Goldsmith's humor from the same work. A comparison of the style of the "Vicar of Wakefield" and that of "Rasselas," Painter's "Guide to Literary Criticism." "The Deserted Village" is given among the selections of Part II. Engraved by Wutem Walker and Samuel Cousins, from the painting by Alexander Nasmyth done in 1787. Roobert Вито ROBERT BURNS. 307. Poetic Genius.- The greatest poet of Scotland and the best song writer of the world—such is but a moderate estimate of Burns. Scarcely any one will be found to claim less, and some to claim more. A careful study of his writings, in connection with the unfavorable circumstances of his life, impresses us with his extraordinary genius. He was the greatest poetic genius produced by Great Britain in the eighteenth century. A peculiar interest attaches to him. His great natural gifts were hampered by poverty and manual toil, and enslaved by evil habits, so that he accomplished only a small part of what was possible for him. 308. A Tragic Life. His life was a tragedy - a proud and powerful mind overcome at length in the hard struggle of life. The catastrophe was unspeakably sad; yet-let not our admiration of his gifts blind our judgment Burns himself, and not an unkind destiny, was chiefly to blame. Genius has no exemption from the ordinary rules of morality. If he had. abstained from drunken carousals and illicit amours, his life might have been crowned with beauty and honor. No doubt, as is often charitably said, he had strong passions and severe temptations; but these he ought to have resisted; for, as Carlyle says, "Nature fashions no creature without implanting in it the strength needful for its action and duration; least of all does she so neglect her masterpiece and darling, the poetic soul." 309. Youthful Years. Robert Burns was born in a claybuilt cottage two miles from the town of Ayr in 1759. His father was a man of strict integrity and deep piety. We have an imperishable portrait of him in "The Cotter's Saturday Night." His early years were spent on a small unfruitful farm in poverty and toil. His strength was overtaxed, his shoulders became stooped, and his nervous system was weak "the ened. He afterward spoke of this period as combining cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing moil of a galley slave." Yet this hardship was not without some relief. His humble home was sweetened with kindness and love; and the future poet was taught, first in school and afterward by his father, the elements of learning. His mind was enlarged, and his taste refined by works of the highest merit. His early reading included the Spectator, Shakespeare, Pope, and Locke's "Human Understanding." 310. Love's Spell.-In his fifteenth year his genius was awakened under the sweet spell of love. "You know," he says, our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labors of harvest. In my fifteenth summer my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language; but you know the Scottish idiom. She was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. In short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me into that delicious passion which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys here below." The first offspring of his muse was entitled "Handsome Nell," which, though he afterward spoke of it as puerile, still contains a touch of that charming simplicity of thought and expression which characterizes so much of his poetry. Is not this stanza delightful?— "She dresses aye sae clean and neat, Baith decent and genteel, And then there's something in her gait 311. Cupid's Captive. At the age of nineteen he went to Kirkoswald to study mensuration and surveying. It turned out to be a bad move. The town was frequented by smugglers and adventurers; and Burns was introduced into scenes of what he calls "swaggering riot and roaring dissipation." He worked 1 Makes. |