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 ROSEBERY

ROBERT BURNS 1

(1896)

Born in 1847; educated at Oxford; succeeded to the Earldom in 1868; Under-Secretary of State in 1881; first Commissioner of Works in 1884; Foreign Secretary in 1886 and again in 1892; Prime Minister in 1894.

It is, it must be, a source of joy and pride to see our champion Scotsman receive the honor and admiration and affection of humanity; to see as I have seen this morning the long proces- sions bringing homage and tribute to the con- quering dead. But these have only been signs and symptoms of world-wide reverence and devo- tion. That generous and immortal soul pervades the universe to-day. In the humming city and in the crowd of men, in the backwoods and in the swamp, where the sentinel paces the black fron- tier or the sailor smokes the evening pipe, or where, above all, the farmer and his men pursue their summer toil, whether under the Stars and Stripes or under the Union Jack, the thought and sympathy of men are directed to Eobert Burns.

I have sometimes asked myself, if a roll-call of fame were read over at the beginning of every

1 From an address in the St. Andrew's Hall, Glasgow, on July 21, 1896, on the occasion of the Burns Centenary celebration. 174

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