he seldom or never describes it for its own sake, but, like Homer and the Greek tragedians, subordinates Nature to the fortunes and passions of men and women. Therefore we do not find in his works the long, elaborate pictures of natural scenery by which Wordsworth, Byron, and Scott reveal their attitude towards Nature. To fully appreciate Burns's wonderful power of graphic description we have to gather together the many references to external Nature scattered through his songs and other poems. This power is perhaps most brilliantly manifested in single lines and even single words that illuminate the background of his poems with the vividness and startling suddenness of lightning flashes. There is a magic touch that defies critical analysis in his word-pictures of the "glen of green breckan wi' the burn stealing through the lang yellow broom," "that hour o' night's black arch the key-stane," the "moors red-brown wi' heather bells," "the histie stibble field," "the winter's sleety dribble and cranreuch cauld," the daisy "glinting forth amid the storm," the "glowrin' trout," the frost that "crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream," and "yellow Autumn wreathed with nodding corn." Burns prided himself most on his "manners-painting strain." We may say with truth, borrowing the strong metaphor of Bacon, that no lyrics ever written were more thoroughly drenched in the flesh and blood of human passion than those of Burns. Nevertheless in his poetry we find not only the life and character of his

countrymen and countrywomen, but in the background a perfect picture of the rural scenery of lowland Scotland executed with the loving fidelity of a native of the soil. Above all his other characteristics Burns was a patriotic Scotsman. He loved his country with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength. It is this that has made him so dear to his countrymen and a bond of union to them in every quarter of the globe. Although Scotsmen in pursuit of fame and fortune and higher objects travel far from the land where their forefathers sleep,

tamen istuc mens animusque

Fert et amat spatiis obstantia rumpere claustra.

In the poetry of Burns they find as true and vivid a picture of their native land as genius can produce through the witchery of verse. Its magic charm upon their minds is heightened by the fact that most of it is written not, as Scott's masterpieces of description are, in the "fine English" of England, but in "guid braid Scotch," that recalls to memory the voices of their mothers, nurses, and school-companions. Thus it is that the Scottish exile on the torrid plains of India or the icy gold-fields of Alaska cannot open his Burns without being immediately transported in imagination to the home of his childhood, and to the glen where perchance long ago as a barefooted child he "paidl'd i' the burn, and pu'd the gowans fine."

Art of Preserving Health, The, 172, 173 Cauldshields Loch, 93

Elegy in a Country Churchyard, 142, Hagley, 161

Henry VIII., 129; and Anne Boleyn, Lissoy, 178

Johnson, S., on Cooper's Hill, 127, 133; May Queen, The, 259