of the last, were never seen by any one even in the handwriting of
Burns, and are one and all wanting in that original vigour of language
and manliness of sentiment which distinguish his poetry. With respect
to "The Tree of Liberty" in particular, a subject dear to the heart of
the Bard, can any one conversant with his genius imagine that he
welcomed its growth or celebrated its fruit with such "capon craws" as
these?

"Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,
Its virtues a' can tell, man;
It raises man aboon the brute,
It mak's him ken himsel', man.
Gif ance the peasant taste a bit,
He's greater than a lord, man,
An' wi' a beggar shares a mite
O' a' he can afford, man."

There are eleven stanzas, of which the best, compared with the "A
man's a man for a' that" of Burns, sounds like a cracked pipkin
against the "heroic clang" of a Damascus blade. That it is extant in
the handwriting of the poet cannot be taken as a proof that it is his
own composition, against the internal testimony of utter want of all
the marks by which we know him--the Burns-stamp, so to speak, which is
visible on all that ever came from his pen. Misled by his handwriting,
I inserted in my former edition of his works an epitaph, beginning

"Here lies a rose, a budding rose,"

the composition of Shenstone, and which is to be found in the
church-yard of Hales-Owen: as it is not included in every edition of