THE OCCASIONAL. By LEIGH HUNT.

No. II. Comunaaoserxox or Boug.—Universality of it—Reasons for the Univer- sality—Wordsworth's Advice to his Sons—The Reel of Tullochgoratm, and the Reverend Mr. Skinner, Author of Words to it—Burns's Regard for Reel, Words, and Author—Specimens of the Words—Proposal for the Restoration of Domestic Dances, in contradistinction from Balls—Venture of a new Song to the Tune of the Reel of Tulloehgoruos.

On Tuesday next, in all parts of the world, and at various hours of the day and night, all verse-loving, unbigoted, and unexdusive Scotehmen, and vast numbers of Englishmen and Irishmen who love Scottish poetry, will be dining, supping, singing, dancing, quoting, or otherwise doing or saying something or other, to the honour and glory of Robert Burns. In the East, to say nothing of the Highland regiments there, the great sol- dier Lord Clyde, though he is said to be a dry sort of man and of few words, will probably be quoting, not the verses respecting Wallace and Bruce,—for that would be like brag and self-eulogy,—but some of the tenderest touches on bonnie lasses and the domestic affections. In the West,—the United States,—the stanzas will be brought to mind, so pleasant for the wilfulness of their rhymes, that record the loss of our

colonies-

" When Guildford good our pilot stood And did our hellum threw, man" ; —" At tea began a plea Within America(w), man."

In Africa, the Liberians and others will rejoice in the poet's indigna- tion against slavery, and his prophecies of universal brotherhood. And in Europe, Scottish merchants and other stirring spirits of all kinds, eminent for their use to Russian and other northern advancements, and for being in fact everywhere else, north and south, will make nights of it over various bottles and bowls; while France will have something to say of the "Scottish Beranger " ; and Germany, besides his freedom from bigotry, will be jovial in praise of the mingled beer and bedevil- ments of Tam O'Shanter ; I am not certain, that Mazzini and Kossuth will not have taught Italians and Hungarians to love him ; and certain it is, that never will there have been any such commemoration of a na- tive of our own united kingdom, whether publicly, in cities great and small, or privately, in all sorts of festive circles, the Crystal Palace com- mencing with it at noon-day, when a gigantic bust of the poet will be unveiled, as if his big spirit became present to look on.

Now how is this ? How is it that no other man of genius, however great, however greater, has received such honours from his British countrymen? Nobody took notice of Bacon's hundred years ; nobody of Milton's ; nobody of Newton's ; nobody of Shakspeare's. None of the commemorations of our great national English poet have been of the hie universality ; nor can even generals and admirals, whose cannon make such a noise, in their day, be said to be recollected at all after a while, except in the pages of history, or for illustrations to a remark in a newspaper. Who, otherwise, ever speaks of Blake or of Marlborough ? and what signifies even Nelson, towering out of sight at Charing Cross ? He will soon be as little thought of there as poor visible Charles the First, unless a new naval war break out; and his name will then give way to that of somebody not yet heard of. The Waterloo dinners are gone at Apsley House, never to be revived.

What is the reason of thie difference between the fond love of the memory of such a man as Burns, and the no-love at all for those other great men, Shakspeare himself not excepted? for personal regard mixes little with our astonishment at Shakspeare's genius, perhaps because of the very amount of the astonishment, and because we know little per- sonally about him. The reason is, that Burns we do know; that we are astonished at him, but not enough to be oppressed with the astonish- ment; and that he fulfils all the other conditions necessary to universal regard. He is allied to the greatest minds by his genius, %A:he gravest by his grave thoughts, to the gayest by his gay ones, to lilres'inanliest by his independence, to the frail by his frailties, to the conscientiousby his regrets, to the humblest ranks by his birth, to the poorest among them by his struggles with necessity ; above all, to the social by his com- panionship, and to the whole world by his being emphatically a human creature, "relishing all sharply, paasioned as they," excluding none from his sympathy but those who have no feeling for others, and having a reserve of pity in his contempt even for those, because they were not their own makers, and are but a sorry, losing kind of devils after all. He even ventured, like good, brave, pious Uncle Toby, to pity the very Devil himself, and wish him penitent, and out of his den ; which is what few Christians, very few indeed, have ventured to do after him; though assuredly it is an expression of the profoundest Christian charity, and does him immortal honour. and when It is for these things, and not because Scotch nationality could other- wise have achieved for him anything like it, that Burns is a favourite with all the world ; and that being a writer of songs which all the world can sing, nobody can compete with him in point of qualities for commemoration, and the jovialities which his memory accordingly sets going. Vivat, et bibat, in feternum May never worse glass be drank, than such as ,requires excuse for indulgence, flavoured and warranted with a sense of so many reasons for being allowed it.

It is easy for worldly prudence, or for any prudence, to talk of the infirmities of Burns, especially while concealing its own ; which was a sort of prudence that was particularly wanting in the poet„ and there- fore the more exasperating to his rebukers, inasmuch as there was a virtue in it which they did not possess. Burns's infirmities, which were entirely those of an ardent and enjoying temperament (for they were un- tainted with anything vile or dishonest) arose e4trtly from the inconsis- tency of his gifts of mind with his position, partly from griefs and re- grets, and partly from the times on which he fell ; when dissipation, drinking especially, was in fashion ; and this not only with princes and the fashionable world, but all the world over, not omitting the world of letters. One of his last observations was, that if it had not been "for than gentles of Edinburgh," he had "a constitution that could have stood anything." The temptations that misled him were for long intervals withstood, and never, when he found what a hold they had got upon him, unregretted. Nor did he fail to warn others against them, ee. pecially under circumstances that tended to encourage deception, and to harden the heart. There was no necessity for Mr. Wordsworth (a one- sided man compared with Burns, and of wholly different breed- ing, experience, and liabilities,) to read that ungracious lecture to the poet's sons, warning them not to be misled by their father's flat- terers, and against taking "the light which led astray" for "light from heaven." Did he never hear of the prayer which begs not to be "led into temptation " ? and was he aware to whom that prayer was addres- sed? Was no light from heaven implied there ? or was there none in his own gift of poetry, which fathers of the church have called tho "wine of devils " ? Much better would have been a little of it for those holy blinkers ; nor would Mr. Wordsworth have been the worse for something more of the "barley bree " of his brother-poet, if ho had had heartiness enough in him to give way to it, and known how to enlarge his mind and sympathies by the latter's open-hearted talk. "It is strange (says the biographer, who has given by far the best account of Burns, and the best edition of his works, that have hitherto appeared—Mr. Robert Chambers) that we so often hear of the faults of Burns, and of the de- fences advanced by his friends, and that so little notice has been taken of what at once attests the reality of those faults, and most powerfully pleads their pardon,—the deep, unostentatious penitence of the bard him- self." (Life and Works, vol. 1. p. 88.) But Burns, though he confessed and grieved for his faults, never counted among them his zeal for the progress of mankind in liberality of opinion, and their abandonment of all kinds of bigotry and hypocrisy; and hence the willingness of his enemies to ignore his confessions, and the unwillingness of his friends to hear him making what might be thought concessions to such people. An honest and intelligent farmer who knew him, and who was "a strictly moral and religious man himself," always maintained (says his son Mr. Prentice, not long since editor of the Manchester Times,) "that the virtues of the poet greatly predominated over his faults "; and being disgusted one day at some " apologies " that were made for him by persona who had no right to pretend to be his superiors, exclaimed, with indignant anger, "What! do they apologize for him! One he/f of his good, and all his bad, divided among a score o'em, would make them a' better men." (Id. vol. II. p. 13.) The world have agreed with this capital distributive sentence of the good farmer, and settled the question by taking the poet to their hearts. I did not intend to write thus much on the present occasion ; but the

tongue is naturally set flowing, when speaking of such a man as Burns. All I was going to do, after saying a word on the Commemoration, was to propose the addition of a dance to the domestic festivities usual on such occasions, and this too of a particular kind of dance, and of one particular dance of the kind; to wit, a reel, of a name very familiar and welcome to Scottish ears ; at least it used to be so.

"May dool and sorrow be his chance, And a' the ills that come free France," (says a good old poet of some five generations ago,) " Whae'er hobo that winna dance The reel of Tullocbgornm."

Tullochgorum is one of the few dances mentioned by Burns. He

speaks of having danced it, among other reels, at the house of a High- land gentleman between Inverary and Dumbarton. "We flevr" at them, he says, like midges sporting in the mottle sun " : the ladies "sang

Scottish songs like angels, at intervals " ; the dancing was not over till three in the morning, when "the dear lasses left" ; and at sun-rise_jit was in June) the rest of the party went mit to pay their devotions, glasses in hand, "to the glorious lamp of day, peering over the towering top of Benlomond." (Id. Vol.11. p, 101.) This worship of the sun may be taken as an evidence of the high things, which the poet mingled with his devotions to inferior objects.

But Tullochgorum had a special value in the eyes of Burns from its association with the only words ever written to the tune ; which were the production of the Reverend John Skinner, minister of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a gentleman no less exemplary in all the duties of life, than admirable for the joviality and heartiness of this unique com- position. I put the two things together, in order to obviate the conclu- sions of those who think the title of Reverend incompatible with the manifestation of animal spirits ;—a notion, which in Scotland has pro- duced more whisky-drinking, than the bacchanals of all the poets.

Burns had such an admiration of Skinner, that he'expressed great re- gret at haying missed the sight of him during a journey, and said he would have gone twenty miles out of his way to pay him his respects. And Skinner's regret was equal. Mr. Skinner's song was occasioned by a political dispute that took place in a company where he happened to be present, and which made the lady of the house, after calling for a sang to put an end to it, express her regret to Mr. Skinner, that no words had ever been put to the "beautiful reel of Tullochgorum." The good clergyman wrote words accordingly, in deprecation of such disputes; and gave to his song both the title and measure of the dance.

Here are some specimens of it, in the first, second, and fourth stanzas; which I give, in spite of the peril they occasion to what will follow. The reader will find the exordium pleasantly applicable to the state of politics at this moment.—The word "disputes" is to be read with the old Scottish classical accent on the first syllable,—disputes.

"Come, gie's a sang, Montgomery cried, And lay your disputes all aside : What signifies't for folks to chide For what's been done before 'em ? Let Whig and Tory all agree, Whig and Tory, Whig and Tory, Let Whig and Tory all agree To drop their Whigmegmorum : Let Whig and Tory all agree To spend this night in mirth and glee, And cheerfu' sing slang wi' use The reel of Tullochgorum.

0, Tullochgorum's my delight ; It gars us a' in ane unite, And coy seraph that keeps up spite, In conscience I abhor him *; Blithe and merry we's be a', Blithe and merry, blithe and merry, Blithe and merry we's be a,

And sunk' a cheer& quorum ; Blithe and merry we's be a', As lang as we hue breath to draw, And dance, till we be like to fa',

The reel of Tullochgorum.

Let wordly minds:themselves oppress

Wi' fear of want, and double cess, And sullen sots themselves distress

Wi' keeping up decorum : Shall we sae sour and sulky sit, Sour and sulky, sour and sulky, Shall we sae sour and sulky sit, Like mild Philosophorum ? Shall we sae sour and sulky sit, Wi' neither sense, nor mirth, nor wit, And canna rise to shake a fit At the reel of Tullochgorum?"

Burns was so fond of this song, partly, no doubt, from its sentiment as well as its other excellencies, that at one time he calls it the "first of Scottish songs," and at another the "best of songs." Is it not surpris- ing that neither he nor any one else, Scotch or otherwise, as far as I can discover, has written anything to the same measure ? This is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the Scotch, compared with the English, and, as if in spite of John Knox, are famous both for the variety and vivacity of their measures.

I must not, however, ía the vivacity of my admiration, run into fur- ther length than I can help. To return to dancing, I was about to ob- serve, that as a custom the pastime appears to have gone out for a long time past, except in what is falsely supposed to be its best and most flourishing form—that of balls. I allude to the extinction:of dances in private,—dances suddenly and unexpectedly got up in family:circles or with familiar visitors, for the purpose of enjoying or giving rise to a flow of animal spirits. Balls are good or bad things in proportion as they are early or late, costly or cheap, prudently or imprudently dressed, and got up for show or amusement. The bad elements in general predo- minate; and dancing again is not thought of by jaded vanity, till the next opportunity of showing off, getting headaches and colds, and complain- ing of that coxcomb A., who admires nothing but his own legs, and that fright Jenny B., whom the fools consider handsome. Now the sound, on the other hand, of the little unaffected dancing family party, where the feet might be heard going (thumping, if you will) and the laughter ringing through the house, is, or rather used to be, associated with ideas of health, early hours, and real cheerfulness; and it is a thousand pities it was given up. Will nobody in May Fair or Belgravia set it

• In the Scottish dialect, there are not such distinct sounds in the vowels i and u, as there are in English.

again in motion? There are persons in both places who have wit as

well as fashion enough to dare to set an unfashionable example; and it would soon extend to other classes that need it. The bills of mortality which are terribly aggravated by the balls, would find a decrease from the dances.

To return to the association of Burns with dancing, I venture to add a song upon both, written in the measure of Mr. Skinner, and availing itself of the license of his pleasant Latin rhymes; and if it should have the good fortune to be considered worth singing or reciting, and being

followed by the dance which it concerns, in any party assembled to do honour to Scotland's favourite, great will be my pleasure at having con- tributed my mite towards the celebration of his name and the gratifica- tion of his admirers.

And perhaps one dance may set another going the week after, with- out the song, and with no other preparation whatsoever, solely for the sake of the dance's pleasant and healthy self.

BIIIINS AND TIIIJACHGOB.U31.

Come, let us have a dance, and make The mirth complete for Burns's sake, For how can feet not long to take The steps he took before 'em?

Who, who, can keep them ever still, Who can keep them, who can keep them, Who can keep them ever still,

When strong the will comes o'er 'cm?

Who can keep them ever still, When song itself shall urge the will, And music grind, like any mill, The reel of Tulloohgorum?

"0, Tullochgornm's my delight," Said Burns's fine old herald, bight The Reverend Mr. Skinner, wight That hated false decorum : It was his, and Burns's too, His and Burns's, his and Burns's, It was his, and Burns's too, And all such true Dirorum : It was his, and Burns's too, And doubly thus becomes his due From all that ever shake a shoe At sound of Tullochgorum.

For Tullochgorum's such a dance, As never yet was found in France, Though some French dames, whose sons could prance, To Scottish husbands bore 'em: Mirth it has and muscle both, Mirth and muscle, mirth and muscle, Wirth it has, and muscle both, And graces angelorum Wirth it has and muscle both, And makes all friends, as Skinner sheveth : Quakers themselves would take an oath, There's nought like Tullochgorum.

'Twas in this dance, there's not a doubt, The poet's Jane first twined about His heart, when footing in and out, Her charms made eyes adore 'em : She was a singing, dancing jade, Singing, dancing, singing, dancing, She was a singing, dancing jade, And full of grace flexerum : She was a singing, dancing jade, And nought beside; so Envy said ; But capital good wife she made, Inspired by Tullochgorum.

Who better could have played his part, In such a dance, than he whose art Of pleasing was all life and heart, And no fatigue could floor e'm?

Think, lads and lasses, how he bad Lads and lasses, lads and lasses, Think, lads and lasses, how he bad Your loves all trnthward soar 'em: Think how he made kind natures glad, And only brutes and bigots sad, Then, if you can, don't dance like mad The reel of Tullochgorum.

+ As Burns speaks of ladies singing "Scottish songs like angels," there can be no harm in making them angelical in their dancing.

# The muscles, to wit, called (in anatomical Latin, and in the nominative case, fiexores, or benders.

1 See his poem of advice to young Aiken.