into an open grave one day while walking in St. Pancras's
Churchyard. The Angells, touched with his poverty and distress, kindly
offered him food, which, except in one instance, he declined. One
night after sitting with the family, apparently given over to
despondency, he took affectionate leave of his hostess and the next
morning was found dead from a dose of arsenic.

It was singular that the Rowlie writings were so far superior to his
productions in modern English. The latter were commonplace, the former
indicative of much genius. Indeed, one of the strongest evidences
against their genuineness was the moral impossibility of their
production in the age to which he assigned them. The imitation was as
pathetic as it was audacious, attempted thus in honor of a model that
never had existed.

[Signature of the author.]

ROBERT BURNS[8]

[Footnote 8: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By WILL CARLETON

(1759-1796)

[Illustration: Robert Burns.]

Robert Burns, the great lyric poet of Scotland, was born January 25,
1759, near the sea coast town of Ayr. His father, William Burness, had
all he could do to support a family of children, of whom Robert was
the eldest. The boy soon became a stalwart toiler and could turn a
furrow and reap a swath with the best of his comrades; but his mind
meanwhile grasped strongly and passionately all the literature to
which it could get access. This was limited in extent; the books in
his father's humble cottage were very few. He devoured, besides,
everything in prose and verse that he could buy or borrow; and there
were soon aroused in him all the longings of repressed genius and
unemployed ambition.

Many of Burns's poems have had music set to them; but he began his
rhythmical career by fitting poetry to music. A girl friend often
worked beside him in the fields, as was the custom in that locality.
She was a beautiful songstress, or at least seemed so to the untutored
peasant-boy, and Robert soon learned to put new words to many of her
tunes, not forgetting to include in them due commendations of the
young lady herself. These efforts naturally received more or less
applause; and the youth found his mind more and more drawn toward
poetic effort.

His first few years seem to have been spent in a half-happy,
half-careless boyhood; in them he had all the experiences of a poor
but healthy Scotch peasant-lad, toiling in the fields, catching now
and then a few weeks o