ar, and describes simple
beauties of nature and the joys of country life. Cowper says:--

"God made the country, and man made the town."

To a public acquainted with the nature poetry of Burns, Wordsworth,
and Tennyson, Cowper's poem does not seem a wonderful production.
Appearing as it did, however, during the ascendancy of Pope's
influence, when aristocratic city life was the only theme for verse,
_The Task_ is a strikingly original work. It marks a change from the
artificial style of eighteenth century poetry and proclaims the dawn
of the natural style of the new school. He who could write of--

"...rills that slip
Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall
Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length
In matted grass, that with a livelier green
Betrays the secret of their silent course,"

was a worthy forerunner of Shelley and Keats.

General Characteristics.--Cowper's religious fervor was the
strongest element in both his life and his writings. Perhaps that
which next appealed to his nature was the pathetic. He had
considerable mastery of pathos, as may be seen in the drawing of
"crazed Kate" in _The Task_, in the lines _To Mary_, and in the
touchingly beautiful poem _On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out
of Norfolk_, beginning with that well-known line:--

"Oh that those lips had language!"

The two most attractive characteristics of his works are refined,
gentle humor and a simple and true manner of picturing rural scenes
and incidents. He says that he described no spot which he had not
seen, and expressed no emotion which he had not felt. In this way, he
restricted the range of his subjects and displayed a somewhat literal
mind; but what he had seen and felt he touched with a light fancy and
with considerable imaginative power.

ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796

[Illustration: ROBERT BURNS. _From the painting by Nasmyth, National
Portrait Gallery_.]

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF BURNS.]

Life.--The greatest of Scottish poets was born in a peasant's
clay-built cottage, a mile and a half south of Ayr. His father was a
man whose morality, industry, and zeal for education made him an
admirable parent. For a picture of his father and the home influences
under which the boy was reared, _The Cotter's Saturday Night_ should
be read. The poet had little formal schooling, but under paternal
influence he learned how to teach himself.

Until his twenty-eighth year, Rober