which his fiery temperament led him, broke down his rugged frame. He died in 1796. Scotland has had many great sons, but perhaps no one who has been so universally beloved.

The reason for this love lies not in anything beautiful or admirable in the man's life; it is due to the wonderful humanity of his poems. And if we look further we shall see that another reason is in what the poet did for Scotland. He revealed his mother country to the world. Before Burns, Scotland had occupied a very lowly place in the estimation of England and the rest of Europe. When she was thought of at all it was as a land of barren highlands and harsh climate, "of sour fanatics, of penurious misers, of mean bowing and scraping.

A country which its sons forsook as soon as possible." We know how that opinion has altered. And Burns was the one who brought about the change. He opened to the world's gaze the true peace and strength and beauty of the hardy Scotch life. He embodied in his singing the essential qualities of his country, and in doing so struck a note that found an echo in every heart. His verse has the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. The following, for example, is typically Scotch, yet to whom does it not bring the tenderest memories?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to min'?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' auld lang syne?

D

the conventional eighteenth century. A line or two may be given from Tam:

Ae market night,

Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter;
And ay the ale was growing better;
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favors, secret, sweet, and precious.
The Souter tauld his queerest stories,
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whustle.

Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.

By and by Tam goes forth on his homeward way with his good mare Maggie.

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling show'rs rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd;
Loud, deep and lang the thunder bellow'd:
That night, a child might understand,
The De'il had business on his hand.

Sure enough, after a little, Tam and Maggie come upon a gruesome rendezvous.

Tam saw an unco sight!

Warlocks and witches in a dance;

Nae cotillion brent new frae France,

But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and reels,
Put life and mettle i' their heels.

A winnock-bunker i' the east,

There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;

A towzie tyke, black, grim and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screwed the pipes, and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.—

Coffins stood round like open presses,

That shawed the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantraip slight

Each in its cauld hand held a light.

And what befell thereafter must be read in the poem itself.

Wine, Woman, and Song-in a sense they may be said to sum up Burns's life. His was the illbalanced temperament which so often marks the poet. How much of its ultimate effect would have been avoided had he never gone to Edinburgh, never tasted the hospitality that "kicks a man down with strong drink," it is idle to conjecture. Life is a gift to each man to use as he will; if Burns made not the best use of his, he at least left a legacy which has done as much good as many a saintly example: the legacy of matchless song.

Burns was as great a contrast to Cowper as could well be imagined. They never met, though it is interesting to note that they knew each other's work; Cowper thought Burns's poetry "an extraor dinary production," while Burns called the Task "a glorious poem." But they had a similar influence. "The one in his blue bonnet, the other in

his invalid night-cap, they stand at the great gates which had been neatly barred and bolted by the last generation, and, pushing them slowly upon their unwilling hinges, made English poetry free as it had been before." They did away with that tedious thing called "The Muse" which had been the bane of the past hundred years and which meant bondage in the chains of false classicism. Henceforth the poet could see things as they were, could have his eye on the object itself, and not on some conventional representation of it, according to the demands of the "best models." The bondage was broken at last; gods and goddesses, nymphs, shepherds and shepherdesses, all the artificial train, were cast out of doors; if we do see them again, it is only indistinctly. Crabbe and Blake helped in the good work, the one by his stern realism, the other by his exquisite and original lyrics--but the former two made the chief influence for change. And thus it is that at the close of the eighteenth century we place the beginning of nineteenth century literature in England.

CHAPTER III.

POETRY: THE LAKE POETS.

THE LIGHT OF NINETEENTH CENTURY VERSE.-THE LAKE POETS.-WORDSWORTH: HIS LIFE AND HIS ART.- COLERIDGE, POET AND MYSTIC.-SOUTHEY.-SCOTT AS A MINSTREL.-LANDOR.

It may be well to mention here that the grouping which is followed in these chapters must not be pushed too far. While the various divisions are perfectly just, and afford a clear view of the course of events, there is always a certain amount of overlapping. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey were contemporaries of Keats and Byron and many others whose work will come later, and they all reacted upon each other to a greater or less degree. But each chapter will be found to touch a condition or a literary department which stands by itself to a certain extent and the individuality of which gives it a claim to special treatment.

We now enter on the most brilliant period of English literature in the nineteenth century. The best of the work considered in this chapter and the next has touched a point of excellence which has seldom been equalled, and surpassed only once or