Lord Rosebery unveiled a statue of Burns at Paisley on
iturday last. The poet, pencil and note-book in hand, is leaning on a wooden plough of the period. The great debt that Burns owed to Scotland, said Lord Rosebery, was that he kept enthusiasm alive. "It is to Burns that we owe our perennial supply, as distinguished from gnats and flashes, of this precious quality. To Burns we owe it that we canny, long-headed Scots do not stagnate into prose. His genius and character are the gulf-stream which prevents our freezing into apathy and material life." The Scottish character was proud and reserved. They wanted a hero who would keep them warm. Wallace and Bruce were too remote. Knox wants a little warming himself. "Mary, Queen of Scots, does not unite us ail. Scott, though we all love him, is not so com- pact or picturesque as Burns. He never fails us. We rally regularly and constantly to his summons and his shrine. His lute awakens our romance, and charms the sunless spirits of darkness. His is the influence that maintains an abiding glow in our dour character." This is true enough if Lord Rosebery merely means that the Scotch people have as a matter of fact chosen to make Burns a sort of standard round which their feelings can rally, but if he also means that Burns was the poet of enthusiasm he is surely in error. Burns was one of the greatest of lyric poets, but it ie passion and feeling, not enthusiasm, that inspires him. His non-lyrical poetry, again, when at its highest, is never enthusiastic. Those masterpieces, "Tam O'Shanter" and "The Jolly Beggars," are full of life and glow and thought and vigour, but they are satiric and cynical rather than inspired by enthusiasm. "Scots wha ha'e " is no doubt full of enthusiasm, but it stands almost alone. If the quality of enthusiasm is wanted, it is far more easily found In Scott than in Burns.
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