iality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry
of Burns.

By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenth
century, and has little importance for us.

'Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes,
Rousing elate in these degenerate times;
View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,
As guileful Fraud points out the erring way;
While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue
The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong!'

Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would have
disappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda's love-poet, Sylvander, the real
Burns either. But he tells us himself: 'These English songs gravel me
to death. I have not the command of the language that I have of my
native tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in
English than in Scotch. I have been at _Duncan Gray_ to dress it in
English, but all I can do is desperately stupid.' We English turn
naturally, in Burns, to the poems in our own language, because we can
read them easily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns.

The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say
that of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch
drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is
apt to be personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink,
Scotch religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he
meets its poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the
_Holy Fair_ or _Halloween_. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch
religion, and Scotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is
not a partial countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a
beautiful world, and no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet
to deal with a beautiful world. Burns's world of Scotch drink, Scotch
religion, and Scotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive
world: even the world of his _Cotter's Saturday Night_ is not a
beautiful world. No doubt a poet's criticism of life may have such
truth and power that it triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns
may triumph over his world, often he does triumph over his world, but
let us observe how and where. Burns is the first case we have had
where the bias of the personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look
at him closely, he can bear it.

Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convivial,
genuine, delightful, here--

'Leeze me