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

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tenderest, or most intense affection..
at this day, he, too, may remember
with its dark clusters, not unmixed wi
eves closed for ever, lying upon the b
should such solemn image arise, would i
to this festival ; for while I bid welcomWjelsepk. ski
Burns to thair father's land, I feel, I cannot but feet tfilt1"111
while you have conferred upon me a high honour, you
have also imposed upon me a sacred duty ; and, however
inadequately I may discharge it, I at least shall in no
degree militate either the spirit of humanity, or truth.—
(Cheers.) In speaking of the character of Burns in
the presence of his sons I must speak reverently- but
even in their presence I must not refuse to speak the
truth.—(Cheers.) I must speak according to the esta-
blished and everlasting judgment of what is right.
Burns had his faults ; Burns, like every other mortal,
had his faults ; Burns, like every other mortal being,
had his faults, great faults, in the eyes of men, and
grievous in the eyes of Heaven above us. There is a
moral in every man's life, even in his humblest condi-
tion,. imperfectly understood ; and how affecting is it
when we read confessions wrung out by remorse from
the souls of the greatly gifted and the gloriously en-
dowed !—(Loud cheers.) But it is not his faults that
are remembered here—surely it is not to honour these
that we meet together. To deny that error is error is
to extenuate its blame. Then we make an attack upon
sacred truth ; but to forget that it exists, or, if that
may not be wholly, so to think of it as to regard it with
that melancholy emotion that still accompanies all our
meditations on the mixed character of men—that is not
only allowable, but it is ordered—it is a privilege dear to
humanity. And well, indeed, might we tremble for him
who should in this be dead to the voice of Nature crying
from the tomb.—(Cheers.) And in its music how
graciously time aids the inclination of charity. Its
shadows soften what they may not hide ; and the dis-
tant discords that might have grated too painfully on
our ears are now undistinguishably lost in that music,
sweet and solemn, that comes from afar with the sound
of a great man's name.—(Cheers.) It is consolatory to
see how the faults of those people, however, grew favour-
ites, and favourites in the national memory, while their
virtues grow brighter and still more bright; and if in this
injustice we have done them—and who shall dare to
deny that cruellest injustice was once done to Burns ?
the succeeding generations become more and more cha-
ritable to the dead, and desires to repair the wrong by
some profoundest homage. It may be truly said, the
good which men do lives after them. All that is ethereal
in their being alone seems to remain ; and, therefore,
with all our cherished memories of our best men, Burns
was among our best, to be invested with all consistent
excellencies ; for far better do their virtues instruct us
by the love which they inspire than ever could their vices
injure us. To dwell on the goodness of the great shows
that we ourselves are not only lovers of nature, but that
we may be aspiring to reach its serene abodes; but to
dwell upon the faults of greatness, and, still worse, to
ransack in order that we may create them, that is the
low industry of envy, which, grown into a habit, becomes
malice, at once hardening and embittering the mind.—
(Cheers.) Such, in the case of our great poet, beyond
all doubt, was the source of many a malignant truth and
lie, fondly written down, carefully recorded, by a class of
calumniators that never may become extinct. And for
many year's we were forced to hear souls ignoble, formed
to be forgot, dragging forth some puny Phantasm of their
own heated fancy, as if it were the majestic shade of
Burns evoked from his mausoleum for contumely and in-
sult.—(Cheers.) We have thus been told, by some who
rather presumptuously presume the office of our
instructors, to beware how we allow our ad-
miration of genius to seduce us from reverence
of truth. We have been told how far moral is superior
to intellectual worth ; nay, that is nature they are not
allied. But akin in nature they are, and sacred -to prety,
and cease if ever they should be disunited. But 'nark
in what a hypocritical spirit such counsels as these were
often preferred, till salutary truths were perverted by
gross misapplication into pernicious falsehoods. They
did not seek to elevate nature ; they sought to degrade
genius.—(Cheers.) And never in any other instance
did such men stand forth so glaringly self-contriulicted
of wretched ignorance of the nature of both than by this
wilful perversion of many of the noblest attributes of hu-
manity in the character of Robert Burns.—(Loud
cheers.) Yes ; virtue and genius are both alike from
heaven, and both alike they tend, heavenward. There-
fore, we lament to see a single stain assoiling the divine
gift of genius—therefore we lament to see virtue, where
no genius is, fall before the tempter.— (Cheers.) But
let us never listen: to those who, by the very breath of
morning, would seek to blight the wreath bound round
the forehead of the muses sons by a people's gratitude.
—(Cheers.) Let us beware of those who, under affected
zeal for religion, have as often violated the sprit of both
by gross misrepresentations and exaggerations, and de-
nunciations of the common frailties of our nature in
illustrious man—in men who, in spite of their aberra-
tions, more or less deplorable, from the right line of
duty, were nevertheless, like Burns, in their prevail-
ing moods, devoted worshippers of virtue in the
general tenor of their lives, and noble examples to
all of their brethren. Burns, who, while sorely op.
pressed, in his own generous breast by the worst
of anxieties—the anxiety of providing the means
of subsistence to those of his own household and
his own hearth—was notwithstanding no less faithful to
that sacred gift with which by Heaven he had been en-
dowed. Obedient to the holy inspiration, he ever sought
to strew in the paths of poverty that love which is in-
deed from heaven. From his inexhaustible fancy,
warmed by the sunshine of his heart, even in the
thickest gloom, he strewed along the weary ways of the
world flowers so beautiful, that even to eyes that weep—
that are familiar to tears—they looked as if they were
flowers dropped from heaven. But in a more humane—
in a more Christian spirit, men have now consented to
judge of the character of their great benefactor; there-
fore at a hazard I may call them sacred scenes, the anni-
versary of the birth or death of one who had completed
so great an achievement. But they have still sought to
make manifest the honour they intended him, to make
manifest if possible tin some degree the demands made
upon them by the imagination and the heart. In what
other way than that could genius ever have dared to
seek to perpetuate in elegies and hymns the expression
of a whole people's triumph, and a whole people's grief,
for the death of some king, sage, priest, or poet ?
(Loud applause.) What king from the infirmities of his
meanest subject ever was free? We know that there
are throbs which come from a king's heart, and up to
the brow which is mounted by a kingly crown. ing
passions or ideas are as fatal as those that torment
the heart of the meanest kind on his pallet of straw,
But "then the king with all his sins had been a
guardian, a: restorer, a deliverer. Thus his sins were
buried with his body, and all over the land, not only in
his day, but in after; generations, the cry was, " 0, King
live for ever !"—(Cheers.) The sage has seen how
liberty rests upon law ; how rights are obligations ; how
the passions of man must be controlled in order that ho
may be free. See, too, how often has he struggled in
vain with his own passions—with the powers of evil that
beset him in that seclusion in which reverend admiration
would fondly believe that wisdom for ever severely
dwells ? The servant of God, has he always kept his
breath pure from the earth, nor ever lifted prayer with
spotless hands ? The humbled confession of his own
unworthiness would be his reply, alike to the scoffer and
to him that believed. But the one tried by plague or
pestilence, he had carried comfort into the house de-
serted by all, except the son of despair ; he had sallied
forth from the quiet home of the Christian, where he had
long in peace hovered, and for the sake of his Divine
Master, and for the sake of them who were sitting in
darkness and the shadow of death ; therefore shall his
name be blessed, and all Christendom point to him as a
chosedservant of God. This must show that there is a
debt duo to these benefactors of our race—a deep debt of
gratitude to those who have done true service to man-
kind by exerting their powers of fancy and of imagina-
tion, and by means of the great powers of thought.
After some other eloquent remarks, Professor Wilson
concluded amidst applause.
Mr. R. BURNS replied in the following terms :—My
Lord, my Lady, and ladies and gentlemen, we are surd
the sons of Burns feel all that they ought to feel on an
occasion so gratifying, and on account of so nobly gener-
ous a welcome to the banks of Doon. Wherever they
have gone they have found a reception prepared for
them by the genius and fame of their father,
-and under
the providence of God, they owe to the Admirers of his
genius all that they have, and what competencies they
nose enjoy. We have no claim to attention individually
—we are all aware that genius, and more particularly
poetic genius, is not hereditary,- and in this - case the
mantle of Elijah has not • descended upon Elishie—
(Applause.) The sons of Burns have grateful hearts,
and will remember, so long as they live, the honour
which has this day been conferred upon them by the
noble and the illustrious of our own land, and many ge-
nerous and kind spirits from other lands—some from the
far west, a country composed of the great and • the free,
and altogether a kindred people. We beg to return our
most heartfelt thanks to this numerous and highly re-
spectable company, for the honour which has been done
us this day.—(Mr. Burns resumed his seat amidst the
most deafening shouts of applause, which continued for
some time.)
Sir J. M‘NEILL role, and was received with loud ap-
plause. He said—My Lord, Ladies, and Gentlemen,
we have now accomplished the main
purpose of this as-
sembly. We have done honour to the memory of Burns,
and we have welcomed his sons to the land of their fa-
thers.—(hear, hear.) After the address—which I may
be permitted to call the address of manly eloquence—
which you have heard from our Noble Chairman—after
the oration, which I may be permitted to designate as
solemn and beautiful, which -you have heard from our
worthy Vice-Chairman—it.would be inexcusable were I
to detain you long with the subject which has been in-
trusted to me. The range .of English-poetry is so vast
—it is profuse in so many beauties and excellencies, and
many of its great names are appreciated. with so much
habitual veneration, that I feel great diffidence and dif-
ficulty in addressing you on a subjeot which my opi-
nions can have little weight, and-my judgment is no au-
thority ; hut to you, whose minds have been stirred with
the lofty thoughts of the poets of England, and familiar
with their beauties, nothing is needed to stimulate you
to admire that which I am sure has been the object of
your continual admiration, and the subjectle vof
have)-o been
rauen-
failing delight.—(Loud applause.)
sometimes accused of a nationality, which is too nar-
row and exclusive ; but I hope and believe that the ace
cusation is founded ow misapprehension of our prin-
ciples. It is true that as Scotsmen we love• Scotland
above any other spot on earth—it is true that we love
it as our early home, and our father's house. We
cherish our feelings of nationality as we cherish our
domestic affections, of which they are in truth a part ;
but while we have these feelings we glory in the might
and the majesty of that great country with which, for the
happiness and the comfort of both, we have long been
united into one nation.—(Applause.) We are as proud
of the victories of Cressy, of Agincourt, and of Poictiers,
as if they had been won by our ancestors.—(Renewed
applause.) And I say there is not in this great assembly
one person who is not proud to look on Spenser, and