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THE HESPERIAN STUDENT.
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It
IS
ing in grnndcur oven to the divine Apocalypse. To litm
belongs botli memory and prophecy and in him the two
eternities ore blended in mystic dreams.
BURNS.
Prom time immemorial poets have taken as their themes
Man and Nature. Upon these they have sung in varied
strains, but, until the time of what is knrwii as the "New
School of Poetry," always in a forced and unnatural man
ner. This is especially true of the sulijcct, Man. In the
eighteenth century new ideas were springing up in re
gard to equality, both social and political. These
reached their culmination in the outburst of the French
Revolution. Prose writers such as Diderot, Rou-scau, anp
Voltaire agitated tlio questions of inalienable rights and
the natural freedom of mankind; and it is not strange
that these ideas found expression in the poetry of the times
Poverty, ignorance or low degree did not render false the
well known line, "A man's a man for a' that," and where
former poets had sung of an ideal being, n mere lay figs
ure upon which they placed their own adornments of
mental and moral qualities, the New School wrote of a
real man, a man whose counterpart we have all seen and
who, at first sight, appeared to possess absolutely noth
ing out of which a beautiful poem could be constructed.
Then, again until the time of Burns and his contempo
raries nature had been employed merely as 3cenery be
fore which the play of life was acted in its various phas
es. But tiie new poets treated of nature as nature, and
not simply as a background for the more prominent
part of their verse. As the didactical and satirical poetry of
fonner ycais was at last found inadequate to satisfy the
desire for truth and beauty. At length there appeared
as leaders of the reform, Cowper and Burns; Cowper in
augeiated the poetry ot natural desciiptiou and Burns
introduced into his songs the element of love, and be
sides, used nature with far greater depth of thought and
beauty of expression than did his renowned model.
Thus it is seen that the place of Burns, as a pout, is one
of the greatest importance. He was a poor boy whose
father was baicly able to support his family by the sweat
of his brow, and all of the youth's early life was spent in
farm drudgery of the most toilsome kind. Without any
educational facilities save those luruished by the coun
try schools, and receiving no sympathy from his parents
iu his literary pursuits, liu nevertheless almost intuitively
caught the niceties of language and formed that pure
and graceful style which has rendered his name hum or-,
tal. When but seventeen lie commenced c imposing' verses,
'which were circulated among his relatives and the neign
bors of liis family. lie had a great desire to emigrate to
a less crowded locality and published u volume of his
poems and ballads with the hope of obtaining u sufficient
' sumjlo pay his passage to .famaica. Hisjiopes were ic
nlized and he was about to set sail when an invitation
was given him to visit Edinburgh. lie .accepted aud
thus the whole after.courae of his life was changed. At
' the city he was,bauqucled and made much of by admir
ers aud friends. While he was the social star of ull the
fashionable entertainments given by the patrons of liter a
ture an irrational desire for strong drink took posession
of him and continued his besetting sin iu after years.
Although ho made many attempts at self-control lie was
at length destroyed by this ungovernable passion.
In Burns' poetry wo And that tenderness toward
dumb animals which betokens an enlargement ofhumano
sympathies. The kind aud gentle spirit manifested in
hi i poem entitled "The Wounded Hare" and ''To a
Mouse" was something novel and Interesting to his read
ers. This kindly disposition pervading as uniformly as it,
does the greater part of Ins writings, rendering his wit
rather bright and pleasing than cutting and satirical.
In 11 of Bums' poems wo flint truth. As a delineator
of character he has but fow cquels and scarcely any supe
riors. Burns' fame must rest upon his songs and not
upon his longer poems. Pathos and humor, sparkling .
wit and deep religous fo-vor, inimitable burlesque and
wonderful insight into character all enter into their com
plex fabric. But still, as Carylo tells U3 "tho writings
that he has left seem but a poor mutilated fragment of
what was in li'in." lie wrote, as the majority of lyric
poets, not as a task, but from Inspiration. Many of his
finest productions were almost impromptu, and a fow
hours sulllced to polish a ballad to tho utmost degree of
beauty and brillinnay.
Among all his works, for variety of expression, no ono
can compare with "Tain O'Slianter." Descriptive and
meditative, ludicrous aud terrible, mirthful and sober,
witty and earnest it affords ub a wonderful example of
what a genius the writer possessed liis love songs aro
tender in composition, elegant in expression and many
aio unequalled in all literature for force and concentra
tion of meaning. Robert Burns stands preeminent as
the father of romantic poetry, a style which shines in tho
productions of later writers. To Burns is duo the radi
cal change f.-om artificiality and unnaturalness to truth
and nature and tiiat choice of subjects which is peculiar
to recent poets. Before Burns wo have the artificial
style of Pope, after him the clear beauty of Wordsworth
aud Tennyson. Previous to tho birth of romantic poetry
bucIi subjects as were written upon far back iu antiquity
were still tho themes of song. When Burns awakened
tho English to a glad surprise, a new era had dawned,
new thoughts, new emotions wero crowding in upon tho
public notice. Many of these were embodied iu Ii i
verso. The age of the classic po)ts was at au end, and
amid the murmur ot woodland streams, the sough of tho
wind through loaflo33 boughs, tho simple conversa
tion of lowly folk and "tho touches of nature that mako
tho whole world kin," the now, enduring roiuiiutic poetry
wus ushered iu. '80.
Tho University Voice of Wooster, Ohio, would present
a much more respectable appcareuce if it .liscardod tho
"patent side." But then, a patent is "filling and cheap."
A first prop, of an inquisitive turu of tniud hands us tho
following: Ed. Hes. Student After much inquiry
among my friends and much study on my own part, I
wish to propound to you a thus far unsolved problem.
Since coming to school I have asked tho saino girl six
different times and she always has a previous engage-'
ment. Now what sort of a thing is a previous engage
ment? Did you ever see one? Do the fellows buy 'oin
and give them to their best girls? How is a fellow that
wants a girl going to get a wholesale stock of previous
engagements? Please answer these questions and ro
leaso mo .from the present slough of provlousuess in
which I am laboring.
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