The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-10 00:00:00

THE B URNS' CENTENARY.

CARLISLE ALBERT CLUB.
The members of this club and their friends dined
together in the Lion and Lamb Inn, in celebration
of the centenary. Philip Howard, Esq., of Corby,
occupied the chair, and Mr. D. M'Alpin the vice-
chair. There were about sixty gentlemen present,
every available seat being occupied, and we believe
that a great many applicants for tickets had been
disappointed. Amongst the company were Mr. G.
Dixon, Mr. R. Dixon, Mr. Davidson, Mr. Aiken,
Mr. T. Donald, Mr. W. Jackson, Mr. G. Mounsey,
Mr. J. Clarke, Mr. Ald. Creighton, Mr. T. James,
Mr. W. J. Fairlie, Mr. S. Irving, Mr. Bowman,
Mr. J. Bendle, Mr. Daly, Mr. Alcock, Mr. Sowerby,
and other well-known citizens. An excellent dinner
was served by Mr. Milburn, the company sitting
down shortly after five o'clock.
The cloth having been removed, the CHAIRMAN
gave the usual loyal toasts. In proposing the
Prince Consort, he reminded the company that the
club was named of honour of his Royal High-
ness, having been established shortly after the
Royal marriage. In Portugal and some other
countries, he said, the Prince Consort receives the
honorary title of King after the birth of a Prince,
but although he was without such a title, Prince
Albert had proved himself worthy of the respect of
this country, as a patron of the Arts, and as a man
of cultivated mind.
After the toast of the Army and Navy, also given
by the Chairman, " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace
bled" was sung by Mr. Binning.
Mr. R. DIXON proposed " The Mayor and Cor-
poration of Carlisle," expressing his regret that the
Mayor was not present.
Mr. G. MOUNSEY replied.
The CHAIRMAN then rose to propose the toast of
the evening, and begged that in the first instance
" The Memory of Burns" should be drunk in solemn
silence. This having been done, he proceeded to
say that he might have wished that the toast had
fallen to an actual fellow-countryman of Burns, but
he was happy to remember that he had at least one
claim to do it, as he had himself been born in the
metropolis of Scotland, and if therefore he spoke as
a Scotchman he hoped he might secure their sym-
pathies. In order partly to ascertain the motives
and the instincts that largely guided Burns in his
life and poetry, be would shortly glance at the poet's
predecessors. The grandfather and fore-elders of
Burns held under the Keiths, Marshals of Scotland,
the two representatives of which great house de-
clared for the Stuarts in 1715. Their estates were
confiscated, and the family of Burns were involved
in the same ruin, and were driven from their hold.
ings at Dunnottar, in Kincardineshire. This would
account for the strong leaning towards the Royal
House of Stuart evinced by Robert Burns, besides
which the cause of adversity naturally engaged the
generous mind of our bard. The great uncle of the
poet made his way to Montrose, and was successful
in trade ; and from him, in a direct line, sprung Sir
Alexander Burns, whose fall we had to lament in
Cabul. The grandfather and parents of Burns
continued to adhere to their rustic pursuits. Wil-
liam Burness or Burns, the father of the poet, was
obliged to flit from his holding and seek his for-
tunes elsewhere. He struggled against adversity
with unflinching fortitude, his character being
touchingly drawn by his son in that beautiful
Poem the Cottar's Saturday Night. His mother
there also appears as the thrifty housewife,
and we know from her biographer that she
shared her husband's
for her' dill,ns anxiety to secure a good edu-
cationlt was not correct to speak
of Burns as an uneducated man, or even altogether
as a self-educated
man. (Hear, hear.) Scotland
had the glory of having
gene-
ral education—dating from 1164 h 6—wed
hich
system of
which gave her
a start over almost all other nations. It was to that
system, as well as to the intellectualns. vigour and
energy of her sons, that Scotland owedr ider position
and her influence abroad. It had produced such
forerunners of Burns as Allan Ramspa
looked to India we would see that greay, and
ofif the
n
machinery of that great empire had been organised
and conducted by the sons of Caledonia.(Hear.).
To a relative of his mother, John Murdoch an
of
hisin-
dustrious pedagogue, Burns owed great part
education, and always mentioned him with
kind-
ness. Burns first drew his breath near Ayr—
•'Aidd Ayr, wham ne'er a toon surpasses
For honest men and bonnie lasses."

But it was at Kilmarnock that his poems first saw
the light; and perhaps the difficulties that lay in
the way of publication by one in his position were
no disadvantage. Some authors had, " by faltering
steps and slow," approached the temple of Fame—
he, by one vigorous bound, reached its portals.
(Hear.) The appearance at Kilmarnock of the first
edition of his poems was like an electric shock, and
his fame spread at once. This was partly attri-
butable to the spread of education, and partly to
the intense patriotism of the people for whom lie
wrote and sang. There was something in that Kil-
marnock edition, humble as was its form, that must
endear it to every friend of literature, the first
communication to the world of a genius that had
now become so celebrated. (Cheers.) The Edin-
burgh edition was ushered in under higher pat-
ronage, and its dedication to the noblemen and gen-
tlemen of the Caledonian Hunt was worthy of a hardy
son of the soil, at once so grateful and so lofty in its
tone II
" Wile;--e:Would read the concluding passage—
the
curt, in you go to waken the echoes," said
of your forefathers, ancient and favourite amusement'
party ; and ma rs, may Pleasure ever be of your
When harassedTmscecola Joy await your return !
and. camps with the jost-
lings of bad men and
courts
wmeasures, nay the honest
consciousness of injured attend your return
to native seats ; and ma., °dith
meet.7yoonmes tie happiness, with
a smiling welcome,
corruption shrink from you: krir gates! May
glance ; and may tyranny in thned"ng indignant
inexor-
finplor and licen-
tiousness in the people, equally
able foe !" (Cheers.) These were the
which animated the poet. He (the chairman) feelings
would not follow him through his life nor do.
than allude to the characteristics of his pmt more
Amongst the first of his compositions was the " Twa
Dogs," which was not, as might be supposed from
its title, some description of a canine scuffle.
Dryden had introduced an intricate argument on

theology into an imaginary conversation between a
hind and a panther ; and Burns had put a philoso-
phical discussion upon social relations into the
mouths of his dogs, Caesar and Luath. His Hal-
loween was a vivid description of loc supersti-
tions, the memory of which, but for that poem,
might in time have been obliterated. One might
name his " Lament of Mary, Queen 4:). Scots, on the
return of Spring," because Carlisle was at one time
so fortunate as to be visited by Burns, and the sight
of the tower in which the unfortunate Princess
was confined might have awakened his poetical
sympathies. His poetry was sometimes effective in
producing some other object than mere admiration ;
his petition of Bruar Water for shade had led to
the planting of the banks of that stream, and to the
creation of some beautiful scenery. He had written
many martial poems, one of which had been sung
that night, and many tender odes and songs that
now find a home in almost all hearth. (Cheers.)
Other poets had sung of
young love, but it re-
mained for Burns to describe love in its evening
glow,
and to sing the wedded pair happily descend
ing the hill of life. (Cheers.) But, perhaps, what
was most distinct in his poetry was his nationality,
and it was not to be wondered that he should
sing of freedom, for Scotland had never bowed under
the yoke of an invader. Scotland gloried in being
the only country which had never been subjugated
by a foreign invader. Romans, Saxons, Danes, and
Normans had successfully subdued and overrun the
more southern part of the island, but all that the
Romans, the conquerors of the world, ever attempted
was to bar the Scots out by that wonderful wall
which had been the admiration of antiquarians, and
which would, no doubt, next July engage the at-
tention of the members of the Archaeological Insti-
tute who are then to be in Carlisle. (Hear, hear.)
The chairman then said that he had received an
appeal from the Rev. W. Buchanan, of Ayr, in
favour of the neices of Burns, the daughters of Mrs.
Begg, who only departed this life at an advanced
age, on the 4th of December last. On the present
occasion it might be ill-advised to press a matter of
business, but he hoped he might venture to direct
the attention. of the company to that object. (Hear.)
He would, in conclusion, remark that if placed in a
higher position in life Burns would doubtless have
been a poet, probably a great one, but he would not
have had the opportunity of studying nature so
near its source, and, above all, he would not have
written in that language of his native land, so full
of pith and feeling. (Mr. Howard sat down amidst
applause.)
Mr. AIKIN then, with much humour, recited
" Death and Dr. Hornbook," and Mr. DALY sang
" A man's a man for a' that."

The VICE-CHAIRMAN proposed " The memory of
the Poet's wife " (Jean Armour). He said they
were met to celebrate the memory of a great poet
and a man of genius. They had just done honour
to his well-earned fame, and they were now called
upon to consider him in his private and domestic
life--as a man, a husband, and a father. (Cheers.)
How fervently and truly he loved the partner of
all his joys and sorrows was well known to all of
us who had read his poems, some of which were
addressed to her, and formed no small part of that
world-wide celebrity which he had earned for him-
self. Though his life was a troubled one, and was
unfortunately extinguished amid the clouds of
adversity, to her were vouchsafed blessings of which
he had been deprived. She lived to realise the
dearest wish of a wife's and a parent's heart—she
lived to see and participate in the rising prosperity
of her family—she lived to realise the happiest
vision in the poet's dream—to find her husband's
name acknowledged by his countrymen. (Loud
cheers.) She lived to know that his memory was
cherished and enshrined in their grateful hearts,
and to feel that those errors which would never
have been noticed but for the splendour of the
shield—that though they might tarnish its bril-
liancy for a moment, were lost and obliterated in
the brightness and glory which illumined the
memory of the poet. (Loud cheers.) The Vice-
Chairman then gave " The memory of the Poet's
wife," which, like that of the poet, was drunk in
solemn silence.

Mr. DAVIDSON rose to propose the next toast,
the health of the two surviving sons of the poet—
Colonels William Nicol and James Glencairn Burns.
Though ill-qualified to do the toast the justice it
deserved, he had this claim to the honour of pro-
posing it, that he was personally acquainted with
both the gentlemen; for he had the pleasure some
years ago of spending a night with them in his
own house, and of hearing some of the finest
songs of the poet sung by James Glencairn,
then Major Burns. William Nicol in early youth
went out to India in the military service, and
was followed in a few years by his younger
brother, who got a cadetship in the same service.
A writer in a work called " The Land of Burns,"
(who he believed was Allan Cunningham), thus
spoke of the younger brother :

" The first time I saw James Glencairn Burns, the poet's
third son, was a day or so after his father's funeral, when,
accompanied by his brothers Robert and William, he was
on his way up the streets of Dumfries to the town school.
The black dresses, the lawn weepers on their jacket cuffs,
their extreme youth, and the desolate look of the poor
orphans made an impression too deep to be effaced. The
next time I saw him was in my own house in London, when
he called, accompanied by the Ettrick Shepherd. Many
years, and most of them stirring ones, had intervened ;
James had served, not unnoticed, in India, and returned to
see his mother and friends with the rank of Captain. The
East seemed to have made little impression upon either con-
stitution or looks. I had heard this before through Sir John
Malcolm, who loved him because he was a worthy officer,
as well as the son of a great poet, and had during his com-
mand in India shown that he desired to honour him. I

found him pleasing and unaffected, with his father's love of
song, and his mother's skill in singing, and with a touch of
the latter more than the former—for I knew them both—in
his looks. He told me he had been at Abbotsford, where Sir
Walter Scott treated him with uncommon kindness, and
asked him to sing one of his father's songs ; he sang Of a'
the airts the wind can blaw,' which made the eyes of his
illustrious entertainer moist. Neither did the' boy of Burns'
leave those halls—so soon to become silent and dark—with-
out his meed of song from no undistinguished minstrel. In
the East, wherever he went, he found his father's fame be-
fore him. The son of Burns was welcomed by all, and by
none more than the Marquis of Hastings, whose lady was
of the North, and allied, too, to names of whom the young
soldier's father had sung with his usual tenderness."
Both brothers rose to honourable distinction and
rank, and returned home some fifteen years ago,
and have since been living in that "glorious inde-
pendence" so much prized and celebrated by
their father, who had he lived to see his sons rise
to high military rank and to gain the love
and respect as they have done of all who have the
pleasure of their acquaintance, he would have been
a proud and happy man. It would have raised him
indeed

"O'er all the ills o' life victorious."

That the poet was a fond and loving father, and
prepared to make every honourable sacrifice for the
sake of his wife and children, we have abundant
proof. In his epistle to the Rev. Dr. Blacklock, he
says—

"I hae a wife and three wee laddies,
Wha maun hae brose and bits o' duddies,
Ye ken yoursel my heart right proud is,
I needna vaunt.
But I'll sned besoms, thraw saugh woodies
Before they want."
And then again, when he was appointed to the
Excise—

" Searchin' auld wives' barrels,
Och ho, the day !
That clarty barm should stain my laurels ;
But—what'll ye say ?
These muvin things ca'd wives and weans
Wad muve the very hearts o' stanes I"
The subjects of the toast were men high and
honourable in their character, gentle, pleasing, and
unassuming in their manners, and one of them, at
least, sang an excellent song ; in fact, their noble-
minded father would have been proud of them.
They both inherited a share of their father's bene-
volence of heart—for if ever man was brimfull of
the milk of human sympathy it was the poet, their
father. All the beauteous and helpless things in
nature, whether animate or inanimate, were em-
braced within the overflowings of his heart. Need
he refer to "The Mouse—wee, sleekit, cowerin, timo-
rous beastie," " The wounded hare," " Poor Mailie,"
in claims his Daisy." sym p
the,, author's pet ewe, " His auld mare Maggie,"
mTanhke
Mountain
tEhven tAheftaerrchshoi
ewnehmgyooff
and many f
with a master's h aY.
of his evil deeds, he
thus concludes

" But Tare you waeteill, auld Niekie Ben,
0 wad
ah#
en °dean
Ye blister :ups:hut:l:a men,'
... dinner ken,
staksele."
I'm wao to thin:
Ell Y • '
the statement
elt for
He (Mr. Davidson) might add thyoautr
made in several of the papers lately that three of the
poet's sons are still living, is incorrect,Roberteldest, himself a poet, died in Dumfries about,ttwhoe
years ago. He now, therefore, claimed
a bumper
to the healths of Colonels William Nicol and
James
Glencairn Burns. (Drank with applause.)
" Willie brewed a peck o' maut," was here sung
by Mr. AIKIN.
Mr. BERTRAM then proposed the health of the
Chairman, expressing his general respect for Mr.
Howard as an English gentleman which was en-
tertained by those present, and by the people of the
district in which he lives and where he is so well
known. Burns, the speaker said, had been declared
to have begun his career as a Jacobite and ended it
as a Jacobin, and certainly no man more strongly
entertained or more freely expressed contempt for
any claims that mere rank and money could set up ;
but throughout his life and many parts of his
heof had warmly expressed the admiration
with which heregarded men who, like Mr. Howard,
adorned their descent and their station by the high
P:ontrYour their &alders and the cultivation of

their minds, and who made their wealth but the
means of their generosity.
The CHAIRMAN, in reply, said it had given him
great satisfaction to be present upon this occasion.
Cumbrians had a kindred feeling for Burns, and
Cumberland had produced two of the best of his
imitators, Robert Anderson and Susannah Blamire.
The Chairman then narrated the circumstances
under which Burns composed his feeling lament for
the Mouse, whose nest he had turned up with his
plough—his rebuke of his " goadsman, who at-
tempted to kill the poor animal—his falling into a
fit of abstraction, and his subsequent recitation of
the poem to his assistant, asking, "What do you
think of the mouse now ?"—He trusted that
he should often meet such a company upon similar
occasions. (Cheers.)

Mr. BOWMAN proposed" The Memory of Shak-
spere," recalling the endearing epithets by. which
he had been referred to by his contemporaries and
the great poets who had lived since ; Mr. DALY pro-
posed " Lord Brougham and English Literature ;"
Mr. JACKSON proposed " The Vice-Chairman," a
toast that was appropriately followed by the song
from " The Lady of the Lake," " Roderick Vich
Alpine ;" the VICE-CHAIRMAN proposed " British
Art," to which Mr. W. J. FAIRLIE replied ; Mr.
DONALD proposed " The Press," to which Mr. BER-
TRAM replied ; and Mr. AIKIN proposed " The
bonnie lassies of Cumberland." Mr. MILLS, of
Warwick Bridge, recited "Tam o'Shanter," and
many songs were sung. The toast list had by this
time been gone through; but, unwilling to break up
a company that was thoroughly enjoying itself, the
Chairman put off, by interpolating a few others, the
parting toast. Even after " Our next merry
meeting" had been drunk, and " Auld Lang Syne"
sung by the company standing,those present seemed
loath to depart, and more toasts were proposed and
more songs sung. The Chairman finally took his
leave, and Mr. Donald, of Linstock, took his place
for a short time, and about 11 o'clock the tables
were deserted.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.—Feb. 9.

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.
(Sittings at Nisi Prins, at Westminster, before
Lord Campbell and a Special Jury.)
RICHARDSON AND WIFE V. GRANVILLE AND WIFE.-

LIBEL.

This was an action brought by Mr. Charles
Richardson, solicitor, carrying on his profession in
the city of London, and conjointly by his wife,
Mrs. Constance Rebecca Richardson, to recover
compensation in damages against the defendants,
Dr. Granville and wife, for slanderous expressions
and imputations alleged to have been published by
Mrs. Granville, to the prejudice of Mrs. Richard-
son.
The defendants pleaded not guilty.

Mr. Sergeant Slice and Mr. Simmonds appeared
for the plaintiffs; and Mr. Edwin James and Mr.
Macnamara conducted the case for the defendants.

Mr. Sergeant Shee stated the case, from which
it appeared that the action was brought, not so
much to recover damages as for the purpose
of vindicating Mrs. Richardson's character
from certain alleged slanderous imputations
cast upon it by Mrs. Granville. Mrs. Richard-
son, it appeared, is a lady of large fortune, and
resides with her husband in Bruton-street, and she
was professionally attended by Dr. Granville for a
painful and dangerous illness with which she be-
came afflicted. In the course of her illness it was
deemed advisable that she should be seen as fre-
quently as possible by Dr. Granville, and in order
to facilitate that object, it was arranged that she
should take lodgings and reside in his house, in
Curzon-street, May-fair. She accordingly took
up her abode there. The two families had been
long on terms of close intimacy and friendship,
and were in the habit of travelling, and of visiting
Germany together; and the imputations com-
plained of were contained in a letter written
by Mrs. Granville to the Rev. Dr. Jeston, an
acquaintance, at Vissengen, in Bavaria, where both
families generally passed the autumn. The im-
putations complained of had also the effect of ques-
tioning Dr. Granville's professional honour and
morality as a man. The alleged libel was pub-
lished in 1556; but it was retracted, and a letter
was written by Dr. Granville to the plaintiffs,
in which he vindicated his own honour by solemnly
denying the truth of the rumours circulated to his
prejudice, and that of Mrs. Richardson, by Mrs.
Granville. In that letter he declared that the im-
putations were wholly unmerited and unfounded.
The imputations were retracted by Mrs. Granville,
but were subsequently repeated. ; and after in-
effectual efforts to settle the case by arbitration,
the questions in issue now came on for trial.
Lord Campbell, on the conclusion of Mr. Sergeant
Shee's address, inquired what was the precise ques-
tion in Issue for the consideration of the juLy.
Mr. Edwin James replied that the letter relied
upon was not a libel, and that he was prepared to
show that it was not even intended to be one.
The letter of Dr. Granville above referred to, in
which he declared there was no foundation or truth
for the imputations, was put in and read, and a
voluminous correspondence between him, Mr. and
Mrs. Richardson, and other parties on the subject,
was also put in and read.

Mr. Sergeant Shee and Mr. James having ad-
dressed the jury on behalf of their respective
clients, _

Lord Campbell summed up the evidence, and the
jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs, with
damages 40s.

Thine was a cross action, in which the plaintiffs
in the above became defendants, and Dr. Granville
and wife became plaintiffs, but it was not proceeded
with, the record having been withdrawn.