ion and applause, as when _Repeal_ was the cry, and the
Irish were firing their minds by remembering "the glories of Brian the
Brave;" that Brian Boroimhe who died in the eleventh century, after
defeating the Danes in twenty-five battles.

Moore's _Biographies_, with all their faults, are important social
histories. _Lalla Rookh_ has a double historical significance: it is a
reflection--like _Anastasius_ and _Vathek_, like _Thalaba_ and _The Curse
of Kehama_, like _The Giaour_ and _The Bride of Abydos_--of English
conquest, travel, and adventure in the East. It is so true to nature in
oriental descriptions and allusions, that one traveller declared that to
read it was like riding on a camel; but it is far more important to
observe that the relative conditions of England and the Irish Roman
Catholics are symbolized in the Moslem rule over the Ghebers, as
delineated in _The Fire Worshippers_. In his preface to that poem, Moore
himself says: "The cause of tolerance was again my inspiring theme; and
the spirit that had spoken in the melodies of Ireland soon found itself at
home in the East."

In an historic view of English Literature, the works of Moore, touching
almost every subject, must always be of great value to the student of his
period: there he will always have his prominent place. But he is already
losing his niche in public favor as a poet proper; better taste, purer
morals, truer heart-songs, and more practical views will steadily supplant
him, until, with no power to influence the present, he shall stand only as
a charming relic of the past.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY (CONTINUED).

Robert Burns. His Poems. His Career. George Crabbe. Thomas Campbell.
Samuel Rogers. P. B. Shelley. John Keats. Other Writers.

ROBERT BURNS.

If Moore was, in the opinion of his age, an Irish prodigy, Burns is, for
all time, a Scottish marvel. The one was polished and musical, but
artificial and insidiously immoral; the other homely and simple, but
powerful and effective to men of all classes in society. The one was the
poet of the aristocracy; the other the genius whose sympathies were with
the poor. One was most at home in the palaces of the great; and the other,
in the rude Ayrshire cottage, or in the little sitting-room of the
landlord in company with Souter John and Tam O'Shanter. As to most of his
poems, Burns was really of no distinct school, but seems to stand alone,
the creature of ci