The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-01-29

| come, meet you at your gates. May corruption shrink at your kindling, in dignant glance; and may tyranny in the
 ruler and licentiousness in the people
 equally find you an memorable foe" When Burns was born in Ayrshire the legends and romances of Scotland were we'll known to his people, for they
 had been sung for two centuries in the
 numbers of Dunbar, Lyndsay, Maitland
 and Montgomery
 From the eastern sea to the western
 ocean, from the cheviot hills to that
 fateful field in the highlands where the
 star of the Stuarts sank for the last
 time, the moors and dells, the lakes and
 streams, were full of romantic legends
 told in poetry and song. They were fit
 breeding places for the highest efforts
 of genius, and the best products of lit- erature.
 Burns came to a generation and peo-
 pie capable of appreciating his genius and ready to receive him with open arms. We usually think of Burns, how ever, as poet, and nothing more. We forget that he attracted and held men and women to him, not because of his poetry and songs, but by the fascination of his conversation, the eloquence of his arguments, the wit shown in his correspondence, and by his power of brilliant repartee in social circles. His friend, Mrs. Riddell, said of him soon after his death; His form was manly and his action energy itself. His feat ures were stamped with the hardy char acter of independence and the firmness of conscious, though not arrogant, pre- eminence. The rapid lightnings of his eye were always the harbingers of some flash of genius, whether they darted fiery glances of insuIted and indignant superiority or beamed with an impas- stoned sentiment of fervent and impet- uous affections, His voice alone could improve upon the magic of his eye sonorous, replete with the finest modu- lations, it alternately captivated the ear with the melody of poetic numbers, the perspicuity of nervous reasoning or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic patri- otism''
 On this anniversary of his birth I deem it due to his memory and reputa- tion as a genius that something should be said of his great abilities as a writer of prose. Scott made his reputation first as a poet, wrote his first great TO- under the nom de plume of "The Author of WaverlY," and is remembered to-day because of his novels rather than his poems. Had fortune been as kind to Burns as to Scott, and had his life been spared, his reputation as a versa tile man of literature might have ex- celled that of the Wizard of the North.
 In public life Burns might have been a successful patriot or statesman. Per init me to briefly call your attention to the power he acquired in the few years of his life as a writer of vigorous, log ical English. The famous Clarinda cor respondence running through a series of letters from December, 17S7, to March, 17SS, shows as much literary ability in the use of the language of sentiment and passion as Rich ardson exhibits in the letters which make up those famous novels of the ast century, the pride and delight of our eat-grandmothers, Clarissa Harlowe. Sir Charles Grandson and Pamela. Passages from his dedication of his poems to the Gentlemen of the Caledo- nian Hunt, portion of which l have