ON R. FERGUSSON, POET, OB. 1774.108
No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,
"No storied urn nor animated bust ;"
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way,
To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust.

R. Burns.

107 James Humphrey, a mason, was the “noisy polemic” of this epitaph. Burns and he frequently disputed on auld-light and new-light topics; and Humphrey, although an illiterate man, not unfrequently had the best of it. He died in great poverty, having solicited charity for some time before his death. We have heard it said, that in soliciting charity from strangers who arrived and departed by the Mauchline coach, he grounded his claims to their kindness on the epitaph:

"Please, sirs, I'm Burns's bletherin' bitch!"

108 Burns erected a monument to his friend Fergusson's memory in Canongate churchyard. "Fergusson's works consist

ON BURNS' ONLY DAUGHTER, WHO DIED 1795.

HERE lies a rose, a budding rose,

Blasted before its bloom;

Whose innocence did sweets disclose
Beyond that flower's perfume.

To those who for her loss are grieved,
This consolation's given-
She's from a world of woe relieved,

And blooms a rose in heaven.

R. Burns.

A TRIBUTE TO BURNS HIMSELF.109

O, ROBBIE BURNS! the man, the brither!
And art thou gone, and gone for ever!
And hast thou cross'd that unknown river,
Life's dreary bound?

Like thee, where shall we find anither,
The world around?

of several poems of considerable humour, in the Scottish dialect, the chief of which, 'The Farmer's Ingle,' supplied the hint of the 'Cotter's Saturday Night' to Burns, who esteemed the author with excessive partiality, and placed over his grave a headstone inscribed with verses of appropriate feeling." Hazlitt's British Poets.

109 Burns, the national poet of Scotland, attempted hardly anything in civil life in which he succeeded; and scarcely anything, as a poet, in which he did not succeed. As a prose

writer, too, he displayed extraordinary talent. His letters exhibit purity and facility of expression, and abound with

Go to your sculptured tombs, ye great,
In a' the tinsel trash of state!

But by the honest turf I'll wait,
Thou man of worth!

And weep the sweetest poet's fate
E'er lived on earth.

EPITAPH ON BURNS.

CONSIGN'D to earth, here rests the lifeless clay,
Which once a vital spark from heaven inspired;
The lamp of genius shone full bright as day,
Then left the world to mourn its light retired.

those marks of elegance, variety, and vigour which distinguish genius. It was in allusion to his honourable Scotch friends obtaining for him the appointment of an exciseman that Coleridge, indignant at this ill-fated son of genius being made “a gauger of ale firkins," calls upon his friend, Charles Lamb, to 'gather a wreath of henbane, nettles, and nightshade,

66

To twine

The illustrious brow of Scotch nobility."

66

Byron declares that the Scottish poet was the "very first of his art." Some few of Burns' poems, it must be admitted, are immoral, and some equivocal in their tendency. Of the solemn and sublime the " Vision," Despondency," the "Lament," "Winter, a Dirge," and the "Invocation to Ruin," afford striking examples. Of the tender and the moral, many beautiful specimens are found in the elegiac verses, entitled, "Man was made to Mourn," the "Cotter's Saturday Night," "Stanzas to a Mouse," and those to a "Mountain Daisy."

While beams that splendid orb which lights the spheres,
While mountain streams descend to swell the main,
While changeful seasons mark the rolling years,
Thy fame, O Burns, let Scotia still retain !

ON A FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE.

HERE lies a Doctor of Divinity,

He was a Fellow, too, of Trinity;
He knew as much about Divinity,
As other fellows do of Trinity.

Porson.

ON ADMIRAL KEMPENFELDT, DROWNED IN THE ROYAL GEORGE AT SPITHEAD, IN 1782.

TOLL, toll, for the brave

Brave Kempenfeldt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought,
His work of glory done.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,

When Kempenfeldt went down,
With twice four hundred men.

W. Cowper.

ON A WORTHLESS OLD Maid.

FOR threescore years, this life Cleora led,
At morn she rose, at night she went to bed.

W. Cowper.

ON A DOG.

THOUGH once a puppy, and though Fop by name, Here moulders one whose bones some honour claim. No sycophant, although of spaniel race,

And though no hound, a martyr to the chase

Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets, rejoice

Your haunts no longer echo to his voice;
This record of his fate exulting view,

He died worn out with vain pursuit of you.
"Yes," (the indignant shade of Fop replies)
"And worn with vain pursuit man also dies.”
W. Cowper.

ON A POINTER.

HERE lies one who never drew
Blood himself, yet many slew;
Gave the gun its aim, and figure
Made in field, yet ne'er pull'd trigger.

Armed men have gladly made
Him their guide, and him obey'd;
At his signified desire,

Would advance, present, and fire.
Stout he was, and large of limb,
Scores have fled at sight of him;
And to all this fame he rose,
Only following his nose.
Neptune was he call'd; not he

Who controls the boisterous sea,