Strong ale was ablution;
Small beer, persecution;
A dram was _memento mori_;
But a full flowing bowl
Was the saving his soul,
And port was celestial glory!




CHAPTER V

DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE POETRY


The "world of Scotch drink, Scotch manners, and Scotch religion" was
not, Matthew Arnold insisted, a beautiful world, and it was, he held,
a disadvantage to Burns that he had not a beautiful world to deal
with. This famous dictum is a standing challenge to any critic who
regards Burns as a creator of beauty. It is true that when Burns took
this world at its apparent worst, when Scotch drink meant bestial
drunkenness, when Scotch manners meant shameless indecency, when
Scotch religion meant blasphemous defiance, he created _The Jolly
Beggars_, which the same critic found a "splendid and puissant
production." We must conclude, then, that sufficient genius can
sublimate even a hideously sordid world into a superb work of art,
which is presumably beautiful.

But the verdict passed on the Scottish world of Burns is not to be