when "the sire turned o'er wi' patriarchal air, the big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride," how little or how much would he then have known of God and Immortality? In that delusion he shared more or less with one and all--whether poets or philosophers--who have put their trust in natural Theology. As to the glooms in which his sceptical reason had been involved, they do not seem to have been so thick--so dense--as in the case of men without number, who have, by the blessing of God, become true Christians. Of his levities on certain celebrations of religious rites, we before ventured an explanation; and while it is to be lamented that he did not more frequently dedicate the genius that shed so holy a lustre over "The Cotter's Saturday Night," to the service of religion, let it be remembered how few poets have done so--alas! too few--that he, like his tuneful brethren, must often have been deterred by a sense of his own unworthiness from approaching its awful mysteries--and above all, that he was called to his account before he had attained his thoughtful prime." Speaking of Burns's last sickness, Professor Wilson says: "But he had his Bible with him in his lodgings, and he read it almost continually--often when seated on a bank, from which he had difficulty in rising without assistance, for his weakness was extreme, and in his emaciation he was like a ghost. The fire of his eye was not dimmed--indeed fever had lighted it up beyond even its natural brightness; and though his voice, once so various, was now hollow, his discourse was still that of a Poet. To the last he loved the sunshine, the grass, and the flowers; to the last he had a kind look and word for the passers-by, who all knew it was Burns. Laboring men, on their way from work, would step aside to the two or three houses called the Brow, to know if there was any hope of his life; and it is not to be doubted that devout people remembered him, who had written the Cotter's Saturday Night, in their prayers. His sceptical doubts no longer troubled him; they had never been more than shadows; and he had at last the faith of a confiding Christian."