religion is no longer pure and undefiled. Yet the poet hardly seems
to be at a disadvantage. He certainly is no less interesting; he
impresses our imaginations and rouses our sympathetic understanding as
keenly as ever; there is no abatement of our esthetic relish.

We have seen the Ayrshire peasant alone with his family, at social
gatherings, and at church. We have to see him with his cronies and at
the tavern. Scotch manners and Scotch religion we know now; it is the
turn of Scotch drink. The spirit of that conviviality which was one of
Burns's ruling passions, and which in his class helped to color the
grayness of daily hardship, was rendered by him in verse again and
again: never more triumphantly than in the greatest of his
bacchanalian songs, _Willie Brew'd a Peck o' Maut_. Indeed it would be
hard to find anywhere in our literature a more revealing utterance of
those effects of alcohol that are not discussed in scientific
literature--the joyous exhilaration, the conviction of (comparative)
sobriety, the temporary intensification of the feeling of good
fellowship. The challenge to the moon is unsurpassable in its
unconscious humor. Yet Arnold thought the world of Scotch drink
unbeautiful.


WILLIE BREW'D A PECK O' MAUT

O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut, [malt]
And Rob and Allan cam to see;
Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, [live-long]
Ye wad na found in Christendie. [would not have, Christendom]

We are na fou', we're nae that fou, [drunk]