s long been the deliberate
judgment of the world. No finer flower of genius than that of Robert
Burns has ever blossomed, and it will be long before the world will see
another as fair. But, as Mr. Lockhart observes, "To accumulate all that
has been said of Burns, even by men like himself, of the first order,
would fill a volume." Not even the most carping critic has ever
questioned his genius. The "Cotter's Saturday Night," and "Tam
O'Shanter," and "Highland Mary," would stand before the world to refute
such a critic; and it would be a venturesome man indeed who would care
to contend for such a proposition as that Robert Burns was not a great
poet. That he was a great wit is also as well established, and that he
might have been a great master of prose is equally unquestionable. That
he was great in his life we dare not affirm, but that his life has a
great claim upon our charity we will gladly allow. Few writers have been
better loved than he. There is a personal warmth in all that he wrote,
and we feel that we knew him in a sort of personal way, as if we had
shaken hands with him, and heard his voice; and we always have a feeling
that he is addressing us in our own person. All of the many pilgrims who
visit the places he made immortal have something of this feeling, and
the banks of Doon are as classic now as the lovely Avon. And whenever we
are tempted to look upon the darker sides of his life-picture, we may
well refrain, and repeat his words:--

"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler, sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human;
One point must still be greatly dark,--
The moving why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark
How far perhaps they rue it."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

MADAME DE STAEL.

That must indeed have been a thrilling life--a life of startling
dramatic interest--which covered the period occupied by the career of
Madame de Stael, even had the person living the life been but an obscure
observer of passing events. For the time was big with the most
astounding things the world has known in these later centuries. But to a
person like the daughter of Necker, with intellect to comprehend the
prodigious events, and with the power oftentimes to influence them to a
greater or less extent, the wonderful drama which was then enacted upon
the stage of France must have appeared as of even overwhelming
importance. It must h