The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-29 00:00:00

THE BURNS' FESTIVAL.

(Front Me National Standard of this day.)
On Tuesday, as the Centenary of Burns' birth, an el
hibition was given at the Crystal Palace, with songs, busts ;
and pictures of the poet, and recitation of a poem to .
ux
memory. As the detail will be found in another part of
our paper, we shall not enter into it here. The Crystal
Palace Company have been blamed, as if assuming to their
selves a right to commemorate the memory of the Scottish
poet ; and, unquestionably, the notion of adding to this:
honours of any name by a celebration of this kind Would '0
preposterous. But, the Company are traders; they bac.r
lately, in their opening on the Sabbath, displayed 01°1
appetite for finance in a very palpable degree, and Werfs
gard the Burns' Festival in a much less objectionable low
of view, as a mere commercial contrivance.
On the same day, by the force of example, according to
the well-known, and not very complimentary proverb;
several celebrations of the same kind occurred ; one by t.ll
Caledonian Society ; one at St. Martin's Hall ; one at /3115;
tol ; and one at Edinburgh. There can be no harm in the °,l
things ; they gather people, they give them singing I._
playing, they break in on the general monotony of n'".,
they furnish a topic for the day. Still, it is a pity that 51:
this exuberance of sentiment did not glow, while its obje;
was ameng the living; and that an occasional bawbee /11°f
not wrung from the national heart, to relieve the poverty °
him whom they now load with such tumultuous praise. Of
Robert Burns was born near the town of Ayr ; the e°lli
a small farmer, an industrious and intelligent man;
either pressed by the severity of his leases, or by the
luck which sometimes (pursues men, however industl
and intelligent, his life seems to have been spent in diffierot
ties. Robert was, of course, intended for a ploughman, a d
he laboured in the field, like his father. But, the habits
the Scottish peasantry have allowed, in general, of ccets_.:a
derable mental cultivation. He was sent to school, °P
learned English grammar, to which he added some 1111°r0,
ledge of French. Books aro frequent in Scottish cottageand Robert read the miscellaneous collection which he f°`,
on his father's shelves. But, his inspirer was an old virow-,
osa
whose memory supplied him with ghost stories, and tli 0
rude ramblings of adventure, which were to be found
every country fireside, yet unstripped of the spirit efr"
by the steam-engine.
We are now in an utilitarian age. Our intellect iAgOl;
our circulation is steam, our nerves are machinery, Whey
hearts are Consols. The time will never come again:bile!
the young eye saw visions in the hills, and the yowl° of
was chilled with the imaginary night shriek ; we shalllloll
believe in another Macbeth ; no Hamlet will make nii" the
or his audience tremble while he questions ghosts on iier
doings of those regions " from whose bourne no tril':(Oer of
returns." The generation is inevitably prosaic, matte clef
fact, stubbornly substantial ; the railroad is our °"010
Birmingham our Parnassus, and Mr. Stephenson
" Magnus Apollo." o,s°'
Yet, matters wore another hue, a hundred years do
And we can conceive no fitter training for an imagi°„ro'
mind than a wild Scotch farm, a cabin on the side of a elie
swept hill, a wintry climate, a hard life, and an eve
gossiping of all strange times and things, over a snle".o
turf lire. Such was the training of Burns ; such, t 00,40.
the training of Scott (with some slight advantage of schuoso
ship), and such will be the natural training of ever,'
destined to be an original poet, since Homer. tll
The "sweet singers of Israel" never sang more sstr
than when they hung their harps on the willows,... 'ios
Euphrates. The finest of the charming melodies of ilitelf
were the compositions of men hunted from hill to vi
in the day of poverty to themselves, and in the age our""'
row to their country. Poetic greatness was never
in the sunshine—it requires the cold wind and cloudy
of life. Even Milton, with all his superb schonot
would never have told us of the wars of the Cherubittelosill
for his poverty, blindness, and solitude. Byron, ii:4oo,
born to rank, was trained for distinction only thre.,t7
ungenial infancy, the harshness of a wayward parei,"b'elei
stung into the consciousness of his powers only by
the first feeble efforts of his poetry. •
Burns, if he had been planted at his birth in the itilie
r
cracy, fondled in drawing-rooms, imbibed claret e
assuming the "toga virilis " and passed the next fiftYil
between the soirees of Belgravia and the levees,°,o
James's, might have lisped sonnets or scribbled eP,1,6"
but he would never have written "Tam 0' Shanter• rsitt
The progress of Burns's life was all through ectlet, /46
He tried the trade of a flax-dresser, but was burnt on 00
then tried a partnership in a farm with his brother,
..,11)11010.,:
forced to give it up. Tn his extremity, he even offern
self as a slave-overseer to a plantation in Jainaics,oo.l3L
obtain the means of an outfit, he published his P 1.09:,
subscriptions, in 1786, and was on the point of sailing fit'
unhappy destination, when he received a letter, 311); ft!,
any of the great, or the opulent, of his country, but ft!,
Blacklock, the blind poet, advising him to try a 110 %pee
in Edinburgh. There he remained for a year, iniooes'
friends, gained £5OO by subscriptions, and obtained
ciseman's place I In Edinburgh he was a lion for tl!i3osie
but none can live on praise. The lionwasnot fed, allu,„ tl4
retired to a farm once more. He tried this chance I',
years, and again failed. He was now reduced to hie.. 06
able salary as an exciseman. His habits, at n° _for,
abstemious, were now, by the temptations of hit. (10
tunato position, destructive of his health, and
(July 21, 1796.),
In this sketch of his biography, it is scarcely Pessoff
speak with patience of the national neglect, which ° 011,4 e./
a man of known and even popular ability, to perish;
we see the profusion of shallow honours showered °vete'
tomb. That Burns was a poet, that he was in Varedjil
that his talent was a credit to Scotland, that a bun
part of the money flung away upon busts, inscriptionol,
anniversaries in his honour, would have made him a.
man ; and that his countrymen suffered him to live the
tress, and die in penury, are all truths, which disheil.,, tio.
whole tribe of his admirers, panegyrists, speechinake.,',llo.:
adorers. Not a man of the thousands and tens of th..4e"
who toasted him in taverns, and boasted of him everi'iti P'e
from the Line to the Pole, ever would put his ha-13'0140
purse to cheer the dying poet; not one of those osn,
lords," who once lavished their metaphors on "theoOri
bard of Scotia old," would stir hand or foot to P, t.,13 t,11,i4
above poverty, by some appointment consistent
.%
pursuits of genius. A guager's place of some Xeu (01;1
was the sole bounty to be found in their patrona
man whose temptation was excessive, and who sPee
under the luckless opportunity. ,016
In the year 1844, a festival in honour of Burns
in the town of Ayr, Lord Eglinton in the chair. '""g eel";
occasion, the noble chairman indulged his applain-10;
dience with a few of the following fine things :—" iolt;
could the pious old man (Burns' father) who dwelt "on rg
der cottages, have guessed that the infant prattlingoolio
knee was to be the pride of his nation, the chief o°,)
the poetic band ; was to be one of the brightest plal,lLere,
glow round the mighty sun of the Bard of Avon. (1,50 t
Well may we rejoice that Burns is our own! -atones
other spot can claim to be the birthplace of ourfs
Oh, that he could have foreseen the futuritY,;°,tori,„ri
created for him this day, when the poet and the i".„0'•
the peer and the peasant, vie with each other in par-,_413"!
tribute of their admiration to the humble, but P-.,„ete
genius of him, whom we hail as the first of Scottish yd;
(Cheers.) At his name every Scottish heart bee,tses 1$11:1,1
He has become a household word, alike in the Pa,a-00
the cottage. Of whom should we be proud, to whe,woras'
wo pay homage, if not to our own immortal P
(Cheers.)
vett 10
We are not objecting to this speech. It was cle oe
8,
appropriate to the occasion, if not to the man. isr
, °re bes
objecting to the noble Lord's not being among 'll3at
factors of Burns, fifty years before he was born. fliA,
object to offering national festivals to a man natioo4,, fen
glected during his life; to assuming the ostentation .
ing for the dead,:while there was none for the llvittVe tea
to affecting a national generosity to the grave, Ny,.„,"-et
living wants of the man of talent could not es",ees;
most trivial tribute from the callous avarice of his b-
tion. ,10,3
If we were the countrymen of Robert Burns, w
be ashamed of all allusion to his name ; we shoin'4o+,"o
from the mockery of posthumous patronage ; and Weiso,„,
endeavour to conceal the parsimony which it is hope d Pr
palliate. We utterly scorn the cheap atonement an
tardy liberality.

THE OUTRAGE ON OUR TROOPS
MALTA.

o
(From the National Standard of this daY•),,raor, t
We rejoice to find that the outrageous Garrison
.'• 0 t°o'.
which we have already called attention, will not
r.
noticed. The Edinburgh Town Council is about oo°,lmorialise her Majesty, praying that the official vin° CO
nated such an order, may be dismissed—the order csl:43, ier
—and all proceedings against Captain Sheffield stilAY
The man who has dared to issue this disgraceZ 0/1.31;1
is Sir John Gaspard Le
,Marchant ; the man 1"-elle of
manded that Popish regiment which during tile,rePeo,,o)
election of 1841 shouted for O'Connell in the
Carlow ; the man who, being on full pay in titojeo,o
Army, preferred the service of " Her Catholic Sro
Isabella 11., to that of Great Britain, and went out "Iq,
in the notorious Spanish Legion, in 1836. Frolo
man it would be simply absurd to look for Protest3l:ol 04'ef
ciple or high feeling. He is only fit to be the 40111'
Minister like the present Secretary of War, himself
stranger to such sentiments.
4
We learn that an influential deputation is about tc)
upon Major-General Peel on this subject. We t''o"
for it. The man who has used his power in every r: ,
manner to endow and propagate Popery in the arci_,l'oo,o
has furnished the " Garden of the Sold," at the On IR,
the nation, to the poor Romanist soldier, who 11,00),
guilty of flippant impertinence to the Scotch Refoi.eoeloi
Society, is not likely to sympathise with Captain S„1,
Had the deputation deckled upon remonstrating erlll'
Derby as the head of the Government, it might
have been more likely to meet with attention, if 10112
success. But, as for holding any intercourse or cotefto
cation with Major-General the Right Hon. Jeuathati
Secretary of State for War, we hold it to be belle! to v;fo
dignity of Christian Protestant gentlemen to subun'
degradation of any contact or intercourse with hini„
do not anticipate that it will be attended with a laV"
result.
Only a few weeks have elapsed since the nation toritle
gusted by the announcement from the military ac;_tP,ll,li,;;ll
that Popish priests were appointed military
ranking according to their classes with colonels, wisely 104
captains. But this is not enough—and immedic,',e 00,4
lows this garrison order in Malta, commanding Ctu,(o,s
other monstrosities) " all sentries to present arni°orill'f
THE HOST PASSES"—in other words, commanding,.ioll,i,
soldiers to commit an act which the law and rear/J*ol'h
England pronounced to be blasphemous and ideo
This (be it remembered) is to be done in our own 0)1
not in a foreign friendly country. We know tolerabilicliel
the various insults to which Protestant officers and s°,ltico
are subjected by the wretched subserviency to Pope t 13,1
is creeping into every department; but we trust Or
nation is at length roused from its apathetic shanbeilll
that in a voice of thunder the British Government
informed that such proceedings will be endured no '0
The time for mild remonstrance and humble prctei es
gone—the public must speak and act decisively co':3.oti
getically. There is a wide difference between t°l
and apostacy.
ar`i
LIVERPOOL, Jan. 28.—1 n addition to the C-11:
Royal mail steamer Africa, which sails to-morr°DelA;
Halifax and Boston, the Cunard Company's ste,anierifiagi.
non will sail to-morrow for New York direct, carrfroo,`;
ship's mail. Letters will be received at the Liverpc° I'J:A
office till 2.15 p.m., and with late fees till 2.30 p•ul; DoP:00
screw steamers Imperador and Imperatriz, having (l.„- ravzia
the new Red Sea telegraph cable, have sailed this slt; Or
for Suez, and on their arrival the submersion of tjy
will be at once proceeded with.