The sentimentalists had long yearned for the advent of the ideal poet. Macpherson had presented him,--but as of an era far remote; latterly Beattie, in _The Minstrel_, had set forth his growth under the inspiration of Nature,--but in a purely imaginary tale. Suddenly Burns appeared: and the ideal seemed incarnated in the living present. The Scottish bard was introduced to the world by his first admirers as "a heaven-taught ploughman, of humble unlettered station," whose "simple strains, artless and unadorned, seem to flow without effort from the native feelings of the heart"; and as "a signal instance of true and uncultivated genius." The real Burns, though indeed a genius of song, was far better read than the expectant world wished to believe, particularly in those whom he called his "bosom favorites," the sentimentalists Mackenzie and Sterne; and his sense of rhythm and melody had been trained by his emulation of earlier Scotch lyricists, whose lilting cadences flow towards him as highland rills to the gathering torrent. Sung to the notes of his native tunes, and infused with the local color of Scotch life, the sentimental themes assumed the freshness of novelty. Giving a new ardor to revolutionary tendencies,--Burns revolted against the orthodoxy of the "Auld Lichts," depicting its representatives as ludicrously hypocritical. He protested against distinctions founded on birth or rank, as in _A Man's a Man for A' That_; and, on the other hand, he idealized the homely feelings and manners of the "virtuous populace" in his immortal _Cotter's Saturday Night_. He scorned academic learning, and protested that true inspiration was rather to be found in "ae spark o' Nature's fire,"--or at the nearest tavern: Leese me on drink! It gies us mair Than either school or college. Like Sterne, who boasted that his pen governed him, Burns praised and affected the impromptu: But how the subject theme may gang, Let time or chance determine; Perhaps it may turn out a sang, Perhaps turn out a sermon.