ing
his pages we feel ourselves more decidedly in the presence of one who joys
with those who rejoice and mourns with those who mourn. He is never
shallow, ever plain, and the expression of his feeling is so terse that it
is always memorable. Of the people he speaks more directly for the people
than any of our more considerable poets. Chaucer has a perfect hold of the
homeliest phases of life, but he wants the lyric element, and the charm of
his language has largely faded from untutored ears. Shakespeare, indeed,
has at once a loftier vision and a wider grasp; for he sings of "Thebes and
Pelops line," of Agincourt and Philippi, as of Falstaff, and Snug the
joiner, and the "meanest flower that blows." But not even Shakespeare has
put more thought into poetry which the most prosaic must appreciate than
Burns has done. The latter moves in a narrower sphere and wants the
strictly dramatic faculty, but its place is partly supplied by the
vividness of his narrative. His realization of incident and character is
manifested in the sketches in which the manners and prevailing fancies of
his countrymen are immortalized in connexion with local scenery. Among
those almost every variety of disposition finds its favourite. The quiet
households of the kingdom have received a sort of apotheosis in the
"Cottar's Saturday Night." It has been objected that the subject does not
afford scope for the more daring forms of the author's genius; but had he
written no other poem, this heartful rendering of a good week's close in a
God-fearing home, sincerely devout, and yet relieved from all suspicion of
sermonizing by its humorous touches, would have secured a permanent place
in literature. It transcends Thomson and Beattie at their best, and will
smell sweet like the actions of the just for generations to come.

Lovers of rustic festivity may hold that the poet's greatest performance is
his narrative of "Halloween," which for easy vigour, fulness of rollicking
life, blended truth and fancy, is unsurpassed in its kind. Campbell,
Wilson, Hazlitt, Montgomery, Burns himself, and the majority of his
critics, have [v.04 p.0859] recorded their preference for "Tam o' Shanter,"
where the weird superstitious element that has played so great a part in
the imaginative work of this part of our island is brought more prominently
forward. Few passages of description are finer than that of the roaring
Doon and Alloway Kirk glimmering through the groaning trees; b