The poor inhabitant below

Was quick to learn and wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame;

But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain'd his name!

Reader, attend! whether thy soul Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, Or darkling grubs this earthly hole, In low pursuit;

Know prudent, cautious self-control

Is wisdom's root.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

W

E have now examined in some detail the

main facts of Burns's personal life and literary production: it is time to sum these up in order to realize the character of the man and the value of the work.

Certain fundamental qualities are easily traced to his parentage. The Burnses were honest, hard-working people, stubborn fighters for independence, with intellectual tastes above the average of their class. These characteristics the poet inherited. With all his failures in worldly affairs, he contrived to pay his debts; however obliged to friends and patrons for occasional aid, he never abated his self-respect or became the hanger-on of any man; and he showed throughout his life an eager, receptive, and ever-expanding mind. The seed sown by his father with so much pains and care in his early training fell on fruitful soil, and in the range of his information,

as well as in his critical and reasoning powers, Burns became the equal of educated men. The love of independence, indeed, was less a family than a national passion. The salient fact in the history of Scotland is the intensity of the prolonged struggle against the political domination of England; and there developed in the individual life of the Scot a corresponding tendency to value personal freedom as the greatest of treasures. The thrift and economy for which the Scottish people are everywhere notable, and which has its vicious excess in parsimony and nearness, is in its more honorable aspects no end in itself but merely a means to independence. If they are keen to "gather gear,"

It's no to hide it in a hedge,

Nor for a train-attendant,
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.

Along with these substantial and admirable qualities of integrity and independence Burns inherited certain limitations. In the peasant class in which he was born and reared, the fierceness of the struggle for existence has crowded out some of the more beautiful qualities that need ease and

leisure for their development. The virtues of chivalry do indeed at times appear among the very poor, but they are the characteristic product of a class in which conditions are more generous, the necessaries of life are taken for granted, and the elemental demands of human nature are satis

fied without competitive striving. When a peasant is chivalrous he is so by virtue of some individual quality, and in spite of rather than because of the spirit of his class. Burns was too acute and too observant not to gather much from the social ideals of the ladies and gentlemen with whom he came in contact, and what he gathered affected his conduct profoundly; but at times under stress of frustrated passion or mortified vanity he reverted to the ruder manners of the peasantry from which he sprang. So have to be accounted for certain brutalities in his treatment of the women who loved him or who had been unwise enough to yield to his fascination.

Other characteristics belong to him individually rather than to his family or class or nation. He was to an extraordinary degree proud and sensitive. He reacted warmly to kindness, and showed his gratitude without stint; but he al