native feelings of the heart"; and as "a signal instance of true and
uncultivated genius." The real Burns, though indeed a genius of song, was
far better read than the expectant world wished to believe, particularly
in those whom he called his "bosom favorites," the sentimentalists
Mackenzie and Sterne; and his sense of rhythm and melody had been trained
by his emulation of earlier Scotch lyricists, whose lilting cadences flow
towards him as highland rills to the gathering torrent. Sung to the notes
of his native tunes, and infused with the local color of Scotch life, the
sentimental themes assumed the freshness of novelty. Giving a new ardor
to revolutionary tendencies,--Burns revolted against the orthodoxy of the
"Auld Lichts," depicting its representatives as ludicrously hypocritical.
He protested against distinctions founded on birth or rank, as in _A
Man's a Man for A' That_; and, on the other hand, he idealized the homely
feelings and manners of the "virtuous populace" in his immortal _Cotter's
Saturday Night_. He scorned academic learning, and protested that true
inspiration was rather to be found in "ae spark o' Nature's fire,"--or at
the nearest tavern:

Leese me on drink! It gies us mair
Than either school or college.

Like Sterne, who boasted that his pen governed him, Burns praised and
affected the impromptu:

But how the subject theme may gang,
Let time or chance determine;
Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon.

His Muse was to be the mood of the moment. Herein he brought to