Of course, it is not to be expected that there should be unanimity of opinion among poets as to the ideal singer's rank. In several instances, confidence in human egotism would enable the reader to make a shrewd guess as to a poet's stand on the question of caste, without the trouble of investigation. Gray, the gentleman, as a matter of course consigns his "rustic Milton" to oblivion. Lord Byron follows the fortunes of "Childe" Harold. Lord Tennyson usually deals with titled artists. [Footnote: See _Lord Burleigh_, Eleanore in _A Becket_, and the Count in _The Falcon_.] Greater significance attaches to the gentle birth of the two prominent fictional poets of the century, Sordello and Aurora Leigh, yet in both poems the plot interest is enough to account for it. In Sordello's case, especially, Taurello's dramatic offer of political leadership to his son suffices to justify Browning's choice of his hero's rank. [Footnote: Other poems celebrating noble poets are _The Troubadour_, Praed; _The King's Tragedy_, Rossetti; _David, Charles di Trocca_, Cale Young Rice.] None of these instances of aristocratic birth are of much importance, and wherever there is a suggestion that the poet's birth represents a tenet of the poem's maker, one finds, naturally, praise of the singer who springs from the masses. The question of the singer's social origin was awake in verse even before Burns. So typical an eighteenth century poet as John Hughes, in lines _On a Print of Tom Burton, a Small Coal Man_, moralizes on the phenomenon that genius may enter into the breast of one quite beyond the social pale. Crabbe [Footnote: See _The Patron_.] and Beattie,[Footnote: See _The Minstrel_.] also, seem not to be departing from the Augustan tradition in treating the fortunes of their peasant bards. But with Burns, of course, the question comes into new prominence. Yet he spreads no propaganda. His statement is merely personal: Gie me ae spark of nature's fire! That's a' the learning I desire. Then, though I drudge through dub and mire At plough or cart, My muse, though homely in attire, May touch the heart. [Footnote: _Epistle to Lapraik_.]