The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-12 00:00:00

Shakspeare, and Milton, and Wordsworth, as belonging
to the list of glorious Englishmen who have shed a
lustre on English poetry more bright and enduring than
that which illuminates the living literature of any land.
There is, I think, in the history of the progress of the
human intellect nothing more surprising than the sudden
birth of letters and history in England, and its advance-
ment to a healthy growth. No sooner had tranquillity
been restored after the long civil wars of the Roses—no
sooner had men's minds been set free to enter the fields
of speculation, opened up by the Reformation—
than in the short space of the life of one men—
the space of seventy years, there arose such men as
Spenser, and Milton, and Shakspeare, and Sydney, and
Raleigh, and flacon, and Hobbes, and a whole phalanx
of great men—(Great cheering)--though inferior to
them in the brightness of original genius.—(Applause.)
How glorious must have been the soil which could bring
to maturity a harvest of such teeming abundance !
There are jrobably many among us who can even now
remember with gratificatien when the first ray' of light
was cast on their minds from the genius of Spenser=-
when it came to them as the first gleaming of day comes
to him whose sealed eyes are opened to the light of
heaven; and if, in our maturer years, we return with
him to the grand regions of fancy which entranced our
spirits, and find that the illusions are broken for ever,
we still discover in:every stanza beauties which arrest us
by their rich play of fancy, like the eastern fountains,
whose spring descends in pearls and in gems.—(Ap-
plause.) But when we look upon him with mature
feelings and eyes, we can appreciate that lofty strain of
godly philosophy of which he is the father, which he has
bequeathed, and which has been followed by his suc-
cessors. When we call to mind the influence produced
on a people by the poetry of a nation, when we call to
mind that whatever is desired to be inculcated, whether
for good or for evil, the power of poetry has been em-
ployed to advance it, even from the times of the monarch
of Israel—when we thus think of these things, we may
learn how much of gratitude is due to the man on whose
head has been poured the precious ointment of poetic
lore, and who, in his own person, has shown that poet
and prophet were the same. Such men are Spenser.
Milton, and Wordsworth. Of Milton I shall not venture
to speak. He stands alone in his sanctuary, which I would
not profane, even by imperfect praise. But it is my
duty to speak of Wordsworth. Dwelling in his high
and lofty philosophy, he finds nothing that God has
made common or unclean—he finds nothing in human
societytoo humble—nothing in external nature too lowly—
to be made the fit exponents of the bounty of the good-
ness of the Most High. It may be that the lofty position
of such a mind has much that is obscure to every infe-
rior intelligence. It may be that its vast expanse can
only be but dimly visible—it may be that the clouds of
intense splendour from the altar may veil, frota common
eyes, some portion of the stately temple they perfume ;
but we pity the man who can turn from the sublimity of
the edifice he has been invited to survey, which has been
reared by the might of creative genius, for there he will
find " sermons in stones, books in the running brooks,
and good in everything." Sir John then proposed' a
bumper to Wordsworth and the poets of England, which
was enthusiastically honoured.
HENRY GLASSFORD BELL. Esq., said—My Lord, I
feel it to be a great distinction and privilege to have been
requested to take a part in the proceedings of this day.
It is a day which will not soon pass from the recollection
of those who have partaken in its admirably-conducted
festivities. In assembling to do honour to the memory
of Burns in no idle or frivolous spirit, but impressed
with those elevated emotions which have so plainly ani-
mated the whole of this mighty gathering, we have a
tight to feel that we do honour to ourselves as indivi-
duals, and as a nation. Our assembling has been prompted
by a love of all that is purest and best in our national
genius, as represented by our national poet.—(Cheers.)
It has been prompted, too, by that indomitable love of
our native landwhieh Burns felt and sung—a love founded
on admiration which grows with our growth, and
strengthens with our strength, of all that external na-
ture here presents to us, on profound respect for our in-
estimable and time-hallowed institutions ; and in never-
dying delight in all that kindred spirits have here
shared with us—in ell, that higher spirits have here
achieved for us.—(Cheers.) No poet ever possessed
greater influence in disseminating and strengthening
such sentiments than Burns. My Lord, it has been
well said That wherever an humble artisan, in the
crowded haunts of labour or of trade, feels a conscious-
ness of his own di;:oit7—is stirred with a desire for the
beautiful, or haunted'-with a dream of knowledge, or
learns to appreciate the di,7(aetion between the guinea's
stamp " and the " gowd," the loyal and gentle
spirit of Robert Burns—lion-like In its boldness, and
dove-like in its tenderness—still glob.'" elevates, and in-
spires.—(Cheers.) • This spirit is also he:'N and has been
evidenced in many ways ; perhaps in none mocre than
in this, that in doing honour to the genius o. Burns,
we are irresistibly led to acknowledge, and spea.s of
the debts we owe to the intellectual achievements Of
other great minds, not in Scotland only, but in the
sister countries. We have just heard from the eloquent
lips of Sir John M'Neill, the well-deserved praises of
the English bards. Will this meeting refuse a similsr
cup of welcome, and of thanks, to the poets of Green
Erin ? Will this meeting, where so many bright eyes
rain influence, and manly hearts beat high, not hail
with simultaneous delight the name of one who shines
conspicuous as the very poet of youth, of love, and of
beauty—the poet, with deference be it spoken, of better
things than even beauty—of gentle thoughts and exqui-
site associations, that give additional sweetness to the
twilight hour, and to the enjoyments of home a more
enduring loveliness-the poet too of his own high-souled
country, through whose harp the common breeze of Ire-
land changes, as it passes, into articulate melody—a harp
that will never be 'permitted to hang mute on Tara s
walls, as long as , _

"Erin ! the tear and the smile in thine eye
Blend like the rainbow that shines in thy sky!"

—(Applause.) how many voices have to-day mur-
mured a wish that he were here ; but the echo of the
acclaim with which we greet the name of Moore will
reach him in his solitude, and he will feel, what Burns
died too young to feel, that it is something worth living
for to have gained a nation's gratitude.—(Cheers.)
Of Maturin and others now dead, I must not
pause to speak. But let me be privileged to ex-
press, in the name of this meeting, our respect and ad-
miration for the best of the living dramatists—one
deeply imbued with the spirit of the Elizabethan
age—one who has rescued our stage from the re-
proach which seemed ready to fall upon it—one to whose
exuberant poetical fertility, and bold originality of
thought, we are indebted for such beautiful creations as
Viryinius and William Tell, The Hunchback and the
Love Chase—our valued friend, James Sheridan Knowles.
—(lmmense cheering.) And I might have stopped here,
had it not been that I have to-day seen that not the
gifted sons alone, but also some of the gifted daughters
of Ireland, have come as pilgrims to the shrine of Burns
—that one in particular—one of the most distinguished
of that fair sisterhood who give, by their genius, addi-
tional lustre to the genius of the present day, has paid
her first visit to Scotland, that she might be present on
this occasion, and whom I have myself seen moved even
to tears by the glory of the gathering. She is one who
has lately thrown additional light on the antiquities,
manners, scenery, and beautiful traditions of Ireland—
one, whose graceful and truly feminine works are known
to us all, and whom we are proud to see among us—
Mrs. S. C. Hall.—(Great cheering.) My Lord, feebly
and briefly as I have spoken of these great names, I must
not trespass longer on your time, but beg to propose the
health of " Moore and the Irish poets."—(Cheers.)
Song—" The harp that once through Tara's Halls," by
Mr. Templeton.

ARCHIBALD ALISON, Esq., Sheriff-Depute of Lanark-
shire, spoke as follows :—We have listened with admi-
ration to the eloquent strains in which the first in rank
and the first in genius have proposed the Memory of the
Immortal Bard whose genius we are this day assembled
to celebrate ; but I know not whether the toast which
I have now to propose has not equal claims to our enthu-
siases.—(Applause.) Your ki,Adness and that of the
Committee has entrusted to me the memory of three il-
lustrious men—the far-famed successors of Burns, who
have drank deep at the fountains of his genius, and
proved themselves the worthy inheritors of his inspira-
tion.—(Applause.) And Scotland, I rejoice to say, can
claim them all as her own. For if the Tweed has been
immortalised by the grave of Scott, the Clyde'can boast
the birth-place of Campbell, and the mountains of the
Dee first inspired the muse of Byron.—(Loud cheers.)
I rejoice at that burst of patriotic feeling ; I hail it as
a presage that as Ayrshire has raised a fitting monument
to Burns, and Edinburgh has erected a fitting structure
to the Author of Waverley, so Glasgow will, ere lung,
raise a worthy monument to the bard whose name will
never die while hope pours its balm through the human
heart ; and Aberdeen will worthily commemorate the
far-famed traveller who first inhaled the inspiration of
nature amidst the clouds of Lochnagar, and afterwards
poured the light of his genius over those lands of the sun
where his descending orb set—
" Not as in northern climes obscurely bright,
But one clouded blaze of living light."
Scotland, my Lord, may well be proud of such men, but
she can no longer call these exclusively her own ; their
names have become household words in every land.
Mankind claims them as the common inheritance of the
human race. Look around us, and we shall see on
every aide decisive proof howfar and wide admiration
for their genius;has sunk in the hearts of men.—(Cheers.)
What is it that attracts strangers from every part of the
world, into this distant land, and has more than com-
pensated a remote situation, and a churlish soil, and
given our own northern isle a splendour unknown to
the regions of the sun ? What is it which has brought
together this mighty assemblage, and united the ardent
and the generous from every part of the world, from the
Ural mountains to the banks of the Mississippi, on the
shores of an island on the Atlantic ?—(Cheers.) My
Lord, it is neither the magnificence of our cities, nor the
beauty of our rallies, the animation of our harbours or
the stillness of our mountains; it is neither our sounding
cataracts nor our spreading lakes; neither the wilds of
nature we have subdued so strenuously, nor the blue hills
we have loved so well—(Cheers.) Those beauties,
great as they have been, are equalle I in other lands;
these marvels, wondrous though they be, have parallels
in other climes. It is the genius of her sons which has
given Scotland her proud pre-eminence; this it is more
even than the shades of Bruce, of Wallace, and of
Mary, which has rendered her scenes classic ground
to tie whole of the civilised world, and now brings
pilgrims from the most distant part of the earth,
as on this day, to worship at the shrine of genius—
" Yet Albyn ! yet the praise be thine,
Thy scenes with story to combine ,
Thou bid'st him who by Roslin strays.
List to the tale of other days.
Midst Cartlane crags thou showest the cave,
The refuge of thy champion brave ;
Giving each rock a storied tale,
Pouring a lay through every dale;
Knitting. a.s with a moral band,
Thy stogy to thy native land ;
• Combining thus the interest high,
Which genius lends to beauty's eye 1"