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

—(Cheers.) But, my Lord, the poet who conceived
these beautiftil lines, has himself done more than all our
ancestors' valour to immortalise the land of his birth :
for he has united the interest of truth with the charms
of fiction, and peopled the realm not only with the sha-
dows of time, but the creations of genius. In those. bril-
liant creations, as in the glassy wave, we behold mir-
rored the lights, the shadows, the forms of reality :
and yet _ _ .

" So pure, so fair, the mirror gave,
As if there lay beneath the wave,
Secure from trouble, toil, and care,
A world than earthly world more fair."
—(Cheers.) Years have rolled on, but they have taken
nothing, they have added much, to the fame of those
illustrious men--

" Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear."
The ♦oice of ages has spoken : it has given Campbell
and Byron the highest place with Burns in lyric poetry,
and destined Scott

" To rival all but Shakespeare's name below."
(Cheers.) Their names now shine in unapproachable
splendour, far removed like the fixed stars from the
clouds, and the rivalry of a lower world. To the end of
time they will maintain their exalted station. Never
will the cultivated traveller traverse the sea of the
Archipelago, that the "Isles of Greece, the Isles of
Greece," will not recur to his recollection ; never will
he approach the shores of Loch Katrine, that the image
of Ellen Douglas will not be present to his memory ;
never will he gaze on the cliffs of Britain that he will
not thrill at the exploits of the " Mariners of England
who guard our native seas."—(Cheers) Whence has
arisen this great, this universally-acknowledged cele-
brity ? My Lord, it is hard to say whether we have
most to admire, the brilliancy of their fancy, or the
creations of their genius, the beauty of their verses, or
the magic of their language, the elevation of their
thoughts, or the pathos of their conceptions. But there
is one whose recent death we all deplore, but who has
lighted " his torch of Hope at nature's funeral pile,"
who has gained a yet higher inspiration. In Campbell,
it is the moral purposes to which he has directed his
mighty powers, which is the real secret of his success,
the lofty objects to which he has devoted his life, which
have proved his passport to immortality. It is because
he has unceasingly contended for the best interests of
humanity, because he has ever asserted the dignity of
the human soul, because be has never forgotten that,
amidst all the distinctions of time,

" The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the goud for a' that."
(Cheers.) Because he has regarded himself as the
high-priest of nature, and the world in which we inhabit
as the abode merely of human care and human joys, but
as the temple of the living God, in which praise is due,
and whose service is to be performed.—(Cheers.)
Air—" Land of the Leal." Band.

Mr. W. E. AYTOUN, Advocate, said—We are met here
to-day, not only to pay due honour to the memory of
that bard whose genius has consecrated this spot and the
scenes around it as classic ground for ever, but perhaps
for a wider purpose. I look upon this assemblage as a
great national gathering—a meeting not only of the
Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland, but of kindly
strangers also, to testify our reverence and affection for
the living lights of fame that still are burning amongst
us, and our undying gratitude and exultation for those
that have already passed away.—(Cheers.) Thus,
though they belong to the sister countries, we have paid
due homage to the venerable name of Worsworth and
to the sparkling genius of Moore. Thus, the heart of
every one that hears me burned within him—am I not
right?—when we saw our own noble Wilson rise amidst
us, and heard him with an eloquence the most pure—
for it flowed spontaneously from his soul—speak, as per-
haps no other man could speak, of the genius of the im-
mortal dead. Thus, too, we have heard the tribute so
touchingly paid to Campbell, who now sleeps among the
sages, and the warriors, and the poets of famous Eng-
land ; and to him who has a happier and a holier sepul-
ture still—for he lies within the bosom of his own dear
native land—to Scott, the master-spirit of the age, for
whom we may well mourn, since we dare not hope to
look upon his like again. I have now, in a few words,
to entreat your 'patience while I speak of two other
Scottish poets, whose memory is yet green amongst
us—both reared, like Robert Burns, at the lowly hearth
of the peasant—both pursuing, like him, through every
discouragement and difficulty, the pathway towards
honourable renown—and both the authors of strains
which bear the stamp of immortality. And first, let me
allude to one of them whom I knew and dearly loved—
who is there that has not heard of the Ettrick Shep-
herd ?—(Cheers.) I have seen him many a time by the
banks of his own romantic Yarrow; I have sat with him
in the calm and sunny weather by the margin of Saint
Mary's lake; I have seen his eye sparkle and his cheek
flush as he spoke out some old heroic ballad of the days
of the Douglas and the Grwme; and I have felt, as I lis-
tened to the accents of his manly voice, that whilst Scot-
land could produce amongst her children such men as
him beside me, her ancient spirit had not departed from
her, nor the star of her glory grown pale. For he was a
man indeed cast in natures happiest mould. True-
hearted, and brave, and generous, and sincere, alive to
every kindly impulse, and fresh at the core to the last,
he livA amongst his native hills the blameless life of the
shepherd and the poet—(Cheers)—and on the day when
he was laid tbeneath the sod in the lonely kirk-yard of
Ettrick, there was not one dry eye amongst the hundreds
that lingered round ;:is grave. Of the other sweet singer,
too—of Allan CunningiiAm, the Leal-hearted and kindly
Allan, I might say much, but why detain you further?
Does not his name alone recal to your recollection many
a sweet song that has stirred the bosom of the village
maiden with an emotion that a princess need not blush
to own? Proud, indeed, may be the district that can
claim within herself the birth-places of Burns and of
Cunningham; and proud may we all be—and we are
proud, from yourself; my Lord, to the humblest indivi-
dual here—that we have the opportunity of testifying
our respect to the gotius that will defy the encroachment
of time; and which has tood,
i.'and will continue to stand,
a splendour and a glory arou
d, the land that we love so
welt—(Great cheering.)
Air—" Roslin Castle. . Band.
Sir D. 11. BLAIR, Bart., of Btairquhan, ;eid—l rise to
propose a toast which I wish had fallen into a„isler hands.
It is a toast, however, well calculated to call forte even
more impassioned bursts of eloquence than those
have yet heard to-day.—(Cheers.) On that account I
feel totally inadequate to do justice to its merits, but I
trust entirely to the acclamation with which it will be
received by this immense assemblage. We all remember
the words of our immortal bard, when addressing the
great Author of Nature—

" Her 'prentice han' she tried on man,
And then she made the lasses 0 !"

I—(Great applause.) I am sure every man in this as-
sembly will join me in pledging an enthusiastic bumper
to the " Countess of Eglinton and the other ladies who
have graced this meeting with their presence."
Mr. Wilson, the vocalist, was here loudly called upon
for a song ; but an excuse was made for him that he was
suffering from severe cold. The Glee Club then sang
with much applause, "Here's a health to all Good Lasses."
Colonel MURE, of Caldwell, said—ln obedience to the
order of our Noble Chairman, I have to request a
bumper to the peasantry of Scotland. In order justly
to appreciate the claims of this most estimable class
of our fellow-citizens upon our sympathies, I must
remind you that to it pre-eminently belongs the
honour of having given birth to the remarkable man
whose memory we are this day met to celebrate. I
must remind you that while the fact of Burns having
raised himself from the rank of a Scottish ploughman,
by the innate force of heaven-born genius, to the level
of the greatest and most original poets of any age or
country, is the noblest feature cf his history, the peasan-
try of Scotland, in their turn, may be entitled to feel
pride, even in the presence of the proudest nobles of their
land, when they remember that from them, and not
from the privileged orders of society, our greatest na-
tional genius was destined to rise—(Cheers)—and. in
fact, the most striking, and perhaps the most valuable
feature in the poetical character of Burns, is the marked
ascendancy which the spirit and habits of the peasant,
the genius of the man, as it were, continue to exercise on
the genius of the poet even during the most brilliant
period of his subsequent career. Even amid that rich
variety of subjects, in the treatment of which his in-
stinctive refinement and delicacy of taste enabled to coin-
bine,
with all the higher powers of the man, the courtly. I
graces of the gentleman and scholar—still his happiest
effort, the master-piece of his genius, in which his own
mind is displayed in the most agreeable light, and his in-
spirations breathes forth with the greatest brilliancy and
beauty will be found to be dictated by the associations
of his early rustic days.—(Cheers.) When I reflect,
therefore, how copious, how graphic, how true, are his
own descriptions of the character of the Scottish pea-
santry, in all its varieties of grave, or of gay, of light, or
of shadow, I connot but feel it is a sort of presuintion
to offer in a company, who must all be so familiar with
these descriptions, any crude remark of my own on
the more interesting features of those to which they
refer. I shall, however, do my best to season the few
dry comments which I am in some degree bound to offer
on the subject allotted to me, by taking the poet's works
as my text-book. Were I called upon, therefore, to
name the virtues of our peasantry, which chiefly claim
our respect and admiration, I should point first to their
industry, frugality, and contentment, as those which
prominently adorn their own class of society above all
others, and also to their piety and their patriotism, as
shared, I would fain hope, equally, or at least largely,
by the mass of our fellow-citizens.—(Cheers.) Where,
then, shall we find a more spirited picture of the influ-
ence and effects of the three former
qualities—above all,
or that most inestimable blessing, contentment—than in
the brilliant little poem which bears the humble title of
the " Twa Dogs," where, after so graphically describing
the honest toils, often the severe hardships, inseparable
from the peasant's lot, he goes on to say, that yet
" They're nae sae wretched's ane wad think,
Though constantly on poortith's brink :
They's sae accustomed wi' the sight,
The view of it gi'es little fright ;
And how it comes I ne'er kent yet,
They're maistly wonderfu' contented ;
And buirdly chiels and clever hizzics
Are bred in such a way as this is."
(Cheers.) And if any additional motive were required
to enable us to appreciate this most excellent feature of
their character, it would be to reflect on the fatal effects
of its absence in the case of another, and, in many re-
spects, equally noble peasants—that of our sister king-
dom, in some of the fairest provinces of which we see.
at this moment the demon of discontent—of too often
vague, causeless, undefined discontent—arming the hands
of her victims with the torch of the incendiary, and
blindly directing them into those very quarters to which
they ought to look for an alleviation of their real or ima-
ginary evils.---(Cheers.) Such scenes never have been,.
and, I trust and believe, never will be, enacted in Scot.!
land, at least, as the genius and the memory of
thepeasant s long
Burns continue to be cherished among his
fellow-peasants, as they are this day.—(Cheers.) But
where are we, after all, to look for the source of this
beautiful attribute of contentment? Is it not in the still