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THE

LIFE

OF

ROBERT BURNS.

THERE is no poet of the present age more deservedly popular than Burns. Though born in an humble station in life, he raised himself, by the mere exertions of his mind, to the highest pitch of intellectual greatness. The originality of his genius, the energy of his language, and the richness of his imagination, merited the gratitude as well as the admiration of his countrymen. But his highest efforts, in which the tide of human feeling seemed to flow in deep and exhaustless channels, failed to soften the avarice of a mean and selfish aristocracy. Like his native and lonely hills, he was subject to every blast, and exposed naked and bare to every tempest. No refreshing showers came to rest upon his head, or to pour fertility into his bosom. He was an elevated point, round which the storm clung and gathered; a prominent rock condemned by nature as it were to endure the buffetings of the surge. Yet his rude splendour remained uninjured. Amidst the bitter waters

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