as to raise it into the realm of great poetry.
but the real national importance of burns is due chiefly to his songs. the puritan austerity of the turies following the reformation had disced secur music, like other forms of art, in sd; and as a result scottish song had bee hopelessly degraded in point both of ded literary quality. from youth burns had been ied in colleg the fragments he had heard sung or found printed, and he came tard the resg of this almost lost national ian the light of a vocation. about his song-making, two points are especially hy: first, that the greater number of his lyrics sprang from actual emotional experiences; sed,
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