text:  Since the time when in his 'bright and shining youth' he walked seventy miles to be present at a Burns' meeting and electrified it with a new and peculiar fervour of eloquence such as had never been heard among us before how manifold how multiform have been this man's generous vindications of our great Bard! Now broad in humour; now sportive and playful; now sarcastic scornful and searching; now calmly philosophic in criticism; now thoughtful and solemn large of reverent discourse 'looking before and after ' with all the sweetest by-plays of humanity with every reconciling softness of charity--such in turns and in quickest intermingled tissue of the ethereal woof have been the many illustrations which this large-minded large-hearted Scotchman in whose character there is neither corner nor cranny has poured in the very prodigality of his affectionate abundance around and over the name and the fame of Robert Burns