SOCIALIST PARTY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 307, 21 September 1908, Page 4

SOCIALIST PARTY.

; At His Majesty's Theatre last night Mr. Robert Hogg lectured on "The Humanitarian and Democratic Note in Burns," and illustrated his views with recitations. Burns, ho declared, ranked with Homer, Goethe, Shakespeare, and Dante, as a world poet; one' whose songs were so universal that all races felt their magic, and acknowledged their genius.' He was a people's poet, and although men of eminence paid tribute 'to his genius, it was the workors who truly understood and thoroughly' appreciated his poems. Tho present-day criticism of our social order and its unequal distribution of wealth was, found in all of his writings, and his satiro was continually being turned against those who thought life consisted in accumulating wealth and acquiring a position of arrogalico and ease. Bo also saw that poverty was no blessing, but that a happy mean was tho right course; and ho did not spare tho poor from blame,- in that they rested content in want and suffering. His indiscretions had, to somo extent, prevented his genius earning its truo. reward, and while the lecturer admitted that he was a sinning man he maintained that he was not a bad man. His sins filled him with keen remorse, and were the cause of his premature death at 37. His life was in some ways an absolute -failure, but this gave many of his poems a deep and wondrous sympathy wherewith ho pleaded for kindness and not punishment for those who went astray. Ho was moody and pessimistic, but a clever, louder note of • optimism ran through his poems, and showed -that-the real-Burns was a man of great heart and noblo aspirations.