There sits quiescent on the floods, that show Around her, fanning light her streamers gay, 95 So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore, "Where tempests never beat, nor billows roar;" And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide Of life long since has anchored by thy side. NOTE.-109, 110. These lines re fer to Cowper's descent from distinguished ances try. ANALYSIS.-94. airs play around. What figure? 95. Parse light. 96. sails how swift. What figure? 97. Point out and name the figures in the line. 98, 99. Name the figures. 100. But me, "but as for me." Dispose of scarce. 100, 101. Dispose of hoping and distressed. 102. What part of speech is devious? 103. wide is here used as an attributive adjective after the partiiple opening. (See Raub's Grammar, p. 101, Remark 7.) 103. compass lost. To what calamity in Cowper's life does this refer? 104, 105. distant is here a factitive adjective. (See Raub's Grammas p. 164, note 4.) What figure in the line? 106. and he. Supply ellipsis. 107. arrive. What term is commonly used? Give the mode of arrive. 109. loins enthroned. What figure? 100 105 But higher far my proud pretensions rise— And, while the wings of fancy still are free, ANALYSIS.-110. Dispose of far. 113. Dispose of what. 114. contemplation's help. What figure? 119. mimic show. To what does this refer? 120. What is the force of but? 121. Give the grammatical construction of removed 110 115 120 13. ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796. ROBERT BURNS, often called the Shakespeare of Scotland, was born in the parish of Alloway, near Ayr, Scotland, on the 25th of January, 1759. His father was a poor farmer, who had built with his own hands the mud hut in which the great poet was born, and was therefore able to give his son but a meagre education. The school-days of Burns had ended before he reached the age of twelve, but he claims that even then he was "a critic in substantives, verbs, and participles." To this education was added "a fortnight's French" and a summer quarter at land-surveying, and the school-career of Burns was closed. His help was needed on the little nursery-farm to which his father had removed, and here, it is said, he toiled like a galley-slave to support his parents and their household, yet improving every opportunity of acquiring knowledge from both men and books. Among the few books he possessed were the works of Addison, Pope, and Allan Ramsay, and these he read and re-read till by and by he was able to add Shenstone, Sterne, Thomson, and Mackenzie to his list of silent companions. Nature, however, became his great school. From the birds and the wild flowers he conned his best lessons as he trudged behind the plow. A little mat of leaves and grass, tossed aside by his plowshare, exposed a small field-mouse, over which the saddened heart of the poet bubbled into song, and a daisy crushed in the spring time draws from him another strain no less beautiful and touching than the other. But the farm could not be made to produce a living, and the poet determined to sail to Jamaica, with the hope of becoming steward on some sugar-plantation. In order to secure the needed funds, he had six hundred copies of his poems printed at Kilmarnock in 1786 These were distributed among a few booksellers, and so ready was the sale that the poet found himself the po sessor of twenty guineas as his share of the profit. His passage was engaged for the first ship that left the Clyde, and every preparation was made for the start, when a letter from Dr. Blacklock of Edinburgh, himself a poet, to one of Burns's friends, commending the poems in such terms as the modest plowboy had not dared to hope for, changed the whole current of his life. Giving his mother a portion of his twenty guineas, he started, almost penniless, to Edinburgh, without even a letter of introduction. But his book had preceded him, and he at once became the companion of both lords and literati, who listened with delight to his fresh and brilliant talk. A new edition of his poems was at once issued, on which he cleared nearly five hundred pounds. Burns joined in the conviviality which everywhere surrounded him, but, alas! the temptations which beckoned him on became his ruin. He soon fell a victim to intemperance, his money was spent, and he found himself deserted. His poverty compelled him to rent a little farm at Ellisland, near Dumfries, and, having married Jean Armour, to whom he had long been attached, he again became a farmer. In 1793 a third edition of his poems was printed, in which first appeared his inimitable Tam O'Shanter. But Burns's life was almost spent; sickness, poverty, and debt made him despondent, and he at last became the fated victim of intemperate habits, to which he was only too prone, and died at the age of thirty-seven, at Dumfries, on the 21st of July, 1796. Burns is remembered chiefly by his songs, but in addition to the poems already mentioned he will always be praised for his Cotter's Saturday Night-a beautiful domestic picture, supposed to represent a home-scene at his father's cottage-the Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson, and The Jolly Beggars. Among his masterpieces are The Cotter's Saturday Night and Tam O'Shanter. CRITICISM BY THOMAS B. SHAW. His works are singularly various and splendid; the greater part of them consists of songs, either completely original or recastings of such compositions of older date: in performing this difficult task of altering and improving existing lyrics, in which a beautiful thought was often buried under a load of mean and vulgar expression, Burns exhibits a most exquisite delicacy and purity of taste, and an admirable ear for harmony. His own songs vary in tone and subject through every changing mood, from the sternest patriotism and the most agonizing pathos to the broadest drollery: in all he is equally inimitable. Most of his finest works are written in his own Lowland dialect, and give a picture, at once familiar and ideal, of the feelings and sentiments of the peasant. It is the rustic heart, but glorified by passion, and elevated by a perpetual communing with Nature. But he has also exhibited perfect mastery when writing pure English, and many admirable productions might be cited in which he has clothed the loveliest thoughts in the purest language. Consequently, his genius was not obliged to depend upon the adventitious charm and prestige of a provincial dialect. There |