of alterations on the 48 Paraphrase, supposed to be by ROBERT BURNS. With hin day. And who can prove a foe? Lord Almight is our kindly. 2 son, withhold a lefer gift with old The yourer what is good ding: give happy to peace is the Judge who can condemn Since God hath Ivorified ult I've faced" to whom the Savibus died? And A Lourour died, but rose agaen If Heaven pleads our cause within the veil "One & 'Tis when who 6 In oth from Sheit & from his love? Beneath. 1 THE LATEST LITERARY DISCOVERY.-BURNS AND THE PARAPHRASES. AN announcement, calculated to startle Presbyterian Scotland from one end of it to the other, has been somewhat boldly hazarded, that our national poet, Burns, had a hand in giving some of the last touches to our national Paraphrases, and left the mark of his genius deeply stamped on them. The statement is not given by way of conjecture or surmise merely, but as a positive and peremptory averment. 66 what particular corner is that?—have been credited ere now, on much stronger testimony than this brown affair that was brought, in a mysterious way, into Mr. Johnstone's shop by a mysterious "gentleman of Edinburgh ;" and yet have turned out false after all. Ireland's spurious tragedies of William Shakspeare were said to be discovered in the corner of an old, unfrequented garret, or some such out of the way place; and, at the first announcement of them, all the literati of the day welcomed them as veritable productions of the Bard of Avon. But the deception did not continue long. The glamour left the eyes of the literary public, and the pretended plays, said, on the most unquestionable authority, to be in the genuine handwriting of Shakspeare, were found to be forgeries. Then there was Chatterton, with his Rowley manuscripts, taken out of the old chest of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. These were received at the first as authentic writings. But Grey and Mason, on being shown them, at once declared them forgeries too. We do not say that Mr. Begg has had any art or part in the old hereditary manuscript containing the altered Paraphrases, any more than he has had in the composing of the Paraphrases themselves; nor that in the slightest degree, or in the smallest way or manner imaginable, does he resemble Ireland and Chatterton in imaginative powers; his gifts are of a different kind, and of a high order in their way. But in one important respect he stands on precisely. the same grounds with them; namely, in being the first to promulgate the notable discovery to the world. Both Ireland and Chatterton had a fraudu To the Witness newspaper belongs the extraordinary merit of being the first to proclaim this discovery, as remarkable in its way, if true, as any of the vestiges of pre-Adamite existences found filagreed into fossils, or intaglioed on stones. But that paper, though the first to proclaim, was not the first to make the discovery. An article in the Free Church Magazine for April on the Paraphrases led, it seems, one of the readers, a gentleman of Edinburgh, to bring to the shop of the publisher, Mr. Johnstone, a manuscript volume which he had found lying among some old hereditary papers, embrowned with the dust of half a century, in a waste corner of his library, and in which a considerable number of the Paraphrases was copied out in a small and neat, though somewhat common-place hand.” Of this volume every alternate page had been left blank, and on the blank pages were found corrections on the verse by three different hands. One of these, on being shown to the Rev. James Begg of Edinburgh, was straightway pronounced by him to be that of Burns; the "remarkable handwriting" of the poet having become familiar to him-so, and in none other strain, runs the tale -from his having seen it "in the big ha' Bible of Jean Armour, the widow of Robert Burns," | lent object in view in their impostures; as Lauder while he was minister of Maxwelltown Chapel, Dumfries. Mr. Begg, therefore, is the Columbus of this new discovery in the world of literature; to substantiate which, a fac simile of some of the alleged alterations by Burns, appears in the May number of the Free Church Magazine. 66 Here, then, we have the whole amount of itthe old manuscript found in a waste corner of the library of "a gentleman of Edinburgh"; the pronunciamento of the Rev. James Begg; the decisive proclamation of an Edinburgh newspaper; and the smaller and more modest announcement of the Free Church Magazine, with its accompanying lithograph. | | and Psalmanazar also had in theirs: the one, the interpolator of passages into Latin authors to prove Milton a plagiarist, and the other the inventor of the Formosan language and history. But there is clearly no fraudulent or deceptive motive in this affair of the Paraphrases. It is simply an error in judgment, a mistake of the imagination, a mere flight of the fancy-only Mr. Begg and his two supporters need not be so very decided and positive about it. The partics are That they have not The matter requires proof. bound to establish their case. yet even attempted to do. Mr. Begg's ipse dixit is considered quite enough to settle the question. But there are many persons in this our country of And "that's our case, my Lord." Dr. John- Scotland, besides the Rev. gentleman, to whom son admired "a good hater." We confess to hav- the handwriting of the poet of Scotland is familiar. ing predilections for any one who is a sturdy And there are a few alive, even at this day, who were doubter. "Prove all things" is a Scriptural familiar with the poet himself, and knew all his maxim. Well may the literary world pause and personal history. And yet to none of these, or to demand farther proof of the statement of altera- the generation that has intervened betwixt his tions of the Paraphrases, in the massy and mas-day and ours, did it ever occur that Burns had culine chirography of Burns himself, being extant, before such a statement can be implicitly believed. Old manuscripts, found in queerer places than the waste corner of a library" anything to do with the revision of the Paraphrases. None of his numerous biographers have ever come upon the trace of such a remarkable incident in his life, as this would have been, in the general massy outline, it bears no resemblance whatever to the handwriting of the bard, and is wanting in all the characteristics of his style. Connoisseurs in art have a sure method of detecting proper skill and genius in a painting submitted to their inspection. However showy and attractive may be the broad and general aspect of it-however grand and effective the full front view-if the minor details, the more minute touches, cannot stand the test of close investiga had it been true. Tradition makes no mention of it; and all the searching and seeking of some of the most indefatigable hunters after personal traits, anecdotes, and facts, that ever followed in the wake of one who had achieved for himself immortality-all the pickings and rakings of the chiffonniers of literature that ever puddled among the sweepings of an author's study, or the refuse heaped into "the waste corner of a library," or, ghost-like, have wandered up and down among the homes and haunts" of our poets and great mention, the picture is a failure, and the artist pro-to whom the merest scrap of gossip, the smallest nounced either inexperienced or unskilful. The possible crumb of biography, would be a perfect head and face of a portrait, for example, may be perGod-send-never stumbled on a discovery like fect and unexceptionable, while the fingers, or finger this. It remained for Mr. Begg, to eclipse Currie, nails even, may have been overlooked, as things Walker, Heron, Hamilton Paul, Peterkin, Lock-requiring no great care in the doing of them. A hart, Allan Cunningham, Cromek, Hogg, Mother-true master never leaves any portion of his work well, and a host of others, who had already told unfinished; but bestows even more attention on the world all that the world can now know the smaller minutiæ, the minor beauties of his proof Burns or his history. It seems strange ductions, than he does on the greater details. Let that his shrewd and strong-minded brother, our readers apply this test to the case in question; Gilbert, knew nothing of such a remarkable mat- and that they may be enabled to do so, we have ter as Burns's revision of the Paraphrases of our had lithographs done, of the portion of the paraNational Church, else he could not have failed phrases, lithographed in the Free Church Magato have put it on record, as he has done other zine, and of another authentic lithograph of Burns's things relating to the poet, not of such great im- unquestioned handwriting. portance; and that his widow, Jean Armour, with whom Mr. Begg was so well acquainted in Dumfries, and who "read much in her Bible," | never mentioned such a circumstance to the minister of her grandchild, on any of his frequent visits to her. Surely it could not have been concealed from her? Is it conceivable that, during the whole time that, as husband and wife, they must have sung these same Paraphrases together —either in Sabbath-evening worship, in the quietness of their own house, or sitting on the same seat in the parish church-he never should have even breathed to her a hint of his handiwork? It is equally strange that the sons of the poet, yet alive, never divulged a fact of so much interest in the literary history of their father. The first thing that strikes us in the fac simile of the pretended alterations by Burns on the old 35th paraphrase, (No. 48 of the collection now in use) given in the Free Church Magazine, and relithographed from it, in a separate leaf, is, that it has all the appearance of the writing of an old man, rather than of one in his early manhood. At the time the present version of the Paraphrases received the final sanction of the General Assembly, Burns was barely twenty-two; and even at that period, his handwriting was firmer and clearer than that represented by the fac simile. Let the reader compare it with the lithograph of the stanza of the Cotters' Saturday Night, given on the same page, and they will not fail to mark a mighty difference in the character and spirit— in the very idiosyncrasy, as we may say, of the two handwritings. Not only in the grouping but in the formation of the letters a difference is observable. The one, the paraphrase, has ap But in regard to the brown old manuscript volume itself, said to contain the veritable handwriting of Robert Burns, now revealed to the world like the unrolling of an Egyptian mummy, the world—the literary portion of it at least-parently been written by some person who wrote would require to know something of its history and genealogy, before even pronouncing on the authenticity of the handwriting itself. Where did it come from? In whose possession has it been all this undiscovered time? Disclose to us worthy "gentleman of Edinburgh," where you got it, and by what means it has lain so long unregarded among the lumber of your library? We wonder if it ever occurs to any one who sees and handles it, to turn it up to the light and examine its water mark and maker's name. Strange detections have been made ere now, 66 in the olden time," by such a very simple test. Granting, however, that it is all right in this particular, we come to the examination of the manuscript itself. What is alleged to be the handwriting of the poet, on close scrutiny, and comparison with his acknowledged genuine writings, will be found to be altogether unlike. Except slowly, and with no small degree of tremor; and it has about it an aged, dragged sort of look. The other has a freshness and vigour that are evidently the impress of a young, and strong, and confident hand. But to come to tracings. Contrast the Bs of the two writings. In the one, they are sharp and angular; in the other, open and rounded. Take the As. In the one, they are full and bold; in the other, narrow and stroky. The small ds in the one are, almost without exception, turned round; in the other, they are just as invariably written the other way. Then look at the letter i, as used in both. The one dispenses, in every instance but two, with the dot above; the other never misses it once. In the one, the s is always written short; in the other, it is just as invariably written long. There are numerous other discrepancies that cannot fail to be detected on close examination. But it needs not that we should individualise them farther; on this point, we have, | feared for his satirical powers, was not by any we think, supplied abundant data for enabling the reader to form a correct judgment for himself. It seems to be taken for granted that it was during the time of Burns's residence in Irvine that his amendments on the Paraphrases took place. "The little brown volume," it is said, "must have been submitted to him for revisal by some of his earlier clerical acquaintances; and the fact, that the poor over-toiled flax-dresser of twenty-two, should have been consulted in such a work, shows how high he must have stood in the estimate of the little circle in which he then moved." On June 1st, 1781, the present collection of the Paraphrases received the approval of the Assembly's Committee, and before the end of that year they were published as they now stand. It was only about that same month of June that Burns commenced business as a flax-dresser in Irvine, in partnership with another; and in six months thereafter, as he and some of his companions were making merry together, at the coming in of the new year, the shop took fire, and the poet was burnt out. It is quite clear that it was not at this particular period of his life that he could have had the opportunity of making the alterations. And nothing that we know of his previous history gives any countenance to the notion that any general or casual acquaintance, which he may have had with clergymen, could have led to his being consulted-in such a weighty matter as the emendations of the Paraphrases, then in preparation-at any anterior time. The whole thing is a magnificent hypothesis; one of those bold and grand conjectures which set people's wits a-woolgathering, and originate interminable controversy. The announcers of the discovery have failed, or rather they have not tried, to show that any of Burns's clerical friends -and that he numbered several clergymen among his acquaintances at that early period of his life is well enough known-held that prominent position in the Church which gave them any authority, to submit the revision of the Paraphrases, to this or that clever country lad, that they "permitted," as Lockhart significantly says they did Burns, "to mingle occasionally in their society." Far less have they shown that those clergymen, conjointly or severally, had ever “ 'consulted," that is, applied to, the poet on the subject at all. That is their weak point. They must get over that gutter in their way, before they proceed any farther. The rich plush cloak of Sir Walter Raleigh once stood both him and Queen Elizabeth in good stead, when he spread it over the mire to allow her Majesty to pass over dry-shod; but the foot-cloth of Plausibility, however richly laced or gairishly adorned, won't do here. The connecting link is wanting. It must be remembered, that at that time-the period before June, 1781, when the Paraphrases were finally approved by the Church-Burns, though known in his own obscure country circle, for his acuteness and originality, for "the depth of his discernment, the force of his expressions, and the authoritative energy of his understanding," and, in some quarters, nown. means known as a poet. His fame had not then "Now let our souls ascend above Now who shall dare to charge with guilt Or who is he that shall condemn, Since Christ the Saviour died? Then who can e'er divide us more, The passage supposed to be in the rendering of Burns, runs as follows: "The Lord Almighty is our friend, |