he first showedplete mastery of verse in the field of satire. in “the twa herds,” “holy willies prayer,” “address to the unco guid,” “the holy fair,” and others, he manifested sympathy with the protest of the so-called “new light” party, which had sprung up in opposition to the extreme calvinism and intolerance of the dominant “auld lichts.” the fact that burns had personally suffered from the discipline of the kirk probably ad fire to his attacks, but the satires show more than personal animus. the force of the invective, the keenness of the wit, and the fervor of the imagination which they displayed, rered them an important force in the theological liberation of scotland.

the kilmarnock volume contained, bess satire, a number of poems like “the twa dogs” and “the cotters saturday night,” which are vividlyscriptive of the scots peasant life with which he was most familiar; and a group like “puir mailie” and “to a mouse,” which, in the terness of their treatment of animals, revealed one of the most attractive ss of burns personality. many of his poems were never printed during his lifetime, the most remarkable of these being “the jolly beggars,” a piece in which, by the intensity of his imaginative sympathy and the brilliance of his technique, he rers a picture of the lowest dregs of society in such a way as to raise it into the realm of great poetry.

but the real national importance of burns is due chiefly to his songs. the puritan austerity of the centuries following the reformation had discouraged secular music, like other forms of art, in scotland; and as a result scottish song had be hopelesslygrd in point both ofcency and literary quality. from youth burns had been interested in collecting the fragments he had heard sung or found printed, and he came to regard the rescuing of this almost lost national inheritance in the light of a vocation. about his song-making, two points are especially noteworthy: first, that the greater number of his lyrics sprang from actual emotional experiences; second, that almost all wereposed to old melodies. while in edinburgh he urtook to supply material for johnsons “musical museum,” and as few of the traditional songs could appear in a respectable collection, burns found it necessary to make them over. sometimes he kept a stanza or two; sometimes y a line or chorus; sometimes merely the name of the air; the rest was his own. his method, as he has told us himself, was to be familiar with the traditional melody, to catch a suggestion from some fragment of the old song, to fix upon an a or situation for the new poem; then, humming or whistling the tune as he went about his work, he wrought out the new verses, going into the house to write them down when the inspiration began to flag. in this process is to be found the explanation of much of the peculiar quality of the songs of burns. scarcely any known author has succed so brilliantly inbining his work with folk material, or in carrying on with such continuity of spirit the tradition of popular song. for ge thomsons collection of scottish airs he performed a function similar to that which he had had in the “museum”; and his poetical activity during the last eight or nine years of his life was chieflyvoted to these two publications. in spite of the fact that he was constantly in severe financial straits, he refused to accept any rpense for this work, preferring to regard it as a patriotic service. and it was, ied, a patriotic service of no small magnit. by birth and temperament he was singularly fitted for the task, and this fitness is proved by the unique extent to which his productions were accepted by his countrymen, and have passed into the life and feeling of his race.