H ipoet of tbe poor 



and arranged. When this contest has gone 

 on to its highest in a strain of inimitable 

 pastoral, and has touched a point where 

 Lacon seems to be getting the better of 

 his opponent, suddenly Comatas drops 

 back from his tender pitch of melody to a 

 sneer and a snarl : 



Comatas. 



Perhaps thou dost remember, sir, how I 

 Did one day warm thy jacket with a club, 

 And make thee twist thy face and squirm and 



writhe. 

 Hugging the body of yon oak the while ? 



Lacon. 



No ; but I do remember mighty well 

 How thou wast bound there by Eumarides, 

 Who basted thee all over, up and down. 



Theocritus, in these rustic pictures, set 

 the pace not only for all future character- 

 sketching in his particular field, but for 

 all our modern dialect-writing. The best 

 of Mr. Harris's " Uncle Remus " pieces 

 are Theocritean, and Riley's delightful 

 Hoosier rhymes belong to the same 

 genus. Burns, the greatest of all the 

 modern poets of the poor, was conscious 

 III 



