On November 9, 1858, the Directors of the Crystal Palace Company published an advertisement, stating their intention of celebrating the Centenary of the birth of Robert Burns, by a grand festival at the Crystal Palace. At the same time, they offered a prize of Fifty Guineas, under certain conditions, for the best poem celebrating the occasion, to be recited during the Festival, while they solicited the loan of relics and memorials of the Poet, which were to be exhibited on the occasion. An ample response was made. On the 2nd of January, 621 poems were collected, of which 9 came from America. Shortly before this, the Directors had solicited Monckton Milnes, Esq., M.P., Tom Taylor, Esq., and Theodore Martin, Esq., to act as judges to award the prize; and these gentlemen having kindly consented, commenced their examination. In order to carry out the competition with the utmost fairness, it was decided that the names of the authors should not be communicated, but that two mottoes should be inscribed, for identification, on each poem, and that the name of the author should be forwarded in a sealed envelope, which should bear corresponding mottoes to the poem which it accompanied. The Judges reported in favor of a poem bearing the mottoes “_Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled_,” and “_A man’s a’ man for a’ that_.” On the day of the Festival there was a large attendance at the Crystal Palace, many interesting relics and several portraits of Burns were exhibited, and there was a concert of Scotch music, including many of Burns’s own songs. The late Mr. S. Phelps opened the sealed envelope, and announced that the Prize poem was composed by a lady, named “Isa Craig.” He then recited the ode which, it must be confessed, was a somewhat disappointing work, with little that was either distinctively Scotch, or reminiscent of Burns in its composition. The poem was printed in full in the Crystal Palace programme for the day, also in the _Times_, of January 26, 1859. That the Prize poem was unworthy of the occasion was pretty generally admitted, the _Times_ sneered at the whole concern, principally because it was used by the C. P. Company as an attraction to the Palace, though why that should be a rebuke to managers of public entertainments is not very clear. And, of course, as in the case of all advertised poetical competitions, a collection of burlesque poems was published about the same time as the Festival, by Routledge, Warne and Routledge. This little volume has since been assigned to the pen of Samuel Lover, and it contains a few pieces of really smart, clever burlesque, but the general effect is not very inspiriting. It is entitled: