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Article REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS. ← Page 5 of 6 →
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Reviews Of New Books.
in the harvest . He then learned surveying at the parish - -school of Kirkoswald . He had learned French of ^ and understand any French author in prose . He then attempted to learn Latin ; but soon gave it up . Mrs . Paterson , of Ayr , now lent the boys the 'Spectator / Pope ' s Translation of Homer , and several other books that were of use to them . " Thus , although Bobert Burns was the child of poverty and toil , there were fortunate circumstances in his position . His parents were excellent persons -his father exerted himself as his instructor , and , cottager as he was , contrived to have something like the benefits of private tuition for his two eldest sons ; and
the young poet became , comparatively speaking , a well-educated man . His father had remarked , from a very early period ; the bright intellect of his elderborn in particular , saying to his wife , ' Whoever may live to see it , something extraordinary will come from that boy !' "It was not until his twenty-third year that Burns ' s reading was enlarged by the addition of Thompson , Shenstpne , Sterne , and Mackenzie . Other standard works soon folio wed . The great advantage of his learning was , that what books
he had , lie read and studied thoroughly—^ iiis attention was not distracted by a multitude of yolumes ^ and his mind grew up with original and robust vigour ; and , in the veriest shades of obscurity , he toiled , when a mere youth , to support his virtuous parents and their household f ^ y tunity of acquiring knowledge freemen and books . '' Burns , says Mr . Carruthers , came as a potent auxiliary or feilow-worker with Oowper , in bringing poetry into the channels of truth and nature . There were
only two years between the ' Task ' and the ' Cotter ' s Saturday Night / No poetry was ever more instantaneously or hniversally popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland . There wa-s the humour of Smollet ^ the pathos and tenderness of Sterne or Bichardson , the real life , of Fielding , and the description of Thompson—ail united in the delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by the Ayrshire ploughman . His masterpiece is Tarn o * Shant er ; it was so considered by himself , and the judgment has keen confirmed by Campbell , Wilson , Montgomery , and by almost every critic .
Inclosing our notice we should not omit to mention that the volume is of that compact form admirably a dapted for the railway , and it is illustrated by a number of excellently executed woodcuts . Poems : by an Architect . London : Robert Hardwicke , Piccadilly . — To be a good architect a man must have an eye for the chaste and beautiful , and if not a poet in verse be at least a poet in feeling . Who our present Architect may be we know not . but the little volume lying before us proves
him to be a gentleman possessed of more than ordinary ability as a poetic writer—far above those verse-spinners , whose writings are only published to be laughed at , laid down , and forgotten . Of the longer poems in the book ( though all are comparatively short ) we most admire " The Monk in the Desert / 3 and " Karin , a Swedish Story . " "The Dying Magdalen /'
which we here present to our readers , will lose none of its force or tenderness because it somewhat reminds us of Hood's " Song of the Shirt / 3 and may , we believe , be taken as a faithful index to the thoughts of many a poor dying creature whom treachery and circumstances , more than innate sin , have brought within the scope of the " social evil : "" THE DYING MAG 1 > ALEN .
" A woman lay in a filthy bed , And look'd lite the ghost of sin ; Ail glory from her form was fled—Pale , haggard , lorn , and thin : The loathsome thing now gasping there Had not long since been passing fair ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Reviews Of New Books.
in the harvest . He then learned surveying at the parish - -school of Kirkoswald . He had learned French of ^ and understand any French author in prose . He then attempted to learn Latin ; but soon gave it up . Mrs . Paterson , of Ayr , now lent the boys the 'Spectator / Pope ' s Translation of Homer , and several other books that were of use to them . " Thus , although Bobert Burns was the child of poverty and toil , there were fortunate circumstances in his position . His parents were excellent persons -his father exerted himself as his instructor , and , cottager as he was , contrived to have something like the benefits of private tuition for his two eldest sons ; and
the young poet became , comparatively speaking , a well-educated man . His father had remarked , from a very early period ; the bright intellect of his elderborn in particular , saying to his wife , ' Whoever may live to see it , something extraordinary will come from that boy !' "It was not until his twenty-third year that Burns ' s reading was enlarged by the addition of Thompson , Shenstpne , Sterne , and Mackenzie . Other standard works soon folio wed . The great advantage of his learning was , that what books
he had , lie read and studied thoroughly—^ iiis attention was not distracted by a multitude of yolumes ^ and his mind grew up with original and robust vigour ; and , in the veriest shades of obscurity , he toiled , when a mere youth , to support his virtuous parents and their household f ^ y tunity of acquiring knowledge freemen and books . '' Burns , says Mr . Carruthers , came as a potent auxiliary or feilow-worker with Oowper , in bringing poetry into the channels of truth and nature . There were
only two years between the ' Task ' and the ' Cotter ' s Saturday Night / No poetry was ever more instantaneously or hniversally popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland . There wa-s the humour of Smollet ^ the pathos and tenderness of Sterne or Bichardson , the real life , of Fielding , and the description of Thompson—ail united in the delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by the Ayrshire ploughman . His masterpiece is Tarn o * Shant er ; it was so considered by himself , and the judgment has keen confirmed by Campbell , Wilson , Montgomery , and by almost every critic .
Inclosing our notice we should not omit to mention that the volume is of that compact form admirably a dapted for the railway , and it is illustrated by a number of excellently executed woodcuts . Poems : by an Architect . London : Robert Hardwicke , Piccadilly . — To be a good architect a man must have an eye for the chaste and beautiful , and if not a poet in verse be at least a poet in feeling . Who our present Architect may be we know not . but the little volume lying before us proves
him to be a gentleman possessed of more than ordinary ability as a poetic writer—far above those verse-spinners , whose writings are only published to be laughed at , laid down , and forgotten . Of the longer poems in the book ( though all are comparatively short ) we most admire " The Monk in the Desert / 3 and " Karin , a Swedish Story . " "The Dying Magdalen /'
which we here present to our readers , will lose none of its force or tenderness because it somewhat reminds us of Hood's " Song of the Shirt / 3 and may , we believe , be taken as a faithful index to the thoughts of many a poor dying creature whom treachery and circumstances , more than innate sin , have brought within the scope of the " social evil : "" THE DYING MAG 1 > ALEN .
" A woman lay in a filthy bed , And look'd lite the ghost of sin ; Ail glory from her form was fled—Pale , haggard , lorn , and thin : The loathsome thing now gasping there Had not long since been passing fair ,