THE FIRST PSALM.

THE man, in life wherever plac'd,

Hath happiness in store,

Who walks not in the wicked's way, Nor learns their guilty lore!

Nor from the seat of scornful pride
Casts forth his eyes abroad,
But with humility and awe

Still walks before his GOD.

That man shall flourish like the trees Which by the streamlets grow; The fruitful top is spread on high,

And firm the root below.

But he whose blossoms buds in guilt
Shall to the ground be cast,
And, like the rootless stubble, tost
Before the sweeping blast.

For why? that God the good adore
Hath giv'n them peace and rest,
But hath decreed that wicked men
Shall ne'er be truly blest.

I am not one of those who think Burns so happy in his sacred as in his ordinary poetry. Any one who compares his First Psalm" with the common version of Scotland will feel that in simplicity the sacred minstrel of the days of the Stuarts surpasses the Poet of Kyle. The latter is cold and tame in comparison. The verse describing the good man and the wicked man dwells on many northern memories:

"He shall be like a tree that grows

Near planted by a river,

Which in his season yields his fruit,
And his leaf fadeth never :

And all he doth shall prosper well;
The wicked are not so,

But like they are unto the chaff

Which wind drives to an fro."

A new version of the Psalms has long been talked of in Scotland; but the General Assembly must proceed warily in the matter. Some of the Psalms are exquisite compositions. I shall instance but the eighth psalm : with a slight blemish in one or two lines, it is perfect :it is Thomson's Seasons in little. The want of elegance which I have heard complained of is but a poor reason for throwing into oblivion a vast body of verse which abounds with such simplicity of language, such sincerity of expression, and wears such an old world air, as no living bards with all their harmony and polish can equal. Besides, they carry upon them the stamp of pure days and holy hands, and have the advantage of being venerable.

THE FIRST SIX VERSES

OF THE

NINETIETH PSALM.

O THOU, the first, the greatest friend

Of all the human race!

Whose strong right hand has ever been
Their stay and dwelling place!

Before the mountains heav'd their heads Beneath Thy forming hand,

Before this ponderous globe itself

Arose at Thy command;

That Pow'r which rais'd and still upholds

This universal frame,

From countless, unbeginning time

Was ever still the same.

Those mighty periods of years

Which seem to us so vast,

Appear no more before Thy sight

Than yesterday that's past.

Thou giv'st the word: Thy creature, man,

Is to existence brought;

Again Thou say'st, "Ye sons of men,

Return ye into nought!"

Thou layest them with all their cares,
In everlasting sleep;

As with a flood Thou tak'st them off
With overwhelming sweep.

They flourish like the morning flow'r,
In beauty's pride array'd;

But long ere night, cut down, it lies
All wither'd and decay'd.

The ninetieth psalm-the Scottish version-is said to have been a favourite in the household of William Burness. Though not so happily versified as others of the sacred lyrics, it contains beautiful verses, and touches, with no little feeling, on the life and age of man :—

"Our sins thou and iniquities
Dost in thy presence place,

And set'st our secret faults before
The brightness of thy face;
For in thine anger all our days

Do pass on to an end,

And, as a tale that hath been told,
So we our years do spend.

"Three score and ten years do sum up
Our days and years, we see ;
Or if, by reason of more strength,
In some fourscore they be,

Yet doth the strength of snch old men

But grief and labour prove;

For it is soon cut off, and we

Fly hence and soon remove."

To devotional verse the mind of Burns was directed early the reading of the Bible at school was sufficient for this; but there were other impulses.—“The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in," he writes to Dr. Moore, was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, beginning

How are thy servants blest O Lord!'

I particularly remember one half-stanza, which was music to my boyish ear :

"For though on dreadful whirls we hung,

High on the broken wave."

I met with these lines in Mason's English Collection, one of my school-books."

It is related in our Scottish legends that a wayfaring Irishman took shelter, one stormy night, in a farmer's house, just as the household struck up the ninetieth psalm, some say the hundred and nineteenth-in family worship. The stranger, ignorant of the devotional turn of his host, imagined the psalm to be a song in honour of his coming-in short, a welcome. He sat and heard it to an end, and then said, "Merry be your heart, goodman: that's a long song, and a good song; and, by way of requital, I shall give you a touch of Brian O'Linn."