sword and flame; as no doubt he will. Great complaints have been made of this speech; but not exactly on the right ground. It tells only what was known before; the curiosity consists in its being told at all, and in language so remote from the established phraseology of sovereign paternity. In this particular the speech has merit, for nothing would have been more easy than its translation into the dialect of regality and diplomacy. It might have been fitted up as a very gracious imperial speech. We prefer it as delivered. We often hear of the fury of democracy, and do not object to such a frank exhibition, in the person of its great champion, of the excesses of the monarchical principle. In justice to royalty more happily situated, because more shorn of power, we cannot refrain from placing on our pages the following simple and affecting decree of the Queen Regent of Spain : [FROM THE 'GACETA DE MADRID' of nov. 1.] 'ROYAL DECREE. 'If, on all occasions, it is grateful to my heart to dry the tears of the subjects of my beloved daughter, it is much more so when to this duty of humanity is united the sacred obligation of repairing past errors. General Don Rafael del Riego, who was condemned to an ignominious death by virtue of a decree issued subsequent to the act of which he was accused, and for having given a vote as a deputy of the nation, in which capacity he was inviolable, according to the laws then in force, and to the public rights of every representative government, was one of those victims whom, in moments of political crisis, fanaticism strikes with the sword of justice. At a period when those who, by their votes, manifested their approbation of the same proposition as was supported by General Riego, are filling distinguished posts, either in Parliamentary Assemblies or in the Councils of my august daughter, it must not be permitted that the memory of that General should continue to be sullied by the stigma of crime, or that his orphan family should be plunged in misfortune; in these days of peace and reconciliation between the defenders of the legitimate Throne and of Liberty, all bitter recollections ought to be, as far as possible, obliterated. I am desirous that this my will should, as regards my beloved daughter and her successors to the throne, be the bond by which, in the future annals of Spain, the inviolability of speech, propositions, and votes, made and given in the general Cortes of the kingdom, may be secured. I have therefore, in the name of my august daughter, Queen Isabel II., decreed as follows: Art. 1. The good name, fame, and memory of the late General Don Rafael del Riego are re-established. Art. 2. His family shall enjoy the pension and widow's allowance to which they are entitled according to the laws. Art. 3. His family is placed under the special protection of my beloved daughter, Isabel II., aud, during her minority, under mine. You will understand this, and communicate it to the proper authorities. 'Palace of the Pardo, 31st October, 1835. 'To Don Juan Alvarez y Mendizabal, President of the Council ad interim. This touching confession of wrong, this attempt at atonement, speedy in a government, though it might be late in an individual, is worth a hundred legions to the Constitutional cause in Spain; and is an act of justice to past patriotism, the beauty of which should sink into the very heart's core of humanity. F. NICOLL'S POEMS.* RIGHT worthy of the land and the language of Robert Burns are these songs of one on whom has descended no small portion of the glorious ploughman's inspiration. They are abundant in pathos, in humour, in fancy, in poetical description, and, above all, in just and nervous sentiment. They are songs which a truehearted man, or a woman with a mind, need not be ashamed of singing; and that is more than can be said of nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of the things called songs, in which we seldom escape from what is very silly, unless it be to encounter something that is very false. The other poems have the same character with those which are strictly lyrical. All are imbued with a spirit which makes one proud of humanity; the more so, as we infer, from various indications, that they are the productions of one of the producing class, the work of a working-man, a fresh contribution to the poetry of the poor. The growth of such productions is amongst the most impressive signs of the times. Burns lived before the days of patronage had passed away; they are now clean gone, and for ever. His soul towered above his circumstances; but still he often wrote for his superiors; his successors write for their equals. As a bard, he was of the many, and for the many; but in them the mission has become more distinct, and the encouragement more direct and stimulating; nor does this limit the interest of their poetry. It has more of the quality of poetry than it could have were they in his condition. There is more truth and soul in it. It comes the more home to all humanity. What little there is, in the author before us, of the factitious or conventional, is chiefly to be found in the love songs; with a slighter touch of it in the descriptions. Poets are slow to learn that it is by no means their duty to be poetical on all occasions or on all subjects, however legally established the poeticality of such occasions or subjects may be, by the old constitution of Parnassus. In the rightful democracy of song, or rather in its sacred individuality, its Pantisocracy, no man is obliged to say what he does not see, or sing what he does not feel. Poetry is not amanufacture; and the poet may not take an order for a song even from his own mind. His suspicions should always be awake *Poems and Lyrics,' by Robert Nicoll. when, instead of his feelings being unconsciously wrought upon, he catches himself saying to himself, that is a good subject.' But we must not run into a homily upon this matter, merely because we think one class of our author's poems not so excellent as another. Nor can we take upon us to lecture a Scotchman (as we take him to be) for his Scotch. Yet it does seem to us that some reformation is needed in the use of this northern Doric dialect. Burns, we believe, created the language of his poems out of the chaos of all sorts of lowland provincialism, with English, for a variety, when it better suited his purpose. And he managed it with the majestic ease of a creator. In truth it had, and to the skilful hand it has, a wondrous pliability. We are therefore less tolerant of an imperfect versification in its employment. And we think Mr. Nicoll indictable for the cacophony which often results from his elision of the last consonant in upon and of, which he always writes upo' and o'. Such lines as or, 'She sat in the shade O' a sweet-scented briar,' An' the fiends o' earth an' the fiends o' air are marvellously marred in their melody by the curtailment, and should be cured of their hitch by an infusion of f's. As they stand they sairly crook a body's mou'.' We shall now give some specimens of these poems; and, much as we think they will approve themselves for true poetry, of the several classes to which they belong, it is but fair to say that they have been selected rather as exhibiting the peculiar characteristics of this volume, than as the best compositions which it contains. Who, born in want and poverty, Burst from his fetters, and arose The freest of the free, Arose to tell the watching earth Burns! thou hast given us a name Before the proudest of the earth 6 Inspired by thee the lowly hind II. 6 THE GRAVE. By a kirkyard yett I stude, while mony entered in, But these were living a', an' could straight come forth again. I speer'd what it might mean, an' he bade me look an' see. There war' sabbin' bosoms there, an' proud yet softened eyes, An' a whisper breathed aroun'," there the loved and honoured lies." There was ne'er a murmur there-the deep-drawn breath was hush'd— An' o'er the maiden's cheek the tears o' feelin' gush'd; An' the bonnie infant face was lifted as in prayer; An' manhood's cheek was flushed wi' the thochts that movin' were: I stude aside the grave, an' I gazed upo' the stone, An' the name of "ROBERT BURNS" was engraven thereupon.' III. 'MINISTER TAM. 'A wee raggit laddie he cam' to our toun, Wi' his hair for a bannet-his taes through his shoon; My auld auntie sent him for sugar an' tea, She kent na, douce woman! how toothsome was he:- An' harried a nest doon amang the lang fern; Syne, a drubbin' to miss, he sair sickness did sham; PP. 47, 48. But a carritch he took, when his ain deevil bade, Wi' his wig white wi' pouther, is Minister Tam!'—pp. 63, 64. IV. " REGRETS. Tak' aff, tak' aff this silken garb, Tak', tak' awa' this gaudy flower, O! tak' awa' this tinsel walth, That wiled me frae my Hieland hame; Upo' the hills o' Scotland dear, When I had neither cares nor fears. Before my fate I laigh maun boo,— Bring walth-bring walth-till I forget The time whan round me heather grew!'-pp. 68, 69. |