200 BIEDS 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 mUlinery and 

 faultless tailory flying downstairs, as at an alarm 

 of fire. 



