you shall hear him." He followed the man with- who die without hope; we know that our Reout answering.

The church was dimly lighted, except near the pulpit, where the venerable La Roche was seated. His people were now lifting up their voices in a psalm to that Being whom their pastor had taught them ever to bless and to revere. La Roche sat, his figure bending gently forward, his eyes halfclosed, lifted up in silent devotion. A lamp placed near him threw its light strong on his head, and marked the shadowy lines of age across the paleness of his brow, thinly covered with grey hairs.

The music ceased; La Roche sat for a moment, and nature wrung a few tears from him. His people were loud in their grief. Mr was not less affected than they. La Roche arose. "Father of mercies!" said he, "forgive these tears; assist Thy servant to lift up his soul to Thee; to lift to Thee the souls of Thy people! My friends! it is good so to do: at all seasons it is good; but, in the days of our distress, what a privilege it is! Well saith the sacred book, 'Trust in the Lord; at all times trust in the Lord.' When every other support fails us, when the fountains of worldly comfort are dried up, let us then seek those living waters which flow from the throne of God. "Tis only from the belief of the goodness and wisdom of a Supreme Being, that our calamities can be borne in that manner which becomes a man. Human wisdom is here of little use; for, in proportion as it bestows comfort, it represses feeling, without which we may cease to be hurt by calamity, but we shall also cease to enjoy happiness. I will not bid you be insensible, my friends! I cannot, I cannot, if I would" (his tears flowed afresh) "—I feel too much myself, and I am not ashamed of my feelings; but therefore may I the more willingly be heard; therefore have I prayed God to give me strength to speak to you; to direct you to Him, not with empty words, but with these tears; not from speculation, but from experience, that while you see me suffer, you may know also my consolation.

"You behold the mourner of his only child, the last earthly stay and blessing of his declining years! Such a child too! It becomes not me to speak of her virtues; yet it is but gratitude to mention them, because they were exerted towards myself. Not many days ago you saw her young, beautiful, virtuous, and happy; ye who are parents will judge of my felicity then, ye will judge of my affliction now. But I look towards Him who struck me; I see the hand of a father amidst the chastenings of my God. Oh! could I make you feel what it is to pour out the heart, when it is pressed down with many sorrows, to pour it out with confidence to Him, in whose hands are life and death, on whose power awaits all that the first enjoys, and in contemplation of whom disappears all that the last can inflict! For we are not as those

deemer liveth, that we shall live with Him, with our friends, His servants, in that blessed land where sorrow is unknown, and happiness is endless as it is perfect. Go then, mourn not for me; I have not lost my child: but a little while, and we shall meet again never to be separated. But ye are also my children: would ye that I should not grieve without comfort? So live as she lived: that, when your death cometh, it may be the death of the righteous, and your latter end like his."

Such was the exhortation of La Roche; his audience answered it with their tears. The good old man had dried up his at the altar of the Lord; his countenance had lost its sadness, and assumed the glow of faith and of hope.

Mr

followed him into his house. The inspiration of the pulpit was past; at sight of him the scenes they had last met in, rushed again on his mind; La Roche threw his arms round his neck, and watered it with his tears. The other was equally affected; they went together, in silence, into the parlour, where the evening service was wont to be performed. The curtains of the organ were open; La Roche started back at the sight. "Oh! my friend!" said he, and his tears burst forth again. Mr had now recollected himself; he stepped forward, and drew the curtains close-the old man wiped off his tears, and taking his friend's hand, "You see my weakness," said he, "'tis the weakness of humanity; but my comfort is not therefore lost." "I heard you," said the other, "in the pulpit; I rejoice that such consolation is yours." "It is, my friend," said he; “and I trust I shall ever hold it fast; if there are any who doubt our faith, let them think of what importance religion is to calamity, and forbear to weaken its force; if they cannot restore our happiness, let them not take away the solace of our affliction."

Mr's heart was smitten; and I have heard him, long after, confess, that there were moments when the remembrance overcame him even to weakness; when, amidst all the pleasures of philosophical discovery, and the pride of literary fame, he recalled to his mind the venerable figure of the good La Roche, and wished that he had never doubted.

OF OUR DUTY TO SERVANTS: STORY
OF ALBERT BANE.*

different relations of life, men of humanity and
In treating of the moral duties which apply to

"You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the first time, and I am quite in raptures with them; I should be glad to have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read, Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than anything I have read of a long time. Mackenzie has been called the Addison of the Scots, and, in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the compariabove is the paper referred to.] son."-Burns to Mrs Dunlop, April 10, 1790. [The

feeling have not forgotten to mention those which are due from masters to servants. Nothing, indeed, can be more natural than the attachment and regard to which the faithful services of our domestics are entitled; the connection grows up, like all the other family charities, in early life, and is only extinguished by those corruptions which blunt the others, by pride, by folly, by dissipation, or by vice.

kindness, attention, or complacency. Something of this kind must indeed necessarily happen in the great and fluctuating establishments of fashionable life; but I am sorry to see it of late gaining ground in the country of Scotland, where, from particular circumstances, the virtues and fidelity of a great man's household were wont to be conspicuous, and exertions of friendship and magnanimity in the cause of a master used to be cited among the traditional memorabilia of most old families.

When I was last autumn at my friend Colonel Caustic's in the country, I saw there, on a visit to Miss Caustic, a young gentleman and his sister, children of a neighbour of the colonel's, with whose appearance and manner I was pecu

"The history of their parents,"

I hold it, indeed, as the sure sign of a mind not poised as it ought to be, if it is insensible to the pleasures of home, to the little joys and endearments of a family, to the affection of relations, to the fidelity of domestics. Next to being well with his own conscience, the friendship and attachment of a man's family and dependants seems to me one of the most comfortable circum-liarly pleased. stances in his lot. His situation, with regard to either, forms that sort of bosom comfort or disquiet that sticks close to him at all times and seasons, and which, though he may now and then forget it amidst the bustle of public or the hurry of active life, will resume its place in his thoughts, and its permanent effects on his hap-hither over our barren hills, you would look with piness, at every pause of ambition, or of busi

ness.

In situations, and with dispositions such as mine, there is perhaps less merit in feeling the benevolent attachment to which I allude, than in those of persons of more bustling lives, and To the Lounger, more dissipated attentions. the home which receives him from the indifference of the circles in which he sometimes loiters his time, is naturally felt as a place of comfort and protection; and an elderly man-servant, whom I think I govern quietly and gently, but who perhaps quietly and gently governs me, I naturally regard as a tried and valuable friend. Few people will perhaps perfectly understand the feeling I experience when I knock at my door, after any occasional absence, and hear the hurried step of Peter on the stairs; when I see the glad face with which he receives me, and the look of honest joy with which he pats Caesar (a Pomeranian dog, who attends me in all my excursions) on the head, as if to mark his kind reception of him too; when he tells me he knew my rap, makes his modest inquiries after my health, opens the door of my room, which he has arranged for my reception, places my slippers before the fire, and draws my elbow-chair to its usual stand; I confess I sit down in it with a self-complacency, which I am vain enough to think a bad man would be incapable of feeling.

It appears to me a very pernicious mistake, which I have sometimes seen parents guilty of in the education of their children, to encourage and incite in them a haughty and despotic behaviour to their servants; to teach them an early conceit of the difference of their conditions; to accustom them to consider the services of their attendants as perfectly compensated by the wages they receive, and as unworthy of any return of

said my friend, "is somewhat particular, and I love to tell it, as I do everything that is to the honour of our nature. Man is so poor a thing taken in the gross, that when I meet with an instance of nobleness in detail, I am fain to rest upon it long, and to recall it often; as, in coming

double delight on a spot of cultivation, or of beauty.

"The father of those young folks, whose looks you were struck with, was a gentleman of considerable domains, and extensive influence, on the northern frontier of our county. In his youth he lived, as it was then more the fashion than it is now, at the seat of his ancestors, surrounded with Gothic grandeur, and compassed with feudal followers and dependants, all of whom could trace their connection, at a period more or less remote, with the family of their chief. Every domestic in his house bore the family name, and looked on himself as in a certain degree partaking its dignity, and sharing its fortunes. Of these, one was in a particular manner the favourite of his master. Bane (the sirname, you know, is generally lost in a name descriptive of the individual) had been his companion from his infancy. Of an age so much more advanced as to enable him to be a sort of tutor to his youthful lord, Albert had early taught him the rural exercises and rural amusements, in which he himself was eminently skilful; he had attended him in the course of his education at home, of his travels abroad, and was still the constant companion of his excursions, and the associate of his sports.

Albert

"On one of those latter occasions, a favourite dog of Albert's, which he had trained himself, and of whose qualities he was proud, happened to mar the sport which his master expected, who, irritated at the disappointment, and having his gun ready cocked in his hand, fired at the animal, which, however, in the hurry of his resentment, he missed. Albert, to whom Oscar was as a child, remonstrated against the rash. ness of the deed, in a manner rather too warm for his master, ruffled as he was with accident,

you I felt his appearance like the retribution of justice and of Heaven. "Stand!" cried a threat

and conscious of being in the wrong, to bear. In his passion he struck his faithful attendant, who suffered the indignity in silence; and re-ening voice, and a soldier pressed through the tiring, rather in grief than in anger, left his thicket, with his bayonet charged. It was native country that very night; and when he Albert! Shame, confusion, and remorse stopreached the nearest town, enlisted with a re- ped my utterance, and I stood motionless before cruiting party of a regiment then on foreign him. "My master!" said he with the stifled service. It was in the beginning of the war voice of wonder and of fear, and threw himself with France which broke out in 1744, rendered at my feet. I had recovered my recollection. remarkable for the rebellion which the policy of "You are revenged," said I, "and I am your the French court excited, in which some of the prisoner." "Revenged! alas! you have judged first families of the Highlands were unfortunately too hardly of me; I have not had one happy engaged. Among those who joined the standard day since that fatal one on which I left my of Charles, was the master of Albert. master; but I have lived, I hope, to save him. The party to which I belong are passed; for I lingered behind them among those woods and rocks, which I remembered so well in happier days. There is, however, no time to be lost. In a few hours this wood will blaze, though they do not suspect that it shelters you. Take my dress, which may help your escape, and I will endeavour to dispose of yours. On the coast, to the westward, we have learned there is a small party of your friends, which, by following the river's track till dusk, and then striking over the shoulder of the hill, you may join without much danger of discovery." I felt the disgrace of owing so much to him I had injured, and remon

"After the battle of Culloden, so fatal to that party, this gentleman, along with others who had escaped the slaughter of the field, sheltered themselves from the rage of the unsparing soldiery among the distant recesses of their country. To him his native mountains offered an asylum; and thither he naturally fled for protection. Acquainted, in the pursuits of the chase, with every secret path and unworn track, he lived for a considerable time like the deer of his forest, close hid all day, and only venturing down at the fall of evening, to obtain from some of his cottagers, whose fidelity he could trust, a scanty and precarious support. I have often heard him, for he is one of my oldest acquaint-strated against exposing him to such imminent ances, describe the scene of his hiding-place, at a later period, when he could recollect it in its sublimity, without its horror. 'At times,' said he, when I ventured to the edge of the wood, among some of those inaccessible crags which you remember a few miles from my house, I have heard in the pauses of the breeze, which rolled solemn through the pines beneath me, the distant voices of the soldiers, shouting in answer to one another amidst their inhuman search. have heard their shouts re-echoed from cliff to cliff, and seen reflected from the deep still lake below, the gleam of those fires which consumed the cottages of my people. Sometimes shame and indignation well-nigh overcame my fear, and I have prepared to rush down the steep, unarmed as I was, and to die at once by the swords of my enemies; but the instinctive love of life prevailed, and starting as the roe bounded by me, I have again shrunk back to the shelter I had left.

I

"One day,' continued he, 'the noise was nearer than usual; and, from the cave in which I lay, I heard the parties immediately below so close upon me, that I could distinguish the words they spoke. After some time of horrible suspense, the voices grew weaker, and more distant; and at last I heard them die away at the farther end of the wood. I rose and stole to the mouth of the cave; when suddenly a dog met me, and gave that short quick bark by which they indicate their prey. Amidst the terror of the circumstance, I was yet master enough of myself to discover that the dog was Oscar; and I own to

danger of its being known that he had favoured my escape, which, from the temper of his commander, I knew would be instant death. Albert, in an agony of fear and distress, besought me to think only of my safety. "Save us both," said he; "for if you die, I cannot live. Perhaps we may meet again; but whatever becomes of Albert, may the blessing of God be with his master!"""

Albert's prayer was heard. His master, by the exercise of talents, which, though he had always possessed, adversity only taught him to use, acquired abroad a station of equal honour and emolument; and when the proscriptions of party had ceased, returned home to his own country, where he found Albert advanced to the rank of a lieutenant in the army, to which his valour and merit had raised him, married to a lady by whom he had got some little fortune, and the father of an only daughter, for whom nature had done much, and to whose native endowments it was the chief study and delight of her parents to add everything that art could bestow. The gratitude of the chief was only equalled by the happiness of his follower, whose honest pride was not long after gratified by his daughter's becoming the wife of that master whom his generous fidelity had saved. That master, by the clemency of more indulgent and liberal times, was again restored to the domain of his ancestors, and had the satisfaction of seeing the grandson of Albert enjoy the hereditary birthright of his race. I accompanied Colonel Caustic on a visit to this gentleman's house, and

was delighted to observe his grateful attention to his father-in-law, as well as the unassuming happiness of the good old man, conscious of the perfect reward which his former fidelity had met with. Nor did it escape my notice, that the sweet boy and girl, who had been our guests at the colonel's, had a favourite brown and white spaniel whom they caressed much after dinner, whose name was Oscar.

EXTRAORDINARY ACCOUNT OF ROBERT

BURNS, THE AYRSHIRE PLOUGHMAN.*

To the feeling and the susceptible there is something wonderfully pleasing in the contemplation of genius, of that supereminent reach of mind by which some men are distinguished. In the view of highly superior talents, as in that of great and stupendous natural objects, there is a sublimity which fills the soul with wonder and delight, which expands it, as it were, beyond its usual bounds, and which, investing our nature with extraordinary powers and extraordinary honours, interests our curiosity, and flatters our pride.

This divinity of genius, however, which admiration is fond to worship, is best arrayed in the darkness of distant and remote periods, and is not easily acknowledged in the present times, or in places with which we are perfectly acquainted. Exclusive of all the deductions which envy or jealousy may sometimes be supposed to make, there is a familiarity in the near approach of persons around us, not very consistent with the lofty ideas which we wish to form of him, who has led captive our imagination in the triumph of his fancy, overpowered our feelings with the tide of passion, or enlightened our reason with the investigation of hidden truths. It may be true, that "in the olden time" genius had some advantages which tended to its vigour and its growth; but it is not unlikely, that, even in these degenerate days, it rises much oftener than it is observed; that in "the ignorant present time," our posterity may find names which they

* The story of this notice, which helped to introduce, and finally settle, Burns' fame as a poet in public estimation, is thus told by Robert Chambers in his "Life and Works of Burns:" "Professor Stewart, on leaving the banks of the Ayr at the beginning of November to commence his winter session at the university, carried with him a copy of the Kilmarnock volume, which he brought under the notice of Mr Henry Mackenzie, the well-known author of the 'Man of Feering,' and who was now conducting a periodical entitled the Lounger, published in Edinburgh by Mr Creech. Mr Mackenzie read the poems with the usual admiration, and lost no time in writing upon them a generous critique, which appeared in the Lounger for the 9th of December [1786]. By this alone the fame of Burns was perfected in Scotland; for, by the pronouncement of the greatest tribunal in the country, all lesser judges were set free to give their judgment in the direction which their feelings had already dictated."

will dignify, though we neglected, and pay to their memory those honours which their contemporaries had denied them.

There is, however, a natural, and indeed a fortunate, vanity in trying to redress this wrong which genius is exposed to suffer. In the discovery of talents generally unknown, men are apt to indulge the same fond partiality as in all other discoveries which themselves have made; and hence we have had repeated instances of painters and of poets, who have been drawn from obscure situations, and held forth to public notice and applause by the extravagant encomiums of their introductors, yet in a short time have sunk again to their former obscurity; whose merit, though perhaps somewhat neglected, did not appear to have been much undervalued by the world, and could not support, by its own intrinsic excellence, that superior place which the enthusiasm of its patrons would have assigned it.

I know not if I shall be accused of such enthusiasm and partiality, when I introduce to the notice of my readers a poet of our own country, with whose writings I have lately become acquainted; but if I am not greatly deceived, I think I may safely pronounce him a genius of no ordinary rank. The person to whom I allude is Robert Burns, an Ayrshire ploughman, whose poems were some time ago published in a county town in the west of Scotland, with no other ambition, it would seem, than to circulate among the inhabitants of the county where he was born, to obtain a little fame from those who had heard of his talents. I hope I shall not be thought to assume too much, if I endeavour to place him in a higher point of view, to call for a verdict of his country on the merit of his works, and to claim for him those honours which their excellence appears to deserve.

In mentioning the circumstance of his humble station, I mean not to rest his pretensions solely on that title, or to urge the merits of his poetry when considered in relation to the lowness of his birth, and the little opportunity of improvement which his education could afford. These particulars, indeed, might excite our wonder at his productions; but his poetry, considered abstractedly, and with the apologies arising from his situation, seems to me fully entitled to command our feelings, and to obtain our applause. One bar, indeed, his birth and education have opposed to his fame-the language in which most of his poems are written. Even in Scotland, the provincial dialect which Ramsay and he have used is now read with a difficulty which greatly damps the pleasure of the reader: in England it cannot be read at all, without such a constant reference to a glossary, as nearly to destroy that pleasure.

Some of his productions, however, especially those of the grave style, are almost English. From one of those I shall first present my readers with an extract, in which I think they will dis.