aged character, and as his
only ostensible occupation gauging the whiskey which he too often
tasted. Siding with Burns, as we needs must, in his plea against
the world, let us try to do the world a little justice too. It is
far easier to know and honor a poet when his fame has taken shape
in the spotlessness of marble, than when the actual man comes
staggering before you, besmeared with the sordid stains of his
daily life. For my part, I chiefly wonder that his recognition
dawned as brightly as it did while he was still living. There must
have been something very grand in his immediate presence, some
strangely impressive characteristic in his natural behavior, to
have caused him to seem like a demigod so soon."

To do even faintest justice to the memory of the poet, we must go to
Ayr, and look upon the humble cottage which was his birthplace. It
consisted of but two small rooms paved with flag-stones, and with but
one window of four small panes, while the thatched roof formed the only
ceiling. The whole place is inconceivably small for the dwelling of a
family, for there is not even an attic-room, or any other spot where
children could have been hidden away. In such a hut as this it is hard
to conceive of a family being reared in purity and delicacy, even though
the parents should have done their best by their children, and been,
like the father of Burns, prudent and well-disposed.

This housing of the poor is of immense moral significance in all cases;
and it is growing to be a recognized fact that no help which can be
rendered them is of much avail, when they are left in these little, one
or two room dwellings.

There were seven children in the Burns household, and during the
childhood of Robert the family were very poor; and he and his brother
were expected to do the work of men, at the age of thirteen. He had some
schooling before that age, and must have improved his time, for he could
read and spell well, and had some knowledge of English grammar.

Near by the cottage flows the beautiful Bonny Doon, through deep wooded
banks, and across it is an ancient ivy-covered bridge with a high arch,
making a very picturesque object in the landscape, which is one of great
loveliness. Kirk Alloway is not far away,--the smallest church that ever
filled so large a place in the imagination of the world. The
one-mullioned window in the eastern gable might have been seen by