[81] "A Dame whom the graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom the loves have armed with lightning--a fair one--herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment--and dispute her commands if you dare!"--_Burns's Letters._ [82] Lockhart's Life of Burns, p. 153. [83] Life of Burns, p. 268. [84] Life of Burns, p. 247. [85] Beginning,-- "Ye banks and braes and streams around The castle o' Montgomerie." As the works of Burns are probably in the hands of all who will read this little book, those who have not his finest passages by heart, can easily refer to them. I felt it therefore superfluous to give at length the songs alluded to. [86] Lockhart's Life of Burns. [87] To the "Reliques of Burns, by Cromek;" to the Edition of the Scottish Songs, with notes, by Allan Cunningham; and to Lockhart's Life of Burns. [88] Allan Cunningham. CHAPTER XII. CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. MONTI AND HIS WIFE. Monti, who is lately dead, will at length be allowed to take the place which belongs to him among the great names of his country. A poet is ill calculated to play the part of a politician; and the praise and blame which have been so profusely and indiscriminately heaped on Monti while living, must be removed by time and dispassionate criticism, before justice can be done to him, either as a man or a poet. The mingled grace and energy of his style obtained him the name of _il Dante grazioso_, and he has left behind him something striking in every possible form of composition,--lyric, dramatic, epic, and satirical. Amid all the changes of his various life, and all the trying vicissitudes of spirits--the wear and tear of mind which attend a poet by profession, tasked to almost constant exertion, Monti possessed two enviable treasures;--a lovely and devoted wife, with a soul which could appreciate his powers and talents, and exult in his fame; and a daughter equally amiable, and yet more beautiful and highly gifted. He has immortalised both; and has left us delightful proofs of the charm and the glory which poetry can throw round the purest and most hallowed relations of domestic life. When Monti was a young man at Rome, caressed by popes and nephews of popes, and with the most brilliant ecclesiastical preferment opening before him, all his views in life were at once _bouleverse_ by a passion, which does sometimes in real life play the part assigned to it in romance--trampling on interest and ambition, and mocking at Cardinals' hats and tiaras. Monti fell into love, and fell out of the good graces of his patrons: he threw off the habit of an _abbate_,[89] married his Teresa, in spite of the world and fortune; and instead of an aspiring priest, became a great poet.