lyrical melody by whatever was good and beautiful in nature. Not a bird sang in a bush, nor a burn glanced in the sun, but it was eloquence and music to his ear." "The arch humor, gaiety, simplicity, and genuine feeling of his original song, will be felt as long as 'rivers roll and woods are green.' They breathe the natural character and spirit of the country. . ... Wherever the words are chanted, a picture is presented to the mind; and whether the tone be plaintive and sad, or joyous and exciting, one overpowering feeling takes possession of the imagination. The susceptibility of the poet inspired him with real emotions and passions, and his genius reproduced them with the glowing warmth and truth of nature." "No poet is more picturesque in expression. This was the result equally of accurate observation, careful study, and strong feeling. His energy and truth stamp the highest value on his writings."- Chambers.

Of Burns, Mr. Taine says, "At last, after so many years, we escape from measured declamation, we hear a man's voice, and what is better still, we forget the voice in the emotion which it expresses, we feel this emotion reflected in ourselves, we enter into relations with the soul."

Such words of praise seem extravagant, yet they are undoubtedly sincere. Burns, at his best, is a charming poet. Morley says of him that Nature made him greatest among lyric poets. Such of his poems as "The Cotter's Saturday Night," "The Mountain Daisy," "The Mouse's Nest," and others that might be named, claim the unhesitating admiration of all who can appreciate true poetic sentiment. Some of his poems are less happy in their subjects, and less chaste in their allusions.

The

irregularity of the poet's character and course in life cannot but sadden the hearts even of those who delight in his poetry. A man who was less susceptible to every influence and whose passions were less intense might have resisted the temptations which overcame Burns, but he could never have put into words such exquisite delicacy of sentiment and feeling. Burns had a noble, generous spirit, and sincerely mourned his own lapses in conduct. In one of his letters he says,

I have been this morning taking a peep through, as Young says, “the dark postern of time long elapsed;" and you will easily guess 't was a rueful prospect: what a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakness, and folly! My life reminded me of a ruined temple; what strength, what proportion, in some parts, what unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruins, in others. I kneeled down before the Father of Mercies, and said: "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." I rose eased and strengthened. I despise the superstition of a fanatic, but I love the religion of a man.

In another letter he comments upon the peculiar impressions made upon sensitive minds by some ordinary scenes in nature. In speaking of himself, he says,

I have some favorite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild brier-rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plovers in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the Æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I

own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities, a God that made all things, . . and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave.

97. Fiction-Writers. The leading fiction-writers of the century were Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne, Tobias George Smollet, and Henry Fielding. Defoe has already been noticed. Although they were eagerly devoured a century and a half ago, there are now but few who would care to take time to readCaptain Singleton," "Clarissa Harlowe," "Tom Jones, "Humphrey Clinker," or "Tristram Shandy.' But the writings of these men have a value in that they enable one who is studying the progress of civilization to understand the manners and customs which then prevailed in the middle and lower ranks of society, — classes which the historian too often overlooks. There were in these fictions many touches of genius, some true character-painting, and many genuine croppings-out of those peculiarities of human nature that are much the same in all ages of the world. It is also true that these authors aided in giving language a more easy and natural flow.

With all due credit to their genius, and their usefulness in their day; it must be said that, for the most part, they keep their readers too much in the company of coarse characters, seeming to forget that "Evil communications corrupt good manners." At present they are interesting to those only who wish to study them as waymarks in the development of our literature.