CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 133 



old standing. The birth of the illustrious poet has caused the vaunt to 

 be renewed in our own days." (P. 2.) These are landscapes in the 

 style of Rembrandt and Ruysdael, stamped with an unimpressive 

 locality, yet beautiful in light and shade. The portraits of the parents 

 of the bard are in good taste, and equally picturesque. Wilkie 

 might study from them, or Fraser place them before his easel. 

 Sensible of their value, and much as we desire to appropriate them 

 to our pages, we must, nevertheless, refer the reader to the ori- 

 ginal source, and content ourselves with a passing remark, that in those 

 whole lengths, brushed in rapidly, yet with spirited touches of individu- 

 ality, that fanciful light which we have spoken of, will be certainly 

 recognized : in other hands how plain, how homely, how matter-of-fact 

 would have been the representation of the worthy cotters. The unsuc- 

 cessful struggles of the old man who possessed but *' a slight knowledge 

 of gardening,'' and from his choice of ** a sterile and hungry spot which 

 no labour could render fruitful" (p. 5), must have been fatally deficient in 

 agricultural science, are adverted to with touching earnestness ; — the heart 

 is wrung with the account of the vain efforts of the whole family by 

 unmitigated toil, and pinching frugality, to avert the pressure of want, 

 and it is impossible to refuse our sympathy to the distresses of children 

 — for such were Burns and his brother at the time — bowed down with the 

 anxieties of mature life, and consigned by poverty to the ** gloom of 

 hermits and the unceasing moil of galley-slaves." To elevate his picture, 

 Mr. Cunningham places the elder Burness in as striking a position as 

 possible, and something of the dignity of faded grandeur is imparted to 

 his situation ; tints borrowed from exiled royalty, or decaying nobility, 

 are ingeniously compounded for the purpose of heightening, with foreign 

 interest, the lowly hues and outlines of the humble peasant. In this 

 spirit " Ferguson of Doonside" is familiarly called the ''friend^' of his 

 gardener! Burns more sensibly termed him his "generous master!'* 

 upon whose death a cruel factor who ** afterwards sat for that living 

 portraiture of insolence and wrong in the * twa dogs,* harassed the 

 family by his severity, and finally drove them from Mount Oliphant." 

 At Lochlea, the gleam of sunshine that played cheerily upon the 

 roof-tree of old Burness, at length died away, adversity again gathered 

 in dense clouds over his head, and here it is that we are told " in vain 

 Robert held the plough with the dexterity of a man by day, and thrashed 

 and prepared corn for seed or for sale, evening and morning, before the 

 sun rose and after it set." (P. 6.) Burness is described by his son as 

 having been a man of "stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong 

 ungovernable irascibility ;" the latter feature of disposition is but little 

 fitted to lead a poor man to success, and in a dispute with his landlord 

 the unbending tenant found, with bitterness, how ineffectual is an acri- 

 monious contest with wealth. In an anxious pursuit of his moderate 

 course of studies, Robert was animated by the necessity common to the 

 eldest children of the humbler classes of the community of "taking 

 upon himself the task of instructing his brothers and sisters at home." 

 Murdoch, his master also, assisted him to acquire " some knowledge 

 of French," a point to be regretted, since a fortnight's assiduity only 

 enabled him to disfigure his epistolary correspondence by the most 

 awkward introduction of Anglo-gallicisms, conforming about as much 

 to his style as rose-coloured taffeta tacked to the woollen garments of a 

 Highland drover. In informing us that " the education of Burns was 

 not over when the school doors were shut," Mr. Cunningham adds, 

 what we not only believe to be true, but sincerely wish were universally 

 the case, viz. : that " the peasantry of Scotland turn their cottages into 



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