he first consideration; to this his scenery is but the setting and
background. He is never carried away by the force or beauty of his
drawing as a smaller artist might have been. The picture is given with
simple conciseness, and he leaves it; nor does he ever attempt to
elaborate a detail into a separate poem. The description of the burn in
_Hallowe'en_ is most beautiful in itself, yet it is but a detail in a
great picture--

'Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
As thro' the glen it wimpl't;
Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;
Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,
Wi' bickerin', dancin' dazzle;
Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
Below the spreading hazel,
Unseen that night.'

That surely is the perfection of description; whilst the wimple of the
burn is echoed in the music of the verse!

Allied to the clearness of vision and truthfulness of presentment of
Burns, growing out of them it may be, is that graphic power in which he
stands unexcelled. He is a great artist, and word-painting is not the
least of his many gifts. He combines terseness and lucidity, which is a
rare combination in letters; his phrasing is as beautiful and fine as it
is forcible, which is a distinction rarer still. Hundreds of examples of
his pregnant phrasing might be cited, but it is best to see them in the
poems. Many have become everyday expressions, and have passed into the
proverbs of the country.

Another of Burns's gifts was the saving grace of humour. This, of
course, is not altogether a quality distinct in itself, but rather a
particular mode in which love or tenderness or pity may manifest
itself. This humour is ever glinting forth from his writings. Some of
his poems--_The Farmer's Address to his Auld Mare_, for example--are
simply bathed in it, and we see the subject glowing in its light, soft
and tremulous, as of an autumn sunset. In others, again, it flashes and
sparkles, more sportive than tender. But, however it manifest itself, we
recognise at once that it has a character of its own, which marks it off
from the humour of any other writer; it is a peculiar possession of
Burns.

Perhaps the poem in which all Burns's poetic qualities are seen at their
best is _The Jolly Beggars_. The subject may be low and the materials
coarse, but that only makes the finished poem a more glorious
achievement. For the poem is a unity. We see those vagabo