"Tam o'Shanter" is, perhaps, his finest effort as a humorist. The fiery haste of Tam's flight when followed by the witches "Wi' monie an eldritch skreech and hollow" is scarcely exceeded by the speed with which this wonderful poem was written. Burns composed it in one day, and in such a state of ecstasy that the tears were "happing down his cheeks." It was, he considered, his greatest poem, and the best critics have confirmed the judgment. Here we must part from Burns, and can we do so better than in the words of a yet greater poet, who had hailed his light "when first it shone," and in more than one noble poem has done honour to his memory? Through busiest street and loneliest glen He rules 'mid winter snows, and when Bees fill their hives; Deep in the general heart of men "Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven "But why to Him confine the prayer, When kindred thoughts and yearnings beat On the frail heart the purest share The best of what we do and are, Just God, forgive!" (Wordsworth.) Pro [Lockhart's life of Burns is a beautiful piece of biography. fessor Shairp has written a judicious narrative of the poet's life in "English Men of Letters ”—too judicious and impartial to suit some of his admirers. In the third volume of Professor Wilson's "Critical and Imaginative Essays," one will be found worthy of the writer on "The Genius and Character of Burns," and another on a still higher level is to be found in Carlyle's "Miscellaneous Essays." Do not fail to read this paper. It is written in vigorous, eloquent English, and is without any mark of the author's later style. There is a cheap Globe edition of Burns, edited by the late Alexander Smith.] CHAPTER XIII. POETS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. William 1770-1850. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. MR. JOHN STUART MILL made an unfortunate statement when he called Wordsworth "the Wordsworth, poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes." On the contrary, we should be inclined to say that Wordsworth makes larger demands on a man's capacity for receiving the highest poetic truth than any poet of this century. He never meets his readers half-way, makes no attempt to allure them to his side, but is content to sow his poetic seed, and, like the farmer, to leave its growth and fruit to the influences of nature. William Wordsworth, the second son of John Wordsworth, an attorney, was born at Cocker-. mouth, in Cumberland, on April 7, 1770. His mother died when the child was eight years old, active part in and his father when he was thirteen. Thus it will be seen that neither parent took an moulding the character of their son. Of his school days at Hawkesworth, an interesting account is given in the "Prelude." If ever "the child is father of the man" it was so in Wordsworth's case, and while still a boy he received joyously, but unconsciously, the lessons taught by the common face of nature. The simple ways, he tells us, in which his childhood walked, first led him to the love of rivers, woods, and fields. The vivid impressions of those happy days were never lost. From school, thanks to the kindness of two good uncles, he went up to St. John's, Cambridge, where he does not seem to have made much progress in the special studies of the place. A vacation spent in a walking tour through Switzerland, an enterprise quite unusual in those days, marked a characteristic in Wordsworth which continued through life. De Quincey calculates that long before the close of it he had walked nearly two hundred thousand miles. He had more faith in his legs than in a carriage, and not without justice, for he knew nothing of horses; and his sister relates how, upon having to unharness one from a cart, he was unable—and Coleridge was in the same dilemma-to lift the collar over the horse's neck. Wordsworth took his degree at Cambridge, without honours, in 1791, and after a delay of some months went to France, spending the greater portion of a year at Orleans and Blois. The fever of the times infected the youthful poet as it infected Coleridge and Southey. He trusted in the Revolution to regenerate society, not having yet learned that by the soul only can a nation be great and free. The massacres of October, 1792, dismayed him; but he would have offered his services as a leader of the Girondist party had not the want of money brought him back to England "Forced by the gracious providence of Heaven." With defeated hopes and a loss of faith in human nature, Wordsworth fell into a sea of doubt, and was tempted, as he tells us, to yield up moral questions in despair. His sister Dorothy came at this time like a guardian angel, and her influence saved him, keeping him "True to the kindred points of heaven and home.” The entire sympathy of taste between William and Dorothy, the warmth and constancy of their affection, what cach did for the other, the poems Dorothy inspired, the love William gave her in return, all this must be read at large, and can only be alluded to here. In 1795, Wordsworth, then twenty-five years old, had neither profession nor prospects. Early in the year his friend Raisley Calvert died, leaving the poet, who had already published a small volume, a legacy of £900. This sum, coming thus opportunely, enabled Wordsworth to devote himself to poetry as his life's work. Some years afterwards he wrote: "Upon the interest of the £900, £400 being laid out in annuity, with £200 deducted from the principal, and £100, |