ul and inspiring. As those who speak
French imperfectly are glad to dwell on any topic they may have talked
upon or heard others talk upon before, because they know appropriate
words for it in French, so the dabbler in verse rejoices to behold a
waterfall, because he has learned the sentiment and knows appropriate
words for it in poetry. But the dialect of Burns was fitted to deal with
any subject; and whether it was a stormy night, a shepherd's collie, a
sheep struggling in the snow, the conduct of cowardly soldiers in the
field, the gait and cogitations of a drunken man, or only a village
cock-crow in the morning, he could find language to give it freshness,
body, and relief. He was always ready to borrow the hint of a design, as
though he had a difficulty in commencing--a difficulty, let us say, in
choosing a subject out of a world which seemed all equally living and
significant to him; but once he had the subject chosen, he could cope
with nature single-handed, and make every stroke a triumph. Again, his
absolute mastery in his art enabled him to express each and all of his
different humours, and to pass smoothly and congruously from one to
another. Many men invent a dialect for only one side of their
nature--perhaps their pathos or their humour, or the delicacy of their
senses--and, for lack of a medium, leave all the others unexpressed.
You meet such an one, and find him in conversation full of thought,
feeling, and experience, which he has lacked the art to employ in his
writings. But Burns was not thus hampered in the practice of the
literary art; he could throw the whole weight of his nature into his
work, and impregnate it from end to end. If Doctor Johnson, that stilted
and accomplished stylist, had lacked the sacred Boswell, what should we
have known of him? and how should we have delighted in his acquaintance
as we do? Those who spoke with Burns tell us how much we have lost who
did not. But I think they exaggerate their privilege: I think we have
the whole Burns in our possession set forth in his consummate verses.

It was by his style, and not by his matter, that he affected Wordsworth
and the world. There is, indeed, only one merit worth considering in a
man of letters--that he should write well; and only one damning
fault--that he should write ill. We are little the better for the
reflections of the sailor's parrot in the story. And so, if Burns helped
to change the course of literary history, it was by