ported, gradually
gained the upper hand in the Kirk, and, upholding as it did the system
of patronage, became more and more associated with the aristocracy who
bestowed the livings. The result was that the moderate clergy
degenerated under prosperity and lost their spiritual zeal; while
their opponents, chastened by adversity, became the champions of the
autonomy of the church, and, in the "ten years' conflict" that broke
out little more than a generation after the death of Burns, showed
themselves of the stuff of the martyrs. It would be impossible to
trace the extent of the influence of the poet on the purging of
orthodoxy or on the limitation of ecclesiastical despotism, since his
work was in accord with the drift of the times; but it is fair to
infer that, especially among the common people who were less likely to
be reached by more philosophical discussion, his share was far from
inconsiderable.

The poetical value of the satires is another matter. It may be
questioned whether satire is ever essentially poetry, as poetry has
been understood for the last hundred years. The dominant mood of
satire is too antagonistic to imagination. But if we restrict our
attention to the characteristic qualities of verse satire--vividness
in depicting its object, blazing indignation or bitter scorn in its
attitude, and wit in its expression, we shall be forced to grant that
Burns achieved here notable success. Of the rarer power of satire to
rise above the local, temporal, and personal to the exhibiting of
universal elements in human life, there are comparatively few
instances in Burns. The _Address to the Unco Guid_ is perhaps the
finest example; and here, as usually in his work, the approach to the
general leads him to drop the scourge for the sermon.

In his tendency to preach, Burns was as much the inheritor of a
national tradition as in any of his other characteristics. A strain of
moralizing is well marked in the Scottish poets even before the
Reformation, and, since the time of Burns, the preaching Scot has been
notably exemplified not only in a professed prophet like Carlyle, but
in so artistic a temperament as Stevenson. Nor did consciousness of
his failures in practise embarrass Burns in the indulgence of the
luxury of precept. Side by side with frank confessions of weakness we
find earnest if not stern exhortations to do, not as he did, but as he
taught. And as Scots have an appetite for hearing as well as for
making s