of than among some other classes in other parts of europe but then he belonged by the discipline as well as by the force of his mind rather to europe than to his education at school though even for a scotch peasant s son irregular and scanty was to fit him for becoming a citizen of the world and a citizen of the world he did become by the study of the best english authors in prose and verse and by critical familiarity with the songs and of his country in virtue of this the spirit of revolution being abroad in europe he was as certain to encounter it as was o on his way home from and from the company of to see in a he sings as he himself says the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic around him but it is after the manner of one who is accustomed to live and move in a larger world than that in which he and they had to toil while he has never yet set foot beyond his native county his mind has travelled he is familiar with the continental of persons of quality with hunters of who have to rhyme with with scenes events characters in eastern lands and in the literature and history of antiquity his ideas sentiments aspirations hopes fears range easily and naturally beyond and provincial limits into national affairs and the struggling life of mankind if he is ever more truly himself than in s address to his troops at a patriotic it is in that golden age of the poet and the when man to man the world o er shall brothers be for a that his countrymen are a pushing and adventurous race wherever robert burns they go they carry with them as a feature of the national mind an estimate of man as man of wealth and worth of rank and work which bears the stamp of one man s genius poems and songs are a programme of social and political reform and progress or at any rate � as radical a programme as could well be framed no such programme it is certain ever had such in one nation as it has at home and abroad for almost a century it has been and sung by high and low by rank and fashion by and and aged inmates of the children it and it it is the privileged of public houses and privileged almost like the bible young ladies it at the request of their tory and to please in as well as where the shepherd tells his tale the echoes of it are never still as far as there is any need to his poetical and development this with the revolution it him with it as respects the style of his poetry and also as respects its substance machine of all kinds by use allowance should be made in cases that of poetry not for of value as the effect of wear and tear only the forces of nature are inexhaustible happily for him poetical life fell within a period in which it had come to be felt that the machinery of the classical school of poetry was worn out and that recourse must be had for poetical power to and inexhaustible nature he owed thus to the spirit of the time that passion for truth and nature in the style of his poems which them such welcome as the time could give to novelty and excellence combined he was a to the same source for the ideas and sentiments or many of the ideas and sentiments to which his poetry owes not a little of the vitality and the it has among men and nations to whom it is known only in an almost unknown tongue or in more or less inadequate his poetry is instinct with the life and movement of one age one which was an era of from the dead and of revolt against all that had lived too long any explanation of however which is thus to be found where we find an explanation of europe itself in the spirit of a particular age is of course partial its merit is that it points to what is more essential and more comprehensive than burns poetry shares with all poetry of the first order of excellence the life and movement not of one age but ll the english ts of all ages that which belongs to what calls essential passions of human nature it is the voice of nature which we hear in his poetry and it is of that nature one touch of which makes the whole world kin it is doubtful whether any poet ancient or modern has as much personal attachment of a and quality as burns has been able to draw to himself it is an attachment the amount and the quality of which are not to be explained by anything in the history of the man anything apart from the exercise of his genius as a poet his though they were great do not account for it � these are by his faults from which his misfortunes are not easily separated what renders it at all intelligible is that human nature in its most ordinary shapes is more poetical than it looks and that exactly at those moments of its consciousness in which it is most truly because most vividly and powerfully and itself has a voice to give to it he is not the poet s poet which no doubt meant to be or the philosopher s poet which in spite of himself is he is the poet of homely human nature not half so homely or as it seems his genius in a manner all its own associates itself with the fortunes experiences memorable moments of human beings whose humanity is their sole to whom liberty and whatever like liberty has the 