PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON ROBERT BURNS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1334, 16 March 1887, Page 6

PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON ROBERT BURNS.

Professor Blackie lectured on Robert Burns lately to a crowded audience, under the auspices of the St. Vincent Church Literary Association, Edinburgh. In introducing his subject, Professor Blackie noticed that while man was ftie highest type of creation, he was also tbe only animal who had the capacity of blundering. When the man of genius blundered, the world cried out ; and there were columns about it in the newspapers— (laughte* 1 ) ; when the sweep or the scavenger blundered nobody said anything about it; and the sweep accordingly said, " What a virtuous man am I," — (Laughter.) Proceeding to the subject of his lecture, Professor Blackie dealt first with what he called the physical superstructure of the life of Bums. It was a great matter to bave healthy parents ; and Burns had both. Genius did not produce genius, but it came of healthy parents. In connection with the early life and education of Burns he noticed his disposition to melancholy — a disposition which he said belonged to all healthy constitutions. Burns was melancholy because he wa^ a thinker, and because he sinned against his own convictions. Dealing with Burns's residence at Irvine, and his falling into loose company and dissolute habits, Professor Blackie said that for a man to get wrong once, to find out what a beast he was, there was no harm in that; but to get into a drunken habit, it was there the harm lay ; and he advised those who were so inclined to read the Epistle to Timothy every week. — (Laughter.) Noticing the success which attended the first edition of Burns's poems, he said that people did not make as much money by writing songs now-a-days. — (Laughter.) People wrote to Mm every week, sending him specimens of their poems, and asking his advice. " Publish them by all means," he said to them; "but you must pay the piper." — (Laughter.) In treating of the closing period of Burns's career, Professor Blackie asked whether it was nov a painful matter to take a genius, rising sky high, and make him a gauge*. [The Chairman: '•Horrid."] It was, said the Professor, no such thing. — (Laughter.) What be'fcer could he have wished than plenty of the fine open air. If he got drunk it was his own fault. — (Laughter.) In summing up, Professor Blackie said the cause of Burus's failure iv life was

not bankruptcy of the purse, but bankruptcy of the soul. Professor Blaekie went on to speak of Burns's genius, of his character, and the influence of that character on his conduct in life. In the course of the lecture he sang " Duncan Gray," and at the close read the "Epistle to a Young Friend" and "The Bard." The Rev. T. Knox Talon presided, and supplemented the lecture with a few remarks.