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passages, however, he is clearly looking forward and holds an important place among the Romantic predecessors of Wordsworth.

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ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796

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Burns a Romanticist. If we judge by the character of his poetry, Burns surely does not belong among the follow

"BOBBY" BURNS.

ers of Pope. The heroic
couplet finds small place
in Burns's verse, though
nearly every familiar metre
is there represented, and
though there are not a few
metres of his own. There
is no extended satire in
Burns; there is nothing of
fashionable city life. If we
class poets as Romanticists,
as some are inclined to,
only when their Romanti-
cism is a deliberate choice,
Burns is not among them.
Whether, with Pope's
knowledge of the foibles
and frivolities of society,

and with Pope's tendency to make enemies and then punish them, Burns would still have written about mice and daisies and village inns and "cronies" and gentle streams, is a question. It is certain that he had not the equipment to deal with such subjects as Pope dealt with. In effect and influence he is undoubtedly of the school of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the rest of that glorious company who gave such distinction to the next age.

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A Hard Life for a Poet. There were six children besides Robert, and the family went through a continuous struggle for existence in several different locations in Ayrshire. Having to do farm-work enough for a man, Robert got little education. When the father died in 1784, Robert and a brother undertook to run a hundred-acre farm at Mossgiel, but failed in two years" the first year," according to the poet, "from unfortunately buying bad seed; the second,

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INTERIOR OF BURNS'S BIRTHPLACE AT AYR.

from a late harvest." During these two trying years Burns composed much, admittedly under the influence of two Scotch poets, Allan Ramsay and Robert Ferguson. Among the famous poems belonging to the Mossgiel period are To a Mouse, To a Mountain Daisy, and The Cotter's Saturday Night.

First Publication. The publication of Burns's first volume, at Kilmarnock, 1786, was to procure money for a business venture. The poet, finding farming unremunerative,

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sclerably Wleased with these verses, but as I hav only a sketch by the tume, I have it with now to en of they suit the measure of the music.

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I am so herrayed with here and analy about this farming project of mine, that my my degenerated into the vericet in vole-wench that wver picked undere, or followes a unker ther I am fairly got into the soutine & mined. I shall souble you with a conger epistle; herhaka with come querie sheeting farming: # wresent, the world onto each a load on my

en

alineet every

stevere, trace on the

that it had expences
image of God in me.
best temalimente

My

M. Eleghor.

Jam ever, M..

min

and good wither to

Maughline, your obloned humblé

31st March

1788

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FACSIMILE OF A LETTER OF BURNS.

(New York Public Library.)

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