You are not to suppose, because I do not launch out in florid declamation about the beauty, and grandeur, and magnificence, and all that, of this scene, that it was less striking than you would naturally suppose it must be. You know that I have neither talent nor taste for _fine writing_, so you must take the picture as I give it, and draw on your own imagination for the garniture. I have said nothing of the rivers, but to tell you they were there, and flowing through a landscape of many hundred thousand acres of the richest land on earth, with the most beautifully variegated surface, all spread out under my feet. I felt that the scene was sublime; and it is well for your patience, that I have learned that sublime things are best described in fewest words. It is certainly the finest I ever saw. There may be others equal to it, but the earth does not afford _room_ for _many_ such. What will it be, when it becomes "a living landscape of groves and corn-fields, and the abodes of men?" As it is, if the warrior, on whose tomb I stood, could raise his head, he would see it in nothing changed from what it was when his last sun set upon it.
These remarkable specimens of sculpture, have been recently exhibited in this city, and have attracted, we believe, universal admiration. The artist is a native of Ayrshire, Scotland,--which also gave birth to the Immortal Bard, whose conceptions are so happily illustrated by the genius of the sculptor. Not pretending ourselves to any of those mysterious capabilities, which are claimed by _connoiseurs_ and _amateurs_, to judge of the productions of art; we rely upon our simple perceptions of what is both true and excellent, in their design and execution. The following is the passage from Burns, which the artist has chosen in order to give visible and tangible form to the poet's fancy:
Ae market night, Tam had got planted unco right, Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely; And at his elbow Souter Johnny, His ancient trusty, drouthy crony: Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither; They had been fou for weeks thegither. The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter, And aye the ale was growin' better: The landlady and Tam grew gracious, Wi' favours, secret, sweet, and precious: The Souter tauld his queerest stories, The landlord's laugh was ready chorus: The storm without might rair and rustle, Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.