XLIII.

THE

COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.

"Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure: Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor."

GRAY

[The house of William Burns was the scene of this fine, devout, and tranquil drama, and William himself was the saint, the father, and the husband, who gives life and sentiment to the whole. "Robert had frequently remarked to me," says Gilbert Burns, "that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us worship God!' used by a decent sober head of a family, introducing family worship." To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for the "Cotter's Saturday Night." He owed some little, however, of the inspiration to Fergusson's "Farmer's Ingle," a poem of great merit. The calm tone and holy composure of the Cotter's Saturday Night have been mistaken by Hogg for want of nerve and life. "It is a dull, heavy, lifeless poem," he says, "and the only beauty it possesses, in my estimation, is, that it is a sort of family picture of the poet's family. The worst thing of all, it is not original, but is a decided imitation of Fergusson's beautiful pastoral, 'The Farmer's Ingle:' I have a perfect contempt for all plagiarisms and imitations." Motherwell tries to qualify the censure of his brother editor, by quoting Lockhart's opinion--at once lofty and just, of this fine picture of domestic happiness and devotion.]