Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-02-06
miscellaneous.
sPEECHlo OF CHARLES MACKAY.

INST. In response to the toast-"The .memorylof
Burns.p- Mr.. Mackay spoke as follows:
have been asked many times since my arrival
in America, " Whether | did not consider it to be q
great county.
My reply has always been the same. 1t is a
great country; and it will yet lie greater than any
country in the old Observation-Disclosures
populduS-and more enterprizing. But when |
think OF that little country in which i had the
honor to be born--that small speck in the ocean IN
the remote North; that dearly beloved corner Of
the earth, called Scotland. and remember, the deep,
broad, enduring mark which its children have
made in the history of the world, | console myself
tor its geographical bitterness, by the remembrance
of its moral and intellectual greatness. | then
doubt whether this mighty America itself, which
owes 60 much to the energy of Scotchmen, will
surpass-although Town it may rival, the histori
cal greatness Of the nUbls and illustrious, though
poor little Island OF Caledonia. Scotland has pro.
dueed many eminent and heroic men-men heroic
IL a-ms-men in everyIdepdrtnient OF art-science
and literature.
Among soldiers and patriots, it reckons Wallace
nnd Bruce in olden time, such men as MoDtrose,
Claverhouse, Gen. Hugh Mckay, in times more
recent; and such men as Sir John Moore, Lord
Lynedouch, Sir Ralph AbercroiHbie, Sir Charles j.
Nauier, hero of Scindc, and Sir Colin Campbell,
the hero of the Alma, inthe present time. Among
sailors, il reckOns Admiral Duncan, Lord Cochran
and Sir. CHARLES Napier. Among statesmen and
administrators, it reckons Sir Jon Malcolm, and
hosts. OF less knUND, out all men VINO nave extern !
ded the British Empire in India. Among its ora.
tors, it includes Erskine, Mcintosh and Macaulay,
Among its great philosophers, it ranks Reid, Du-
gald, Stewart and Mil. Among its preachers and
divines, it is proud Of john Knox, Blair and Chal-
mers. Among its great historians land it may be
mentioned that almost the only historians of Eng
land are S;otchmen,) are Buchanan, FOrdun,
Hume, Robertson, Smollett, and Macaulay: among
its ~novelists, are that same Smollett, Henry Mae
Kenzie, the Man of Feeing" and Sir Walter
80. - ---ul.-A H. --.tl n-A, n.u |
While it's poets-bards worthy of the high name
of poet-from the days Of Allen Ramsey to those
of Robert Burns, and from the days of Robert
Burns to the present hour, are SO numerous as to
defy calculation. and 50 excellent US to exhaust
eulogy.
And how is it that Scotland has become SO re-
nowned among the nations. One reason is, that
whatever a Scotchman resolves to do, he does it
with his whole soul. In art or arms. in coloniza-
ton or in trade, i'll science or i'll literature, he
works with a will, 1t is thus that he towers above
men of more sluggish nature, and of purpose less
enduring than his own.
Among all of the Scotchmen who ever existed,
there is one who stands prominent above the rest,
as the representative CT his country and his race
the model man of a model nation-:hat man is
Robert Burns. There is no other Scotchman
whose name is so widely known. There is no 9th.
er Scotciman whose memory is SO nffectionately
cherished by bis countrymen or so bighly respec,
ted by those who are not his countrymen, as that
of this noble ploughman--this inspired pOet-this
honest man--this gentleman Of natures own
making.
To name his name in q foreign land, is to sug.
gest all Scotland-its rock bound coast, dashed by
the waves of the Atlantic and the Northern Ocean;
its romantic hills; its mountain torrents; its pas
toral streams; its banks and bIae's; its bonnie
barefooted lassies the models Of mild and affec.
Tomato womanhool; its sturdy peasantry, and its
thrifty, wsrmhearted people Of all ranks and
degrees.
Burnsis not only beloved for his genius and in
dependence, and for the mirrorlike reflection in
his writings, of all that is good, brave and true in
the character of his countrymen-but for the very
faults which the ''unco guild and the rigidly RICH
teous," once strove to cast against his memory
We all know, or should know, that we are human
Mt she best, aud that the failings of % good mar
should not be remembered by good men in an evi
spirit. For this reason, the world deals tenderlN
with the failings of Robert Burns. His country
men deal with them more tenderly still, for they
remember IN the language on the Bard himself
that
"The light that led estray, was light from Heaven"
and that his weaknesses, like those of King David
whose character so clearly .resembled his own
and who, like him, was both a Peasant and Poet
linkedhim to humanity, and by the sufferings which
they 'occasIoned, touched his heart until it gusheC
into q finer poetry than any common JOY or com
mon sorrow could have produced.
Burns excelled in every department of poetry
Had he not been cut off in the very prime an,
flower Of his wide.reGching intellect, it is impossi
bic to say what grand heights of poetic achieve
ment he might not have attained. lie was maste
Of every string Of the Tyre. If it suited his pur
pose to make a new song, he made a better son,
than any Scotchman ever made before, If it suit
cd him to take up the fragment of an old song o
Allen Ramsay, or any inferior hand, the waif o
stray of a %perlshing literature, a little WORTHLESS
fragment lying by the roadside, the magic of hi
touGll converted it in,o a jewel of immortal beauty
and fixed il forever in the remembrance of tn
world.
Eur patriotic sentiment and fervor, what can SUI
pass that magnificent ode, 'Scots wha haze vi
Wallace bled?" or the Vision" on which he s
wildly, and SO surely predicted his own futur
fame? For true piety, combined with a faithful
portraiture Of Scottish life, what can be more ex
quisite than the 'Cotter's Saturday Nigha?" A
the expression Of ardent, innocent love, survivin
in Heaven, the loss Of the beloved one on eartl
what can equal the nournfui beauty and solemn
ty of his song TO Mary in Heaven" AS the e1
preston of love in all it's moods, playful, tende
or eorrOw full, what can equal the other songs whic
he scattered over the world in genial profusion-
masterpieces which throw all other love songs int
the shade? For melancholy, yet true philosophy
couched in language which moves every heart,
there anything in literature which can surpas
those twin gems, the addresses $40 a Daisy" an
"To. a Mouse?" For manly dignity, where is tn
composition that can be named. side by side, b
"A mans a man Tor a. THAR"
For wisdom, chastened by adversely, but nc
soured, where shall we find anything superior t
his "Epistle to a Young Friend" If it has a
equal in English literature, it is only TO be foun
in she advice of Polonius to his son. in Hamlet
containing, like the unstudied composition of III
Scottish Bard, q whole code of sound sense an
true morality. For eonvivialisy, fresh, frank, an
frolicsome, good humored, and good.hearted, wheI
can we find such songs as Willie brew'd a pee
o. maui Aud lang syne," and "Scotch drink?
For satire, well-barbed, well aimed, and well.hi
what Satirist, Greek. Roman, or English, has tral
scended "Holy Willie" "The Holy Fair" Deaf
and DR.. HornbroCk," and the "Twa Dogs?" F.
wit and humor, mingled with patbos, as the true
and highest art always is, what poems in any la
guage, are superior 20 the address to the Dell!
and to that most matchless of all his poems, ii
delight Of the learned and unlearned, "Ta
O'ShanterY"
1t would be easy TO e~xpatiate for hours on ii
merits of Burns-as a Poet. o man and Scotchma