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Postscript to the First Article.

WE stated in the note, page 3, that the difference between the wages given in England and America in the best Cotton Mills was not so great as was often supposed. Since that note was written the facts have changed. Owing to a long continuance of bad trade here, the masters have been obliged gradually to lower the wages of their hands, to enable themselves to keep their mills at work, and we fear, that unless there is soon some decided improvement, the wages of our manufacturing population will be reduced comparatively to a very low rate.

VOL. IV. N

15.-New Series.

I

THE

CHRISTIAN TEACHER.

ART. I.—NOTES OF A PILGRIMAGE TO THE BURNS-LAND.

SOME time ago we published in this Periodical, some remarks on the necessity of a Minister's allowing himself occasional periods, not only of relaxation from study, but of communion with Nature, in her green and deep seclusions. That paper was read with an interest, which, though perhaps principally referable to the subject, was yet such as to lead us to imagine, that some further communications of what we have ourselves experienced in and from such intervals of recreation, may freshen the impression of the preceding remarks, and excite a wider sympathy both with the evil and the cure.

We too have again been truants and pilgrims. Not to Petrarch's Vallombrosa-not to the Caprea of Tiberius-not to the Paraclete of Eloisa-nor to the mountain-chapel of Tellnor to where the tortoise crawls by the barrow of the Nereidborn-nor to Virgil's tomb-nor to Tasso's cell-nor to Ariosto's inkstand-nor to the whispers of Thermopyla-nor to the blue glories of Salamis-nor to the mulberry-tree of Shakspere-nor to the Runnymede of Norman John-nor to the Athelney of Saxon Alfred-nor to Moore's Avoca-nor to Wordsworth's Windermere-nor to the Waterloo of one great by commission-nor to the St. Helena of one great by determination, to none of these have we yet been pilgrims, though there are some of them that we would not willingly forego the hope of visiting, with reverent foot, and not, we fain would hope, with uninstructed hearts. Our pilgrimage has been to the song-land of one of our first and most original poets-a Noble of Nature's own creation-one who caught his inspiraVOL. IV. No. 16.-New Series.

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tion at the plough, and wept immortal tears over the fall of a daisy-after this, need we say, of ROBERT BURNS?

But before we say any thing of the poet's own country-side, we may be forgiven for noticing the scenery through which we passed to it. Our benison on James Watt! But for him, we had never been borne on the waters of the Clyde, as aforetime on those of the Forth. What country but Scotland can boast of two such estuaries as their magnificent Friths? In early life we saw the latter, as in the nominal meridian of life we have now seen the former. Glorious and beautiful are they both, in memory as in reality. But we have at present no other business with the Forth, than to give it the tribute of a passing sigh. We are now on the Frith of Clyde. Coming or deck in the foggy and drizzling morning, we saw the coast of Scotland stretching dun and misty on the right; and with what feelings did we hear that one part of it was Ayrshire-the land of the Impassioned Peasant, whose poetry had made such an impression on our youth, and whom our matured admiration has placed in the very first line of the glorious army of the martyrs of song! We tried, and tried, but still in vain, to make out any locality. But lo, yon Titan Rock, that heaves its misty sides precipitously from the waters! It is Ailsa Crag. Our hearts throbbed at the name. It brought back the memory of him of Bannockburn, who remembered this very Crag on that immortal Field. And Time has altered it-can have altered it -but little. There are the cliffs, and the sea-birds, and the waves- -the very same as Robert Bruce beheld them. But was that a gun that startled the echoes and the solans? It wasand Robert Bruce never heard a fowling-piece. Are we not now on board one of the Liverpool and Glasgow Company's prime steamers? Doubtless-and Robert Bruce knew nothing of the Geni of the tea-kettle, much more potent than he, the slave of the talismanic Lamp. But Ailsa is behind us-and lo, on our left, the mountain-isle of Arran. Oh, for an eagle's wings (what could put it into Wordsworth's head to wish for a Hippogriff's?) to pierce the fogs on those peaks! Now and then, we snatch glimpses of the majestic Forms around which they hover. And on those waters the Bruce's navy of barks has floated! But no more of that we are lieges of the Guelphs, not of the Plantagenets. Pass we on. Bute, wooded Bute, darkles greenly on the left. All is misty, but all is lovely. We should enjoy a day of rambling among those firwoods. But Steam is like Destiny, and bears us resistlessly away. Isles of Cumray, sister-born of these waters, we bid you a passing hail. It soon becomes a farewell. We had a volume

of Wordsworth in our pocket; and from time to time we read one of his "Memorials." But shall we confess or conceal? It still appears to us, that his views of things are so abstract and abstruse, that his "harp of solemn sound"-while we feelingly acknowledge its solemnity-does not always awaken the sweetest human echoes of the heart. His poetry is like Turner's painting—or at least much of the one is so far like much of the other-it is the poetry of medium. He gives you, not the thing, but the atmosphere through which he views it. It is as we have just seen Arran and Ailsa-a mountain-mass of real and enduring poetry, enveloped in a dimming mist of subtle metaphysical thought. Many of his Poems will be, to the places which produced them, but as the vapours which hang about the Mountain, but do not belong to it or mingle with it. They will not be, like the Local Poetry of Burns, a floating and a haunting Spirit, about every step that he trod. One might be on the Clyde, and think nothing of Wordsworth ;—and, sooth and strange to say, we do not think that, so far as we are individually concerned, matters would be much mended by an excursion to the Duddon itself;-but who could look on "Irwine, Lugar, Ayr, or Doon," without associating indissolubly with those beautiful streams the memory and the poetry of Him of the harp and plough?

And now for the Clyde itself the splendid, the picturesque, and the lovely! What must it be under circumstances more favourable! Dumbarton Crag and Castle are just now on our left. Yellowed, and embrowned, and greened by time-the cenotaph of the glories of a thousand years. Well may it look proud. Few histories can tell such a tale. Few earthly rocks are haunted by such remembrances. Clyde and Dumbarton, ye are worthy of each other-and WALLACE of you both!

A few hours passed;—and, thanks again to magical steampotent alike by land or by water-we found ourselves in "auld Ayr." We visited the Twa Brigs, and enjoyed, as we never could have enjoyed but on the spot, the colloquy of the ghaists, as taken in short-hand by the poet. What a living picture of the Two Bridges, and of the whole scene! And then the introduction and the close! Think of that one line, in which he describes "the mellow thrush," as

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Hailing the setting sun, sweet in the green thorn-bush!"

We have not many Alexandrines so laden with music and beauty. Then the picture of the Spirit-Choir at the end, (of

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