birth of the Ayrshire bard on this side of the 
 ocean, and thus fostering the links which connect us with the genius of the mother- 
 land, can but commend itself to the cordial sympathies of every one in the United 
 States who is an admirer of true poetic feeling ; and it was fitting that one of our 
 most cherished poets should have been selected to preside at such a festival. 
 
 You have the most cordial wishes of the Masonic Fraternity that it may be a 
 joyous reunion; and I trust that the Deputy Grand Master, John W. Simons, Esq., 
 of New York, will be present to represent them and me upon the occasion. Lest 
 he should fail to do so, will you at some fitting opportunity be pleased to ofter in 
 my behalf this sentiment : 
 
 Robert Burns — As a man, pure gold without the guinea stamp ; as a poet, ever 
 sweet, tender and truthful; as a Mason, fit to be "oft honored with supreme 
 command." I have the honor to be, 
 
 Very respectfully and sincerely, 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 John L. Lewis, Jr. 
 
 Grand Master. 
 
 Invitations to attend the Festival had also been accepted by 
 a number of gentlemen who were unable to be present, among 
 whom w^ere the following: Rev. Dr. S. I. Pkime, Henky J. 
 Raymond, Louis Gaylokd Clark, Geokge P. Morris, and R. S. 
 Willis. 
 
 Mr. Bryant then rose to address the company, when he was 
 greeted with a storm of enthusiastic applause, that lasted for 
 several minutes. 
 
 MR. Bryant's speech. 
 
 The very kind manner, my friends, in which you have re- 
 ceived me, encourages me to think that you will not be unwill- 
 ing to listen to a word or two, introducing the toasts of the 
 evening. My first duty is to thank my excellent friends of the 
 Burns Club, with whom I do not now meet for the first time, 
 
54 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 and whose annual festivities are among the pleasantest I ever 
 attended, for the honor they have done me in calling me to the 
 chair 1 occnp)' — an honor more to be prized on account of the 
 rare occasion on which it is bestowed. An honor which can 
 be conferred but once in a century, is an honor indeed. 
 
 This evening, the memory of Burns will be celebrated as it 
 never was before. His fame, from the time when he first ap- 
 peared before the world as a poet, has been growing and 
 brightening, as the morning brightens into the perfect day. 
 There never was a time when his merits were so freely ac- 
 knowledged as now ; when the common consent of the literary 
 world has placed him so high, or spoke his praises with so little 
 intermixture of disparagement ; when the anniversary^ of his 
 birth could have awakened so general and fervent an enthusiasm. 
 
 If we could imagine a human being endowed with the power 
 of making himself, through the medium of his senses, a witness 
 of whatever is passing on the face of the globe, what a series of 
 festivities, what successive manifestations of the love and admi- 
 ration which all who sj^eak our language bear to the great 
 Scottish poet, would present themselves to his observation, 
 accompanying the shadow of this night in its circuit round the 
 earth ! Some twelve hours before this time he would have 
 heard the praises of Burns recited, and the songs of Buiiis 
 sung, on the banks of the Ganges — the music flowing out at 
 the open windows on the soft evening air of that region, and 
 mingling with the murmurs of the sacred river. A little later, 
 he might have heard the same sounds from the mouth of the 
 Euphrates; later still, from the southern extremity of Africa, 
 under constellations strange to • our eyes — the stars of the 
 southern hemisphere — and almost at the same moment from 
 the rocky shores of the Ionian Isles. Next they would have 
 been heard from the orange groves of Malta, and from the 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 55 
 
 winter colony of English and Americans on the hanks of the 
 Tiber. Then, in its turn, the Seine takes up the strain ; and 
 what a chorns rises from the British Isles — from every ocean- 
 mart, and river, and mountain- side, with a distant response 
 from- the rock of Gibraltar ! Last, in the Old World, on its 
 westernmost verge, the observer whom I have imagined, would 
 have heard the voice of song and of gladness from the coasts 
 of Liberia and Sierra Leone, among a race constitutionally and 
 passionately fond of music, and to which we have given our 
 language and literature. 
 
 Li the New World, frozen Newfoundland has already led in 
 the festival of this night ; and next, those who dwell where the 
 St. Lawrence holds an icy mirror to the stars ; thence it has 
 passed to the hills and valleys of New England; and it is now 
 our turn on the lordly Hudson. The Schuylkill will follow, 
 the Potomac, the rivers of the Carolinas ; the majestic St. 
 John's, drawing his dark, deep waters from the Everglades ; 
 the borders of our mighty lakes, the beautiful Ohio, the Great 
 Mississippi, with its fountains gushing under fields of snow, and 
 its mouth among flowers that fear not the frost. Then will our 
 festival, in its westward course, cross the Rocky Mountains, 
 and gather in joyous assemblies those who pasture their herds 
 on the Columbia, and those who dig for gold on the Sacra- 
 mento. 
 
 By a still longer interval, it will pass to Australia, lying in her 
 distant solitude of waters, and now glowing with the heats of mid- 
 summer, where I fear the zealous countrymen of Burns will find 
 the short night of the season too short for their festivities. And 
 thus will this commemoration pursue the sunset round the globe, . 
 and follow the journey of the evening star till the gentle planet 
 shines on the waters of China. 
 
 Well has our great poet deserved this universal commemo- 
 
56 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 ration — for who has written like him? What poem descrip- 
 tive of rural manners and virtues, rural life in its simplicity 
 and dignity — ^yet without a single false outline or touch of 
 false coloring — clings to our memories and lives in our bo- 
 soms like his " Cotter's Saturday Night?" What humorous 
 narrative in verse can be compared with his "Tam O'Shan- 
 ter?" From the fall of Adam to his time, I believe, there 
 was nothing w^ritten in the vein of his " Mountain Daisy ;" 
 others have caught his spirit from that poem, but who among 
 them all has excelled him? Of all the convivial songs I have 
 ever seen in any language, there is none so overflowing with 
 the spirit of conviviality, so joyous, so contagious as his song 
 of " Willie brewed a peck o' maut." What love-songs are 
 sweeter and tenderer than those of Burns? What song ad- 
 dresses itself so movingly to our love of old friends and our 
 pleasant recollections of old days as his "Auld Lang Syne," 
 or to the domestic aifections so powerfully as his " John An- 
 derson ?" 
 
 You heard yesterday, my friends, and will hear again to- 
 night, better things said of the genius of Burns than I can say. 
 That will be your gain and mine. But there is one observa- 
 tion which, if I have not already tried your patience too far, 
 I would ask your leave to make. If Burns was thus great 
 among poets, it was not because he stood higher than they 
 by any pre-eminence of a creative and fertile imagination. 
 Original, affluent, and active his imagination certainl}^ was, 
 and it was always kept under the guidance of a masculine 
 and vigorous understanding ; but it is the feeling which lives 
 in his poems that gives them their supreme mastery over the 
 minds of men. 
 
 Burns was thus great because, whatever may have been the 
 errors of his after-life, when he came from the hand that 
 
THE CENTENAEY FESTIVAL. 57 
 
 formed him— 1 say it with tlie profoundest reverence — God 
 breathed into him in larger measure than into otlier men, the 
 spirit of that love which constitutes his own essence, and made 
 him more than other men — a living soul. Burns was great 
 by the greatness of his sympathies — sympathies acute and del- 
 icate, yet large, comprehensive, boundless. They were warm- 
 est and strongest toward those of his own kind, yet they 
 overflowed upon all sentient beings — npon the animals in his 
 stall, upon the "wee, sleekit, covverin', timorous beastie" dis- 
 lodged from her autumnal covert; upon the hare wouuded by 
 the sportsman ; upon the very field flower overturned by his 
 share and crushed among the stubble. And in all this we feel 
 that there is nothing strained or exaggerated, nothing affected 
 or put on, nothing childish or silly, but that all is true, gen- 
 uine, healthy, manly, noble ; we honor, we venerate the poet 
 while we read ; we take the expression of these sympathies to 
 our hearts, and fold it in our memory forever. 
 
 And now, having said all I purposed to say — to your weari- 
 ness, I fear — I proceed to give out the first regular toast, a 
 toast in which if you do not heartily join, I shall wonder why 
 you are here. 
 
 When the applause elicited by Mr. Bryant's remarks had 
 subsided, he announced the first regular toast : 
 
 The Day u'e Celebrate — A day " which makes the whole world kin" — 
 uniting by sympathetic emotion men of all degrees, in every land, in 
 honoring the memory and the genius of Robert Burns — one of "the 
 few, the immortal names that were not born to die." 
 
 Jfusic hy the Band — " Auld Lang Syne." 
 
58 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 SPEECH OF JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 Mr. Brady rose to respond auiid enthusiastic cheering, and 
 spoke as follows : 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen : — In a land which, at 
 the decease of Burns, was comparatively a wilderness — in a 
 nation then an infant — w^e meet this night to commemorate his 
 greatness, and render homage to his memory. The natives of 
 many climes surround this festal board. Here and now 
 national and individual antipathies are banished, that we may 
 vie with each other in honor of a genius which has alike 
 delighted and illumined the human race. We celebrate a day 
 not memorable for the progress or prowess of physical force — 
 not encrimsoned on the historic page by records of blood — 
 not made stately by the advent or triumph of boasted lineage 
 — nor associated with the insignia or trappings of worldly 
 pomp or powder. We are at the altar of Poetry — we stand 
 beside one of what Halleck calls 
 
 "Shrines, to no creed nor code confined, 
 The Delphian Vales — the Palestines — 
 The Meccas of the mind." 
 
 The cheerful liquids which furnish our inspiration may well be 
 
 employed on such an occasion. The great poet we are here to 
 
 honor has said, 
 
 "When neeburs anger at a plea, 
 An' just as wild as wud can be. 
 How easy can the barley bree 
 
 Cement the quarrel ! 
 It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee. 
 To tasche the barrel." 
 
 Concurring with you in this sentiment, and thanking your 
 Committee for enabling me to meet the sons of Scotia, I shall 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 59 
 
 say a few words of liim whose iininortal lines hav^e given glory 
 to the name and history of his native land. A fine writer has 
 remarked that, although genius is the heir of fame, the loss of 
 life is the condition on which the bright reversion must be 
 earned — that fame is the recompense, not of the living, but 
 of the dead — its temple standing over the grave, and the flame 
 of its altar kindled from the ashes of the great. Hazlitt tells 
 us that fame is " the spirit of a man surviving himself," and 
 describes it, further, as " the sound which the stream of high 
 thoughts carries down to future ages, making, as it flows, dee]), 
 distant murmuring, evermore, like the waters of the mighty 
 ocean." Such fame attends the career of him whom genius 
 illumines. That divine principle, moving over the earth, often 
 sends its fitful but brilliant gleam to establish a holy and im- 
 mortal temple, where the humble object of its lustre seemed 
 destined for perpetual obscurity. It turns aside capriciously 
 from the pi-oud turrets and gorgeous display of wealth and 
 station, to consecrate foi'ever a lowly cot in Stratford-on-Avon, 
 or by the banks of bonnie Doon. The achievements and the 
 distinction of the mightiest rulers pale in their lustre when 
 compared with the intellectual radiations of a Shakspeare or 
 a Burns. Think of the poor home where, one hundred years 
 ago. Burns was born — that home which, within the first week 
 of his existence, gave way before the pitiless storm, as if the 
 very elements were resolved that its narrow limits should not 
 contain the infant form of him whose ftime was destined to fill 
 a world. As Carlyle says, " There arose, among those second- 
 hand acting figures — tnimes for most part of the eighteenth 
 century — once more a giant original man ; one of those men 
 who reach down to perennial deeps, who take rank with the 
 heroic among men ; and he was born in a poor Ayrshire hut." 
 Worthy tribute from one great Scotsman to another. We find 
 
60 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBKATION. 
 
 tliis humble boy intent npon tlie life of Hannibal, and tlie 
 
 history of Sir William Wallace, the books which, he tells us, 
 
 most captivated his youthful mind. We see him walk many 
 
 miles to the Leglin Ward, the scene of Wallace's rest, " with 
 
 as much devout euthusiasm as ever pilgrim did to the Loretto." 
 
 The poor peasant had even then within him the feeble but 
 
 struggling hope that his own achievements might one day 
 
 make his own tomb the object of pilgrim devotion. Already 
 
 he murmured within himself what afterward he pronounced, 
 
 as follows : 
 
 "That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake, 
 Some useful plan, or BeuTc could make, 
 Or sing a song at least." 
 
 The ambition which prompted this aspiration enriched the 
 world with the spirit-stirring lyric, " Scots wha hae wi Wallace 
 bled," and that genial greeting, " Auld Lang Syne." We 
 trace our hero to the early intellectual guidance of an old 
 woman, of whom he says, " She had, I suppose, the largest 
 collection in the countrj^ of tales and songs, concerning devils, 
 ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, 
 elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantrips, giatits, 
 enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery." Little did 
 the gude auld wife imagine that she was furnishing her young 
 pupil with the material for " Halloween" and "Tam O'Shanter" 
 — to say nothing of " Souter Johnnie" and the "Devil and 
 Doctor Llornbook." The great power of his mind was already 
 fashioning into shapes of poetic beauty and interest the con- 
 fused material of the dame's rude teaching. Images destined 
 to be eternized were already fixing themselves on the young 
 poet's eye, of which we may indeed say, that it was even then 
 " in a fine phrenzy rolling" — that large, dark eye, in which 
 Prof. Walker said " the most striking index of his genius 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 61 
 
 resided," and to which Sir Walter Scott aUudes thus : " I never 
 saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the 
 most distinguished men of my time." It was a mischievous 
 eye, as she might have told us, whom the poet at the age of 
 sixteen — when his thoughts first chrystalized in verse — called 
 " a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass" — the eye that admitted from the 
 bright orbs of Mary Campbell the influences which, when God 
 had called her from earth, made her seem to him as the lines 
 to " Highland Mary" make her appear to us. That an ardent 
 and too general passion for women stirred in his heart, and 
 marred, to some degree, the prosperity of his life, was known 
 to none better than himself, as we may infer from the lines 
 suggesting a Poet's epitaph, in which he says : 
 
 ■ The poor inhabitant below 
 Was quick to leai'n, and wise to know, 
 And keenly felt the friendly glow, 
 
 And softer flame ; 
 But thoughtless follies laid him low. 
 
 And stained his name." 
 
 We follow, with profound interest, the career of this earnest, 
 ambitious, proud young bard, who looked without favor upon 
 the rank which was but " the guinea-stamp," feeling all the 
 while " the man's the gowd." We hear him, in allusion to the 
 greater progress and success of his compeers and school-fellows, 
 exclaim, as he referred to their advance: "I was standing idle 
 in the market-place, or only left the cliase of the butterfly from 
 flower to flower to hunt fancy from whim to whim." There lie 
 stood, somewhat aloof from the world, acting on what Dr. 
 Johnson called his " defensive pride." But the world had an 
 ear and heart open to notes attuned in the deep melodies of 
 nature. And when the images of truth were painted by him 
 in the language of truth— when he re-produced the sentiments, 
 
G2 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 passions and feelings of our nature — he " attained his pinnacle 
 by one gigantic bound." Even at the moment when he con- 
 templated becoming an exile from his native land, his poems 
 commanded the universal admiration of his countrymen. The 
 learned professor and the humble ostler alike delighted in his 
 lines, and gloried in his triumph. From the first avails of his 
 success, he erected a tomb over the neglected remains of his 
 brother-poet, Ferguson. Hov^ eventful, checkered, imprudent, 
 and yet brilliant, his career, up to the time, in 1796, when we 
 find Jiim in " sickness, sorrow, and debt," at Dumfries, under- 
 going his last illness, not, as we are told, "with tlie ostentation 
 of philosophy, but with firmness as well as feeling ;" main- 
 taining, too, the undying capacity for humor, which developed 
 itself even at that solemn period, when, thinking of the Dum- 
 fries Volunteers, to which corps he belonged, he remarked to a 
 friend : " John, don't let that awkward squad fire over me." 
 We are told that, while he was dying, his home was "like a 
 besieged place." The interest in his fate w^as intense. He 
 died. The conqueror of hearts died. And in what state was 
 his cold form exhibited? "Fie lay," says Allan Cunningham, 
 " in a plain and unadorned coffin, with a linen sheet drawn 
 over his face, and, on the bed and around the body, herbs and 
 flowers were thickly strewn, according to the usage of the 
 country. He was wasted somewhat by long illness ; but death 
 had not increased the swarthy hue of his face, which was un- 
 commonly dark and deeply marked — his broad and open brow 
 was pale and serene, and around it his sable hair lay in masses, 
 slightly touched with gray. The room where he lay was plain 
 and neat, and the simplicity of the poet's humble dwelling 
 pressed the presence of death more closely on the heart than if 
 his bier had been embellished by vanity, and covered with the 
 blazonry of high ancestry and rank." Thousands of his coun- 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 63 
 
 trymen flocked to his funeral, and he was deposited in an 
 humble sepulture, whence, in 1815, his remains were trans- 
 ferred to a mausoleum, inscribed with an epitaph far more 
 learned, but not so expressive as that which I have already 
 recited. The struggle of this man's personal life was a severe 
 one. Poverty, wounded pride, remorse, all pursued him. He 
 was indeed of that class mentioned by Shelley, who " learn in 
 suftering what they teach in song." Well might Mrs. Hemans 
 compare the struggles of such a poet, who sets bright gems 
 upon the brow of humanity, with those of the pearl diver : 
 
 " And who shall think, when the strain is sung 
 Till a thousand hearts are stirred, 
 What life-drops, from the minstrel wrung. 
 Have gushed with every word? 
 
 "None! None! His treasures live, like thine. 
 He strives and dies, like thee — 
 Thou that has been to the pearl's dark shrine, 
 Thou wrestler of the sea." 
 
 Not quite so gloomy or sad the career or destiny of Burns. 
 He enjoyed his fame even while he lived, and died with a full 
 conviction that his name would, as it will, be cherished while 
 that of his country remained. Like the Welsh bards of old, 
 he stood, as they, when they assembled " in the face of the sun 
 and the eye of light." With all that belongs to nature, he had 
 real sympathy, and for all his sympathy found truthful and 
 eloquent expression. The mountain daisy, the homeless mouse, 
 the wounded hare, the meanest creature of earth, could excite 
 his feeling and awaken his genius. Whatever were his faults, 
 they injured himself most. To those who think of these 1 
 would say, in his admirable verse : 
 
64: BUENS CENTENNIAL CELEBEATION. 
 
 "Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 
 
 Decidedly can try us ; 
 He knows each chord, its various tone — 
 
 Each spring, its various bias. 
 Then at the balance let's be mute. 
 
 We never can adjust it; 
 What's done Ave partly may compute, 
 
 But know not what's resisted." 
 
 A century lias passed since bis birtli — a busy century, full 
 of new and wondrous acbievements, and events. It bas no- 
 ted many cbanges, important in tbemselves and tbeir conse- 
 quences. Wbat bad been deemed imperisbable bas passed 
 away ; wbat considered famous, become, in many instances, 
 unknown. Iconoclasts, innovaters, reformers are busy all over 
 tbe world. Even Kussia is breaking tbe cbains of serfdom. 
 "Wbat some men call unrest is agitating tbe planet we inbabit. 
 But tbe liglit and tbe power of true and beneficent genius, 
 sucb as instructs and pleases man in bis peaceful and silent 
 bours — tbese still abide. Tbe lustre of Burns's fame sbines 
 unalterably, even like that of tbe stars. Tacitus and Sallust 
 are renowned as historians ; but w^e can never feel certain tbat 
 tbey wxre not more loyal to tbeir patrons tban to veracity. 
 Not so with Burns. Tbe poet is a man of at least three ex- 
 istences ; one is a tribute to duty, another to society, tbe third 
 to his inspiration, Lockbart, Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, 
 have memorialized Burns in tbe Old World. American poets 
 have rejoiced to do him justice. One of these presides hei'e 
 to-night, toward whom, as a poet, I may not say wbat tbe fu- 
 ture will certainly utter; but I claim the privilege of repeat- 
 ing some lines from one usually denominated the " Quaker 
 Poet," whom I could not admire if, like the presiding officer 
 of this assemblage, he did not sympathize with human free- 
 dom in all its forms and conditions. Jolm G. Whittier has 
 
THE CENTENNIAL FESTIVAL. 65 
 
 adorned his own character, and tlie hero of tliis liour, by 
 exchiiining : 
 
 " Let those who never erred, forget 
 His worth in vain bewailings ; 
 Sweet soul of song ! I own my debt 
 Uncancelled by his failings. 
 
 Lament, who will, the ribald line 
 Which tells his lapse from duty — 
 
 How kissed the maddening lips of wine. 
 Or wanton ones of beauty : 
 
 But think, while falls that shade between 
 
 The erring one and Heaven, 
 That he who loved like Magdalen, 
 
 Like her may be forgiven. 
 
 Not his the song whose thund'rous chime 
 
 Eternal echoes render — 
 The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, 
 
 Or Milton's starry splendor! 
 
 But who his human heart has laid 
 To Nature's bosom nearer ? 
 
 Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 
 To love a tribute dearer ? 
 
 "Through all his tuneful heart, how strong 
 The human feeling gushes ! 
 The very moonlight of his song. 
 Is warm with smiles and blushes ! 
 
 " Grive lettered pomp to tooth of Time, 
 So ' Bonnie Doon ' but tarry : 
 Blot out the Epic's stately I'hyme — 
 But spare his ' Highland Mary!' " 
 
 Mr. Brady's remarks were greeted witli vehement applause 
 
 throughout ; after which the following song, written for the 
 
 occasion, was sung by Mr, William Park : 
 9 
 
Scots, whci'e'er your homes may stand, 
 Ne'er forget your native land ; 
 Meet this day in friendly band — 
 Drink his memory. 
 
 He who lived and loved and sung, 
 Scotia's hills and glens among : 
 He whose harp, so true, hath rung 
 For humanity. 
 
 Spread the board with highland cheer, — 
 Sing the lays to Scotland deai% — 
 Fill the glass : we'i-e brothers here, — 
 Drink to Robert Burns. 
 
 'Tis the day that marks his birth. 
 Bard of Scotland's heart and hearth ; 
 Meet ye then, o'er all the earth. 
 As this day returns. 
 
 Here's to all he loved so well, 
 Manhood's truth and beauty's spell, 
 Fatherland, its hill and dell. 
 Pledge we in his name. 
 
 Here's to Burns : fill high ! fill high I 
 Drink till every glass is dry : 
 Memory's tear in every eye 
 Keepeth fresh his fame. 
 
 The Honorary Chairman then announced the second regu- 
 lar toast : 
 
 The Genius of Burns. — Risen above the dust and clouds of earthly 
 frailty and misfortune, it shines, a fixed star in the heavens, and sings 
 as it shines, to cheer the heart of friendship and love, mercy and truth, 
 liberty and humanity ; an hundred years are proof that its light belongs 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 67 
 
 not only to his own day, but to all time ; and not only to Scotland, but to 
 mankind. 
 
 Music — "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon." 
 
 Ilev\ Samuel Osgood rose to respond. 
 
 SPEECH OF REV. MR. OSGOOD. 
 
 The subject given me by this sentiment, Mr. President, has 
 one fault, as uncommon as it is weighty. It is the fault of 
 being too good, so good that it s})eaks too well for itself to 
 need any thing to be said for it. Surely the genius of Burns 
 has sung itself into the human heart ; and if any man questions 
 its quality, the best answer to the question is a strain of the 
 poet's own music — that will be quite sure to set the doubter 
 himself singing in nnison. But good as the topic is of itself, 
 without any added words, I am in for a speech ; and my great 
 hope is that the man, with the occasion, may give a little in- 
 spiration to lips not claiming the " faculty divine," as the 
 touch o'l a master hand gives life to the pipes of the organ, and 
 wrings melody from dull lead and wood. Upon this principle, 
 it may not be presumptuous in me to speak here to-night ; and 
 if your presence, honored sir, in the Chair, might call for 
 modest silence from others upon that gentle art poetic, in 
 whicli you are our master, why may not this fact work quite 
 the other way, and lead a poor proser to hope that he may 
 catch a little of your fire by sitting near enough to the Chair 
 to feel the electric spark from that direction. Although 
 wooden tables may not venture, as they are said to do, to 
 move and talk under the action of departed spirits, surely our 
 heads must be worse than wooden if we are not mediums now, 
 and our brains are not entranced, and our tongues are not 
 
68 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 electrified by the spell of this hour, when the voice of Bryant 
 calls on us to commune with the spirit of Burns. 
 
 The sentiment, sir, says that the genius of Burns belongs not 
 only to Scotland, but to mankind. Whether mankind really 
 owns the property or not, it is very clear that it has taken pos- 
 session, and does not mean to let go. We have got the poet 
 by heart, and we mean to keep him there. If Scotland has 
 him, we have him, too ; and if she tries, as she will not do, to 
 keep him to herself, she cannot show her treasure without 
 renouncing her monopoly, or without opening her coffer to the 
 nations, and so giving to every one that hath an eye or an ear, 
 a gift in its own nature of universal meaning and worth, those 
 words, winged as doves, and precious as " apples of gold in 
 pictures of silver." As well try to make private property of a 
 star in heaven, as of a bright genius ; for genius, like the stars, 
 belongs to every eye that sees it, and all own the light who 
 walk in its shining. What better proves that this bard belongs 
 to us all, than tliis occasion itself? We meet here, men of 
 every trade, profession, country, and creed, to keep this festival 
 of a ploughman's birth ; and whilst we hold our genial fellow- 
 ship together, we catch thrills of kindred feeling from brethren 
 in all the great American cities, whose greetings come flashing 
 along the electric wires ; and, perhaps, before the night is 
 through, the Atlantic Cable may wake up at the thrill of so 
 many harp-strings — nay, make one string in the great harpsi- 
 chord of the nations. The silent De Santy may bring to us, 
 through the cold bed of the ocean, some pulses of the heart of 
 old Scotland, that shall make us, here on tlie banks of the 
 Hudson, brothers all with the poet's own countrymen, now met 
 on the Frith of Forth, by the waters of the Tweed, and the 
 banks and braes of bonnie Doon. In fact, no literary festival 
 that ever took place on earth, probably, had so broad an 
 
to 
 
 THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 69 
 
 interest as this ; and over the whole globe, wlierever our 
 tongue is spoken, or British or American institutions are known 
 there will be some genial souls to speak tenderly with us the 
 great minstrel's name. If the drum-beat of Britain circles the 
 world continually, and the sunrise in every longitude is saluted 
 by the reveille of her armies and fleets, who shall tell the 
 circle of the heart-beat of her language — our language, as 
 well as hers? Wherever that great heart beats this night, its 
 blood quickens at the name of Robert Burns. The drums of 
 the two great empires have not always, as now, sounded peace- 
 ful notes to each other ; but in the heart-beat of to-night there 
 is no jarring, either in remembrance or anticipation. 
 
 New York, surely, has rightly her part in this great festival ; 
 and no where this side of the Atlantic has Scotland so many 
 sons and friends as here. The poet himself once thought of 
 this city, and in his lines, " When Guilford good our pilot 
 stood," gives a hint of our present occuj)ation : 
 
 Poor Tammy Gage, within a cage, 
 
 Was kept at Boston lia', man. 
 Till Willie Howe took o'er the knowe 
 
 To Philadelphia, man ; 
 Wi' sword and gun he thought a sin, 
 
 Guid Christian blood to draw, man ; 
 But at New York, wi' knife and fork. 
 
 Sirloin he hacked sma', man. 
 
 But, Mr. President, I must not slight my mission, nor fail to 
 say something of the poet's genius. What genius is, it is hard 
 to define ; and even the men that have most of it do not 
 always seem to know what it is. A Yankee ought to be good 
 at guessing; and, as a full-blooded one, of the Bunker-Hill 
 breed, I will venture to guess that genius is that which makes 
 a man see into the soul of things, and makes others see into 
 them. There is genius in every sphere of thought and action, 
 
70 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 from constructing steam-engines to commanding armies — from 
 calculating eclipses to composing symphonies. But, whatever 
 the sphere, we expect a man of genius to see into the matter in 
 question, and so to shape the matter by his own mind that 
 others also may see into it. Poetic genius is that which en- 
 ables the possessor to see feelingly the soul of things, and so 
 to make them over in thought and w^ord that others, too, may 
 see. Thus the poet, as the name denotes, is a " maker" — a 
 "seer," indeed, but also a "maker" — making the real life of 
 things to be visibly seen by his art. A true poem is a living 
 work, and its art brings out the life of the indwelling and 
 overruling spirit, as trees and flowers bring out the life of 
 nature. Such genius, of coui'se, is a native gift — born, not 
 made; to be nurtured, indeed, by education, but created, not 
 by man's art, but by God's power. It is at once a sense and 
 a force ; a " vision and a faculty divine ;" a gift of seeing and 
 of shaping ; and, like all senses and all forces, it is to be traced 
 to native organization. It woi'ks from within outward, with 
 spontaneous life, and, unlike mere talent, it takes its possessor 
 quite as much by surprise as it does the world ; so that its 
 best products are more involuntary births than labored manu- 
 factures ; and when most carefully elaborated, the labor is 
 more upon the dress than upon the body of the creation. In 
 this sense Burns was a genius ; and as soon as he could see 
 and think for himself, he felt and betrayed the secret of his 
 gift. It mattered little what he looked upon; he saw the soul 
 in it, and made it speak its soul to others ; and under his eye, 
 the daisy or the mouse beneath his ploughshare M'a& more 
 eloquent than the Alps or the Oceans are to men of common 
 mould. The characteristics of his genius I need not undertake 
 to describe minutely, after such masters in criticism as Carlyle 
 and Lockhart have gone over the fleld. Following a simpler 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 71 
 
 philosophy of criticism than theirs, let us say that Burns's 
 genius was quite as remarkable for its susceptibility as for its 
 power, and that he was at once mastered by his subject and 
 master of it. His sense was alike genial and clear, alive to 
 every aspect of truth. His will was earnest and manly, eager 
 to follow every hint of nature and humanity — determined to 
 speak out his downright convictions in his words. So he had 
 both kinds of genius — that which is mastered by a subject, or 
 surrenders itself to external influences, and also that which 
 masters a subject and makes it speak out the poet's own man- 
 hood. 
 
 In this he is more of a poet than his great countryman Scott, 
 who is so absorbed by his theme as to lose his own personality, 
 and so became the minstrel of the old ages instead of the hero 
 of the new age. Burns was both minstrel and hero ; and his 
 best poems, while they may rehearse old times, are shaping the 
 new times, and not only singing songs, but striking blows for 
 the days of liberty and humanity that are to come. It is this 
 manly earnestness, together with his tender sensibility, that 
 makes Burns the people's poet ; and they love him, not only 
 because he feels for their sorrows and with their joys, but 
 because he believed in making the sorrows less, and the joys 
 more. With all his frailties, his genius was heroic as it was 
 tender, manly as it was womanly ; and something of the blood 
 of Bruce and Wallace, that he celebrated in his verse, beat in 
 the poet's own fiery veins. In his earnest manhood, and 
 feminine tenderness, he deserves to be named in the same 
 breath with his brother bard, who was born the same year 
 with himself — Friedrich Schiller. Heaven, surely, was bounti- 
 ful one hundred years ago, in sending to the banks of the 
 Neckar and the Ayr two such souls as Schiller and Burns. In 
 both. Poetry gained a genius, and Liberty a prophet. We 
 
72 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 speak their names together to-night ; together they will live in 
 the ages, and sing into brotherhood the tongues and nations 
 which they represent. 
 
 Look now a moment at the fruits of his genius, and consider 
 their form and their substance. The form of a man's thought 
 has much to do with expressing its nature and shaping its 
 power. With Burns, the form was not a costume put upon his 
 thought, but a life outspoken. He spoke as he was moved, 
 without pedantry or aii'ectation, and the familiar airs and 
 homely language of his people won new melody and eloquence 
 upon his lijjs. He did not study versification in grammars 
 and rhetoric, but listened to the airs of old Scotland, that 
 seemed part of the breath of the nation ; and he gave back 
 these airs enriched with his own precious thought and senti- 
 ment, as some spice-island welcomes the rude sea-breezes to its 
 aromatic groves, and wafts them away, no longer common air, 
 but fragrant as Araby the Blest. He did not hunt the dic- 
 tionaries for high-sounding words, nor the classics for stately 
 sentences ; but spoke his mind in the plain language of his 
 farming neighbors, and found that common speech was more 
 full of vitality and beauty than any scholastic dialect, even as 
 the common earth yields more blossom and fruit than the 
 pavements of polished marble, though inlaid with mosaics. 
 So he formed his matchless style — or, rather, so he let his style 
 grow — and the sincerity and force of his genius spoke itself 
 out in his word. 
 
 The substance of his works corresponds with the form, and 
 is to be found in every line that comes in earnest from his pen. 
 He every where shows the same gentle, brave heart ; the same 
 clear, manly sense at work to bring us nearer to nature and to 
 man — sometimes nearer to God. How marvelous is his natur- 
 alness ! I refer not now so much to his wonderful naturalness 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 73 
 
 in language as in liis thouglit. The tradition is, that St, Francis, 
 the begging saint, was taught by a miracle the language of 
 irrational creatures, and could converse with flowers and ani- 
 mals. But we need no tradition to reveal to us this gift in our 
 poet. He talks to nature as a friend, and as such she answers 
 him ; and river, and mountain, flower, bird, and beast, that to 
 so many have a dead language, or a dumb cipher, spoke to him 
 their mother tongue. His favorite flowers chat with him like 
 children — the daisy, the harebell, and the sweet-briar — ^while 
 the Doon and Ayr, in the swell and cadence of their flowing 
 waters, sing to him of the light of by-gone days, like old 
 friends ; and the Highland hills stand up before him like min- 
 istering priests of God, lifting up to heaven the solenm litanies 
 of ages. The animals talked to him and through him in a mar- 
 velous way ; and what he has said of the mouse, the dogs, the 
 old mare, the old sheep, the wounded hare, brings the brute 
 creatures nearer our hearts, and preaches, trumpet-tongued, 
 that neglected part of the Gospel — mercy to the races below us. 
 Remember that mercy. Remember here to-night, that he who 
 pains, without reason, any dumb creature, is no brother to 
 Robert Burns. 
 
 And what aspect of humanity has not been illustrated by his 
 pathos or humor, his keen wit or stout manhood ? Do we speak 
 of friendship ? — read the Elegy on Glencairn, or sing " Auld 
 Lang Syne." Is love the theme ? — without referring to those 
 passages in the Poet's life, when he, like too many of us, was 
 a tinder box before the flashes of every new bright eye, and 
 yielded to the failing which since father Adam's time has been 
 somewhat chronic with the whole race — own that reverence for 
 woman that runs through all his best romantic songs, and rises 
 into religious solemnity in his "Cotter's Saturday Night." No 
 
 nobler tribute to wedded love need be paid than in the good 
 10 
 
74 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 old song, " John Anderson," whicli sings, in its homely way, 
 the blessed truth tliat home happiness should brighten with 
 years, and they whom God hath joined together are dearer far 
 as time purges away earthly lusts, and transfigures human 
 affections in the love that is divine and has promise of eternity. 
 In other pieces, as in that to "Mary in Heaven," there is a 
 devout tenderness that mates him with Dante, the great father 
 of modern literature, who found heavenly purity in a gentle 
 maiden's eyes, and in his sadder and riper years was led in 
 solemn vision by her seraphic spirit above the empyrean to 
 the eternal throne. Who shall describe his service to patriot- 
 ism, or say too much of that love of country that glows in his 
 " Farewell to Scotland" and his " Bruce's Address at Bannock- 
 burn ? " Where Scotch blood beats, those words of Bruce are 
 a living power. In them Burns has done better service on the 
 field than in the " awkward squad " of Dumfries Volunteers. 
 In those words he fought among the Scotch Greys at Waterloo, 
 and marched to the relief of Lucknow. The pibroch, sounding 
 through the defiles of the hills of India, that spoke hope and life 
 to the beleaguered garrison, in its wild wailing and brave cheer, 
 bore upon its breath more than a remembrance of the pathos and 
 the courage of the Highlanders' Master Bard. Kor was the 
 great sentiment of humanity less favored by his muse. His 
 famous song, " A Man's a Man for a' that," is the Declaration 
 of Independence set to music, and is this night sung round the 
 w^orld. Some there may be Avho question his claim to be 
 thought a friend to humanity in its spiritual aspects, but which 
 of us can, in justice, deny his title to religious sentiment, or 
 will maintain that, in his best hours, he was a stranger to 
 divine faith? Will not the Cotter's Saturday Night plead for 
 piety and purity ages after the author's personal frailties are 
 forgotten ? And what youth can read his poetic letter of 1786 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. Y5 
 
 to a young friend, and not call the bard the earnest moralist 
 as well as the genial companion ? Snch sentences as these are 
 no scoffer's words : 
 
 "An Atheist's laugh 's a poor exchange 
 For Deity ofFeuded." 
 
 And, again. 
 
 ■ A correspondence fixed wi' Heaven, 
 Is sure a noble anchor." 
 
 Thus, and in passages without number, might we show the 
 real humanity of our poet in its broad and vital relations with 
 nature, man, and God. We might show that, however limited 
 in the quantity of his works, and in this respect inferior to the 
 great poets before his day, in respect to the quality of his 
 genius he has claims to be named with any of them. What 
 he might have done if long life, better discipline, and more 
 congenial circumstances had been granted him, we cannot tell ; 
 but sure we are that, in the great characteristics of native 
 genius, what he did places him among the great poets of 
 hum.anity. He looked upon nature with Homer's clear, open 
 eyes, and into the heart of man with Shakspeare's divining 
 sagacity. He shows us glimpses of Dante's weird diablerie, 
 with much of his more than chivalrous tenderness; whilst in 
 the power of transition from pathos to humor, and from deep- 
 est melancholy to gayest joy, the author of " Man was made 
 to mourn," and the " Ode to liuin," " Tam O'Shanter," " The 
 Jolly Beggars," and " My Heart's in the Highlands," need not 
 ask favor from the greatest admirers of the author of " L'Al- 
 legro" and "11 Penseroso." This high estimate of the 
 quality of his genius implies no fulsome eulogy of the man, 
 but rather deepens our regret at the fatal errors that brought 
 
76 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 liim to a premature grave, and blasted his power in its 
 meridian. 
 
 Time, however, is the true test of genius, and in its mighty- 
 crucible purges away the dross, to preserve the true gold. A 
 century is time enough to separate wliatever is merely private 
 or individual in a man, from what is universal or human. 
 The genius of Burns is now put to this test, and we are look- 
 ing to see what remains of him now that his private fortunes 
 are not our concern, but we treat rather his place in the world 
 of humanity. What relates merely to the individual as such, 
 or merely to the stomach and pockets, does not belong to the 
 race, and, unless connected with higher interests, goes into the 
 grave with the dust of the body. Too many men, according 
 to this principle, leave nothing behind them, and, living for 
 themselves, would seem, but for the light of a holy faith, 
 doomed to perish — mere digesters of food and gatherers of 
 gold. But the true man lives in things universal ; and when 
 he dies, the undying humanity to which he belongs will not 
 let him drop into oblivion. Thus Burns lives in that humanity 
 which he claimed as his own, and quickened and exalted by 
 his thought and word. 
 
 His genius belongs to humanity, and without the aid of titled 
 patrons or voting senates academical, it has taken its place in 
 the great temple of letters by the same law that lifts the oak 
 above the bramble, and moves the spheres, each in its orbit. 
 There he is, and there he will stay. The genius, whose fragile 
 home, one hundred years ago, when he was a few days old, was 
 blown down in a tempest, now dwells among the Masters of 
 Song, within walls of remembrance that no storm can shake, 
 no floods wash away. 
 
 He was a Providential man, and had a mission, especially to 
 his own ao^e as well as to all time. He was born, and lived in 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL, Y7 
 
 a memorable century — the age in which tlie old tyrannies and 
 the new liberties struggled together, as never before or since. 
 Two years before he was born, a gifted and marvelous man in 
 the north of Europe, alike a philosopher and a devotee, had a 
 vision of the immediate end of the old world, and the forming 
 of the new age, with its throne of judgment and signs of spir- 
 itual power. Whatever we may think of his dreams or marvels, 
 Swedenborg was right in his thought, and the new world was 
 surely in its birth-throes. The life of the common people was 
 to be moved as never before, since the Christian era began ; and 
 soldiers, statesmen, scholars, and poets were now to have new 
 work to do, and new topics to treat. What a spell there is 
 upon our memory to-night, as we listen to this music that binds 
 the years together, and brings before us, as in one great drama, 
 the century that now strikes the hour upon the dial of ages, 
 1759 — 1859. Who shall describe, or even comprehend, the 
 men and events of that interval ? Yet there is method in the 
 madness, even of revolutions; and the facts of the century turn 
 with considerable unity upon a single point — the struggle of 
 popular liberty with chartered monopolies, the conflict between 
 freedom and tyranny. From the struggle. Providence has been 
 leading humanity to new triumphs in spite of either class of 
 destructives, the despots and the anarchists. Autocrats and 
 mobocrats swarm before us in fearful procession, as we contem- 
 plate that time of conflicting powers and opinions. I^ow that 
 the thick of the battle is over, the issue is somewhat clear to 
 us, and we see, on the one side, such autocrats as the Louises, 
 Alexanders, and NajDoleons, with their priestly advisers ; and 
 on the other side, such mobocrats as the Robespierres and 
 Marats, with their counsellors more steeped in Atheism and 
 Materialism than they. Between the two ranks stand the cham- 
 pions of constitutional liberty, under such leaders as Chatham 
 
78 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 and Bnrke, Washington and Franklin, and the great thinkers 
 and antliors who have striven for a social order, humane and 
 reverential. Among these men Robert Burns has a Providen- 
 tial name and place, and he is one of the builders of the new 
 civilization of freedom and humanity. While men were dis- 
 puting whether there was any human soul and human right, 
 and Atheism was wrangling with ghostly priestcraft, and meet- 
 ing blind credulity w^ith as blind unbelief, the Scotch plough- 
 man came into the field of debate with his songs of liberty and 
 humanity, and taught the people by heart that there is more 
 mind in man than the schools teach him, and a worth, too, that 
 kings cannot make nor mobs unmake. Though not a theolo- 
 gian, he belongs to the teachers of positive faith ; and as his 
 countryman, Thomas Reid, by his Philosophy of Comrtion 
 Se)ise, rebuked the prevailing intellectual scepticism that was 
 making men into materialists. Burns by his poetic fire did the 
 same good work for the Anglo-Saxon people, and set the phi- 
 losophy of common sense to music. He is one of the great 
 teachers of the belief now so vital and so mighty in public 
 opinion — that there is something in man more than what 
 schooling puts into him, and that the greatest of all wrongs is 
 to crush down the rights and instincts of a human soul. 
 
 He sang this principle of the great creed of humanity to 
 moody umltitudes almost ripe for bloodshed, and at his word 
 they yielded their madness for mercy, as Saul of old was re- 
 freshed by David's harp, and was well. In giving the Anglo- 
 Saxon race the love of liberty without anarchy, and bringing 
 into social and civil life a brave and genial sense of right, 
 Robert Burns was a servant of Providence. He felt within 
 himself the life of the new humanity, and spoke it out even 
 more deeply and eloquently than he knew. The world's field 
 was ready for the great harvest ; and from whose lips came the 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL, 79 
 
 cheering notes of its spring-time more than from that peasant 
 poet — that spring-bird of the better year of promise and fruit? 
 Now that the great problem of the century is, in a measure, 
 solved, so far as first principles are concerned, we can see the 
 poet's Providential work, and now in our own vision of liberty 
 we hear that ploughman's voice in the songs of liberty that 
 are sounding through tlie world, and quickening anew the 
 manhood that kindled at Chatham's eloquence, and fought 
 under Washington's standard. He is the poet of common 
 humanity. His notes were, indeed, often merry, and some- 
 times trifling; but his great songs are marches, not dancing 
 tunes, and by their cheering music our humanity has marched 
 on more stoutly its appointed way. Plonor, then, to the genius 
 of Burns ! He was not ashamed of us in our common nature 
 with all its homeliness and care. In Heaven's name let us not 
 be ashamed of him. Pity — much pity for the man — pity for 
 him who pitied every creature, from the little mouse to the 
 great devil, that imp of darkness, Auld Nickie Ben himself! 
 But no pity for his genius, so imperial as to demand our hom- 
 age, and clothe us with its purple and gold ! It is God's gift 
 to us, and in common with all like gifts of Providential minds, 
 it proves our birth-right to a domain beyond aught that we can 
 make ourselves. We are great, brethren, not in ourselves alone, 
 but in our race — in that humanity which God has given, and 
 all ages are enriching, and which needs heaven, as well as 
 earth, to hold its treasures. Under the spell of this great name, 
 acknowledge to-night the common bond of humanity ; and as 
 the same music that has charmed millions, now sweeps through 
 this hall with its pathos and joy, let it touch within us the 
 chord of brotherhood, leaving no human soul on earth or heaven 
 out of the circle of its fellowship. Let its matchless humor 
 charm us out of our too anxious cares, and let its frequent 
 
80 BUElSrS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 sadness soothe rather than deepen our too ready dejection, by 
 moving us to cure our griefs by relieving our neighbor's suffer- 
 ings as we may. Thank God for the joy and the sorrow 
 of Burns' song. Its joy declares that Sovereign Goodness is 
 over us still, and its sorrow speaks not only of his own strug- 
 gles, but of that still sad music of Humanity which tells us, if 
 not that Paradise is lost, at least it is not yet won, and we have 
 a long way to go, and a hard battle to light, before we strike 
 our tents and ground our arms. Gratefully hear our poet's 
 voice in the great company, to whose fraternity a century of 
 years now seals his right, and let his voice sound with theirs. 
 All our great poets are singing for us still, and the morning 
 stars shall cease their song before those eternal melodies are 
 hushed. 
 
 Mr. President, I give a closing sentiment : 
 
 The Poets of our Humanity — Glroat in what they have done — greater 
 still in what they are to do for us. They not only charm our quiet hours, 
 but nerve us to work and to wait for the good days coming, with a hand 
 and heart of welcome to every friend of God and man in all time. 
 
 The company manifested their appreciation of the power and 
 eloquence of Mr. Osgood's speech by their earnest attention, 
 broken only by impulsive bursts of applause, and he took his 
 seat amid prolonged and enthusiastic cheering. 
 
 Mr. George Shvipson then sang " Of a' the airts the wind can 
 blaw," and being rapturously encored, gave " The Jolly Beg- 
 gars," with great effect. 
 
 Mr. Edward M. Archibald, the Honorary Yice-President, 
 announced the third regular toast : 
 
 Scotland — "We love our land because it is our own, 
 And scorn to give another reason why." 
 
 Music — " Here's a health, bonnie Scotland, to thee." 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 81 
 
 Mr. Charles Gould was called on to respond. 
 
 MR. Gould's speech. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlf:mex : ^o words are adequate to 
 tell our admiration and veneration for the " land of the moun- 
 tain and the flood ;" the land of chivalric honor and heroic 
 courage ; a resting-place of freedom ; a home and a birth- 
 place of virtue, and talents, and genius — virtue without a stain, 
 talents unsurpassed in the wide range of history, and genius 
 whose centennial we this night celebrate. 
 
 Countries are known by what they are, and by what they 
 have done. What Scotland is, and what she has done, the 
 world knows by heart : and that little island claims as her 
 children those who rank with the greatest and best of mankind. 
 The mere catalogue is far too long for mention here. The 
 array of Scotland's statesmen and heroes, men of science and 
 martyrs, authors and poets, crowds the page of history. 
 Woman has taken a proud stand there, and a century ago the 
 authoress of "Auld Robin Gray" gave new sweetness to ballad 
 literature. 
 
 What Scott did in raising the standard of fiction — minoflins^ 
 instruction and lessons of virtue with a natural narrative — 
 Wilson, his great contemporary, did for periodical literature. 
 The charming flow of pathos and humor, of wit and descriptive 
 power, of sarcasm and of eloquence, which makes the Nootes 
 AiiibrosiancB so loved and honored, has made the sayings of 
 Christopher l^orth " familiar in our mouths as household 
 words," and written him among " the few immortal names 
 that were not born to die." 
 
 Great in her heroes, great in her statesmen, great in her 
 
 authors, greater in her great poet. Great as Scotland is in all 
 U 
 
82 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 these, her children, she is greatest in the stand she took so long 
 ago, and has since maintained so nobly, for freedom and for 
 truth. Her martyr-heroes are a long cloud of witnesses, who 
 accepted death rather than yield their high and stern principles 
 of religious freedom and religious right ; and their successors 
 in the sacred duties of piety have done their full part in making 
 Scotland what she is. 
 
 " From scenes like this old Scotia's grandeui* springs. 
 That makes her loved at home, revered abroad." 
 
 The central place of honor among Scotland's noble children 
 we this night give — we always give — to Burns ; the genius, 
 untaught in earthly schools, who caught his inspiration im- 
 mediately from the Great Creator, and scattered the heaven- 
 born gift like leaves from the tree of life, to bless his fellow 
 men. 
 
 True fifenius is an inexhaustible fountain of the beautiful 
 and the good. Generation after generation w^U draw from 
 Scotland's Great Poet, as we have done, ennobling emotions 
 and great thoughts, and still there remains the overflowing 
 supply; and generations unborn will come to the same glorious 
 fountain, and drink, and bless the name and honor the memory 
 of Robert Burns. 
 
 "Nothing need coA^er his high fame but heaven ; 
 No pyramids set oft" his memories, 
 But the eternal substance of his greatness, 
 To which I leave him !" 
 
 Gentlemen of the Burns Club : It is a pleasure to you and to 
 me to greet, on this proud centennial, the two great poets of 
 America, presiding in pleasant fellowship over our pleasant 
 festival. Bryant and Halleck : God bless you both, now and 
 ever ! and when your centennial shall come, the lovers of 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 83 
 
 Nature's Great Poet will love your memories and embalm your 
 names. 
 
 Mr. Andrew S. Eadie, Jr., then sang with spirit and effect, 
 the song, " Scotland, I love thee." 
 
 Mr. Joseph Laing, the First Vice President, announced the 
 fourth regular toast, introducing it with a few appropriate re- 
 marks; speaking of America as the land most loved and 
 honored by Scotchmen, after their own. 
 
 America — Where the (li<:^nity of self-p;()vernmeiit ennobles the humblest 
 citizen, and the march of civilization is commensurate with the extent of 
 territory ; while she studies to advance the one, the other can never be 
 retarded. 
 
 The toast was received with great enthusiasm and all the 
 honors, 
 
 Ifusie.—'' Yankee Doodle." 
 
 Hon. D. F. TiEMANN, was expected to reply to this toast, 
 but having been compelled to retire previous to its announce- 
 ment, 
 
 Hon. GuLiAN C. Yeeplanck responded. After appropriate 
 reference to the toast, he alluded to the correspondence between 
 Burns and Col. Ogden De Peyster, whose name was familiar 
 to the speaker's ears, as that of a native !N^ew Yorker, and as 
 the first New Yorker who did honor to the genius of Burns, 
 He concluded by proposing the memory of Ogden De Peyster. 
 
 3fusic. — " Star Spangled Banner." 
 
 The Honorary Chairman then proposed the fifth toast : 
 
 77«e Queen of Great Britain and the President of the United States. 
 
 The announcement was received with peal on peal of enthu- 
 siastic applause, amid which the band struck up " God save 
 
84 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 the Queen." Mr. Wm. Robertson then sang the anthem, with 
 great spirit, the whole company rising and joining in the chorus. 
 Mr. Edward M. Archibald being called on to respond, said : 
 If he displayed any reluctance in responding to the call which 
 had just been made upon him, it was because he yielded to it 
 somewhat in derogation of a well-known rule by which the 
 Queen's health is rarely if ever responded to. Hers was a 
 name which could best answer for itself wherever it was pro- 
 nounced. This was perhaps an occasion on which it might be 
 fitting to make an exception. But indeed they had put upon 
 him a hard task to speak in praise of one who was above all 
 praise ; one wdio reigned supreme not alone over the liberties 
 and fortunes, but in the hearts of all her subjects, and whose 
 name was hailed with acclamations of profoundest respect 
 wherever it was pronounced through the whole world ; one 
 who, whether as a Queen, a wife, or a mother, commanded our 
 highest admiration — our most heartfelt affection. To Scotch- 
 men she should be doubly dear ; for, true to the Scottish 
 blood in her veins, see how she loves yearly to revisit her 
 Highland home — to tread the heather — and to wander by the 
 romantic banks of the Tay and the Doon, rendered classic by 
 the sweetest of Scotland's poets. See how she delights to 
 clothe herself and her children in the tasteful hues of the 
 Scottish garb, and to make herself familiar wuth the homely 
 joys and destiny obscure of the humblest of her subjects. This 
 day, wdiich was also the anniversary to her Majesty of an 
 interesting domestic incident, would, he was sure, be celebrated 
 by her in honor of Scotland's favorite bard, with not less fervor 
 than by the veriest Scot in her wide-spread dominions. It was 
 pleasing to see the name of their beloved Queen and that of 
 the Chief Magistrate of this great country thus associated on 
 such a day as this, when the hearts of the people of the two 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 85 
 
 countries beat in harmony, and when they celebrated in nnison 
 a poetic fame which was their common inheritance and their 
 common property. What could he more do than, as the 
 unworthy representative of her Majesty there that day, to 
 thank them, as he did, from the bottom of his heart, for the 
 honor with Mdiich, in this great city of the Western World, 
 where she claimed no allegiance, they had received as they 
 ever received the name of the Queen. Though he had no 
 right or claim to speak on behalf of the President of the 
 United States, he hoped it would not be considered presump- 
 tuous in him to thank them also for the enthusiastic manner in 
 which they had received the name of their worthy and able 
 Chief Magistrate. 
 
 Mr. Archibald was loudly applauded throughout, and re- 
 sumed his seat amid great cheering. 
 
 Music. — " Hail Columbia." 
 
 Messrs. Benj. F. Miller and Geo. S. Haktt then gave the 
 song " Huzza for Columbia," with great animation. 
 The Cliairman next announced the sixth toast : 
 
 Kindred Associations throughout the World — May thoy preserve the 
 songs, and disseminate the sentiments of Burns, "till man and man, the 
 warld o'er, shall brithers be, and a' that." 
 
 [This toast had been dispatched to various parts of the 
 United States and the Canadas, as the sentiment of the New 
 York Burns Club, to be given simultaneously at 10 o'clock 
 Xew York time, and had been read out of its order for that 
 purpose ; but it is deemed proper to preserve the regular order 
 in this report.] 
 
86 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBKATION. 
 
 The toast was received with great enthusiasm, the company 
 rising and honoring it with nine cheers. 
 
 Music. — " O, wat ye wha's in yon toan." 
 Mr. Adam Nokkie responded. He said : 
 
 Tlie Society over which I liave the honor to preside, is 
 no doubt inchided in the last toast, and I beg leave to 
 return most cordial thanks for the compliment to " Kindred 
 Associations." It is trne that our society differs from yonrs 
 in some important respects, having different objects in view, 
 but they are in many respects kindred. They are kindred in 
 blood, most of the members of both being of Scottish origin. 
 They are kindred in a conmion attachment to "the land of the 
 mountain and the flood," and above all, on this occasion, they 
 are not only kindred but consentaneous in their admiration of 
 the illustrious poet we are now assembled to honor — in this 
 sentiment all are of one heart and one mind — the name of 
 Burns awakens in all our hearts the same emotions of pride 
 and admiration, and I rejoice in the privilege your kindness 
 has afforded me of uniting in this grand celebration in honor 
 of Scotia's greatest Bard. 
 
 I well know from youthful and later experience, that there 
 is no name like that of Burns to dissipate the Scotchman's 
 native reserve and waken up the fervid enthusiasm which 
 underlie^ the Scottish character. It cannot be otherwise, for 
 his name is a household word in every Scottish home, from 
 the theeket cottage to the stately castle. The nursery child 
 listens to his songs, the brown-faced plowboy sings them as 
 he treads the furrow, the pale mechanic mingles them with 
 the hum of his daily labor, and they are joyfully welcomed 
 in the halls and by the firesides of the wealthy and the culti- 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 
 
 vated. Such is the endearing influence of this marvelous son 
 of Genius and of Scotland ; such the immortality of the Ayr- 
 shire Plowman. 
 
 Is it not a wonderful thing, that after a century has passed 
 since his birth, the name of a humble, untaught Ayrshire 
 peasant, born to no inheritance but poverty, doomed to hard 
 labor in his native fields, with no teacher but Nature, and no 
 guide but that which the glorious soul within him provided, 
 should be a spell to gather such an assembly as this, with the 
 chieftain of American poets, a kindred genius, at its head ? — 
 and not only here, but all over this wide continent, and in 
 other lands, similar gatherings are held, to pay homage to our 
 immortal bard. Little did Burns think, " when the poetic 
 genius of his country found him, and threw her inspiring 
 mantle over him," that after one hundred years he should not 
 yet have reached the meridian of his fame, and that not only 
 the land he loved so well, but other lands and other races 
 should gather in crowds to do honor to his name. 
 
 I wish. Sir, you had selected from among the distinguished 
 gentlemen around me, representing other kindred associations, 
 one of them, to reply to your last toast. Any of them would 
 have done it more justice, while I can only claim an ecjuality 
 with them in admiration of Burns, and in gratification in 
 being permitted to enjoy the delight of this festival. In con- 
 cluding, Sir, these few words of thanks, I venture to hope 
 that I can in part compensate for the kindness of the Burns 
 Club, by exliibiting for the examination of all j)resent, a very 
 interesting relic of the great poet — namely, a lock of his hair, 
 gathered by reverent hands from his tomb on the occasion of 
 its being opened to receive the remains of his widow. I shall 
 allow it to tell its own story, merely adding that I am indebted 
 for the privilege of exhibiting it here, to the kindness of my 
 
BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 esteemed friend, Mr. Dinwiddie, secretary to the St. Andrew's 
 Society, who himself gathered it, at the Poet's grave, and who 
 values it as a precious relic of departed worth and genius. 
 
 [Mr. Richard Bell, of the St, Patrick's Society, handed 
 round the hair. The " lock " is very small, and is incased in 
 a neat double frame, with the following inscription :] 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 On the decease of his widow, in the month of March, 1834, the mau- 
 soleum of the poet, at Dumfries, was opened, and his skull exhumed, 
 for the pui-pose of a cast being taken from it. The writer was one of 
 the few persons who had the privilege of seeing the skull on that inter- 
 esting occasion. He remembers it was in good preservation, and of 
 unusually large size ; so much so, that it would not enter the writei-'s 
 hat. * On cleaning the skull for the purpose in view, a small portion of 
 hair was detached, of which the accompanying is a fragment. 
 
 EoBT. Dinwiddie. 
 New York, January, 1859. 
 
 Mr. Wm. Robertson then sang the ever welcome song, "A 
 man's a man for a' that," which was greeted with the usual 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 The Chairman then gave the seventh toast, which was duly 
 honored. 
 
 The Poets and Poelrj of Great Britain and Irdand — Sanctified in 
 the past by the genius of a Shakspeare, a Burns, and a Moore — may 
 their successors continue to advance the march of Intellect, of Civiliza- 
 tion, and of Freedom. 
 
 Music — " Brave old oak." 
 
 Mr. "William Young, of the J^ew York Albion, responded. 
 
THE CENTENAKY FESTIVAL. 89 
 
 MK. YOUNG s sPEi:cir. 
 
 You have done well, Mr. Chairman, to introduce into your 
 programme this tribute, at once so apt and so comprehensive. 
 And you, gentlemen, have done well also in thus cordially re- 
 ceiving it; for isolation is not part of the genuine poet's 
 nature, and of all the race none was knit more closely than 
 Robert Burns to men of his own vocation. Yon know, gentle- 
 men, for you have conned over lovingly every published detail 
 of his life, that Allan Ramsay's collection of songs Avas the 
 varle-mectom of his laborious boyhood ; and that only six 
 months before his death he spoke of Cowper's "Task" as a 
 glorious poem, and of Peter Pindar as one of his first favor- 
 ites. If to such as these he gave such honest welcome, how 
 must his big heart have yearned toward the lofty ones to 
 whom the toast alludes, and for whom I am expected to re- 
 spond. 
 
 But what response shall I make? — can I make? — I, who am 
 no practised orator, and unable, therefore, even to understand 
 that marvelous alacrity Avith which, in Parliament, in Con- 
 gress, in thronged assemblage, men enunciate the rights or the 
 wrongs of millions born or unborn, and appear, in fact, rather 
 aided than impeded by the ponderous responsibilities that they 
 shoulder. The greatness of the theme commended to my 
 charge brings to me no such aid. I find its magnitude op- 
 pressive, its variety perplexing. How shall I grapple Avith it 
 as a whole — Avith Avhat portion of it come closely into con- 
 tact ? Would you have me dilate upon the narrative of 
 Chaucer, the I'oniance of Spenser, Shakspeare's drama, or 
 Milton's epic? Or, coming down to more modern times, 
 
 Avould you care to hear me enumerate the almost nuujberless 
 12 
 
90 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 odes, that have been dedicated by brother folh^wers of the 
 muse to the memory of the genius of Burns ? Shall I remind 
 you of Byron's emphatic declaration that one of his most art- 
 fully artless stanzas contained the essence of all the love-songs 
 in the world ? Shall I labor to draw some far-fetched analogy, 
 between the one poet whose fame we are met to celebrate, and 
 the many whom you have just now associated with him in 
 your libations ? l^o, gentlemen ; any such attempt would be 
 alike wearisome and vain. It were superfluous to dwell upon 
 the copiousness and the richness of British and Irish poetry, 
 on the one hand ; on the other, upon the unquestionable fact, 
 that all the poetic reach and wealth of the United Kingdom, 
 from troubadours to corn-law rhymers, has failed to produce a 
 counterpart, even a rival, to Robert Burns, in the precincts 
 peculiarly his own. Besides, gentlemen, if your patience 
 would tolerate the stringing together a host of illustrious 
 names with which I might plead some familiarity, I should 
 shrink, in the pz-esence of so many Scots, from affixing epithets 
 to a Motherwell, a Tannahill, an Allan Cunningham, a Fergu- 
 son ; nor less from marshaling in due order of precedence the 
 Goldsmiths, the Dermodys, the Lovers, the Davises, dear all to 
 a people of quick impulse and keen susceptibility. For these 
 reasons, then — warranted also by the occasion and by this 
 goodly presence — I prefer to invite you for one moment to the 
 ground less familiarly trodden, nor exhausted, I think, by the 
 eloquence of those who have preceded me. Keats was in the 
 right of it, when he exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh ! sweet Fancy ! Let her loose ; 
 Evoiy thing is spoilt by use." 
 
 You perceive my drift. Not that I would bid you imagine 
 Burns' own ejaculation wrought out to the letter: 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 91 
 
 " Oh, were I on Parnassus' hill, 
 And had of Helicon my fill!" 
 
 Nor that I would undertake to localize the favored spot, 
 chanted by Wordsworth when a pilgrim to the banks of the 
 Nith : 
 
 "Where all that fetched the flowing rhyme, 
 From genuine springs, 
 Shall dwell together, till old Time 
 Folds up his wings." 
 
 Not this — not that ! Solely, I would ask you to figure to your- 
 selves a conclave of disembodied spirits — of those, I mean, 
 dead masters of our nation's written melody, who have 
 soothed, and enlightened, and animated living myriads 
 through successive generations. Scarcely can I hope to con- 
 vey to you the same impression ; but, through all the fumes of 
 your rich intellectual incense, I see them even noAV in my 
 mind's eye, even there overhead, bending down upon us, and 
 smiling approval. And why should they not be there, 
 
 " If aught of things that here befall 
 Touch a spirit among things divine," 
 
 as Tennyson has expressively worded it? At least it seems to 
 me, under the influence of surrounding accessories and asso- 
 ciations, not unnatural that the men of the New World and of 
 the Old should unite for briefest space upon the common 
 ground of the world unseen. At least, too, the conceit has 
 this merit — that each who listens may fill up its faint outline 
 as best accords with his own individual conceptions. On one 
 point alone we shall surely be all agreed. Picturing to your- 
 selves this spirit-gathering — if picture it you can — you hail by 
 instinct the one in the splendid group, installed for this 
 night in the starriest place of honor. His name I need not 
 repeat. For the rest, your own fancies may be brought into 
 
92 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 play ; mine I will not inflict npon you. Had I time, indeed, I 
 should lack boldness to follow out mine own phantasy. I 
 could not essay to trace the separate greeting of each master- 
 mind above us — to paint William Shakspeare, for instance, 
 recognizing in Robert Burns not one, but a thousand, of those 
 natural touches which make the whole world kin ; or Walter 
 Scott modestly reminding him of the fulfilment of his prophecy 
 — " You'll be a man, yet, sir !" I content myself, therefore, 
 with offering you this airy suggestion, in place of citing an 
 abridgment of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, or plying you 
 with a dissertation on the characteristics of British poetry. 
 
 Thus much, Mr. Chairman, for the main matter of your toast ; 
 but, if I have not already intruded too long, the sentiment with 
 which it closes demands also a word of acknowledgment. You 
 desire that the successors of a Shakspeare, a Burns, and a 
 Moore, may continue to extend the dominions of Intellect, of 
 Civilization, and of Freedom. Have no fear, gentlemen, on 
 that score ! Institutions may pass away ; Science may be 
 baffled or exhausted ; Learning may dwindle into Pedantry ; 
 the face of the world may be changed — but Poetry is enduring, 
 and dies not; nay, is gifted with perpetual youth. The Song 
 of Solomon and the Iliad of Homer have come down to us 
 in all their freshness, passing unharmed through long, long 
 centuries of barbaric rule and intellectual darkness. And as 
 it has been, so shall it be, in all events. Poetic pearls of price 
 will retain forever the admiration of the world, if they perish 
 not in the sifting process which each age undertakes for itself. 
 'No, gentlemen, this is no new-fangled doctrine, no ism of the 
 day. Poets have lived and made their mark — else why this 
 sympathetic crowd ? Poets do live — as you yourself, Mr. 
 Chairman, most honorably attest; and long may you live. Sir, 
 to bear personal witness to the esteem in which your high 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 93 
 
 calling is held ! Poets shall live — for what says one of them, 
 
 Thomas Campbell, he who was born a countryman of Burns, 
 
 but has been somehow drafted — I might almost say impressed 
 
 — into the ranks of Englishmen ? Fervidly and truthfully 
 
 does he break forth : 
 
 " Yes, there are hearts, prophetic Hope may trust. 
 That slumber yet in uncreated dust, 
 Ordained to fire the adoring sons of earth 
 With every charm of wisdom and of Avorth; 
 
 " Ordained to light, with intellectual day. 
 The mazy wheels of Nature as they play ; 
 Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow 
 And rival all but Shakspeare's name below !" 
 
 Yerily I have faith, gentlemen, in that prediction; for other- 
 wise this pleasant festival would wear to me the aspect of a 
 funeral feast. As it is, so confident am I that the spiritual 
 essence of Poetry will rise superior to the materialism which 
 is crowding us in all the walks of life, that I could almost 
 wish for you that the Spanish proverb might indeed be realized, 
 and that you might each of you live a thousand years, so as 
 to enjoy ten more of these Burns Club Centennial Anniver- 
 saries. But if that may not be — as there are no Methuselahs 
 in our days — let us doubt not that those who succeed us will 
 in due time be similarly privileged. And so far as the nation 
 is concerned to which the toast before us directly refers, I may 
 remind you that it furnishes a signal proof that, if intellect and 
 due regard to civilization are requisite in building up the 
 modern Minstrel's fame, so a love for freedom has become an 
 essential ingredient therein. You know, gentlemen, how a 
 graceful remnant of the olden time still maintains a Poet 
 Laureate at the British Court. On whose brow, I pray you, 
 did the Lady Sovereign's hand suspend the wreath, that marks 
 the poetic champion of the realm ? "Was it a sycoj^hant who 
 was thus adorned ? an adulator ? a ringer of base metal ? a 
 
94 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 mere jingler of dulcet melodies? It was Alfred Tennyson! 
 Breathes there a more genuine poet— one who has married im- 
 mortal verse to sterner truths — one, in short, whose manfulness 
 is more in unison with the manly spirit of Burns ? The more 
 I think of this choice, gentlemen, and remember how it was 
 made, and how popular acclaim approved it, the more assur- 
 ance have I that the genius of British poetry gives no sign of 
 death or decay ; the deeper is my respect for the Queen of the 
 Isles ; the warmer my regard for my countrymen. 
 
 Finally — for I trespass too long — I repeat that what has 
 been, will be. We may look the future boldly in the face. 
 If Cotton be King — as some anticipate — Poets-Laureate will 
 still be crowned with the bays ; only, in independence at least, 
 they must be and will be men of the Burns and the Tennyson 
 stamp. 
 
 Mr. Young's remarks were greeted with frequent applause. 
 
 Mr. George Simpson then sang "The Minstrel Boy." 
 
 Mr. J. D. NoRCOTT, 2d Vice-President, introduced the eighth 
 
 regular toast with appropriate remarks : 
 
 The Poets and Poetry of America, ens:rnven high upon the scroll of ffime 
 — May their influence ever be exerted in favor of Truth, Virtue, and In- 
 dependence. 
 
 Music—'' The Old Oaken Bucket." 
 
 Dr. John W. Francis was called on to respond, and on 
 rising was loudly cheered. 
 
 SPEECH OF DR. FRANCIS. 
 
 Honored and Illustrious Chairman: It requires a Knicker- 
 bocker of some confidence to obey the summons just issued. 
 This is no ordinary meeting. I behold within this spacious 
 hall an intellectual assemblage of the sons of Caledonia such 
 as, I apprehend, was never before brought together in the New 
 
THE CENTENAEY FESTIVAL. 95 
 
 World. I see before and around me, on every side, the repre- 
 sentatives of an illustrious people, characterized by the acqui- 
 sition of varied knowledge, and stamped with the attributes of 
 genius. I see at the board, not only the possessors of wisdom, 
 but the dispensers of its bounties. This magnificent spectacle, 
 with all those beautiful illustrations on your walls, still further 
 illuminated by so many well-known and familiar faces present 
 among you in honor of this great occasion, bespeak a co-opera- 
 tion in the measures of this night, of emphatic significance. I 
 behold, moreover, at this festive board, the enlightened sons of 
 almost every nation, and, more than all, I find a hearty com- 
 munion in one great object of honor to intellect and liumanity. 
 I have been taken somewhat by surprise at the duty assigned 
 me on this memorable anniversary, to deliver my sentiments 
 on the poetry and poets of America. Mr, President, what can 
 be done with such a theme within the limits granted at this 
 time ? Sir, had I offered up a prayer as long as the Heidel- 
 bui-g catechism, I could not have asked for a more copious 
 subject. Shall I take up the dead or the living ? Shall the 
 subject be our earliest versifiers, the poets of the revolutionary 
 period, or those of the present day, now flourishing ? Most 
 conspicuous during our revolution were Freneau, Barlow, 
 Trumbull, Humphreys ; and at the head we must place Fre- 
 neau. Then follow Hopkius and Osborn, Alsop, Dwight. Of 
 those of our later times, who will dare to enumerate them ? 
 The genius of rhyme is a characteristic of our people, and I 
 think that in due season poetry and music will give demon- 
 strations of their mighty influence, to the satisfaction of the 
 most sceptical. In this very presence I see before me two of 
 our most illustrious bards, and the speaker who last addressed 
 you did not exceed the hopes we cherish, when he said that 
 each of them would have centenary celebrations granted, them. 
 
96 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Bryant would be remembered as the descriptive poet of our 
 American scenery, and of the benevolent sentiment ; Halleck 
 would live in his flow of humor, his satire, and in liis illustra- 
 tions of the times. There, sir, is a beautiful feature in the 
 writings of our poets ; their purity, their freedom from corrup- 
 tion and ribaldry. Several of our genuine poets have the ster- 
 ling merit of having written marvelous hymns, a species of 
 coDiposition justly pronounced of the highest order; and here 
 we enumerate Freneau, Barlow, Br^^ant, Dwight and Longfel- 
 low. But, most appropriate to our present design, how pleas- 
 ant it is to reflect how happily their noble nature is unfolded 
 in their felicitous pieces on the noble poet Burns. You all 
 know what Bryant has written ; you have by heart the verses 
 of llalleck — verses on the Scottish bard as undying as those 
 v.'hich Burns himself has penned. I forget whether Drake gave 
 wings to his refined and sensitive muse on the illustrious poet, 
 but our Holmes and our Whittier have eni'iched our enumer- 
 ation. All this shows a glorious impulse. 
 
 Personally I knew many of our revolutionary and earlier 
 poets, and their peculiarities in habits and manners attracted 
 my notice in my boyish days. Freneau and Trumbull, Hum- 
 phreys, Alsop, Dwight, arc fresh in recollection. I was in- 
 structed, by observation, that physical bulk was no necessary 
 element to poetical development ; and if a doctor may in this 
 place give a medical opinion, I might be induced to say that 
 the more delicate and refined the human form, the greater 
 seems the inspiration manifested in the divine art ill such indi- 
 viduals. Darwin had flesh enough for half a dozen Alexander 
 Popes; Humphreys would have outweighed four or five Fre- 
 neaus ; and my old colleague, Dr. Mitchill, might have swal- 
 lowed up Drake, who so severely perforated his intercostals in 
 his Croaker verses to Phlogobombos. Something more than 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 97 
 
 flesh and blood are demanded to generate a poet. But 1 must 
 leave that to the phrenologist. 
 
 I shall not attempt a critical analysis of either tlie revolu- 
 tionary poets or those of our own day. I have luxuriated in 
 the society of many of them, and resting satisfied with a soli- 
 tary opinion concerning one, I venture to say that our Philip 
 Freneau is so identified by patriotism, by suifering, and by his 
 prolific muse, with the momentous occurrences of the war of 
 independence, that his name can never be blotted out from our 
 American annals. His Hudibrastic exuberance will well com- 
 pare with much of the caustic satire and vituperation of But- 
 ler ; and the Scotch critic Jeifrey erred little when he said that 
 Freneau might hereafter demand a Grey for a commentator. 
 The most positive fact that w^e know concerning his adventur- 
 ous life is, that, like Butler, he was miserably poor — the common 
 lot of the poets of bygone da^^s. The many collections which 
 have been made of the products of the Columbian muse, by 
 different editors, from time to time, evince the fact that the 
 article is marketable and well known. Hence I have the less 
 need of analysis here, and shall rest satisfied that searchers after 
 knowledge on this head may readily gratify their desires by 
 studying the philosophical criticisms by Tuckerman, a brother 
 poet and an essayist of the Addisonian school. 
 
 You might infer my age to be a hundred years from what I 
 have uttered, but you will bear in recollection that it was a 
 peculiarity of my boyish and juvenile days always to seek the 
 society of old persons — old soldiers, old tars, old philosophers, 
 and men who had literary renown. By this I think I have 
 given longevity to existence, and acquired much floating 
 knowledge not in books ; and with this sort of practical infor- 
 mation I have cherished anticipations of the future eminence 
 of my country, in arts, in science, and in poetry. The nation, 
 13 
 
98 
 
 BURXS CEN'TEN'NIAL CELEBRATION". 
 
 I think, lias done well in the inventive arts, and I would be 
 most willing to witness the next centennial celebration of some 
 present or future inspired bard. 
 
 But I must leave this prolific theme, as I desire to say a few 
 words on the great occasion that has summoned this imposing 
 meeting, this great centennial. The sublime genius and child 
 of song who has brought ns together this night, in whatever 
 light he is viewed, is to be recognized as of an order of mortals 
 rare and wonderful, and connnanding our admiration by the 
 powers of his intellect and the humanity of his nature. Yonr 
 search must be long ere yon iind his equal. Prolific as we 
 are of biographies of the illustrious, he stands almost alone in 
 his eminent attributes. He was, indeed, portion of what sur- 
 rounded him, but he is yet sufficiently isolated to bear a dis- 
 tinct impress, and to be stamped with an individuality that 
 tolerates no amalgamation. Mr. President, you, in your appro- 
 priate address at the opening of this meeting, gave utterance 
 to sentiments convincing to all, that you fully comprehended 
 the greatness of your subject, and with a poet's feelings you 
 generously acknowledged the merits of the noble bard. There 
 was a remarkable fitness in thus assigning to you this peculiar 
 duty. You must well remember the lines which passed be- 
 tween Hayley and the poet Cowper : 
 
 " They host can tell a poet's worth 
 Who oft tiiemselves have shown, 
 The pangs of a poetic birth 
 By labors of their own." 
 
 With your kind permission, I will trespass a few moments 
 
 longer on the patience of this large assembly. Forty-three 
 
 years ago, I made a visit to Europe for professional advantages. 
 
 On my arrival at Liverpool, there was some time at disposal 
 
 ere the medical courses began. I thought it profitable to 
 
 ramble through old Scotia in the meanwhile. The English 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 99 
 
 lakes dispatched, and a cordial and most delectable interview 
 held with Southey, at Greta Hall, near Keswick, where the 
 great author vindicated his American feelings and services 
 against the anonymous assaults he had received from some of 
 our public wi-iters, I soon found myself in Scotland, and the 
 names of Dumbarton and Doctor Hornbook, and the story of 
 Plighland Marj'^, first sainted my ears. In Ayrshire, Bonnie 
 Doon, the Twa Briggs, and Alio way Kirk, led to the mud cot- 
 tage where the poet was born. With a very early relish for 
 the Caledonian minstrel, I was now, by novel occurrences, im- 
 pregnated with the greater zeal to occupy all leisure I could 
 command to the study of the life, character, and services of 
 Bui-ns, Kilmarnock, the place where his poems were first 
 printed, &c., &c. It seemed to me, from all I heard, that every 
 other name was lost in comparative obscurity compared with 
 Burns'. He was the nation's idol, and every circumstance 
 pertaining to him was the topic of popular discussion. I for- 
 bear to be too minute, but I may affirm that the people held 
 him in their heart of hearts, and laudatory strains proceeded 
 from the peasant's lips and the enlightened scholar, with equal 
 love and appreciation of his great qualities and mighty intel- 
 lect. Were 1 to specify, as it occurred to me, the most deeply- 
 impressed works of Burns, on the hearts of his countiymen, I 
 would cite Highland Mary and Tam O'Shanter. At Dumfries I 
 was so fortunate as to be introduced to John Syme, the long- 
 tried, intimate and disinterested friend of Burns. This delect- 
 able Scotchman, whose portrait, in Wilson's edition, is most 
 happily given, yielded to me numerous facts and details con- 
 cerning the national poet. Johnny Syme had in fact become 
 the embodiment of almost every thing associated with Burns : 
 he had made a study of the bard ; he comprehended his errors, 
 his virtues, his writings ; pointed out what he conceived to be 
 
100 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 
 
 the source of their iinboiiiided popularity; his tenderness, his 
 poetic temperament, and his deep inspiration. I visited the 
 localities recorded in his poems, and could but wonder at the 
 gratification a Scotchman felt when he designated the place 
 where the poor mouse was turned up, where the daisy was 
 crushed, &c., &c. The old blacksmith-shop, where Burns 
 passed many hours, the conspicuous public edifice where he 
 wrote the " Soldiers Return" on window-glass with his 
 diamond pencil, are among a few of my reminiscences. . 
 
 My visit to Nasmyth, the artist, led to the disclosure that 
 but one painting was ever made of Burns from the life, and 
 that the poet was I'elnctant to give the painter even time for 
 that. My excellent friend Syme led me to Dr. Maxwell, the 
 physician who attended Burns in his last illness, I thought, 
 from the printed records, that obscurity rested on the immedi- 
 ate cause of tlie premature demise of the illustrious patient. 
 Dr. Maxwell was very frank in his statements. Burns had 
 been led to the conviction that bathing in the Solway would 
 restore his constitution ; and though at the time suifering from 
 mercurial distress, he would listen to no advice to the contrary, 
 but indulged in bathing for three or four days, when acute 
 sufferings brought him home, where, after three days' painful 
 existence, he died, Mr, Syme's courtesy made me acquainted 
 with Bonnie Jean at her domicile. She confirmed the story of 
 his illness and the manner of his death — a sad narrative, which 
 she gave not without emotion. I passed some hours in 
 conversation with dear Jean : I gave utterance to strong ex- 
 pression in praise of the marvelous talents of her husband, and 
 added that Burns was considered by our American people the 
 greatest genius Scotland had given birth to. She replied, she 
 had often heard the same praise bestowed on him by numerous 
 visitors who called to see her: "Madam," I added, "such is 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 101 
 
 the current opinion," "That I have learned," rejoined she, 
 '' to be the case, since Ms death. I was ignorant of it before^ 
 for Robert ivas very rarely at home.''\ Poor Jean said she had 
 parted with every scrap of paper on wliich Burns had written ; 
 so many had solicited even the smallest fragment of his com- 
 position — a word, a sentence sufficed. She searched, however, 
 for a while, and fortunately brought to my inspection some 
 five or six lines of his manuscript, three words of which she 
 gave me, "Go tell Gilbert." 
 
 I shall conclude with stating that this night forty-three years 
 ago I was honored with an invitation to Burns' anniversary, 
 held in Edinburgh. Walter Scott presided, aided by Alexan- 
 der Bos well, the late Lord Auchinleck. It was a great turn-out 
 of Scotland's eminent men. Pi-ominent among the great festi- 
 val were JeiFrey, the critic, Simond, the traveler, Wilson 
 (Kit North), Sir George Mackenzie, Jamieson, the author of 
 the Scottish Dictionary, Baird, the Principal of the University, 
 several of the professors, George Thomson, the musical corre- 
 spondent of the poet : — the Ettrick Shepherd had failed to ap- 
 pear, and the venerable author of the Man of Feeling, Henry 
 Mackenzie, whom I had seen a few days before at the High- 
 land Society, was disabled by illness and infirmity, from mak- 
 ing one of the social board. To the sentiment — "The living 
 poets of Scotland" — Scott made a beautiful address in behalf 
 of Campbell. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, your occupancy of that chair reflects honor 
 on the Burns Association, and allow me to say that the Club, 
 in their selection, have added to your renown. The reputa- 
 tion of the illustrious bard has swelled with each revolving year, 
 and where shall we find another name in poetic history glori- 
 fied by such demonstrations as mark this evening, in refined 
 society, and in remotest parts of the world ? Burns' vast gifts 
 
102 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 first attracted attention in this country just about the period 
 of the popularity of the Delia Cruscan school. That has dis- 
 solved, while the Scottish minstrel is omnipresent everywhere. 
 What are the ingredients which have nourislied to such vigor 
 this extraordinary man? Sir, they were his enlarged humanity. 
 He possessed an elephantine heart ; his sympathies with com- 
 mon life, his love of his species, his wide benevolence, his 
 patriotism, his lofty spirit of independence, his inflexible 
 integrity, his unflinching honesty, his deep, pervading re- 
 liojious sentiment toward God and man. He wrote for un- 
 lettered men and for the peasantry, and yet the wiser we 
 grow the deeper is our reverence for him ; childhood 
 and youth are delighted with him — the philosopher is in- 
 structed by him, so deep are his researches into nature. I 
 have heard little said to-night touching his prose compositions. 
 His dedication to the Caledonian Hunt is almost an unequaled 
 specimen of pure English style ; his correspondence Avith 
 Thomson will not sufler in comparison with the best of 
 writers. There is a strain of exalted devotion in him toward 
 his Creator that finds scared}' a parallel among the writings of 
 acknowledged theologians, and his honest sentiments 3'ield to 
 the afitiicted and tlie forlorn a consolation not unlike that de- 
 rived from the page of Holy Writ. Tliere is a frankness in 
 his expressions of abhorrence against religious hypocrisy that 
 touches the heart of the experienced sojourner on earth. You 
 will pardon rny citing a verse : 
 
 " God knows I'm not the thing I should be, 
 Nor am I even the thing I could be, 
 But, twenty times, I rather would be 
 
 An Atheist clean, 
 Than under Gospel colors hid be, 
 
 Just for a screen." 
 
 As associated with the renown of Burns, I would crave a 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 103 
 
 moment's indiilo^ence while I speak of that remarkable occur- 
 rence which took place in this our metropolis ; the arrival, 
 many years ago, of those striking examples of art, the sculp- 
 tor's illustrations of the Poet, the group of Souter Johnny, Tam 
 O'Shanter, and the Landlady. That intuitive genius Thom gave 
 satisfactory evidence of his rich capability to unfold in palp- 
 able form the imaginings of Burns, and let me add that prob- 
 ably no work in sculpture ever met with a heartier acceptance 
 by our people than these specimens of unlettered talent and 
 intellect. Burns' vast popularity unquestionably swelled the 
 crowds to see and to admire those extraordinary productions, 
 and they found that the chisel of Thom had imparted life and 
 animation to the poet's finest conception, and furnished master- 
 pieces of graphic delineation worthy of a nation's pride. I 
 have often conversed M'itli Thom : some of the best efforts of 
 art may be found in the workmanship of the recently erected 
 Trinity Church, at the head of Wall street. I fear he was too 
 much neglected even by his countrymen. He died some four or 
 five years ago in straitened circumstances. I had the honor 
 to be one of the limited number wdio attended his funeral. But 
 this late hour of the night, or rather advanced state of the morn- 
 ing, prohibits further observations, and I shall say no more. 
 
 Dr. Francis resumed his seat amid great and prolonged ap- 
 plause. 
 
 The hour of one o'clock having arrived, Mr. Bryant rose to 
 retire. The President of the Club announced his intention, and 
 proposed his health with Highland honors. This was one of the 
 most animated scenes of the evening, each person standing upon 
 his seat, with one foot upon the table, and cheering with the 
 utmost enthusiasm. Mr. Bi-yant thanked the company for the 
 warmth of feeling exhibited toward him, and withdrew. The 
 chair was then occupied by the President of the Club. 
 
104 BURXS CEXTEXNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Mr, William Park then sang, with good taste, " Woodman, 
 spare that tree." 
 
 The ninth toast was next proposed by Mr. Archibald : 
 
 TJie Heroes of Scotland. — Inspired by patriotism and love of libertv, 
 their noble deeds have shed unfading lustre on the land of their birth ; and 
 while the patriot's claymore rusts, and his shield hangs useless on the 
 wall, may the valor that wielded them be held in undying remembrance 
 by a grateful posterity. 
 
 The toast was received with a storm of apphanse. 
 
 3IusiG.—'' Garb of Old GauL" 
 
 Mr. James Nicholson (a member of the Club), responded. 
 
 MR. Nicholson's speech. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : It must have been a 
 source of pride and gratiHcation to every Scotchman in this 
 assembly to witness the enthusiasm with which this toast has 
 been received. 
 
 If this company were all Scots, and seated around one of the 
 many festive boards spread this evening in honor of Robert 
 Burns, in the land of his and their birth, in the land which he 
 so dearly loved and sung, surrounded by monuments of Scot- 
 tish patriotism and valor, by the places that gave our heroes 
 birth — by the heathery hills where they rambled in childhood, 
 and the scenes where in manhood they fought and conquered, 
 or fell — such an enthusiasm might have excited no conmient ; 
 but here in the empire city of the New World, and in an as- 
 sembly where so many diiferent nations are represented, it 
 proves that Scotland's heroes are more than national — that 
 their valor and patriotism have won for them the admiration 
 and gratitude of every lover of freedom thronghout the world. 
 When speaking of the "heroes of Scotland," the mind natu- 
 rally reverts to the names of Wallace and Bruce ; not, however. 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 105 
 
 to the exclusion of lier many other sods, who have maintained 
 the honor of their country, and won the proud title of " hero" 
 on many a hard-fought battlefield, from the earliest period of 
 her history down to the present day — from Galgacus to Sir 
 Colin Campbell — but because tliey^ by indomitable courage 
 and steady perseverance, rescued their country from oppres- 
 sion, and secured her independence, at a period the darkest in 
 her history — when her very thistle scarcely dared to raise its 
 prickly stem to the light of day, and when the bloom of her 
 heather blushed a deeper crimson, as if dyed by the blood of 
 her bravest and best, that had fallen in defending it from the 
 hoof of the invader ; it is because in securing their country's 
 independence they laid the foundation of all the greatness of 
 which our Avorthy guest so eloquently spoke in his response to 
 the toast of " Scotland" — it is because they left to posterity a 
 noble example of what can be done by true men in a just 
 cause, and telling them more forcibly than words can express, 
 " Who would be free, himself must strike the blow," 
 
 If we turn to the page of history, we find there have been 
 many heroes, both in ancient and modern times, who have led 
 great armies, and won great victories, as great in a military 
 point of view, whose names are almost forgotten, or if remem- 
 bered, it is only with a feeling of regret, to think hov\' many 
 braVe men they sacrificed in their efforts to leave their " foot- 
 prints on the sands of time ;" bnt our heroes fought ];ot for 
 selfish fame, they fought not for conquest, they fought not to 
 enslave other countries, but to save their own ; they fought for 
 their birthright, for liberty, for country, for home, for every 
 thing that makes life worth possessing. Their cause was the 
 cause of human freedom : " Their every battlefield was holy 
 ground." 
 
 It is this that makes such names as Wallace and Washing- 
 14 
 
106 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 ton " household words ;" it is this that makes them more than 
 national— their fame belongs to no country, to no definite 
 period, but to all time. Their claymores now rest, and their 
 shields hang useless on the wall ; but their memories are still 
 dear to us ; to them, and such as them, we are indebted for the 
 liberty and independence we now enjoy, and while thus ex- 
 pressing our gratitude and acknowledging their influence in the 
 past, we may still hope that — 
 
 " Their names will be, 
 A watchword till the future shall be free." 
 
 Mr. William Cleland then gave the air, " Scots, wha hae," 
 upon the Scottish pipes, amid great enthusiasm, after which 
 Mr. Miranda sang the song with remarkable eftect, and was 
 rapturously encored. 
 
 The tenth toast was then announced by the Chairman : 
 
 The Memory of Washington. 
 
 This toast was received by the company standing, in silence, 
 the band playing a dirge. / 
 
 Mr. Parke Godwin here made some eloquent remarks, but 
 from the lateness of the hour they were not reported. 
 
 The eleventh toast was introduced by Mr. Archibald, and 
 properly honored : 
 
 The Prfss— May it ever be guided by men pure and upright — the herald 
 of Freedom — the right hand of Civilization — spreading intelligence and 
 virtue among the people, and dispelling the darkness of Ignorance and 
 Superstition. 
 
 [This toast, like the sixth, was announced out of its regular 
 order, to accommodate Mr. Greeley, who was to respond.] 
 
 Music. — " There's a good time coming." 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 107 
 
 HON. HORACE GREELEY 
 
 responded briefly, but pertinently. He said that it seemed bnt 
 just that the admirers of Burns sliould honor the Press, for he 
 would not have been known as he is had it not been for the 
 Press. They say there were great kings before Agamemnon, 
 and great poets before Homer — but what does the world know 
 of them ? They perished in the same age in which they were 
 born. There may have been other poets in Scotland as inspired 
 as Burns, w^hose songs were never heard beyond the circle of 
 their friends. 
 
 " Full many a flower is born to blush unseen." 
 
 But Burns was more fortunate. Burns' boyhood was passed 
 amid the stir of great events. Had the electric telegraph then 
 existed, he might almost have listened to the roar of cannon 
 at Lexington and at Bunker Hill. In its hour the press has 
 owed much to Burns, It has learned to take the side of the 
 friendless, against tradition and against the privileges of the 
 higher classes. Tliis character it owes to the spirit of Robert 
 Burns. It is well that the Press is deemed worthy of the com- 
 mendation of his friends. Such recognition will cheer the 
 journalist and inspire the poet. Mr. Greeley closed with the 
 following sentiment: 
 
 The Peasant Poet — Great in what he has done for the unprivileged 
 million ; greater in what he has taught them to do for themselves. 
 
 Mr. Greeley's remarks were warmly received. When he 
 had concluded — 
 
 Mr. Geo. Marshall sang " The Birth of Printing," an ode 
 written many years since, by Mr. Greeley, for another occa- 
 sion. 
 
108 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 The twelfth and last regular toast was given fi'om the Chair, 
 and was received, as usual, with vehement applause. 
 
 The Lasses — Clustering tendrils, twining thonisolves around man's 
 dearest affections : the pride and ornament of bis youth and manhood — 
 the constant and never-failing stay of declining years. 
 
 Music. — " Green grow the rashes, O !'' 
 
 Mr. Richard Bell, of the St. Patrick's Society, who was 
 to have responded, having retired — 
 
 Mr. Edward Fisher (a member of the Club) spoke to the 
 toast ; and for a considerable time entertained the company 
 with one of the most witty speeches of the evening. 
 
 Mr. Geo. Smpson then sang " My wife's a winsome wee 
 thing,'' with such effect as called for a repetition, when he 
 substituted with equal felicity and good taste " My bonnie 
 Jean." 
 
 The Chairman then called upon Mr. Joseph Laing for an 
 original song, written for this occasion, by a member of the 
 Club, as the closing feature of the programme. It was given, 
 as follows, with great applause : 
 
 THE KING O' MEN. 
 
 BY T. C. LATTO. 
 
 Should humble state our mirth provoke, 
 
 What folly to misca' that ; 
 The sapMng grows a stately oak, 
 
 Wi' spreading shade an' a' that. 
 A hunder years sinsyne in Kyle 
 
 The gossips laugh'd an' a' that, 
 As wi' a cry an' half a smile. 
 
 Wee Rab cam hame an' a' that. 
 
 For a' that an' a' that, 
 
 His toils, his cares an' a' that, 
 
 We've seen a plowman crowned at last 
 
 The king o' men for a' that. 
 
A sturdy imp an' strong he grew, 
 
 AVas fond o' fun an' a' that, 
 But Independence never knew 
 
 A braver son for a' that. 
 A frichten'd mouse his heart wad move, 
 
 A gowan crushed, an' a' that, 
 But woman's e'e and woman's love 
 
 They were his muse for a' that. 
 
 He seized the lyre when in his teens. 
 
 He struck it sweet an' a' that ; 
 He thrill'd the hearts o' Scottish Jeans, 
 
 An' wan their love an' a' that. 
 And now a hunder years hae pass'd, 
 
 0' checker'd hue an' a' that, 
 What he was then an' what he's noo 
 
 I leave ye a' to draw that. 
 
 He sweeps, a comet, thro' the wain. 
 
 Its heights an' howes an' a' that ; 
 An' gathering glory for his train. 
 
 As on he rowes an' a' that. 
 The Prince that ruled where he was reared 
 
 His name's forgot an' a' that, 
 But wha forgets the Peasant bard, 
 
 What Scotsman ever saw that ? 
 
 Let Genius take its mighty swing. 
 
 We've seen the day an' a' that ; 
 A cotter rise aboon a king. 
 
 The king o' men for a' that. 
 Then fill your bumpers up, my lads. 
 
 We'll drain them out an' a' that ; 
 Wi' three times three for Scotia's Bard, 
 
 Wha's king o' men for a' that. 
 
 For a' that an' a' that. 
 His toils, his cares an' a' that : 
 We crown this night a plowman lad. 
 The king o' men for a' that. 
 
 The President then read the following communication from 
 Yair Clirehugh, Sr., Esq., a former President of the Club, 
 but now of Montrose, Scotland. Mr. Clirehugh was well 
 known to many of those present, and his letter and sentiment 
 received cordial greeting. The following is a copy : 
 
110 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 To THE President of the Burns Club of New York City : 
 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 I have much pleasure in transmitting a sentiment for this 
 great and auspicious occasion, under the impression that it will receive 
 no less a welcome than has been so often accorded to myself from the 
 members of the Club. 
 
 Although my voice is no longer heard in your halls, and may never 
 again — " tho' seas between us braid hae roared," — yet my words may 
 still find a response at your social gatherings, while the memories if tho 
 past, as long as life shall last, will ever bloom fresh and green in my 
 heart. I remain, dear Sir, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Vair Clirehugh. 
 Montrose, Scotland, 6th Jan., 1859. 
 
 SENTIMENT. 
 
 May prosperity always follow the progress of the New York Burns 
 Club : may its members, linked in one common brotherhood, ever enjoy 
 the moral pleasures of to-day, and be ever ready to meet sorrow and 
 mischance to-morrow. 
 
 The President also announced the receipt of a letter from 
 another ex-President of the Club, Mr. James Linen, now a 
 resident of San Francisco, Cal., which M'as also cordially 
 honored bj tlie company. 
 
 DELEGATIONS, DISPATCHES, AND COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 In the course of the evening, a delegation from the Burns 
 Association celebrating the day at Mozart Hall, New York, 
 was introduced. The gentlemen composing it (Messrs. T. C. 
 Gkay, a. Tuknbull, and T. F. Bowie) conveyed a sentiment 
 from the Burns Association, which was received with all the 
 honors. 
 
 The sixth regular toast — " Kindred Associations throughout 
 
THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL. Ill 
 
 the worlcl^'' as has been previously intimated in this report, 
 was telegraphed during the day and evening to the following 
 places, to be given simultaneously at ten o'clock, p. m.. New 
 York time : 
 
 Boston, Mass. St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 Philadelphia, Penn. !N^atchp:z, Miss. 
 
 Newark, N. J. St. John's, N. B. 
 
 Albany, N. Y. Halifax, N. S. 
 
 Troy, " Quebec, C. E. 
 
 Auburn, " Three Rivers, C. E. 
 
 Baltimore, Md. Montreal, " 
 
 Cincinnati, O. Cornwall, C. W. 
 
 Charleston, S. C. Kingston, " 
 
 Detroit, Mich. Toronto, " 
 
 MiLWAUKiE, Wis. Hamilton, " 
 
 Telegraphic dispatches were announced from the Chair, dur- 
 ing the evening, from all parts of the United States and the 
 Canadas, and received with great enthusiasm. It was designed 
 to furnish a complete list of the places from which dispatches 
 and communications were received, and the sentiments con- 
 veyed : but as many of the documents have been mislaid, we 
 are compelled to abandon the intention. 
 
 After the regular business of the evening was concluded, a 
 number of songs, sentiments and speeches were given by vari- 
 ous members of the company, but the lateness of the hour pre- 
 cluded the general participation, which is usually one of the 
 most attractive features of a Burns I estival. At about three 
 o'clock, a. m., the Centennial Festival was closed with the time- 
 honored song, " Auld Lang Syne." 
 
 Besides the celebration by the Burns Club, various other 
 
112 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 meetings, public and private, were held in the city of New- 
 York in honor of the occasion. 
 
 Tlie Burns Association held a brilliant and successful meet- 
 ing at Mozart Hall, Broadway. David B. Scott, Esq., presided, 
 and many effective speeches were made. That of Prof. Naikne 
 has been universally spoken of as one of the most eloquent 
 tributes of the day. 
 
 The " AuLD Lang Syne" Association also celebrated the an- 
 niversary in an appropriate manner. David B. Kerb, Esq., 
 presided. 
 
 A spirited gathering of gentlemen, numbering over one hun- 
 dred, w^as convened at the corner of William and Pine streets. 
 Robert Anderson, Esq., presided. 
 
 These and other more private assemblies fitly represented the 
 admirers of Burns in the great empire city of America, on the 
 memorable 25th of January, 1859. 
 
 [The Editor tenders his acknowledgments to the efficient 
 Corresponding Secretary, and other members of the Club, for 
 material and information furnished in the compilation of this 
 report.] 
 
irllitje^ 0f tit lj0it^ 
 
 THE PRIZE ODE, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE, LONDON, JANUARY 25, 1859. 
 
 [It was announced at the Centenary Festival at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, 
 London, that the prize of Fifty Pounds offered by the Company for the best Poem 
 for the occasion had been unanimously adjudged, from among six hundred and 
 twenty competitors, to Miss Agnes Craig. Miss Craig is a young Scotchwoman, a 
 native of Edinburgh. Early left an orphan, she was reared and educated under the 
 care of a grandmother not in affluent circumstances. With praiseworthy industry, 
 and self-cultivation of her intellectual powers, she early resolved to work out her 
 own pecuniary independence. Bj^ occasional poetical contributions to the Edinburgh 
 Scotsman, she gained the notice and kindness of Mr. John Ritchie, the oldest and 
 principal proprietor of that journal ; and for some years she was employed by this 
 early patron and friend on its literary department. In 1856 Messrs. Blackwood 
 published in a small volume a collection of Miss Craig's fugitive metrical composi- 
 tions, under the title of "Poems by Isa." The author has also been a contributor, 
 under the signature of " C," to the poetry of the National Magazine. In August, 
 1857, on Miss Craig's first visit to a London friend, Mr. Hastings, the honorary secre- 
 tary of the National Association of Social Science, engaged her services in the 
 organization of the society, and to this association Miss Craig is still attached as a 
 literary assistant. The published transactions of the association owe much to her 
 talent and good judgment.] 
 
 We hail this morn, 
 A century's noblest birth ; 
 
 A Poet peasant-born, 
 Who more of Fame's immortal dower 
 Unto his country brings. 
 Than all her Kings ! 
 
 As lamps high set 
 Upon some earthly eminence, — 
 And to tjie gazer brighter thence 
 
114 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Than the sphere-lights they flout, — 
 Dwindle in distance and die out, 
 While no star waneth yet ; 
 
 So through the past's far-reaching night, 
 
 Only the star-souls keep their light. 
 
 A gentle boy — • 
 With moods of sadness and of mirth, 
 
 Quick tears and sudden joy — 
 Grew up beside the peasant's hearth. 
 His father's toil he shares ; 
 But half his mother's cares 
 From his dark searching eyes. 
 Too swift to sympathize. 
 Hid in her heart she bears. 
 
 At early morn, 
 His father calls him to the field ; 
 Through the stiif soil that clogs his feet, 
 
 Chill rain, and harvest heat, 
 He plods all day ; returns at eve outworn. 
 To the rude fare a peasant's lot doth yield : 
 
 To what else was he born ? 
 
 The God-made King 
 Of every living thing, 
 (For his great heart in love could hold them all) ; 
 The dumb eyes meeting his by hearth and stall, — 
 Gifted to understand ! — 
 Knew it and. sought his hand ; 
 And the most timorous creature had not fled, 
 Could she his heart have read, 
 Which fain all feeble thino-s had blessed and sheltered. 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 115 
 
 To Nature's feast — 
 
 Who knew her noblest guest, 
 
 And entertain'd him best, 
 Kingly he came. Her chambers of the east 
 She draped with crimson and with gold, 
 And pour'd her pure joy-wines 
 
 For him the poet-souled, 
 
 For him her anthem rolled. 
 From the storm-wind among the winter pines, 
 
 Down ta the slenderest note 
 Of a love-warble from the linnet's tliroat. 
 
 But wdien begins 
 The array for battle, and the trumpet blows, 
 A King must leave the feast, and lead the fight. 
 
 And with its mortal foes — 
 Grim gathering hosts of sorrows and of sins — 
 
 Each human soul must close. 
 
 And Fame her trumpet blew 
 Before him ; wrapped him in her purple state ; 
 And made him mark for all the shafts of fate, 
 
 That henceforth round him flew. 
 
 Though he may yield 
 Hard-press'd, and wounded fall, 
 Forsaken on the field ; 
 His regal vestments soil'd ; 
 His crown of half its jewels spoil'd ; 
 He is a King for all. 
 Had he but stood aloof! 
 Had he array'd himself in armor proof 
 Against temptation's darts ! 
 So yearn the good ; — so those the world calls wise, 
 With vain presumptuous hearts, 
 Triumjjhant moralize. 
 
Of martyr-woe 
 A sacred shadow on his memory rests ; 
 
 Tears have not ceased to flow ; 
 Indignant grief yet stirs imj)etuous breasts, 
 To think — above that noble soul brought low, 
 That wise and soaring spirit fooled, enslaved — 
 Thus, thus he had been saved ! 
 
 It might not be ! 
 That heart of harmony 
 Had been too rudely rent ; 
 Its silver chords, which any hand could wound, 
 By no hand could be tuned. 
 Save by the Maker of the instrument. 
 Its every string who knew. 
 And from profaning touch His heavenly gift withdrew. 
 
 Regretful love 
 
 His country fain would prove, 
 By grateful honors lavish'd on his grave; 
 
 Would fain redeem her blame 
 That He so little at her hands can claim, 
 
 Who, unrewarded, gave 
 To her his life-bought gift of song and fame. 
 
 The land he trod 
 Hath now become a place of pilgrimage ; 
 Where dearer are the daisies of the sod 
 That could his song engage, 
 The hoary hawthorn, wreath'd 
 Above the bank on which his limbs he flung 
 While some sweet plaint he breathed ; 
 The streams he wander'd near ; 
 The maidens whom he loved ; the songs lie sung ; — 
 All, all are dear ! 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 117 
 
 The arch blue eyes — 
 Arch but for love's disguise — 
 Of Scotland's daughters, soften at his strain ; 
 Her hardy sons, sent forth across the main 
 To drive the plowshare through earth's virgin soils, 
 
 Lighten with it their toils ; 
 And sister-lands have learned to love the tongue 
 In which such songs are sung. 
 
 For doth not Song 
 To the whole world belong ! 
 Is it not given wherever tears can fall, — 
 Wherever hearts can melt, or blushes glow, 
 Or mirth and sadness mingle as they flow, 
 A heritao;e to all ! 
 
118 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 TO A ROSE, BROUGHT FROM NEAR ALLOWAY KIRK, IN AYRSHIRE, IN THE 
 
 AUTUMN OF 1822. 
 
 [By the kind permission of Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., publishers, we 
 are enabled to give this extract from the poems of Fitz Greene Halleck. 
 It was written many years since, and has always been regarded as one of 
 the noblest tributes paid to the memory of Burns by an American. The 
 presence of its distinguished author at the festival at the Astor House, 
 renders its insertion here peculiarly appropriate.] 
 
 Wild Rose of Alloway ! my thanks : 
 Thou 'mindst me of that autumn noon 
 
 When first we met upon " the banks 
 And braes o' bonny Doon." 
 
 Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough, 
 
 My sunny hour was glad and brief. 
 We've crossed the winter sea, and thou 
 
 Art withered — flower and leaf. 
 
 And will not thy death-doom be mine — 
 The doom of all things wrought of clay — 
 
 And withered my life's leaf like thine. 
 Wild rose of Alloway ? 
 
 Not so his memory, for whose sake 
 My bosom bore thee far and long, 
 
 His — who a humbler flower could make 
 Immortal as his song. 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 119 
 
 The memory of Burns — a name 
 
 That calls, when brimmed her festal cup, 
 A nation's glory and her shame, 
 
 In silent sadness up. 
 
 A nation's glory — be the rest 
 
 Forgot — she's canonized his mind ; 
 
 And it is joy to speak the best 
 We may of human kind. 
 
 I've stood beside the cottage bed 
 
 Where the Bard-peasant first drew breath ; 
 A straw-thatched roof above his head, 
 
 A straw-wrought couch beneath. 
 
 And I have stood beside the pile. 
 
 His monument — that tells to Heaven 
 
 The homage of earth's proudest isle 
 To that Bard-peasant given ! 
 
 Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot, 
 Boy-Minstrel, in thy dreaming hour ; 
 
 And know, however low his lot, 
 A Poet's pride and power. 
 
 The pride that lifted Burns from earth, 
 The power that gave a child of song 
 
 Ascendency o'er rank and birth. 
 The rich, the brave, the strong: 
 
 And if despondency weigh down 
 Thy spirit's fluttering pinions then, 
 
 Despair — thy name is written on 
 The roll of common men. 
 
120 
 
 BUENS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 There have been loftier themes than his. 
 And longer scrolls, and louder lyres, 
 
 And lays lit up with Poesy's 
 Purer and holier fires : 
 
 Yet read the names that know not death ; 
 
 Few nobler ones than Burns are there ; 
 And few have won a greener wreath 
 
 Than that which binds his hair. 
 
 His is that language of the heart. 
 
 In which the answering heart would speak. 
 Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start. 
 
 Or the smile light the cheek ; 
 
 And his that music, to whose tone 
 
 The common pulse of man keeps time, 
 
 In cot or castle's mirth or moan, 
 In cold or sunny clime. 
 
 And who hath heard his song, nor knelt 
 Before its spell with willing knee. 
 
 And listened, and believed, and felt 
 The Poet's mastery. 
 
 O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm. 
 O'er the heart's sunshine and its showers. 
 
 O'er Passion's moments bright and warm. 
 O'er Keason's dark, cold hours ; 
 
 On fields where brave men " die or do," 
 In halls where rings the banquet's mirth. 
 
 Where mourners weep, where lovers woo, 
 From throne to cottage hearth ? 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 121 
 
 What sweet tears dim the eye unshed, 
 What wild vows falter on the tongue, 
 
 When " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," 
 Or " Auld Lang Syne" is sung ! 
 
 Pure hopes, that lift the soul above, 
 Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise. 
 
 And dreams of youth, and truth, and love. 
 With " Logan's" banks and braes. 
 
 And when he breathes his master-lay 
 Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall, 
 
 x\ll passions in our frames of clay 
 Come thronging at his call. 
 
 Imagination's world of air. 
 
 And our own world, its gloom and glee. 
 Wit, pathos, poetry, are there. 
 
 And death's sublimity. 
 
 And Burns — though brief the race he ran, 
 Though rough and dark the path he trod. 
 
 Lived — died — in form and soul a Man, 
 The image of his God. 
 
 Through care and pain, and want, and woe. 
 With wounds that only death could heal, 
 
 Tortures — the poor alone can know. 
 The proud alone can feel, 
 
 He kept his honesty and truth, 
 His independent tongue and pen. 
 
 And moved, in manhood as in youth. 
 Pride of his fellow men. 
 
 It> 
 
122 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong, 
 A hate of tyrant and of knave, 
 
 A love of riglit, a scorn of wrong, 
 Of coward and of slave ; 
 
 A kind, true heart, a spirit high, 
 
 That could not fear and would not bow, 
 
 Were Avritten in his manly eye 
 And on his manly brow. 
 
 Praise to the bard ! his words are driven. 
 Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown, 
 
 Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven, 
 The birds of fame have flown. 
 
 Praise to the man ! a nation stood 
 Beside his coffin with wet eyes, 
 
 Her brave, her beautiful, her good. 
 As when a loved one dies. 
 
 And still, as on his funeral day, 
 
 Men stand his cold earth-couch around, 
 
 With the mute homage that we pay 
 To consecrated ground. 
 
 And consecrated ground it is. 
 
 The last, the hallowed home of one 
 
 Who lives upon all memories, 
 Though with tlie buried gone. 
 
 Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines, 
 Slu'ines to no code or creed confined- 
 
 The Delphian vales, the PaleStines, 
 The Meccas of the mind. 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 123 
 
 Sages, with wisdom's garland wreathed, 
 
 Crowned kings, and mitred priests of power, 
 
 And warriors with their bright swords sheathed, 
 The mightiest of the hour ; 
 
 And lowlier names, whose humble home 
 
 Is lit by Fortune's dimmer star. 
 Are there — o'er wave and mountain come. 
 
 From countries near and far ; 
 
 Pilgrims whose wandering feet have pressed 
 
 The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand. 
 Or trod the piled leaves of the West, 
 
 My own green forest-land. 
 
 All ask the cottage of his birth, 
 
 Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung, 
 
 And gather feelings not of earth 
 His fields and streams among. 
 
 They linger by the Doon's low trees, 
 
 And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr, 
 And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries ! 
 
 The poet's tomb is there. 
 
 But what to them the sculptor's art. 
 
 His funeral columns, wreaths and urns? 
 
 Wear they not graven on the heart 
 The name of Eobert Burns ? 
 
124 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 HIS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 [written foe the centennial celebration at boston.] 
 
 His birthday — nay, we need not speak 
 The name each heart is beating. — 
 
 Each glistening eye and flushing cheek 
 In light and flame repeating ! 
 
 We come in one tumultuous tide, — 
 
 One surge of wild emotion, — 
 As crowding through the Firth of Clyde 
 
 Rolls in the Western Ocean. 
 
 As when yon cloudless, quartered moon 
 
 Hangs o'er each storied river, 
 The swelling breasts of Ayr and Doon 
 
 With sea-green wavelets quiver. 
 
 The century shrivels like a scroll, — 
 
 The past becomes the present, — 
 And face to face, and soul to soul, 
 
 We greet the monarch -peasant ! 
 
 While Shenstone strained in feeble flights 
 
 With Corydon and Phillis, — 
 While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's Heights 
 
 To snatch the Bourbon lilies, 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. t25 
 
 WJio heard the wailing infant's cry, — 
 The babe beneath the shieling, 
 
 Whose song to-night in every sky, 
 Will shake earth's starry ceiling, — 
 
 Whose passion-breathing voice ascends 
 
 And floats like incense o'er ns. 
 Whose ringing lay of friendship blends 
 
 With Labor's anvil chorus ? 
 
 We love him, not for sweetest song ; 
 
 Though never tone so tender, — 
 We love liim, even in his wrong, — 
 
 His wasteful self-surrender. 
 
 We praise him not for gifts divine, — ■ 
 
 His muse was born of woman, — 
 His manhood breathes in every line, 
 
 Was ever heart more human ? 
 
 We love him, praise him just tor this ; 
 
 In every form and feature. 
 Through wealth and want, through wo and bliss. 
 
 He saw his fellow-creature ! 
 
 !N^o soul could sink beneath his love — 
 
 [N^ot even angel blasted ; — 
 'No mortal power could soar above 
 
 The pride that all outlasted ! 
 
 Ay ! Heaven had set one living man 
 
 Beyond the pedant's tether — 
 His virtues, frailties, He may scan, 
 
 Who weighs them ail together ! 
 
126 BUENS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 I fling my pebble on the cairn 
 Of him, though dead, undying, 
 
 Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn. 
 Beneath her daisies lying. 
 
 The waning suns, the wasting globe 
 Shall spare the minstrel's story — 
 
 The centuries wave his purple robe, 
 The mountain-mist of glory ! 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 127 
 
 A TRIBUTE, 
 
 BY JOHN G. WHIITIEK. 
 
 [delivered at the centennial celebration at boston.] 
 
 How sweetly come the holy psalms 
 
 From saints and martyrs down, 
 The waving of triumphal palms 
 
 Above the thorny crown ! 
 The choral praise, the chanted prayers 
 
 From harps by angels strung, 
 The hunted Cameron's mountain airs, 
 
 The hymns that Luther sung ! 
 
 Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes, 
 
 The sounds of earth are heard. 
 As through the open minster floats 
 
 The song of breeze and bird. 
 Not less the wonder of the sky 
 
 That daisies bloom below ; 
 The brook sings on, though loud and high 
 
 The cloudy organs blow ! 
 
 And, if the tender ear be jarred 
 
 That haply hears by turns 
 The saintly harp of Olney's bard, 
 
 The pastoral pipe of Burns, 
 ISTo discord mars his perfect plan 
 
 "Who gave them both a tongue. 
 For, he who sings the love of man 
 
 The love of God hath snno- ! 
 
128 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 To-day be every fault forgiven 
 
 Of him in whom we joy ; 
 We take, with thanks, the gold of heaven 
 
 And leave the earth's alloy. 
 Be ours his music as of spring, 
 
 His sweetness as of flowers, 
 Tlie songs the bard himself might sing 
 
 In holier ears than ours. 
 
 Sweet airs of love and home, the hum 
 
 Of household melodies. 
 Come singing, as the robins come 
 
 To sing in door-yard trees. 
 And, heart to heart, two nations lean 
 
 No rival wreaths to twine. 
 But blending, in eternal green, 
 
 The holly and the pine ! 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 129 
 
 THE BALTIMORE PRIZE ROEM. 
 
 BY THOMAS FRASER. 
 
 [The Burns Club of Baltimore, some time previous to the Centenary Cele- 
 bration, offered a Prize for the best Poem for the occasion. The Com- 
 mittee of award, of whom Honorable J. P. Kennedy was Chairman, 
 adjudged the Prize to Mr. Thomas Fraser, of Newark, N. J. In the letter 
 intimating their decision, they paid a high compliment to the author. Mr. 
 Fraser is a native of Edinburgh. The Scottish American Journal, in a notice 
 of the Poem, says : "It is worthy of the great occasion, and more than 
 worthy of that Scottish muse which, when exiled to these Western shores, 
 becomes intensified both in its patriotic and poetic ardor."] 
 
 Kyle claims his birth ; — wide earth, his name, 
 Where climes scarce kenn'cl yet, peal liis fame, 
 An' gaun time gayly chimes the same 
 
 Where'er he turns, 
 Kow, every true warm lieart's the hanie 
 
 O' Minstrel Burns ! 
 
 Where Boreas brawls o'er blind'rin' snaw ; 
 Where simmer jinks through scented shaw ; 
 Where westlin' zephyrs saftly blaw, 
 
 There Robin reigns ; 
 An' even the thowless Esquimaux 
 
 Ilae heard his strains ! 
 
 Dear bonny Doon, clear gurglin' Ayr, 
 Pure Afton an' the Lugar fair. 
 Can claim his sangs their ain nae mair, 
 Sin' lang years syne, 
 Braw Hudson an' thrang Delaware 
 Kenn'd every line ! 
 17 
 
130 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Frae zone to zone ! — where'er we trace 
 Tlie clearin' o' the pale-faced race ; — 
 Where still the red man trains the chase 
 
 Through prairie brake, 
 E'en there his sang wi' sweet wild grace 
 
 Rings round the lake ! 
 
 The lone backwoodsman, as he seems 
 To ponder o'er his forest schemes, 
 Hums auld lang syne among his dreams 
 
 O' far-aff hame, 
 An' thinks, God bless him ! that the strains 
 
 Croon Robin's name I 
 
 Mothers wdia skirled his sangs when bairns 
 In Carrick, Lothian, Merse or Mearns, 
 Are listenin' now by Indian cairns 
 
 Wi' hearts half sobbin', 
 While some wee dawty blythely learns 
 
 A verse frae Robin ! 
 
 Sound though he sleeps in death's cauld bower, 
 O ! what o' hearts this chosen hour. 
 Far as fleet fancy's wing can scower. 
 
 In raptured thrangs, 
 Are thirling wi' the warlock power 
 
 O' Robin's sangs. 
 
 Frae AUoway's auld haunted aisle 
 To far Australia's gowd-strewn soil ; 
 And e'en where India's ruthless guile 
 
 Mak's mercy quake, 
 Soul-minglin' there, worth, w^ealth and toil 
 
 Meet for his sake. 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 131 
 
 True hearts at hame — true to the core, 
 To auld Scots bards an' auld warld lore, 
 Are blendin — as in scenes o' yore, 
 
 Wi' Burns the van — 
 Love for braw Clydesdale's wild woods hoar. 
 
 An' love for man. 
 
 Staid Arthur's Seat's grim gray man's head 
 Bows to Auld Reekie's requiem reed ; 
 While Soutra lifts the wailin' screed. 
 
 An' Tweed returns 
 His plaintive praises o'er the dead, 
 
 The darlin' Burns. 
 
 Poor dowie Mauchline dights her e'e ; 
 Nith maunders to the sabbin sea ; 
 An' high on Bannock's far-famed lea 
 
 The stalwart thistle 
 Droops as the winds in mournfu' key 
 
 Around him rustle. 
 
 Dark glooms Dumfries, as slowly past 
 Saunt Michael's growls tlie gruesome blast. 
 Where Scotia, pale an' sair down-cast. 
 
 Clasps the sad grun 
 That haps her loved, and to the last 
 
 Immortal Son ! 
 
 While backward frae the grave-yard drear. 
 Thought, tremblin' through a hundred yeai-. 
 Sees Doon's clay cot, where weel hained cheer, 
 
 Shows poorti til's joy 
 When Nature's sel' brought hame her dear. 
 
 Choice, noble boy. 
 
132 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 But soon blythe hope fu' kindly keeks 
 Within her wae-snnk heart, an' seeks 
 To tint her trickling snaw-white cheeks 
 
 Wi' words that burn, — 
 Why ! when a world her bard's fame speaks ! 
 
 Why should she mourn ! 
 
 Wide though the great Atlantic rows 
 
 His huge waves, wi' their wild white pows, 
 
 To part our auld an' new warld knowes, 
 
 Weel pleased, she turns 
 A westward look, where lustrous grows 
 
 The name o' Burns ! 
 
 Pride, too, though tear-diraraed for a wee, 
 
 May lively light her heart wi' glee. 
 
 For where, sin' winged earth first flew free, 
 
 E'er lived the Ian' 
 That bore so true a Bard as he — 
 
 So true a Man ? 
 
 In him poor human nature's heart 
 Had ae firm friend to take its part. 
 So weel kenn'd he wi' what fell art 
 
 Our passions goad 
 Frail man to slight fair virtue's chart, 
 
 An' lose his road. 
 
 An' we, whose lot's to toil, an' thole, 
 Though cross an' care harass the soul, 
 Can cheer the weary wai'k-day's dole 
 
 Wi' strains heart-wrung. 
 Brave strains ! our Burns, worn, but heart-whole, 
 
 Alone has sung. 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 133 
 
 His words hae gi'en truth wings, to bear 
 Round eartli the poor man's faith, that here 
 Yain pride can ne'er wi' plain worth peer, 
 
 Kor lift aught livin' 
 Ae foot, though tip-tae raxed on gear. 
 
 The nearer heaven. 
 
 Fearless for right, wi' nerve to dare, 
 Seer-like, he laid his sage soul bare, 
 To show what life had graven there, 
 
 That earth might learn ; — 
 Yet, though a' earth in Burns may share. 
 
 He's Scotia's bairn ! 
 
 An' O ! how dearly has he row'd 
 Her round wi' glory, like the gowd 
 Her ain braw sunset pours on cloud, 
 
 Crag, strath an' river. 
 Till queen o' sang she stands, uncowed. 
 
 An' crowned forever ! 
 
 Whilst we within our heart's-heart shrine 
 The man — " The brither man !" — entwine 
 Wi' a' the loves o' auld-lang-syne ! 
 
 An' young to-day, 
 Scotland aiiu Burns ! — twa names to shine, 
 
 While Time grows gray ! 
 
 Scotland hersel' ! — wi' a' her glories, 
 Her daurin' deeds an' dear auld stories ; 
 The great an' guid wha've gane before us ; 
 
 Her martyr host ; 
 E'en wi' the graves o' them that bore ut^. 
 
 The loved an' lost. 
 
134 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 
 
 Her sword, that aye flashed first for right ; 
 Her word, that never craved to might ; 
 Her sang, brought down like gleams o' light 
 
 On music's wings, 
 To nerve her in the lang fierce fight 
 
 WV hostile kings. 
 
 Her laverock, in the dawnin' clouds ; 
 Her merle, amang the evenin' woods ; 
 Her mavis, 'mang the birk's young buds ; 
 
 The blythe wee wren, 
 An' Robin's namesake, as he scuds 
 
 Through drift- white glen. 
 
 Her snawdrap, warslin' wi' the sleet ; 
 Her primrose, pearled wi' dewy weet ; 
 Her bluebell, frae its mountain seat 
 
 Beckin' an' bowin', 
 Her wee gem, sweetest o' the sweet, 
 
 The peerless gowan. 
 
 Her waters, in their sangsome glee, 
 Gurglin' through clench and clover-lea, 
 Soughin' aneath the saughen tree 
 
 Where fishers hide, 
 An' driftin' outward to the sea 
 
 Wi' buirdl}^ pride. 
 
 The catkins, that her hazels hing 
 
 In clusters round the nooks o' spring ; 
 
 Her rowan, an' her haws, that swing 
 
 O'er wadeless streams, 
 An' bless the school-boy hearts, that bring 
 
 Them hame in dreams. 
 
TRIBUTES OF THE POETS. 135 
 
 Her muirlan's, in their heather bloom ; 
 Her deep glens, in their silent gloom ; 
 Her gray crags, where their torrents fume 
 
 Wi' downward shiver ; 
 Her braesides, wi' their thistle plume. 
 
 Free, an forever ! 
 
 Scotland hersel' — Heaven bless her name, 
 Wi' a' her kith an' kin the same — 
 Yes ! Scotland's sel', wi' a' her fame, 
 
 Weel's we revere her, 
 Than him, her Bard o' heart an' hame. 
 
 Is scarcely dearer ! 
 
 So rare the sway, his heart-strains wield, 
 
 In lordly ha' an' low thack bield, 
 
 Wi' manhood, youth an' hoar-crowned eild, 
 
 O'er Scotland wild. 
 Burns an' The Word, frae Heaven revealed. 
 
 Lie side by side. 
 
 Earth owned ! his genius in its prime. 
 
 Now towers in mind's fair green-hilled clime, 
 
 Where, mist-robed, Ossian outsings time, 
 
 An' Shakspeare smiles, 
 As Milton, murmurin' dreams sublime, 
 
 Looks earthward whiles ! 
 
 O ! hear then, Scot ! — though yet you toil 
 To fill some lordlin's loof wi' spoil. 
 Or thriving on Columbian soil, 
 
 Yoursel' your lord, 
 Ne'er dim his now bright fame wi' guile 
 
 In thought or word ! 
 
136 
 
 BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Spurn a' that's wrang, an' mak' the right 
 Your haudfast sure, stieve strong an' tight, 
 Cling there, an' ne'er let out o' sight 
 
 The wants o' man. 
 But, Burns-like, strive his lot to light 
 
 As weel's you can. 
 
 Ke'er let vile self get grip, to twist 
 What heart or conscience dicta.tes just ; 
 Straightforward aye act, though fate's gust 
 
 May take your breath ; — 
 The man wha fears nae face o' dust, 
 
 IS^eeds scarce fear death. 
 
 Proud, stern, though gentle as the tone 
 Breathed through a mother's prayerfu' moan, 
 Burns scorned to snool round rank or throne, 
 
 Fause-tongued an' tame ; — 
 Till death, his heart was freedom's own ; 
 
 Be ours the same ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 5K -3 1947 
 
 *l^- 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 389 499 A