"But Minstrel Burn cannot assuage His grief while life endureth, To see the changes of this age, That fleeting time procureth. For many a place stands in hard case, Where blythe folk kenn'd nae sorrow, With Homes that dwelt on Leader-side, And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow."
Of this minstrel Burn there is a quaint little personal reminiscence. An aged person at Earlstoun many years ago related, that there used to be a portrait of the minstrel in Thirlestane Castle, near Lauder, "representing him as a douce old man, _leading a cow by a straw-rope_." The master of the "gay science" gradually slipping down from the clouds, and settling quietly and doucely on the plain hard ground of ordinary life and business! Let all pale-faced and sharp-chinned youths, who are spasmodic poets, or who are in danger of becoming such, keep steadily before them the picture of minstrel Burn, "leading a cow by a straw-rope"--and go and do likewise.
But as trees and flowers can only grow and come to perfection in soils by nature appropriate to them, so it is manifest that all this rich and fertile growth of lyrics, of minstrelsy and music, could only spring up amongst a people most impressionable and joyous. I speak of the Lowland population, and especially of the Borderers, with whose habits, manners and customs, alone I am personally acquainted; and the lingering traces of whose old forms of life--so gay, kindly, and suggestive--I saw some thirty years ago, just before they sank under the mammonism, commonplace, critical apery, and cold material self-seeking, which have hitherto been the plague of the present generation. We have become more practical and knowing than our forefathers, but not so wise. We are now a "fast people;" but we miss the true goal of life--that is, _sober happiness_. Fast to smattering; fast to outward, isolated show; fast to bankruptcy; fast to suicide; fast to some finalé of enormous and dreadful infamy. Bah! rather the plain, honest, homely life of our grandfathers--
"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool, sequester'd vale of life, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."
Or rather (for every age has its own type, and old forms of life cannot be stereotyped and reproduced), let us have a philosophic and Christian combination of modern adventure and "gold-digging" with old-fashioned balance of mind, and neighbourliness, and open-heartedness, and thankful enjoyment.