BURNS. We are not, of course, to compare the fitful, hurried outburstings of Burns' untaught genius with the elegant long-labored efforts of Pope, or the There is a lesson of pleasing instruction in the heavenward sketches of Milton's diviner spirit. varied forms and fortunes of hursan greatness. No-the full fountains from which they drank so When the world is in commotion-when nations freely were sealed against him and such as him. are the sport of foreign wars or intestine cabal, But the expanse of heaven was over him; the the conquering chieftain, or the cunning statesman broad world of nature and manhood was around may compel our startled admiration, while he is him, and it was enough. Thrown, as he was, into watching, perhaps, like a hungry bird of prey, to the very bosom of nature, from her alone he sought seize upon the torn and palpitating State. When his inspiration and his themes. Under her guisome fearful moral evil must be cured, the Re- dance, he touched his artless harp, and there came former comes forth as the special minister of forth those notes of melting melody which were Providence; and we look with silent awe, to see to find a quick response in human bosoms. His the workings of his stern and lofty mind, as he poetry is but the gushing forth of his own swelling tramples on every obstacle, and strides on to the emotions; and whether he describes those scenes fulfilment of his destiny. But the Poet, whose of home devotion from which “Old Scotia's granbosom swells with all the manly virtues, and the deur springs"-those sweet scenes of piety and gentle, generous affections-whose soul, like a love and peace, or kindles into phrenzy in the richly tuned harp changes the common winds of memory of the deeds of Bannockburn-whether life into sweetest music,-the Poet comes abroad to he utters forth the felt language of joyous rapture, stir from their secret fountains the softer sympathies of man's nature: and as he struggles on through the sorrows and entanglements of life, and dies, perhaps, in utter desolateness and neglect, tears mingle with our reverence and love. Such in the lofty sublimity and deep, tender beauty of his spirit-such in the sadness of his brief but glorious career was Robert Burns. Cheerless poverty was the companion of his youth; Toil and sorrow waited ever in his pathway; but Nature, by the richness of her benefactions, made ample amends for Fortune's smiles; and Genius, that owns no localities, was with the Rustic in his darksome drudgery, and from the midst of his deep obscurity broke forth, at length, upon the world in a serene, majestic brightness, which men gazed on with wonder and with tears. the sublime wailings of his woe, or the cherished enthusiasm of soft, sweet sadness--he finds a ready witness in the ever varying moods of man's heart. What Burns might have been, in circumstances less adverse, we can not tell but there is enough to excite our warmest admiration while we contemplate him the Poet or the man. At one time we see him toiling, by day, "behind his plough upon the mountain side," and at evening, sitting alone beneath the hawthorn shade, or wandering and musing upon the braes of his loved rivers; at another time standing upright, as if at home, amidst the loftiest, coolest spirits of Scotland's capital, astounding them all by the force and fire of his genius, convulsing them by the rough floods of his merriment, or wringing delicious tears from their eyes by the impassioned pathos of his feeling. Now he is borne away headlong by the tide of mad, At one Themes for the muse had not, indeed, been wanting in the land of Wallace and Bruce. Scot-blind passion, and again bowed down to the very land was full of the grand and the lovely in nature, earth in pungent sorrow and remorse. and of all the nobler and the softer virtues which time his self-forgetting sympathies flow out over lift up and beautify humanity. There were the all his suffering fellows, or his pitying thoughts are fields of battle where the tide of invasion had been fixed upon the poor wounded hare, or the " wee beaten back, and there rested the ashes of patriots sleeket, cowering, timorous beastie" which his who had nobly drawn the steel for their country plough share has unhoused :—and again, though half and fallen in her defence. There towered in stern starved, he spurns from him alike the narrow sugsublimity the rugged mountains and the wild hang-gestions of selfish interest, and the wretched, pating woods; there slept in quiet, peaceful beauty ronizing "insolence of condescension." In his the calm lakes and amidst them all there flourished, in perennial richness, those deep and pure affections of the heart which flow out in a thousand streams to brighten and adorn the field of life. And Poets, too, of power and beauty had been there bot Scottish scenery and Scottish life were never fitly sung 'till the wild sounding lyre of the Plough Boy was heard on the banks of his own native Doon, where the songs of his loves, his hopes and his sorrows were singing themselves in strains of mouthed malice. rich immortal melody through his soul. poetry, as in his life, are seen a warm, overflowing heart which in its embraces took in all the dwellers upon earth; a sterling honest worth which poverty could not debase; a proud Scotch spirit which oppression could never subdue. He had his faults, and keen eyed envy saw them to his hurt. He had his virtues too; and the longcoming judgment of an after and calmer age has at length silenced forever the wild clamorings of shrill Penury depressed and chilled his spirit, and the First. The removal of all letters not sounded. for those that are not; and Secondly. The substitution of letters that are sounded Thirdly. The removal of letters not sounded, and the substitution of those that are for those that are not, waen needed, in the same word. world refused to know his inward worth. Dark | An amendment of our orthography would require clouds of sorrow thickened round him while he three things: lived-and the few brief gleams of light which broke in, sometimes, like blessed sunshine, on his soul, served but to make the gloom more gloomy as they disappeared. When earthly hope was gone, and to the many poisoned arrows rankling in his heart was added the crowning pang of cold neglect, death opened for him the only gate of deliverance; and the world saw too late that one of its gentlest, noblest spirits had passed away beyond the reach of its sympathies forever. There needs no commendation of his writings; for a charm which cannot pass away is in them and they can not die—through the wild glens of his native land, and beside the rivers, consecrated by his muse; amidst the splendor and refinement of palaces, in the straw-roofed cottage of the peasant, and in the cloistered cell of the Philosopher alike, the Ploughman Poet will be known and loved as one of nature's gifted ones, while the language in which he wrote shall endure. Nay-while the thistle blooms upon the mountains, or waves in the breeze upon the banner of his country-while the "sweet Afton," the "clear winding Devon" and the " Bonny Doon" send on their sparkling waters, while Scotia's bright blue Locks shall reflect to heaven her pure sky and her heathery hill-tops, thousands will thrill and melt at the poesy, and thousands more will shed their tears upon the grave of Robert Burns. J. M. B. given to illustrate the first of the above proposed ar ad acheve agil buty blo instead of are add achieve agile beauty gaunt genuine give have beleve below bou (of a tree) bough grieve grow hant hav hefer heifer ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY. The defective system, (if that word may be justly applied to it,) of English Orthography has long been a reproach to this truly noble language. Changes in the mode of spelling have from time to time been made, but they have as often been from bad to worse as from bad to good; thus, since the period when the Bible was translated into English, the word plow has been altered to plough and cloke to cloak. In some words, the spelling has been amended, as in wagon, formerly spelt with two g's; but as baggage retains both, the alteration is likely to occasion an improper way of spelling both words. What can be more absurd than that the letters ough should represent seven distinct sounds, as is shown by the following lines written by the late Condy Raguet? "Though the tough cough and hiecough plough me through, O'er life's dull lough my course I'll still pursue." No reason can be given why the letter i should occur in the last syllable of such words as believe, conceive, &c., nor why it should precede the e in believe, relieve and grieve, whilst it follows it in conceive, deceive, perceive and receive. A reform of our spelling would be attended with many advantages. It would abridge the labor of foreigners and children in acquiring the language; it would shorten the process of writing and printing, and save ink and paper now uselessly con sumed. ni num W. D. *The o should be omitted in the last syllable of all words ending in ous, as famous, gracious, various, virtuous, &c., &c. The c should be omitted wherever it precedes a k, as in rock, block, brick, stick, &c., &c. Many of the words in the column of "amended spelling" may obviously be still farther shortened, with equal propriety-[Ed. Mess. LOVE SKETCHES. She was most gifted; sad it is, And lovely was the snowy white So much of purer feeling lost, So much of life's diviner light neath its depressing burdens, and she almost lamented the loving solicitude that had lengthened an experience so fraught with perplexities and regret; for we know not what we do, nor what heavy griefs we pray for, in asking that life may be prolonged. The last rays of the declining sun were lighting the view on which Bertha gazed, and nothing was there to mar its peaceful loveliness. A soft smile rose to her lip-the smile that comes when we look on those we love best-as she observed two persons slowly traversing the shaded avenue leading to her home. They were a lady and gentleman, and "both were young, and one was beautiful." An artist would have paused enraptured before the stately and queen-like witchery of Clara Vernon's face, and every movement-every attitude of her faultless form, was replete with the self-possessed There were gorgeous summer vines. curtaining and peerless grace of one who had made fascinathe open window, from which the soft, sweet eyes tion an absorbing and successful study. There was of Bertha Vernon were looking thoughtfully forth, nothing simply natural about her, but a nature in over a varied and "most living landscape." The itself attractive, had been guided, not altered, and gentle wind just stirred the bright ringlets of her the final effect of such tutoring was so beautiful, long fair hair, and summoned to her cheek the deli- that the most fastidious forgot to censure. There cate rose-hue which for months had been banished were lofty and glowing thoughts too, in the aspiby the continual presence of suffering. She had ring spirit of the proud beauty, and the eye whose been ill, very ill, and to expect her restoration, had flashing was so dazzling and lustrous, the lip whose for awhile seemed like hoping against hope, but gay smile was so winning, told eloquently of a mind youth is strong in endurance, and it was not willed whose dreamings were of no common character, that one so well beloved, should die so soon. Ber- and a heart whose impulses were the rebellious and tha had been always an affectionate and gentle impetuous ones, out of which are the issues of life. child, and she had grown to girlhood with all her The looks her companion bent on her were full of dearest ties unbroken. Not a voice spoke to her, ardent admiration, but it was the open and undisthat did not grow kinder as it greeted her, and none guised approval of brotherly tenderness, not the could look without friendly interest on one whose subdued and timid reverence of a lover's gaze. heart was so full of spontaneous tenderness for all Their conversation had been quiet and cheerful, things living. Very lovely had been her tranquil and those who had listened to their careless words and happy existence, and like awakening from the would have little imagined that Clara Vernon had fearful phantasies of some painful dream, seemed ever been more to her friend than a kind and symher arising from the sombre visions of sickness. pathizing sister. Yet the period had been when She gazed around her, and every object shone with Charles Herbert had no other vision, than the beaua new brightness, each tone of nature had acquired tiful face beside him, when she had been to him a strange and peculiar melody, and the glad, rejoi- the perfect embodiment of all life's fairest things, cing earth never appeared half so beautiful as now, and he had loved her wildly and fervently as boyin its glorious crimson robe of evening sunshine. hood ever loves its first enchantress. He had It is a solemn thing, to have been on the very brink told his tenderness too, and the denial that answerof the grave, hovering, as it were, between two ed it had been cold and guarded, for Clara was exexistences, and then unexpectedly restored to the acting, enthusiastic and ambitious, and Herbert world, and we pity the hearts for whom such events had little to proffer then, but a warm, true heart, have no spiritual and enduring lesson, and who go and a future filled with many hopes. These were back to flutter again in their idle frivolity without not enough to satisfy a nature craving the glitterone higher thought of their own increased respon- ing and ostentatious realities of the world, and sibilities, or a single improving reflection on the Clara's rejection, though graciously worded, had deep realities of life and futurity. For such, there been calm and decisive. is little hope; heaven help them in their dark and Now three years had elapsed, and Herbert's shadowy days!-But Bertha's was not one of position was in every respect altered. He had these, and there were pure and prayerful thoughts in won an enviable reputation as a promising member the bright young spirit that had soared so near to of the bar, and had unexpectedly inherited wealth; heaven. Ah! there were long years yet in store but the rapt devotion of old times had faded away for her, when her soul grew sad and languid be- with them, and the more tranquil affection of his VOL. X-69 deeper feelings and maturer judgment had been after another, gloomily around us; cares gather, laid at a gentler shrine. pain to remember its reverse, and when a kind look and tender word are among the soul's recorded treasures. that forsake us not; the hopes that gladdened the He had met Bertha in a distant city, where she hereafter depart from the earth, to brighten a farhad been residing for the completion of her educa- ther futurity; the step that was lightest becomes tion; they had there revived the intimate acquaint-languid, and life is a sorrow to the soul. Thrice ance of their childhood, and he was now her ac- blessed are the ones who never experience this cepted and acknowledged lover. Of his former inevitable change, but lie down to sleep with unattachment to Clara, Bertha knew nothing, and no tainted spirits, and pass gently from their youth, to voice had spoken more cordial gratulation and ap-heaven. And blessed, too, are they who love the proval of his choice, than that of his early love. young, and deal kindly with their frivolities and To Bertha, with her sweet and confiding disposi- failings; for cold words fall bitterly on the gay, imtion, her pure, self-forgetting nature, this new tie petuous heart, and the season comes to us all was the bright realization of all her spirit hoped when such things are regrets, when it is a pleasure for, and there was not one sullying trace of calcu- to recall the gladness we have conferred, and a lating worldliness in the deep tenderness that responded to Herbert's with a child's true and undoubting reliance. Her health, which for several months had been precarious, alone prevented their There was something amounting almost to reveimmediate marriage, and perhaps her fragility, and rence in the deferential nature of Bertha's affection the consciousness of her having patiently suffered for her sister. In her eyes, Clara's appearance so much, lent a softness and anxious solicitude to and character were equally faultless, and the imHerbert's feelings which rendered them doubly pre-perious selfishness, the dictatorial manner too often cious. apparent in Clara's daily conduct, seemed to her There is nothing in moral existence more touch- judgment only the involuntary result of a supeingly beautiful, than the uncomplaining endurance of suffering in youth. In maturer years, we learn from observation, if not from actual experience, to anticipate pain in some one of its unnumbered forms; we are then less prone to express our emotions, or to expect the sympathy of those around us, and we feel that silent calmness is the wisest and best philosophy. But it is difficult for the young to realize this, and it is a hard thing for the warm, wild impulse to be subdued and deadened in its earliest spring, for the elastic step to grow prematurely slow and languid, and yet for the heart to maintain its patient tranquillity, and the true soul to look hopefully upward and be strong. riority not to be doubted, nor denied. Dispositions like Bertha's, simple, yet refined, timid to excess, but capable of a moral heroism stronger souls would shrink from, meet us rarely in the world; we turn to them as the desert wanderer pauses when the green place greets him in the wilderness, the pure fountains of their thoughts refresh and cheer us; they bear our memories to the time of our own early innocence, and awaken a deeper veneration, and truer appreciation for the diviner tendencies still lingering amid the mysteries of humanity. A smile lent its sunny and exquisite light to Clara's face as she left the lovers alone that evenHerbert had mingled much with society, and ing, but it soon disappeared, and sadness, vague, though young had looked often on the dimmer side indefinable, and irrepressible lay heavily on her of human nature. There was to him a peculiar in- reflections as she sat languidly in her chamber, with terest in the innocent freshness of Bertha's being, her writing on the table before her. An expres and something sweet in the unshadowed hopes of one sion of irony and bitterness glanced across her for whom the hereafter seemed filled with bright- countenance, as she idly and carelessly turned over ness and for whom life was now unfolding its love-the closely covered leaves, where it has long been liest leaves. her habit to record the trivial events and emotions Youth! the true and holy and evanescent! hea- that marked her every day experience,—those triven-sent is the magical witchery that makes thee fles which make up woman's life, and decide her beautiful, that paints the present with dream-like final destiny. She had been accustomed for seve happiness, and tints the future with radiant and vi-ral years, regularly to trace these pages, and there sionary promise. Soon thou leavest us with all was a sad contrast between the childish confidence thine enchantment; we miss thy presence and yet and impetuous hopefulness of the early records, know not when was thy farewell. We only mourn- and the prematurely heart-worn, depressed, disapfully feel that thou hast departed from our lot, for-pointed tone, evinced in the later ones. And yet, ever, and we go wearily onward, heart-sore pil- the circumstances around her were prosperous and grims to a darker and sadder time, and the past brilliant; she had never known a severe sorrow, whose reality was so brilliant, grows dim upon our there were many who praised her, and one or two pathway, till remembrance is all shadow. Then who sincerely loved. She was beautiful, gifted, the responsibilities, the trials, the endurances of cultivated and intellectual; the world, whose aphumanity press heavily upon us, truths arise, one plause she worshipped, had bowed down in admi ration to her, and thus far, her footsteps had only | ment in a girl's life, when she hears a lover's decpressed on flowers. Then, what needed she? Ah! laration of affection, for her thoughts go forth to questioner! if thou hast ever felt the total insuffi- the future with new vividness, and she learns to ciency of these things for happiness, if when ac- realize her woman's lot. The clouds or sunbeams tual blessings and pleasures were brightest, thy of many after years, lie hoarded in the decisions soul has still burningly thirsted for something en- of such brief instants. True and impassioned during and beyond them all, if the time has been were the earnest professions I have heard, yet they to thee when no aims were thine but those of the have been breathed, and listened to, in vain. And earth, then look into thine own heart, and read its am I so wedded to my idle, ambitious dreams, that mournful memories, and thou art answered! Turn a love so beautiful as his should be rejected, even we now to a few of these hasty pencillings of a while valued too well? And yet such rejection is proud and restless and craving intellect. better for us both; for I am not fitted to enjoy the "The night, starry and tranquil and full of beau- tranquil pleasures of Herbert's lot, and he, amid the tiful visions as a poet's slumber, is resting on the duties of his profession, will speedily cease to lasummer-robed earth. Not a cloud is on the hea- ment the loss of his boyhood's love. I write coldly, vens, not a shadow flits over the innumerable stars calmly, but my spirit grows faint, and hope dies that are looking down so placidly on this troubled within me, as I remember, and then look onward. world. I have no sympathy with this perfect But my era of romance has departed, if indeed, it peacefulness; a cloud would seem to me a friend. ever had existence; I can not live without the exIt was an idle, but elevating faith, that mortal des- citement of public admiration and envy. I stand tiny was traced unalterably in yon bright leaves; on the ashes of love, and now the world, the active, and fraught with holy and bewildering mystery restless, rewarding world, must be my atoning fumust have been the lives of those whose days were ture!" passed in dreaming, and who, in the solemn depths Alas! young dreamer! thou knowest not what of night, strove to reveal the unreadable histories thou askest, in seeking the rewards the world ever written for eternity on the sky. Vain was the giveth to those who trust in it! creed, but yet not vainer than many an one whose beginning and ending is here; and oh! how full of inspiration, passing the power of language to depict, must have been the ever upward hopes and illusions of the astrologers of old. They had a perpetual aim in existence, an aim unrealized and unattainable, but deceiving pleasantly and completely to the last. And is not this, the foundation of human happiness? if, in truth, humanity and happiness have any thing in common. How many real blessings would I willingly and rejoicingly relinquish for a permanent motive in life, however delusive. But it is my misfortune to view all things vaguely; to be ever longing, aspiring, seeking-for I know not what. What a waste of energy is my daily existence, what a continual frittering away of time, opportunity and talent. And yet, how can I avoid it? There is little scope for woman's ambition, and the world proffers nothing that harmonizes with mine. I hear praises of the great and gifted, and the approval lavished upon them stirs my very soul with the deep, wild pining that such commendations might be my reward. Little prospect have I of fulfilling such eager yearning; for I am too impetuous, too impatient, to be assiduous. The labor requisite to attain distinction, would embitter every moment, and literary fame is at once the most toilsome, and the only enduring one now attainable by my sex. Well were it with me, could I but learn to toil and be patient, to labor and to wait!' "My heart is troubled, for I have heard to day the warm avowal of a tenderness whose silent presence has long been around me. It is an important mo JANE TAYLOE WORTHINGTON. LINES TO THE ABSENT. "Love! how pass the weary hours, "Happy ?" Yes, a tear is stealing, "Love! how pass the weary hours, "Love! where pass the weary hours |