ROBERT BURNS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1325, 21 April 1877, Page 21

ROBERT BURNS.

Lord Houghton made one of his bes* speeches at the unveiling of the bronze statue to Robert Burns in. Glasgow. He spoke, as he generally does, with strong sense as well as in perfect taste, with a fellow-feeling for all mankind as well as with a calm discrimination. Having showed how to the Greeks and the Romans such monuments supplied the place now occupied by printed books in influencing the minds of the people, he claimed for statues and other forms of sculpture a place still as the means of stimulating the general mind to noble thoughts and useful enterprises. Like the statue of Memnon in Egypt, which was fabled to become musical at Bun rise, this of Burns might more truly, though still in fancy, seem to sing in Scottish ears the song of independence which the living man had sung. Lord Houghtou, himself a s,weet poet ? beautifully repre-

sented the man, as saying through his bronze image : —

"It pleased the Lord of the spiritual and the material universe to endow me with a vivacity of fancy and power of melodious expression which has made my poems the intellectual companions of the best and wisest men, arid my songs the solace and delight of countless high and humble homes. And yet, I never thought that this glorious faculty separated me from my fellow-men, or exempted me from the ordinary need 3 and destinies of humanity. The most prized of my utterances came from me while following the plough, casting the seed, or tending the kye. I never claimed a right to idleness or luxury, or yearned for aught but [ The glorious privilege ' > - Of being independent. I knew the value of my gift, but, all the more, I gave all I could to my country and my countrymen. I thought not of myself, but of my work ; I took up a screed of old song that touched me, and I did my best to make it perfect for the pleasure and profit of .mankind. I aroused the patriot heart with the 'Scots that hae wi ? Wallace bled,' and I purified the old rough ballad without damaging its humour or its grace, and infused into' it what was tender and true. I studied, as far as I had the meana, the masters of the great English tongue ; but I loved the bestj and wrote the best, the language of my forefathers, my childhood, and my people.'!