he shows the gloomy, hard, despairing side of English country life. He has been called a “Pope in worsted stockings,” and “the Hogarth, of song.” Byron describes him as “Nature’s sternest painter, yet the best.” Now and then his style is flat, and even coarse; but there is everywhere a genuine power of strong and bold painting. He is also an excellent master of easy dialogue. All of his poems are written in the Popian couplet of two ten-syllabled lines. 16. ROBERT BURNS (+1759-1796+), the greatest poet of Scotland, was born in Ayrshire, two miles from the town of Ayr, in 1759. The only education he received from his father was the schooling of a few months; but the family were fond of reading, and Robert was the most enthusiastic reader of them all. Every spare moment he could find-- and they were not many-- he gave to reading; he sat at meals “with a book in one hand and a spoon in the other;” and in this way he read most of the great English poets and prose-writers. This was an excellent education-- one a great deal better than most people receive; and some of our greatest men have had no better. But, up to the age of sixteen, he had to toil on his father’s farm from early morning till late at night. In the intervals of his work he contrived, by dint of thrift and industry, to learn French, mathematics, and a little Latin. On the death of his father, he took a small farm, but did not succeed. He was on the point of embarking for Jamaica, where a post had been found for him, when the news of the successful sale of a small volume of his poems reached him; and he at once changed his mind, and gave up all idea of emigrating. His friends obtained for him a post as exciseman, in which his duty was to gauge the quantity and quality of ardent spirits-- a post full of dangers to a man of his excitable and emotional temperament. He went a great deal into what was called society, formed the acquaintance of many boon companions, acquired habits of intemperance that he could not shake off, and died at Dumfries in 1796, in his thirty-seventh year.