Red Wing sentinel. [volume] (Red Wing, M.T. [i.e. Minn.]) 1855-1861, 1859-02-19
Remarks of Henry Ward Beechcr at the
Burns' Festival, y. Y.

Zone hundred years ago, Jan. 1859,
Agnes. Brown Byrnes, gave to the
world her son Robert Burns. The fa-
ther and the mother were Scotch; the
son only took Scotland on his way in
to the whole world. While we allow
Scotchmen suitable national pride i'll
their chief poet, we cannot allow the
world TO be robbed of their right and
interest in Burns; and yet there was
never born to that land, so fertile in
men, a truer Scotchman; and it is the
peculiar admiration. and glory OF the
man, that iii spite of the obscurity of
his birth, bred under the local intlu-
enccs, Scotch in hone, in muscle, in
culture, and in dialect, he rose higher
than the special and the national, and
achieved his glory in those elements
which unite mankind, and make all
nations of one blood. While men Of
science are debating about the origin
|of races, the poet strikes the chords,
and all races, peoples and tongues
hear understand and agree, so that the
poet is, after all, the true ethnologist ;
the human heart Is his heart; he that
knows how to touch that with skill,
belongstt to no country, can be shut in
by no language, nor sequestered by
any age, but belongs the to world and
to the race.
The same moral honesty, the same
violence Of pride, the Same breath OF
understanding, the same impatience Of
restraint from without, characterised
the father and the more illustrious
son. But, besides that, Robert Burns
carried wlthin him a great deal OF
mother: if the father was the bush.
the mother was the blossom. Agnes
Brown was. woman of humble birth
that is, she was born1as. everybody
else was born. Being born was a very
humble business any way, and there
was little difference in the place Or
position. 1t was very plain that she was
effectually born however. She brought
into this world the seed Of many rare
and precious faculties central and
strong was. her heart; it had that deep
nature which religion always gave
Calm and of a heavenly temper, q
good housekeeper, which was a very
brave and noble thing in woman, and
q thing often requiring more than to
govern 9 nation las nations are gov
erhsd, Burns mother was the mother
Of Burns poetry. 1t was beautiful to
hear her sing. Burns said, that blir
uncle Of his had no greater pleasure
than that of crying to hear her sing
one of her favoritc songs. How many
sweet sounds of water and air, how
many sounds Of birds and musical in
strpments, but nature had nothing so
sweet as the mothers song and hymns
and ballads by which children slept to
dream of angels and walked to say moth
er. With such father, with such a
mother, Burns could not help himself
lOf course he must be Apollo's arrow
with such a mother for the bow and
such a father for the string, an arrow
still flying and sounding as 1t flies.-
The father of Burns had just built, and
poorly built, clay cottage on the
banks Of the Doom, aud scarcely had
the poet learned to live, that is to cry,
before big storm. beat down the
house and drove, them out. 5 That
storm never spent itself, but blew af:
ter him all his life. sE
He took his heart frc m both father
and mother. Her heart lay Tranquil!
like one of the sweet lakes Of Scotland,
his beat like the Atlantic on her west.
ern shores. But no heart was ever
more deeper, truer, more enduring
than his. He never loved, and cast of
that he might love again. Each love
was a limkTin the long chain Of which
his heart was the immovable STAPLE
He loved man, animals, everything
that grew if it only grew in Scotland,
That he was more susceptible to wo'
man than to man, was not strange