and colored them with his own transfiguring fancy. The human sympathies of Burns wrought like the spiritual sympathies of Cowper, and put him, at times, as in the Mountain Daisy, in living concord with nature.

The class to which Burns belonged, the dialect in which he wrote, his limited education, all lightened the weight of conventional influences, and left him chiefly to the push of his own nature as he produced his lyrics, first for himself, and later for the world. Though Burns stands at the entrance of the new period, none of the great poets that followed surpassed him in individuality of faculties, a freedom which yet left him in full mastery of a varied and most melodious verse. Here again in the life of Burns we have a large, constitutional, original element, which shaped itself into the development of his times without being governed by it. Pope had been made the subject of admiring study by Burns, yet cast no reflection of himself in the dancing, sparkling, rollicksome stream of his verse.

We now turn, having touched a few of the significant features of transition in the works of individual poets, to the general forces which helped to bring about a new intellectual activity, a fresh era of invention. We have referred to the weariness into which art, mere art, finally falls, the ennui which forces the spirit to some new form of activity. But this is a negative rather than a positive force, a divorce from the past

rather than a promise of the future. We still need to see what awakening energies, what living ideas, were then at large in the intellectual .world, to take the guidance of a new movement, and impart to it impulse.

A literary influence which accompanied and indicated this change of taste was an increased interest in early English poetry. The nation, weary of the products of classical criticism, turned to the fresh, wild fruits of its own literary youth, and sought in its early ballads the relish it had lost in didactic art; as old age seeks to renew its languid appetites with the fruits that delighted its boyhood. It is always a sign of health when a people is interested in itself, its history, its art, and the tendencies native to its growth. A submission to foreign law, and a sedulous imitation of works more or less alien to the soil and temper and wants of a people, are the marks of flagging invention, and the precursors of still farther decay.

The publication, in 1765, of Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry was a leading and very influential indication of the wakefulness of the nation to its own work. "I do not think," said Wordsworth, "that there is an able writer in verse of the present day, who would not be proud to acknowledge his obligations to the Reliques; I know that it is so with my friends; for myself I am happy to make a public avowal of mine own." Walter Scott, who felt so pre-eminently, and who so fully followed out, this tendency to legendary

and romantic history, to restored nationalism, says: "From this time," the date of his reading the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, "the love of natural beauty, more especially when combined with ancient ruins, or the remains of our fathers' piety or splendour, became with me an insatiable passion, which, if circumstances had permitted, I would willingly have gratified by travelling over half the globe." So ready and inflammable was the material prepared for these living coals, unraked from the ashes of departed years. The Reliques were largely composed of the lyrics of earlier and later writers. The ballads yielded the key-note, and then gave place to the melody of more modern verse, the most free and national in its character. Lyric poetry, less ambitious than other forms, more close to the individual sentiment, is wont to be the refuge of the most genuine, simple and passionate strains; to be most deeply infused with the national temper.

The impression made by this work of Percy's was confirmed by Warton's History of English Poetry. This history covers the early years of our literature broadly and thoroughly, and indicates at once enthusiasm and patient research. The awakened interest in the past is also indicated by the literary forgeries of the time. These sprang up in connection with the general interest that attended on historical research. Evidently Macpherson and Chatterton found something in this eager temper of the public mind which prepared the way for their deceptions.

A second literary element, which marked and helped to cause the shifting spirit of the period, was the incipient influence of German literature. Immediate entrance was given to it through Walter Scott, and still more, through Wordsworth and Coleridge. Coleridge was well fitted for the reception both of its philosophy and poetry. His methods of thought concurred with his knowledge to render German influence powerful with him. From this date onward German literature has been gaining ground in England and America, and has for many years been quite the most vigorous of European forces. England, France and Germany, together supreme in philosophy, science and art, hold toward each other independent and diverse positions. The artistic element, in its more separate and complete form, belongs to France. The active, the brilliant, the formal, in social organization, in social intercourse, in criticism, in creation, are found with the French; the sluggish, practical, powerful and useful rest with the English; while to the German belongs the theoretical, the speculative, the profound, the laborious. The three occupy in reference to each other the points of a triangle. For the English to draw near the French is to be quickened in execution, but to lose weight; to be made critical, captious and superficial: for them to draw near the Germans is to deepen and enlarge inquiry; is to be renewed in thought, and enlivened in invention.

Taine reproaches the English as lacking philosophy. The reproach is not just, and, if it were,

would come but poorly from a Frenchman. The philosophical tendency is not as controlling in England as it has been in Germany; nor is it likely to flash out in as extreme, rapid, and perchance brilliant speculation as in France; yet, as we shall later show, as settled, consistent, continuous and fruitful a philosophical movement has fallen to England as to either of the other two. The philosophy of England shows a history far more independent than does that of France, and one, we believe, whose results have kept much closer to the truth than the speculations of either France or Germany.

It is now urged, and with a measure of correctness, that the scientific temper is one of relative indifference to the bearing of the results reached by inquiry; that it schools itself to accept one result as

freely as another. As against controlling prejudice, this claim must be granted, not, we think, as against every cautious, constitutional tendency. The English, as contrasted with the Germans, pursue philosophy distrustfully, with a predisposed and interested spirit. Questions of religion, of society, and of government are so present to their speculations, that they are always forecasting the issues and tendencies of a theory, suffering practical exigencies to react upon it, and turning aside from troublesome conclusions. It may be questioned whether the fruits of their philosophy have for this reason been less valuable. Additional caution, repeated consideration by various minds, a stern resistance to extreme, erratic tendencies, have been the result, and have made the gains of thought, if