pped in her hair, the woman attempted to
tantalize him by revealing her promiscuous amours. In a horror of agony
and loathing, Marlowe broke away from her. The next day, as Nash was
loitering in a group including this woman and her lover, Archer, someone
ran in to warn Archer that a man was on his way to kill him. As Marlowe
strode into the place, Nash was struck afresh by his beauty:

I saw his face,
Pale, innocent, just the clear face of that boy
Who walked to Cambridge, with a bundle and stick,
The little cobbler's son. Yet--there I caught
My only glimpse of how the sun-god looked--

Mourning for his death, the great dramatists agree that

His were, perchance, the noblest steeds of all,
And from their nostrils blew a fierier dawn
Above the world.... Before his hand
Had learned to quell them, he was dashed to earth.

Minor writers are most impartial in clearing the names of any and all
historical artists by such reasoning as this. By negligible American
versifiers one too often finds Burns lauded as one whom "such purity
inspires," [Footnote: A. S. G., _Burns_.] and, more astonishingly,
Byron conceived of as a misjudged innocent. If one is surprised to hear,
in verse on Byron's death,

His cherub soul has passed to its eclipse,
[Footnote: T. H. Chivers, _On the Death of Byron_.]

this fades into insignificance beside the consolation offered Byron by
another writer for his trials in this world,

Peace awaits thee with caressings,
Sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Better known poets are likely to admit a streak of imperfection in a few
of their number, while maintaining their essential goodness. It is
refreshing, after witnessing too much whitewashing of Burns, to find
James Russell Lowell bringing Burns down to a level where the attacks of
philistines, though unwarranted, are not sacrilegious. Lowell imagines
Holy Willie trying to shut Burns out of heaven. He accuses Burns first
of irreligion, but St. Paul protests against his exclusion on that
ground. At the charges of drunkenness, and of yearning "o'er-warmly
toward the lasses," Noah and David come severally to his defense. In the
end, Burns' great charity is felt to offset all his failings, and Lowell
adds, of poets in general,

These larger hearts must feel the rolls
Of stormier-waved temptation;
These star-wide souls beneath their poles
Bear zones of tropic passion.
[Footnote: _At the Burns Centennial_.]

Browning is w