BURNS AT THE BURNS HALL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2812, 5 February 1908, Page 69

BURNS AT THE BURNS HALL.

Nowhere are the Anglo-Saxon poets more deeply studied or more variously interpreted than in Boston, Massachusetts. In thi3 " hub of the intellectual universe" is not uncommon to see a pale, spectacled child with a high forehead and thin legs explaining away the subtleties of Browning. There the reading and comprehension of the poets from King David to Watson have been reduced to a science, -so the fact of » lady all the way from Boston, U.S.A., addressing a Dunedin audience on Robert 'Burns does not seem so strange as it might appear at first sight. , A large audience- listened attentively to Miss Jean Howison at the Burns Hall on Friday night. Dr W. M. Stenhouse presided, and introduced Miss .Howison as coming from the- fair town of Perth. -Miss Howison commenced by quoting the remark of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher that Robert Burns did not belong to Scotland, but to the world. She had been .born in Scotland, but had practically resided in the United States of America— notably, in Boston. She had travelled the world, and when lecturing in Melbourne noticed th»t_ the Age reporter acoused her of Americanising her subject. Well, she was out not so much after sound as after sense. It was not good being so Scotch «8 to be absolutely unintelligible. She hoped her American accent would not be allowed to weigh in the balance against her. Burns after all was no* so - Scotch as the Scotch tried to make out. In Burns's cottage could be seen the lines commencing, "Though Scotland boasts a thousand names."" These had been written ta Burns by an American. A taste for poetry made a man good and happy. It got him into the best society. The mission of poetry was tot elevate, to create enthusiasm, and to .warm into life faith, hope, and oharity. The study of poetry was an aid to a pure life. The poet's mission was to prevent his fellows from falling into grossness. Burns was an honest man and *n honest writer, strikingly natural, familiar with sorrow. Never had there been such a consbina'tion of misery and talent. Miss .Howiscm then dealt *ith the early struggles of Burns, familiar lo all who have read his life. As to the cause of his success, it was a grave error to think excellence could be achieved without labour. Sincerity, as the Chinese said, moved the gods. Burn's studied fthe old Scottish ballads minutely. He drew from life. The "twa dougs" were his own, Tarn o' Shanter his friend, and the common objects of everyday^ life -when touched by him lea-p^d into inspirations, and, like good pictures, stood out in bold relief. It had been said that no poet had possessed this gift to any great extent since Homer, except Shakespeare and Burns. The heart of Burns was too full to be silent. ° His rustic genius w*s his own, and genuine. To poets he had said: "He who woukj convince others must first be convinced himself." A Scots peasant's life was the meanest and poorest of all lives till Burns wrote about' it.' He was the bard of 4berty, and he h*d passed down «, watchword to; future .generations in- . "A man's a, man for *' that." For lovers of tenderness, humour, pathos, individually and collectively, Burns was the man. Concerning which . was the greater, Shakespeare or Burns, Miss 1 Howison related some anecdotes/ one of which concerned » meeting of Scots in an American town, . with an Englishman present. The latter grew wearied with hearing of all the great men ■who were or had been Scots, and rose to remark that Anyway Shakespeare was not a Scotchman. * Whereupon an old Highlander replied '. " Weel, an' if he- was no' Scotch, he was one- of the few Englishmen clever enough to be^Scotch." Miss Howison went on k> ipojurt ant how Burns understood women,

and subsequently' painted" a r grim picture of the poeVs death,' wherein " xiobert Burns, at the age of 38, on the 21st day of July, 1796, expired in great agony." The lecturer spoke of the statues of the poet existing in. Attjericai and elsewhere, and during' the evening recited many* of Burns' a poems at length. The Chairman stated that Miss Howison would deliver an address on I«n Maclareir on February 14.