cently issued, with a full collection of his poems. An admirable review of the works of Burns appeared about ten years since, from the pen of Thomas Carlyle. To these two works we are largely indebted, in the compilation of this sketch of the best of Scottish poets.

EDMUND BURKE.

THIS great statesman and orator was born on the 1st January, 1730. His father, Richard Burke, or Bourke, a Protestant, and son of a gentleman of landed property, in the county of Cork, was an attorney in large practice. His mother was a Miss Neagle, a Catholic lady; and, it appears, great niece of Miss Ellen Neagle, who married Sylvanus Spencer, the eldest son of the poet. Edmund Burke, whose Christian name may have been taken from that of his ancestor, the author of the Fairy Queen, was the second of

three sons, who, with a daughter, were all that grew up of a family of fourteen children.

Young Burke, whose health in childhood was very feeble, being sent to live with his grandfather in the county of Cork, was put to a village school, where he remained about five years.

It might almost seem that it was intended he should spend his life in intercourse with the muses, rather than in the turbulent arena of politics; for he was not only related, as above mentioned, to one of the greatest of England's poets, but his residence at this period was Castle Rooke, near the castle of Kilcolman, where the Fairy Queen was written, and in the midst of scenes described in that admirable poem. These made abiding impressions on Burke's mind, and not only served to establish his love of nature, but may have stimulated his powers of fancy, which were among his most remarkable endowments.

On his return to Dublin, he was sent to school there, but in May, 1740, with his two brothers, he was placed at a Quaker seminary at Ballytore, in the county of Kildare. Here, under the care of Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker, and excellent teacher, he spent three years, and laid the foundation of his most valuable mental habits-for he was trained in methodical, patient, thorough study, and probably his after greatness was mainly traceable to this excellent discipline. Such an example is worth more than gold to all young persons who will heed it.

In 1744, Burke entered Trinity College, Dublin, where his attainments in scholarship appear not to have been remarkable. He, however, showed a taste

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for poetry the following extract from a translation of the second of Virgil's Georgics, written when he was sixteen years old, displays great cleverness.

"Oh, happy swains! did they know how to prize
The many blessings rural life supplies;
Where in safe huts, from clattering arms afar,
The pomp of cities, and the din of war,
Indulgent earth, to pay his laboring hand,
Pours in his arms the blessings of the land:
Calm through the valley flows along his life,
He knows no anger, as he knows no strife.
What though no marble portals, rooms of state,
Vomit the cringing torrent from his gate;
Though no proud purple hang his stately halls,
Nor lives the breathing brass along his walls;
Though the sheep clothe him without color's aid,
Nor seeks he foreign luxury from trade;
Yet peace and honesty adorn his days,
With real riches and a life of ease."

In 1750, he left Dublin for London, and became a student at law at the Temple. This edifice, formerly devoted to the Knights Templars, and afterwards one of the inns of court, was occupied by a large number of students, with whom Burke soon became a favorite. He was alike distinguished by the variety of his acquisitions, the brilliancy of his talents, and his gracious manners. Applying himself more to literature than law, he devoted a good deal of time to writing for the magazines and newspapers, and, it is supposed, derived a considerable share of his support from these sources.

His first avowed publication appeared in 1756; this was a pamphlet of 106 octavo pages, entitled "A Vindication of Natural Society, or a view of the mis

eries and evils arising to mankind from every spe-` cies of artificial society; in a letter to Lord ****, by a late noble writer." This work was intended as an apparent imitation of Lord Bolingbroke, but a real satire upon that celebrated author, who died in 1750. Bolingbroke had written several works against the Christian religion, and Burke's design was to apply the same train of reasoning against civilization and the best institutions of society, for the purpose of showing that if Bolingbroke had proved the Christian religion to be unsound, everything sanctioned by time and experience, everything cherished as good, could be proved, by the same arguments, to be unsound also.

Bolingbroke's style of writing was greatly admired; yet Burke's, in the imitation, was so fine, that Lord Chesterfield, Bishop Warburton, and others, were taken in by it, supposing it to be a genuine work! Considering that Burke was but twenty-six years old, and that nothing in Bolingbroke, as a piece of writing, can be found to surpass it in flow and brilliancy of style, it must be regarded as a very remarkable production. It is also interesting, as showing that, thus early, Burke had anchored his mind upon principles which were the guide of his life, and which deserve the serious consideration of every reflecting man.

"The writer is satisfied," says he, in a preface which he afterwards wrote to this work, "that a mind which has no sense of its own weakness, of its subordinate rank in the creation, and of the extreme danger of letting the imagination loose upon some subjects, may very plausibly attack everything