taken without scrutiny. A review of those poems of Burns that are
primarily descriptive will recall to us the chief features of that
world.

Let us begin with _The Cotter's Saturday Night_, Burns's tribute to
his father's house. Let us discard the introductory stanza of
dedication, as not organically a part of the poem. The scene is set in
a gray November landscape. The tired laborer is shown returning to his
cottage, no touch of idealization being added to the picture of
physical weariness save what comes from the feeling for home and wife
and children. Then follow the gathering of the older sons and
daughter, the telling of the experiences of the week, and the advice
of the father. The daughter's suitor arrives, and the girl's
consciousness as well as the lover's shyness are delicately rendered.
Two stanzas in English moralize the situation, and for our present
purpose may be ignored. The supper of porridge and milk and a bit of
cheese is followed by a reverent account of family prayers, the father
leading, the family joining in the singing of the psalm. And as they
part for the night, the poet is carried away into an elevated
apostrophe to the country whose foundations rest upon such a
peasantry, and closes with a patriotic prayer for its preservation.

The truth of the picture is indubitable. The poet could, of course,
have chosen another phase of the same life. The cotter could have come
home rheumatic and found the children squalling and the wife cross.
The daughter might have been seduced, and the sons absent in the
ale-house. But what he does describe is just as typical, and it is
beautiful, though the manners and religion are Scottish.

Another social occasion is the subject of _Halloween_. The poem, with