sons happened to kindle the restlessness of his spirit into interest or aversion. This was not, however, invariably the case; his wit (which is no unusual matter indeed) had always the start of his judgment, and would lead him to the indulgence of raillery uniformly acute, but often unaccompanied with the least desire to wound. The suppression of an arch and full pointed bon mot, from dread of injuring its object, the sage of Zurich very properly classes as a virtue only to be sought for in the Calendar of Saints;' if so, Burns must not be dealt with unconscientiously for being rather deficient in it. He paid the forfeit of his talents as dearly as any one could do. "Twas no extravagant arithmetic to say of him (as of Yorick), 'that for every ten jokes he got a hundred enemies; but much allowance should be made by a candid mind for the splenetic warmth of a spirit which distress had often spited with the world,' and which, unbounded in its intellectual sallies and pursuits, continually experienced the curbs imposed by the waywardness of his fortune. His soul was never languid or inactive, and his genius was extinguished only with the last sparks of retreating life; but the vivacity of his wishes and temper was checked by constant disappointments which sat heavy on a heart that acknowledged the ruling passion of independence, without having ever been placed beyond the grasp of

penury.

Burns possessed none of that negative insipidity of character, whose love must be regarded with indifference, or whose resentment could be considered with contempt; so his passions rendered him-according as they disclosed themselves in affection or antipathy-the object of enthusiastic attachment or of decided enmity. In this respect, the temper of his companions seemed to take the tincture from his own; for he acknowledged in the universe but two classes of objects—those of adoration the most fervent, or of aversion the most uncontrollable. It has indeed been frequently asserted of him, that, unsusceptible of indifference, and often hating where he ought to have despised, he alternately opened his heart and poured forth the treasures of his understanding to some who were incapable of appreciating the homage; and elevated to the privilege of adversaries those who were unqualified in all respects for the honour of a contest so distinguished.

It is said that the celebrated Dr Johnson professed to 'love a good hater a temperament that had singularly adapted him to cherish a prepossession in favour of our bard, who perhaps fell but little short even of the surly Doctor in this qualification, so long as his ill-will continned; but the fervor of his passions was fortunately corrected by their versatility. He was seldom-never indeed-implacable in his resentments, and sometimes (it has been alleged) not inviolably steady in his engagements of friendship. Much indeed has been said of his inconsistency and caprice; but I am inclined to believe they originated less in a levity of sentiment, than from an extreme impetuosity of feeling which rendered him prompt to take umbrage; and his sensations of pique, where he fancied he had discovered the traces of

unkindness, scorn, or neglect, took their measure of asperity from the overflowings of the opposite sentiment which preceded them, and which seldom failed to regain its ascendency in his bosom, on the return of calmer reflection. He was candid and manly in the avowal of his errors, and his avowal was a reparation. His native fierté never forsaking him for a moment, the value of a frank acknowledgment was enhanced tenfold towards a generous mind from its never being attended with servility. His mind, organised only for the stronger and more acute operation of the passions, was impracticable to the efforts of superciliousness that would have depressed it into humility, and equally superior to the encroachments of venal suggestions that might have led him into the mazes of hypocrisy.

It has been observed that he was far from averse to the incense of flattery, and could receive it tempered with less delicacy than might have been expected, as he seldom transgressed extravagantly in that way himself; where he paid a compliment it might indeed claim the power of intoxication, as approbation from him was always an honest tribute from the warmth and sincerity of his heart. It has been sometimes represented, by those who, it would seem had a view to depreciate, though they could not hope wholly to obscure, that native brilliancy which this extraordinary man had invariably bestowed on every thing that came from his lips or pen, that the history of the Ayrshire ploughboy was an ingenious fiction, fabricated for the purposes of obtaining the interests of the great, and enhancing the merits of what in reality required no foil. But had his compositions fallen from a hand more dignified in the ranks of society than that of a peasant, they had perhaps bestowed as unusual a grace there, as even in the humbler shade of rustic inspiration from whence they really sprung.

That Burns had received no classical education, and was acquainted with the Greek and Roman authors only through the medium of translations, is a fact that can be indisputably proven. I have seldom seen him at a loss in conversation, unless where the dead languages and their writers were the subjects of discussion. When I have pressed him to tell me why he never took pains to acquire the Latin in particular (a language which his happy memory had so soon enabled him to be master of), he used only to reply with a smile, that he already knew all the Latin he desired to learn, and that was omnia vincit amor; a phrase that from his writings and most favourite pursuits, it should undoubtedly seem he was most thoroughly versed in; but I really believe his classical erudition extended little, if any, further.

The penchant uniformly acknowledged by Burns for the festive pleasures of the table, and towards the fairer and softer objects of Nature's creation, has been the rallying point where the attacks of his censors, both religious and moral, have been directed; and to these, it must be confessed, he showed himself no stoic. His poetical pieces blend, with alternate happiness of description, the frolic spirit of the joy-inspiring bowl, or melt the heart to the tender and impassioned

sentiments in which beauty always taught him to pour forth his own. But who would wish to reprove the failings he has consecrated with such lively touches of nature? And where is the rugged moralist who will persuade us so far to chill the genial current of the soul,' as to regret that Ovid ever celebrated his Corinna, or that Anacreon sung beneath his vine?

I will not, however, undertake to be the apologist of the irregularities even of a man of genius, though I believe it is as certainly understood that genius never was free of irregularities, as that their absolution may in great measure be justly claimed, since it is evident that the world must have continued very stationary in its intellectual acquirements, had it never given birth to any but men of plain sense. Evenness of conduct, and a due regard to the decorums of the world, have been so rarely seen to move hand in hand with genius, that some have gone so far as to say (though there I cannot wholly acquiesce), that they are even incompatible; but, be it remembered, the frailties that cast their shade over the splendour of superior merit are more conspicuously glaring than where they are the attendants of mere mediocrity. It is only on the gem we are disturbed to see the dust; the pebble may be soiled, and we do not regard it. The eccentric intuitions of genius too often yield the soul to the wild effervescence of desires, always unbounded, and sometimes equally dangerous to the repose of others as fatal to its own. No wonder then if Virtue herself be sometimes lost in the blaze of kindling animation, or that the calm admonitions of reason are not found sufficient to fetter an imagination which scorns the narrow limits and restrictions that would chain it to the level of ordinary minds. Burns, the child of nature and sensibility, unbroke to the refrigerative precepts of philosophy, makes his own artless apology in terms more forcible than all the argumentatory vindications in the world could do. This appears in one of his poems, where he delineates, with his usual simplicity, the progress of his mind, and its gradual expansion to the lessons of the tutelary Muse :

'I saw thy pulse's madd'ning play

Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way,
Misled by Fancy's meteor ray,

By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray

Was light from heaven!'

I have already transgressed far beyond the bounds I had proposed to myself on first committing to paper this sketch, which comprehends what I at least have been led to deem the leading features of Burns's mind and character. A critique, either literary or moral, I cannot aim at; mine is wholly fulfilled if in these paragraphs I have been able to delineate any of those strong traits that distinguish him, of those talents which raised him from the plough-where he passed the bleak morning of his life, weaving his rude wreaths of poesy with the wild field-flowers that sprung around his cottage-to that enviable eminence of literary

fame, where Scotland shall long cherish his memory with delight and gratitude. Proudly she will remember that beneath her cold sky, a genius was ripened without care or culture, that would have done honour to climes more favourable to the development of those luxuriances of fancy and colouring in which he so eminently excelled.

From several paragraphs I have noticed in the public prints, even since the idea was formed of sending this humble effort in the same direction, I find private animosities have not yet subsided, and that envy has not yet exhausted all her shafts. I still trust, however, that honest fame will be permanently affixed to Burns's character-a fame which the candid and impartial of his own countrymen, and his readers everywhere, will find he has merited. And wherever a kindred bosom is found that has been taught to glow with the fires that animated Burns, should a recollection of the imprudences that sullied his brighter qualifications interpose, let such an one remember the imperfection of all human excellence,-let him leave those inconsistencies which alternately exalted his nature into the seraph and sunk it again into the man, to the Tribunal which alone can investigate the labyrinths of the human heart.

'In vain we seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode;
There they alike in trembling hope repose-

The bosom of his Father and his God.'

M. R.

No. III.-TESTIMONIES OF GRAY AND FINDLATER.*

BURNS'S CHARACTER.

The following letters were written to Alexander Peterkin, and inserted by him in his edition of Burns's Works (1815) :

EDINBURGH, 28th September 1814.

DEAR SIR-I am happy to learn that you are engaged in a vindication of the character of Burns from the calumnies contained in some of our most popular literary journals. The fate of this great man has been singularly hard; during the greater part of his life, he was doomed to struggle with adverse fortune, and no friendly hand was stretched forth to shield him from the storm that at last overwhelmed him. It seemed even to have been the object of a jealous and illiberal policy to accelerate his ruin. His enemies have ascribed to him vices foreign to his nature; have exaggerated his failings, and have not even had the justice to relieve the deep shades of imputed depravity, by a single ray of virtue.

* James Gray was rector of Dumfries Academy from 1794, and taught young Robert, if not other of Burns's sons. He was afterwards a master in the High School, Edinburgh, and latterly took orders and lived in India. Findlater was Burns's supervisor, frequently referred to in the text.

In their portraits there is none of that disposition of light and shade, in which nature delights. They resemble the works of the caricature painter, in which every beauty is concealed, and every deformity overcharged, rather than the correct likeness of the honest artist, studious of the fidelity of his representation. The truth is, that not one of the periodical writers who have thought fit to pronounce judgment in so decisive a tone, on the moral conduct of the Poet, had the means of forming a fair estimate of his character. They had heard certain reports injurious to his reputation, and they received them without examination as established facts. It is besides to be lamented, that the most respectable of his biographers has in some cases suffered himself to be misled by the slanderous tales of malice or party spirit.

Every lover of genius, and every friend of the family of Burns, ought to feel grateful to Dr Currie for the generous manner in which he came forward to rescue the widow and orphans from absolute want; for it deserves to be recorded to his honour that by his gratuitous exertions, they were put in possession of nearly twelve hundred pounds. Great judgment and talent are displayed in the execution of the work. The posthumous poetry does equal credit to the taste of the biographer, and the genius of the Poet; and the letters are so judiciously selected as at once to illustrate his life and character. I am, therefore, reluctantly compelled, by justice to an injured name, to animadvert on the passage, which you have submitted to my consideration. I love Dr Currie, but I love the fame of Burns more; and no authority, how respectable soever, shall deter me from a bold declaration of the truth.

The poet of the Cotter's Saturday Night, who felt all the charms of the humble piety and virtue, which he has so delightfully sung, is here charged with vices which would reduce him to a level with the most degraded of his species. He is a habitual drunkard-he spends his time in society of the lowest kind-he is the sport of uncontrolled passions-he is polluted by contamination, over which delicacy and humanity draw a veil.' On each of these charges, I shall hazard a few remarks; and as I knew him during that period of his life, emphatically denominated his evil days, I am enabled to speak from my own observation. It is not my intention to extenuate his errors, because they were combined with genius; on that account, they are only the more dangerous, because the more seducive, and deserve the more severe reprehension; but I shall likewise claim, that nothing may be set down in malice against him.

But to proceed; he was not a habitual drunkard. Of this assertion, many proofs might be adduced. A few shall suffice. To the period of his last illness, he discharged all the duties of his station with a most scrupulous exactness. In a situation that requires constant and minute attention, he never neglected the call of duty. We have the testimony of his superior, that he was a faithful and correct officer, equally attentive to the interests of Government, and liberal to the fair trader. Not many days passed during his stay in Dumfries, in which he did not compose some piece of poetry, or some song, destined to delight the imagina