Peking's Ho yur to Ploughman Pos Dr. Yen's Address and Interesting Comparisons Peking, Jan, 26.
VW. Yon was a guest rin celebration of the rthday. of Robert Burns given by. the St, Andrew's Society, of Poking on Friday evening at. the Grand, Hotel do. Pekin, Dr. Yen, proposing the toast of
fa great privilege to join you consider ovening to do honour " to the Memory. of your national poet, Robert Burns, At the same time I see no particular reason why I should be asked to say anything, except perhaps for the fact that ho is the ploughman poet of Scotland and. that T happen. to the Minister of Agriculture of Chins.
By profession diplomat, and speaking as T do to. Scotsmen, noted for their cautiousness. in speech, Tam reminded of the visit of Condueits to the Ancestral Temple of the Chow Dynasty. There he sav in the courtyard of the temple m golden statue with ita mouth sewn up with w triple stitch, Confucius wis asked by his disciple. to explain its mean 1g and the Sage responded by saying that the statue represent any ancient personage who was och. T think myself wie too Vague in his reply. 1 should have replied that the status represented aanefont diplomat, or some un: Known Scotsman, TWO OTTER PORTS, It is not my intention to recall to you the ups and. downs, the Tights and shadows, in the lite of your ploughman pact. You know the details much better than I do, but ina way his snd and jointed carver, and the extraor-Ainnry range, of his, poem from the. noble "Cotter's Saturday Migad to the rant and, two other pocts, The one lived ithe Jolly Beggars" remind us 0
nnd died in the United States. Ho was in fact an alumnus of tine tpiversity where T happens tg, ntady, ead nome is Baar cam jo "the Raven." The other 4 whose beat known
fired in China. in the Dynasty, and of him itis. sai that, he' was without dauby the greatest of Chinese lyric poste.
also was fond of deep pansion, of fear and pathos. He loved aiuick, transitions "ami ome touch enough for one. the clit. Tike Harms, he collected old songx and Ppocme and infused. them with, the Fire of hig own seen ins. "That man in Ti Taipo, whose works are Knovin to out women and ehiktven, you ask what think is the roancn of your love. and. admiral Von for nons, 1 will tell you it beennie he has' Scotielznd!" ootry. Te is, as it were, the Tomigod-prophet. priest and king. of Seotlaid, the Seatsman she fore than any other man of men knits together at the—present moment Scotemen all over the lobe, and may prolong and i tensify for ages the nationalizing work in which the Battle of Bannockburn and the anti-prolatienl vefcrmation under Knox. wore en) may be, hardly so powerfal. coefficients a word, Hume is. to. countrymen "and countrywome than ta thew ole world. if a express ism may be coined, and cine per cent, Scotsman, rim stose MvMAN Por, To the rest of the world Burns appears pre-eminiontly as the most human post, Many others may surpass him in their love and portrayal of nature and in their devotion to her. but he seems to stand by himself as the author of so many singable or declaimable Songs wherein we find an tnalloysincerity, and an" intense sympathy so vivid and intimate as to pass continually' into the domain of imagination and. give orth imaginative results and potencies.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.