Blake did not possess the "sanity of true genius," but he did possess a rare and true poetic gift. Connected with Cowper in the work of liberating English poetry, but separated widely from him in life and still more in character, was Robert Burns. His story is well known. Born in 1759, in a claybuilt thatched cottage out on the rolling hills of Ayrshire, his life from the first was one of fierce struggle. But not without its alleviations. In the midst of all the hard work and the grinding poverty, the father still found time to do some little for the education of his children. And many an evening must have passed for the occupants of the tiny cottage, such as the poet afterwards described in The Cottar's Saturday Night. The elder Burns was a man of the sternest uprightness and independence; the whole family held "charity as poison and debt as sin." And his strong spirit was inherited by Robert, finding utterance in stalwart verses like those which declare that The rank is but the guinea stamp; So the early days in spite of their drawbacks had many compensating features. In 1774 the idea of becoming a poet seems to have struck the young man for the first time. He was working hard on the farm, which he held with his brother Gilbert after their father's death, and was keeping free of debt on seven pounds a year. His earliest verses were read to this brother, who praised them with true insight, and said they were "worthy of being printed." This faithful critic remembered in after life many a spot where Robert had given vent to his poetic impulse as they worked together in the field or at the plough. The strangest thing of all is that while Burns was engaged in the most wearing manual labor, struggling to preserve his independence, he should have produced such exquisite poetry as that which laments the hard lot of the field mouse Wee, sleekit, tim'rous, cow'rin beastie whose tiny nest his plough had ruined, or the sheep and the poor birds out o' doors in the winter weather. No hardship could sour the poet's tender heart. The brothers now organized a club in the neighboring village, to relax themselves after their toil, to promote sociability, and to improve their minds. By and by Burns's early poems became known through the country-side and he came into contact with a higher social grade. "The patronage of his betters" proved a bad thing. A genuine good fellow, he soon entered heartily into the spirit which was the raison d'être of the local clique that had taken him up. He indulged in the most personal satire for the gratification of this narrow coterie. In place of the fresh and wholesome strains of the moorland he made miserable local squibs of which the import has now evaporated and only the rancor remains. But he did other work of better worth. Holy Willie's Prayer is a very powerful bit of satire in which the typical hypocrite "stands before us in a blaze of infernal light." In striking contrast is The Cottar's Saturday Night. And in a quite different vein of humorous tender-heartedness is The Address to the De'il. Such opposition shows the range of Burns. But darker days were coming-the blackness before the dawn. The farm was a failure, and the poet, whose life had been wild of late, received no sympathy from the unco' guid of the neighborhood. He determined to emigrate to Jamaica and begin afresh. But first he must have money for the passage out. There was only one way to get it. At the suggestion of some friend, he took his poetry from the drawer of an old table in his bedroom and sent it off to be published. The edition appeared in 1786 at the little village of Kilmarnock-an edition of 600 copies, 350 of which were subscribed for. Burns received twenty pounds for his share of the profits and sent his chest to Greenock, where he was to embark. The embarkation never took place. Dr. Blacklock, of Edinburgh, a literary man of influence, wrote him suggesting a second edition of his poems, which were already very popular. Burns at once sought Auld Reekie. Here he was fêted and flattered by the society of the day-and a very intellectual society it was. He met all the celebrities, men and women, and charmed them by his eloquence and wit. The second edition, by the way, came out in 1787, and ran to nearly three thousand copies. Burns's one fear was that he should be intoxicated by the fame thus suddenly thrust upon him. He preserved his self-poise, however, in a remarkable manner-perhaps owing to the fact that he foresaw a time when the "popular tide which has borne me to a height of which I am perhaps unworthy, shall recede with silent celerity, and leave me a barren waste of sand, to descend at my leisure to my former station." In 1787 Burns left Edinburgh. He retired into rural life as he had anticipated, married, and settled in a village of Dumfriesshire. He also obtained a post in the Excise which gave him plenty of exercise and not a little excitement. Very fortunately, he resisted the advice of well-meaning critics who suggested that he give up his themes of lowly life told in braid Scots and turn to more "elevated " subjects; that he compose a tragedy or a didactic poem. True to the real leading of his genius he continued to write the exquisite verse which has carried his name over the whole world. Little remains to be said of his life. He was intensely interested in the French Revolution, doing and saying some things that ill-consorted with his position as a Government officer of His Britannic Majesty George III. He lived carelessly, and at last the hard conditions of existence, enhanced by the vagaries into |