Lord Tennyson, the aristocrat, reserved, professional poet, patiently polishing his verses through many years until at last he was rewarded by being made poet laureate and a peer; Longfellow, the Harvard professor, whose sweet, melodious, and gentle songs were inspired by a perfectly correct life, and Burns, "Bobbie Burns" as we prefer to call him, ploughing, sinning, repenting, writing his poems at odd moments as his principal pleasure in life-these are about as widely different as human beings and poets can be, but their histories should teach us that life is broad and varied, and there is just as much of interest in one phase as another.