ow it is more
delicate and the language more dignified. There is the same condemnation
of pharisaism; but the poem rises to a higher level in its appeal for
charitable views of human frailty, and its kindly counsel to silence;
judgment is to be left to Him who

'Knows each cord, its various tone,
Each spring its various bias.'

Of all the series of satires, however, _The Holy Fair_ is the most
remarkable. It is in a sense a summing up of all the others that
preceded it. The picture it gives of the mixed and motley multitude
fairing in the churchyard at Mauchline, with a relay of ministerial
mountebanks catering for their excitement, is true to the life. It is
begging the question to deplore that Burns was provoked to such an
attack. The scene was provocation sufficient to any right-thinking man
who associated the name of religion with all that was good and beautiful
and true. Such a state of things demanded reformation. The
churchyard--that holy ground on which the church was built and
sanctified by the dust of pious and saintly men--cried aloud against the
desecration to which it was subjected; and Burns, who alone had the
power to purify it from such profanities, would have been untrue to
himself and a traitor to the religion of his country had he merely
shrugged his shoulders and allowed things to go on as they were going.
And after all what was the result? For the poem is part and parcel of
the end it achieved. 'There is a general feeling in Ayrshire,' says
Chambers, 'that _The Holy Fair_ was attended with a good effect; for
since its appearance the custom of resorting to the occasion in
neighbouring parishes for the sake of holiday-making has been much
abated and a great increase of decorous observance has taken place.' To
that nothing more need be added.

In this series of satires _The Address to the Deil_ ought also to be
included. Burns had no belief at all in that Frankenstein creation. It
was too bad, he thought, to invent such a monster for the express
purpose of imputing to him all the wickedness of the world. If such a
creature existed, he was rather sorry for the maligned character, and
inclined to think that there might be mercy even for him.

'I'm wae to think upon yon den,
Even for your sake.'

Speaking of this address, Auguste Angellier says: 'All at once in their
homely speech they heard the devil addressed not only without awe, but
with a spice of good-fellowship and