text:  How little could the pious old man who dwelt in yon humble cottage when he read the "big ha' bible"--"his lyart haffets wearing thin and bare"--have guessed that the infant prattling on his knee was to be the pride and admiration of his country; that that infant was to be enrolled a chief among the poetic band; that he was to take his place as one of the brightest planets that glitter round the mighty sun of the Bard of Avon! In originality second to none in the fervent expression of deep feeling and in the keen perception of the beauties of nature equal to any who ever reveled in the bright fairyland of poesy well may we rejoice that Burns is our own--well may we rejoice that no other land can claim to be the birthplace of our Homer except the hallowed spot on which we stand! Oh! that he could have foreseen the futurity of fame he has created to himself--oh! that he could have foreseen this day when the poet and the historian the manly and the fair the peer and the peasant vie with each other in paying their tribute of admiration to the untaught but mighty genius whom we hail as the first of Scottish poets! It might have alleviated the dreary days of his sojourn at Mossgiel--it might have lightened the last hours of his pilgrimage upon earth