BURNS'S BIRTH-DAY.

TILE 25th of January has just been celebrated, in a manner that calls for inure notice than an anniversary which has now returned for the thirty-fifth time would under ordinary circumstances require or deserve. The secret of the extraordinary display of interest exhibited in the nu- merous company that crowded the Freemason's Tavern on Wednesday, is not set forth in any of the narratives that have been published of the feast ; and it is the more necessary that we should devote a few lines to its elucidation.

• The Daily Papers, in their gossip column, informed the natives of Cockney-land, some two or three weeks ago, that James Hogg, tl:c poet, had quitted the Modern Athens, with the purpose of gazing be- fore be died on the streets and alleys whose aggregate form the m'ghty well of London. In the course of eight days from the first nonounce- ment of the Ettrick Shepherd's bold resolution, the same chroniclers informed us that he had escaped the dangerous transit of Yarmouth Roads, had threaded the channel of the Swyn and of the Thames in safety, and was happily landed, where so ninny of his countrymen had landed before, on a shore from which, like that mentioned by the poet, of Scotch travellers at least very few return. Subsequent notices prated of his whereabout : one day he was dining with Mr. Murray of Albemarle Street ; another, he was exciting the astonishment of the pious congregationists of Regent Square, where the Tongue itself was silenced at his appearam.e. At first we were at some loss to discover by what means thd Shepherd had contrived to render himself con- spicuous in a theatre where the lights of the pastor are so apt to dim all lesser fires; until it was stated to us, that he went thither in a garb which must have appeared even stranger to an English eye than the kilt itself,—namely, with a natal, Anglicil a checked blanket, round his shoulders. When we had been sufficiently informed of Mr. Hogg's peregrinations and his garb, the next point on which information came forth, was the purpose of his visit to London. He came; we were told, to conclude a bargain for time publication of his works, with notes and introductions, after the fashion of the Waverley Novels. This gave us a hint by which to interpret the mystery of the poet's stroaming about Westminster with an upper covering such as had never before greeted the wondering eyes of its natives—he Was in fact performing the part of a walking advertisement of the forthcoming series. It was no other than the clever scheme of an ingenious and enterprising bookseller, to render cognizable to the greatest possible number of his intended cus- tomers, the proofs, on India paper, before the letters, of the frontis- piece to six volumes in 24mo. There was yet a daintier device by which to effect the same laudable purpose ; and, fortunately, the time of the year favoured it.. A dinner might have been got up in honour of James Hogg at any day of the year, but it must have been limited in its numbers ; for, great as are his merits, save to Scotchmen and chiefly to Scotchmen in Scotland, his merits are but little known, unless from the fictitious harangues which the wags in Blackwood are in the habit of putting into his mouth. But it was the mouth of January, and Burns was born in January—and so was Hogg; and, by what the penny-a-line men call a curious coincidence, Hogg was one of the two hundred Scotch of both sexes who are born every year on the 25th of that month—that wondrous '25th when the never-to-be-forgotten " blast o' Januar' win'

Blew handsel in on Robin."

On the saving principle of " felling twa dogs with ae bane," which our Northern neighbours so scrupulously observe,—and which Mr. Hogg's friends in this case contrived to improve upon, for they felled three,—it was resolved to give a puff to the coming work, to honour the living bard, and, as it came in the way, to pay a tribute to the dead bard also. We look On Mr. Hogg as preeminently a man of genius, possessing, in a much higher degree, the peculiarity which entitles a man to the praise of gods, of men, and columns—the creative power of the poet--than the whole of the titled and untitled list of his admirers that graced the cross table on Wednesday ; and therefore we regret that it should have been deemed necessary to have recourse to any thing like a trick for the purpose of showing off that sterling desert which pos- sesses enough of attraction for all intelligent men in its own native splendour and messiness. We doubt altogether the necessity of such expedients : we believe that Ala Hogg's works—with a slight priming, which his more matured taste will hardly fain to Suggest—will be re- ceived by the public in a collected shape with readiness and pleasure ; and we believe also, that the only thing which could possibly put their acceptance in hazard, is the appearance of puffery, so alien to the plain- ness and simplicity of the author.

Such, however, was the grand cause why the anniversary of Robert Burns was so numerously attended on this occasion. It transpired, in- deed, that another motive, which few could have dreamed of, had some share in the arrangements—the meeting of Wednesday was to be con- verted to Tory uses ! Hogg himself is a Tory; for which, assuredly, we blame him not. He has never, any more than his venerable friend Sir Walter Scott, contemplated politics, unless through the medium of poetry ; and the peaceful assertion of constitutional 'right is but indif-

ferently fitted for. poetic description, whose task is " to remark general properties and large appearances." His connexion with Blackwood has, moreover, introduced him to most of the Tory writers of the day ; and, from the simplicity of his nature, those principles which, in his worldly companions, are probably retained as they were first adopted, from mo- tives of convenieney have, in his mind, we can believe, assumed the form of moral truths, and are adhered to, not for interest, but for con- science-sake. To mingle Toryism, therefore, with a dinner in honour of Hogg, would not be unnatural; and though Sarum, Gatton, and Wootton Bassett, are somewhat unmusical, no one could, on such an occasion, blame Lord Porchester for hitching them into rhymes, or Lord 2.Iithon and Sir Charles Wetherell for chorusing their praise. But that any one should be so hot in zeal, or so abject in principle, as to in- sult the ashes of the mighty dsad, by taking occasion of the anniveratry of the noble-minded Robert Burns, to lend the forlorn cause of 136- rougl e. unonery a llft, would ae pear impossible, were any thing, howeVer nonsensical or extravagant, impossible to a desperate faction.

The design to convert the meeting of 'Wednesday into one of Tdry display, began to be suspected very early in the evening • and its mani- festations, of whatever kind, were kept, up with as much pertinacity as a debate on the Bill. The (life, as usually happens, were seated at the cross-table ; and the first toast was the signal for a display of their po-

litical feeling-s. It is not customary, or at least it has not been cus-

tomary for sometime past, to introduce the health of the King without a sentence or two of commendatory remark ; butt on Wednesday it Was simply announced. It has been usual in all respectable companies, for wally years past, to receive the health of the Sovereign with marked ap- plause; but its announcement on Wednesday was received by the lead- ing men of the company with barely decent respect ; while, to indicate with sufficient precision time cause of their previous coldness, the hearth of the Queen was hailed with a rapture which was childish at best, and, under time circumstances, was as unsuitable as it was childish. " Puir folk are glad o' bree" (the Shepherd will interpret this to curious in- quirers) ; and poor indeed must that party be, whose highest glory it is that their political principles ere supposed—only supposed—to be ac- ceptable to a stranger to the language, the history, and the soil of Eng- land—the child of an absolute prince, bred in an absolute court, and, to crown the anti-climax—a woman. But the insulting coldness on the health of the King being drunk, and the obstreperous huzzas bestowed on that of the Queen, were left faehehind by the health that followed- " the Duke of Wellington, time hero (or the glory) of his country!"

Think of that, Master Brooke ! We need not say that the Duke holds no public office which might seem to call for a notice of his name—that the dinner was not in the most remote degree connected with military or naval history—that the Duke has no connexion with Scotland either by blood or marriage, possesses no property or interest there, and never, we believe, saw its shores—and that, in point of lite- rary merit, the " pig-headed dragoon," as Blackwood formerly called him, has less, if less claim were possible, to commemoration at such a meet- ing. What then led to the introduction of his name ? He is the for- lorn hope of the Tory party—that party which, when rampant in power, and under the guidance of " the heaven-born Minister," with a mean- ness of tyrany, which, were all their delinquencies besides forgotten, will never cease to be remembered, strove to crush, because he disdained to truckle to their minions, that very Robert Burns whom Sir John Mal- colm did well not to panegyrize for his indomitable spirit of independenee, for it was a spirit with which the Chairman and his friends could ill sympathize. If the departed bard could have burst his cerements on Wednesday, how his withering eye would have drunk the marrow of these knights of the supple knee ! The theme of .the Duke of Wellington was again introduced by Sir George Murray, in a speech which was well delivered, and not without elegance, but which was composed in the very spirit of an epistle dedi- catory. Sir George, it seems, has nothing, is nothing of himself.; his name, his fame, his all, is due to the Duke ! Do not the adorers of the weak and decaying idol perceive, that the more they exaggerate its height, the more by comparison they sink their own ? When the Duke dies, as some day he must, what will become of those it liniments petits who only live and move in him ?

Of the other speeches of the evening, that of the Shepherd—full. of egotism, in part redeemed by its good humour—was the best; though,

from his using a dialect with which English ears are not much conver- sant, the reporters, at the distant place they occupied, were not able to do it much justice. On the health of Sir Walter Scott being drunk, Mr. Lockhart re- turned thanks; and in doing so, dwelt on Sir Walter's merits, not more than they deserved, but more, it was thought, than good taste called 'for from his son-in-law. His concluding compliment to Mr. Hogg was delivered in a way which might be received by the bard as kindly, but which sounded to others as quizzical or sneering.

There were many speeches during the night, of which no record re- mains. Among these was one by the eccentric Scotch advocate, Mr. Patrick Robertson ; who had been called, on the suggestion of some wag, to answer on behalf of the " Scottish Bar "—the real toast being " Lord Brougham and the English Bar." However called up, Mr. Robertson acquitted himself with such tact, that he soon found him- self on firm footing; and he concluded by proposing the health of- Captain Basil Half, who sat near him as a steward. Captain Hall seemed very anxious to say something good, but he laboured in vain. Having stumbled first on the word " Whig," and then on "politics" and " party," (really, it appeared, without any intention to introduce poli- tics as a subject—and which the Chairman declared he altogether re- pudiated for the night) the Captain was assailed with unextinguishable hisses. He afterwards brought in the "Leviathan of the Times;" and. favoured the audience with a new reading of Pope's well-known line- " An honest man's the noblest work of God,"—

which the Captain would alter to "a party man." This emendation met with a reception equally opprobrious as his other infelicities. The last hour's specching was drowned in general noise andtumtilt. It must haie been a pleasant scene for the ladies, who remained in the gallery till the close, at half-past twelve ! The dinner was very ill served, and even scanty: it had- been pre- pared, we understand, for only 200, although about 400 attended.. Whether this arose from the utter negligence of the Stewards, or from the cupidity of the landlord, we know not. - -

The two surviving sons of Burns were present; and we may state as a specimen of the arrangement and forethought of the whole affair, that the elder of the two, who is a clerk in Somerset House, had not even a place provided for him ; he took his seat in the centre of the room, and it was not until repeated inquiries had been made for him, that Ire was at length called to the upper table, and room made for him be- side his brother.

There was one anecdote told daring the evening, and but one, that deserves notice—the chance interview between Sir Walter Scott and Burns, dwelt on at some length by Mr. Lockhart, had been already told by Sir Walter himself. When Mr. Lockhart's Life of Burns was published, some copies were sent to India ; and Sir John Malcolm had the pleasure to place one of these in the hands of James Gray, formerly of Edinburgh High School, himself a poet of considerable power, and an ardent admirer of Burns. Poor Gray, who is now in his narrow arouse, wept with pleasure when he read the eloquent vindication of his faVourite and friend.

On the whole, " the Scotch festival," as some of the newspapers style it, was a festival into which few Scotch or national feelings were infused. As a tribute to the memory of Burns, it can only be looked on with contempt. As a compliment toit was a failure. As a Tory device for serving the cause of Anti-Reform politics, if that object was in view—and all appearances went to countenance the sur- mise—being unsuccessful, as such devices ought to be, it was a mere matter of laughter.