The Well of the Silent Harp concludes the memorable series of novels in which James Barke has portrayed so successfully the life and loves of Robert Burns. He has completed a portrait which amid the dust of inevitable controversy emerges clearly as a major work destined to endure. Here are the years of fulfillment, a burgeoning not only of Burns's poetry but of his philosophy, a philosophy hardened in maturity by the radical influences then sweeping the country. The passions of his younger years are all but spent. The loves that burned so fiercely flicker and, like guttering candles, go out-all except that abiding love for the immortal Jean. The concluding chapters are noble in their inexorable sweep towards the final scenes in Dumfries. The eternal tragedy of the poet dying with songs still to give the world is intensified by the dramatic circumstances of his death-the cries of his newborn child in the little house in the Millbrae Vennel mingling with the ragged volleys of the Awkward Squad firing over his grave. James Barke has written nothing finer than this.