that his "low-roof'd house" was honored because by his genius he had greatly glorified his people. We have seen, from one characteristic instance, how shamefully his condescension must often have been abused; and no doubt but that sometimes he behaved imprudently in such parties, and incurred the blame of intemperance. Frequently must he have joined them with a heavy heart! How little did many not among the worst of those who stupidly stared at the "wondrous guest" understand of his real character! How often must they have required mirth from him in his melancholy, delight in his despair! The coarse buffoon ambitious to show off before the author of "Tam o' Shanter" and "The Holy Friar"-how could it enter into his fat heart to conceive, in the midst of his own roaring ribaldry, that the fire-eyed son of genius was a hypochondriac, sick of life! Why such a fellow would think nothing next morning of impudently telling his cronies that on the whole he had been disappointed in the Poet. Or in another key, forgetting that the Poet who continued to sit late at a tavern table, need own no relationship but that of time and place with the proser who was lying resignedly under it, the drunkard boasts all over the city of the glorious night he had had with BURNS. But of the multitudes who thus sought the society of Burns, there must have been many in every way qualified to enjoy it. His fame had crossed the Tweed; and though a knowledge of his poetry could not then have been prevalent over England, he had ardent admirers among the most cultivated classes, before whose eyes, shadowed in a language but imperfectly understood, had dawned a new and beautiful world of rustic life. Young men of generous birth, and among such lovers of genius some doubtless themselves endowed with the precious gift, acquainted with the clod-hoppers of their own country, longed to behold the prodigy who had stalked between the stilts of the plough in moods of tenderest or loftiest inspiration; and it is pleasing to think that the poet was not seldom made happy by such visitors that they carried back with them to their own noblest land a still deeper impression of the exalted worth of the genius of Caledonia. Nor did the gold coin of the genius of Burns sustain any depreciation during his lifetime in his own country. He had that to comfort him that to glory in till the last; and in his sorest poverty, it must have been his exceeding great reward. Ebenezer Elliot has nobly expressed that belief -and coupled with it—as we have often done-the best vindication of Scotland "BUT SHALL IT OF OUR SIRES BE TOLD THAT THEY THEIR BROTHER POOR FORSOOK? What happens during their life, more or less, to all eminent men, happened to Burns. Thinking on such things, one sometimes cannot help believing that man hates to honor man, till the power in which miracles have been wrought is extinguished or withdrawn; and then, when jealousy, envy, and all uncharitableness of necessity cease, we confess its grandeur, bow down to it, and worship it. But who were they who in his own country continued most steadfastly to honor his genius and himself, all through what have been called, truly in some respects, falsely in others, his dark days in Dumfries, and on to his death? Not Lords and Earls, not lawyers and wits, not philosophers and doctors, though among the nobility and gentry, among the classes of leisure and of learning, he had friends who wished him well, and were not indisposed to serve him; not the male generation of critics, not the literary prigs epicene, not of decided sex the blues celestial, though many periods were rounded among them upon the Ayrshire ploughman; but the MEN OF HIS OWN ORDER, with their wives and daughtersshepherds, and herdsmen, and ploughmen, delvers and ditchers, hewers of wood and drawers of water, soldiers and sailors, whether regulars, militia, fencibles, volunteers, on board king's or merchant's ship "far, far at sea or dirt gabbert-within a few yards of the land on either side of the Clyde or the Cart― the WORKING PEOPLE, whatever the instruments of their toil, they patronized Burns then, they patronize him now, they would not have hurt a hair of his head, they will not hear of any dishonor to his dust, they know well what it is to endure, to yield, to enjoy, and to suffer, and the memory of their own bard will be hallowed for ever among the brotherhood like a religion. In Dumfries—as in every other considerable town in Scotland -and we might add England-it was then customary, you know, with the respectable inhabitants, to pass a convivial hour or two of an evening in some decent tavern or other—and Burns's howf was the Globe, kept by honest Mrs. Hyslop, who had a sonsie sister, “Anna wi' the gowden locks," the heroine of what in his fond deceit he thought was the best of all his songs. The worthy towns-folk did not frequent bar, or parlor, or club-roomat least they did not think they did-from a desire for drink ; though doubtless they often took a glass more than they intended, nay, sometimes even two; and the prevalence of such a system of social life, for it was no less, must have given rise, with others besides the predisposed, to very hurtful habits. They met to expatiate and confer on state affairs-to read the newspapers-to talk a little scandal-and so forth-and the result was, we have been told, considerable dissipation. The system was not excellent; dangerous to a man whose face was always more than welcome; without whom there was wanting the evening or the morning star. Burns latterly indulged too much in such compotations, and sometimes drank more than was good for him; but not a man now alive in Dumfries ever saw him intoxicated; and the survivors all unite in declaring that he cared not whether the stoup were full or empty, so that there were conversation—argumentative or declamatory, narrative or anecdotal, grave or gay, satirical or sermonic; nor would any of them have hoped to see the sun rise again in this world, had Burns portentously fallen asleep. They had much better been, one and all of them, even on the soberest nights, at their own firesides, or in their beds, and orgies that seemed moderation itself in a houf, would have been felt outrageous in a home. But the blame, whatever be its amount, must not be heaped on the head of Burns, while not a syllable has ever been said of the same enormities steadily practised for a series of years by the dignitaries of the borough, who by themselves and friends were opined to have been from youth upwards among the most sober of the children of Adam. Does anybody suppose that Burns would have addicted himself to any meetings considered disreputable or that, had he lived now, he would have frequented any tavern, except, perhaps, some not unfavored one in the airy realms of imagination, and built among the clouds? Malicious people would not have ventured during his lifetime, in underhand and undertoned insinuations, to whisper away Burns's moral character, nor would certain memorialists have been so lavish of their lamentations and regrets over his evil habits, had not his political principles during his later years been such as to render him with many an object of suspicion equivalent, in troubled times, to fear and hatred. A revolution that shook the foundations on which so many old evils and abuses rested, and promised to restore to millions their natural liberties, and by that restoration to benefit all mankind, must have agitated his imagination to a pitch of enthusiasm far beyond the reach of ordinary minds to conceive, who nevertheless thought it no presumption on their part to decide dogmatically on the highest questions in political science, the solution of which, issuing in terrible practice, had upset one of the most ancient, and as it had been thought, one of the firmest of thrones. No wonder that with his eager and earnest spirit for ever on his lips, he came to be reputed a Democrat. Dumfries was a Tory Town, and could not tolerate a revolutionary-the term was not in use then -a Radical Exciseman. And to say the truth, the idea must have been not a little alarming to weak nerves, of Burns as a demagogue. With such eyes and such a tongue he would have proved a formidable Man of the People. It is certain that he spoke and wrote rashly and reprehensibly-and deserved a caution from the Board. But not such tyrannical reproof; and perhaps it was about as absurd in the Board to order Burns not to think, as it would have been in him to order it to think, for thinking comes of nature, and not of institution, and 'tis about as difficult to control as to create it. He defended himself boldly, and like a man conscious of harboring in his bosom no evil wish to the State. "In my defence to their accusations I said, that whatever might be my sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to Britain I abjured the idea; that a constitution, which in its original principles, experience had proved to be in every way fitted for our happiness in society, it would be insanity to sacrifice to an untried visionary theory ;-that in consideration of my being situated in a department, however humble, immediately in the hands of people in power, I had forborne taking an active part, either personally, or as an author, in the present business of reform; but that when I must declare my sentiments, I would say there existed a system of corruption between the executive power and the representative part of the legislature which boded no good to our glorious constitution, and which every patriotic Briton must wish to see amended.” His biographers have had difficulty in forming their opinion as to the effect on Burns's mind of the expression of the Board's sovereign will and displeasure. Scott, without due consideration, thought it so preyed on his peace as to render him desperate --and has said "that from the moment his hopes of promotion were utterly blasted, his tendency to dissipation hurried him precipitately into those excesses which shortened his life." Lockhart, on the authority of Mr. Findlater, dissents from that statement; Allan Cuninghame thinks it in essentials true, and that Burns's letter to Erskine of Mar, "covers the Board of Excise and the British Government of that day with eternal shame.” Whatever may have been the effect of those proceedings on Burns's mind, it is certain that the freedom with which he gave utterance to his political opinions and sentiments seriously injured him in the estimation of multitudes of excellent people who thought them akin to doctrines subversive of all government but that of the mob. Nor till he joined the Dumfries Volunteers, and as their Laureate issued his popular song, that flew over the land like wild-fire, "Does haughty Gaul invasion threat?" was he generally regarded as a loyal subject. For two or three years he had been looked on with evil eyes, and spoken of in evil whispers by too many of the good, and he had himself in no small measure to blame for their false judgment of his character. Here are a few of his lines to "The Tree of Liberty :" "But vicious folk aye hate to see The works of virtue thrive, man; > |