Both in his serious ambition to become a Bard, and in his determination to become a Bard of the Scottish vernacular school, Burns was greatly influenced by the example of Robert Fergusson. "Rhyme," he says, “except some religious pieces I had given up, but meeting with Fergusson's Scotch Poems, I strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour;" and it is from his acquaintanceship with Fergusson that his poetic career properly dates. It was, propably, soon after his first perusal of Fergusson that he wrote in his copy, under Fergusson's portrait, the inscription in which he hailed him as his "elder brother in misfortune," and "by far" his "elder brother in the muse." The verdict no doubt expresses his early and not his later attitude to Fergusson; but his indebtedness to Fergusson was in some respects incalculable, and his acknowledgements of indebtedness were perhaps as deserved as they were heartfelt. It was much even to be put on the proper track, and it was by discerning certain qualities in Fergusson pointing to greater possibilities, that Burns was put on the proper track. Comparing Fergusson with Ramsay, Burns rightly terms him the "still more excellent Fergusson." For such qualities as elegance, taste, or felicity of style, the bourgois Ramsay was in no sense a model, and is not to be mentioned with his youthful successor. It was perhaps as regards specially those qualities that Burns discerned the superiority of Fergusson. On such points he could learn something from him, and, because Fergusson wrote his best pieces in Scots, learn it better than he could from the English poets. He must have been aware that Fergusson was at least in some respects his superior in command of the vernacular. Fergusson's vernacular is really more subtle and terse than his, for the simple reason that his was primarily

that of the rustic, whereas Fergusson thoroughly understood what may be termed the educated vernacular, then in current use in Edinburgh society. Then the partiality of Burns for Fergusson, and his immediate enthusiasm for him were kindled by a certain mental and spiritual kinship, a kinship which he could not recognize in Ramsay. Fergusson's poetry was all that of early manhood, and the tragedy of his life left on Burns an indelible impress-in great part became he recognized similar possibilities of tragedy in himself. True, Fergusson was intrinsically a weaker man and a weaker poet than Burns; but this only more keenly awakened Burns's sympathy; and that his poetry was but a pale anticipation of that of Burns, rendered its influence on Burns, in some respects all the more stimulating. Thus Fergusson's promise was in a sense vicariously fulfilled by Burns; and his apprenticeship to the Muse was served more for Burns than for himself.

Traces of Fergusson's influence on Burns are not only more numerous than traces of Ramsay's influence; they are more intimate, more interwoven with the very texture of his work.-Had there been no Fergusson could we have had, for example, The Holy Fair, or The Twa Brigs, or even Halloween, not to mention The Cottar's Saturday Night, which however is the most mongrel of all his productions, and of all poetic productions that have won approbation from critics of repute? As for The Holy Fair, its manner is essentially that of Leith Races and The Hallow Fairgraphic pictorial narrative, but merrily satirical, and not, like Ramsay's continuation of Christis Kirk, and many of his other vernacular pieces, dependent for its wit mainly on humorous gloating over merely squalid and gross details. But not only is the manner of The Holy

Burns, Poems.

II

Fair rather that of Fergusson than Ramsay; the earlier stanzas are a mere adaptation from Fergusson, and in this and other pieces we meet with words, and phrases, and modes of sentiment and reflection which are either almost unadulterated Fergusson or very Fergussonian. Yet amid all that he borrows and utilizes, Burns only the more strongly manifests his own great and magic individuality. Emulating his Scottish predecessors of the revival and sometimes almost, unconsciously, parodying them, he is never a merely slavish imitator; his poetic flame on the contrary burns much brighter than that at which it was kindled. Even his parodies far surpass the originals. Partly a parody of Leith Races, The Holy Fair is infinitely superior to it in vividness and virility. Whatever modes of speech Burns may borrow and utilize, he looks at what he describes with his own unaided vision -he utters entirely his own individual experience; and with him life was much fuller of varied sentiments and emotions than it ever was with Fergusson; his mental outlook is more comprehensive and more penetrating, his humour infinitely richer, his sympathy more thorough and cordial, his satire more searching, his presentment much more vivid and inspiring.

Among the more notable pieces immediately following the Fergussonian impulse, are A Poet's Welcome, Epistle to John Rankine, The Twa Herds, Death and Dr Hornbook, and Holy Willie's Prayer, all in his favourite six line stave in rime couée. Not merely in their stave and in their language, but in their whole manner and method, they belong wholly to the Scots vernacular school. So little trace do they show of the English school in manner, thought or expression, that reading them alone we should never guess that Burns had ever heard of Pope, or Thomson, or

Shenstone, or Gray. No doubt the English poetry he had perused exercised a refining influence on his poetic style, even when he made use of the Scots vernacular; but here it is all so absorbed and individualized that it ceases to be perceptible. Indeed it may be said that where it is least perceptible it is most salutary. As soon as it becomes perceptible, Burns ceases to be really himself, and almost ceases to be in any true sense poetical. The more he endeavours to adopt the English manner, or permits himself to appropriate the sentiments of his English predecessors, the more does he relapse into mere laborious failure. Symptoms of English influence, of the appropriation of sentiments from English authors, are a sufficient guarantee that the piece is at least not better than second class. Even this may be said of the First Epistle to Davie, written though it be in an essentially Scottish stave, first made use of probably by the old Scottish "makar," Alexander Montgomerie; and it may be said, still more emphatically of at least much of The Cottar's Saturday Night, and specially of those portions so heterogeneously appropriated from English

sources.

The most fruitful period of Burns' genius was the autumn of 1785 and the spring of 1786. During those few months he wrote the bulk of the pieces contained in the Kilmarnock edition of 1786, not to mention the marvellous Jolly Beggars, which was only published posthurnously. Amongst the more characteristic masterpieces are The Holy Fair, The Address to the Deil, Halloween, To a Louse, The Twa Dogs, and The Auld Farmer's Salutation, all entirely Scottish both in matter and manner, notwithstanding that The Address to the Deil begins with a parody of two lines of Pope. There is also The Vision, which, though too prolonged,

contains several fine stanzas; and there are various pieces which come under the category of "occasional," such as Scotch Drink, The Authors Earnest Cry and Prayer, A Dream, and the several Epistles, which for the most part are admirable at least for their extempore wit, and perhaps afford us the best means now available of estimating the character of the poet's gifts as a conversationalist. On the other hand in English or ScotoEnglish we have such achievements as Despondency, Man was made to Mourn, A Lament, To Ruin, where the poet is dominated by English models, where appropriation becomes now and again flagrant, and where he ceases to be characteristically himself. Meeting such specimens of verse anonymously and comparing them with his Scottish masterpieces, we should hardly dream of ascribing them to the same author. They bear no hall mark of Burns. They do not express his true self, but only certain of his more affected or hypochondriacal moods. Burns as the reflective sentimentalist is not Burns at his best, is indeed hardly Burns at all.

The prolificness of Burns during the six months preceding the Kilmarnock volume was coexistent not with a period of exceptional happiness or hopefulness, but of one exceptionally troubled. He was becoming almost the mere prey of difficulties and misfortunes, and errors. His worldly outlook gradually became so dark as to suggest the advisability of exile from his native land, and his entanglement with Jean Armour was causing him much anxiety and even remorse, before her renunciation of him wounded his self-esteem to the quick, and made him for a time the sport of his tumultuous passions. It would, however, appear that the excitement produced by his misfortunes helped, if anything, to stimulate rather than to discourage his muse. True, they also produced