WILLIAM E. AYTOUN, Esq., advocate, said--We are met here to-day not only to pay due honour to the memory of that bard whose genius has consecrated this spot, and the scenes around it, as classic ground for ever, but for a wider, a more important, and even a more generous purpose. I look upon this assemblage as a great national gathering--a meeting not only of the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, but of kindly strangers also, to testify our reverence and affection for the living lights of fame that are still burning amongst us, and our undying gratitude and exultation for those who have already passed away. Thus, though they belong to the sister countries, we have paid due homage to the venerable name of Wordsworth and to the sparkling genius of Moore. Thus the heart of every one that hears me burned within him--am I not right?--when we saw our own noble Wilson rise amidst us, and heard him, with an eloquence the most pure--for it flowed spontaneously from his soul--speak, as perhaps no other man could speak, of the genius of the immortal dead. Thus, too, we have heard the tribute so touchingly paid to Campbell, who now sleeps among the sages, and the statesmen, and the warriors, and the poets of famous England; and to him who has a happier and a holier sepulture still--for he lies within the bosom of his own dear native land--to Scott, the master-spirit of the age, for whom we well may mourn, since we dare not hope to look upon his like again! I have now, in a few words, to entreat your patience whilst I speak of two other Scottish poets whose memory is yet green amongst us--both reared, like Robert Burns, at the lowly hearth of the peasant--both pursuing, like him, through every discouragement and difficulty, the pathway towards honourable renown--and both the authors of strains which bear the stamp of immortality. And first, let me allude to one of them whom I knew and dearly loved. Who is there that has not heard of the Ettrick Shepherd--of him whose inspiration descended as lightly as the breeze that blows along the mountain side--who saw, amongst the lonely and sequestered glens of the south, from eyelids touched with fairy ointment, such visions as are vouchsafed to the minstrel alone--the dream of sweet Kilmeny, too spiritual for the taint of earth? I shall not attempt any comparison--for I am not here to criticise--between his genius and that of other men, on whom God in his bounty has bestowed the great and the marvellous gift. The songs and the poetry of the Shepherd are now the nation's own, as indeed they long have been; and amidst the minstrelsy of the choir who have made the name of Scotland and her peasantry familiar throughout the wide reach of the habitable world the clear wild notes of the Forest will for ever be heard to ring. I have seen him many times by the banks of his own romantic Yarrow; I have sat with him in the calm and sunny weather by the margin of Saint Mary's