longer felt to be inartistic. Forms of expression became more varied and many classic rules were forgotten. That the writer should express the truth within him in language the people could understand and in such form that it would rouse their emotions was a cardinal principle.

As an outgrowth of this search for truth in the realm of nature, came the growing conviction of the real equality of man regardless of social distinctions. The farmer in his field, the laborer by the roadside, the artisan among his machines became the equal in the poetic mind of the king upon the throne. Public sentiment was touched by this spirit in its bards and no small portion of the growth of popular freedom should be attributed to the songs of the poets. While these men were in a sense the product of the age, yet their brilliant powers of imagination and their genuine enthusiasm made them leaders in the movements that inspired them. The romanticist cultivated his imagination and his intellect but bound neither by rigid rules. This genuineness was a return to the Elizabethan Age, a revival of the spirit that breathed in Shakespeare and his followers.

As a necessary consequence of this revulsion of feeling among literary men, the form of composition changed. Few prose writers of this Romantic Age survive as favorites in the public mind. Scott is still popular though even his romances seem to be losing some of their hold,

and the delightful essays of Charles Lamb are read where literature is taught but are not so widely known as their merit demands. On the other hand one has only to mention the names of Burns and Scott, of Coleridge and Wordsworth, of Byron, Shelley and Keats to indicate the marvelous quantity of exquisite verse that was produced in the less than sixty years assigned to this age.

William
Cowper

In William Cowper (1731-1800) may be seen the transition from one period to the other, for his early writings are on classic models while in later days he had much of the ardor and imaginative spirit of the romanticists. His life was a pathetic one. It was a childhood of sensitive timidity, made miserable by bullying companions; a youth of retiring study and unhappy experiences; a manhood of despondency, temporary fits of insanity and helpless dependence upon his friends. He was always conscious of his weakness and never felt himself capable of doing anything in the world, yet his gentle disposition and winning ways brought him the love of many kindly and powerful friends. He was intensely religious by nature and yielded himself a devout believer, an unquestioning adherent to the doctrine of the day. Many of his hymns are still generally sung. "There is a fountain filled with blood" and "God moves in a mysterious way" have become household favorites.

The Task, his best known and most extended

poem, was composed at the request of Lady Austen, one of his staunchest friends. It celebrates country pleasures and simple natural scenes as far more conducive to right ways of living than is the artificial life of the town. His lines On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out of Norfolk are most beautiful and their pathos and gently affectionate tone make them beloved wherever

they are read. He could be humorous, as his unrivaled letters and the Diverting History of John Gilpin bear witness.

To us, who have the advantage of knowing the work of his great successors, Cowper may not seem of superior rank, but if we compare him with those who had preceded, we appreciate more fully the delicacy of his touch and the power of his genius.

Robert

Robert Burns (1759-1796), for a brief

Burns account of whose life see Part Seven, page 139, was another leader in the Romantic movement, though in an entirely independent way; a leader in point of time and a leader by the marked originality of his genius. No one ever came nearer the great heart of humanity than did the Ayreshire ploughman whose intimate acquaintance with nature enabled him to create the matchless background against which he set off his human characteristics. He possessed an inimitable humor and a mastery of the musical elements in verse that made him a chief among the lyric poets.