200 BIRDS AND POETS 
periods the principles of art which he illustrates, and 
which are the inevitable logic of his poems, — said 
essayist would have won great applause. ‘Yes, 
indeed, that were a poet to cherish; fill those shoes 
and you have a god.” 
How different a critic’s account of Shakespeare 
from Shakespeare himself, —the difference between 
the hewn or sawed timber and the living tree! A 
few years ago we had here a lecturer from over seas, 
who gave to our well-dressed audiences the high, 
moral, and intellectual statement of the poet Burns, 
It was very fine, and people were greatly pleased, 
vastly more so, I fear, than they were with Burns 
himself. Indeed, I could not help wondering how 
many of those appreciative listeners had any original 
satisfaction in the Scotch poet at first hand, or would 
have accepted him had he been their neighbor and 
fellow-citizen. But as he filtered through the schol- 
arly mind in trickling drops, oh, he was so sweet! 
Everybody stirred with satisfaction as the lecturer 
said: “When literature becomes dozy, respectable, 
and goes in the smooth grooves of fashion, and copies 
and copies again, something must be done; and to 
give life to that dying literature a man must be 
found not educated under its influence.” I ap- 
plauded with the rest, for it was a bold saying; but 
I could not help thinking how that theory, brought 
home to ourselves and illustrated in a living exam- 
ple, would have sent that nodding millinery and 
faultless tailory flying downstairs, as at an alarm 
of fire. 
