poet died, and his son after him in the same room. WORDSWORTH, DOROTHY, Aug. 18, 1803, Journals.

Till he fixed his residence in Dumfries, his irregularities, though by no means unfrequent, had not become inveterately habitual; the temptations, however, to which he was now exposed proved too powerful for his better impressions; after various struggles against the stream of dissipation which was gradually surrounding him, he at length suffered himself to be rapidly carried along by its fatal current. A large proportion of the more genteel, or more idle inhabitants of Dumfries, consists of men connected with the profession of law: and in some of these, as well as in other inhabitants of the town and its vicinity, Burns found associates from whom it was not to be expected that he should learn sobriety. The fame of his literary character also exposed him to the company of every stranger who professed a respect for poetry. As their interviews commonly took place in taverns, his familiarity with riotous excess was daily increasing. In the midst of such distractions, it must have been impossible for him to discharge the duties of his office with that regularity which is almost indispensable. IRVINE, DAVID, 1810, The Lives of the Scottish Poets.

I was not much struck with his first appearance, as I had previously heard it described. His person, though strong and well knit, and much superior to what might be expected in a ploughman, was still rather coarse in its outline. His stature, from want of setting up, appeared to be only of the middle size, but was rather above it. His motions were firm and decided, and though without any pretentions to grace, were at the same time so free from clownish constraint, as to show that he had not always been confined to the society of his profession. His countenance was not of that elegant cast, which is most frequent among the upper ranks, but it was manly and intelligent, and marked by a thoughtful gravity which shaded at times into sternness. In his large dark eye the most striking index of his genius resided. It was full of mind; and would have been singularly expressive, under the management of one who could. employ it with more art, for the purpose of expression. In conversation

he was powerful. His conceptions and expression were of corresponding vigour, and on all subjects were as remote as possible from common places. Though somewhat authoritative, it was in a way which gave little offence, and was readily imputed to his inexperience in those modes of smoothing dissent and softening assertion, which are important characteristics of polished manners. After breakfast I requested him to communicate some of his unpublished pieces, and he recited his farewell song to the Banks of Ayr, introducing it with a description of the circumstances in which it was composed, more striking than the poem itself. I paid particular attention to his recitation, which was plain, slow, articulate, and forcible, but without any eloquence or art. He did not always lay the emphasis with propriety, nor did he humour the sentiment by the variations of his voice. was standing, during the time, with his face towards the window, to which, and not to his auditors, he directed his eyethus depriving himself of any additional effect which the language of his composition might have borrowed from the language of his countenance. WALKER, JOSIAH, 1811, Life of Burns.

-

He

No person can regret more than I do the tendency of some of my Brother's writings to represent irregularity of conduct as a consequence of genius, and sobriety the effect of dulness; but surely more has been said on that subject than the fact warrants and it ought to be remembered that the greatest part of his writings, having that tendency, were not published by himself, nor intended for publication. But it may likewise be observed, and every attentive reader of Burns's Works, must have observed, that he frequently presents a caricature of his feelings, and even of his failings-a kind of mock-heroic account of himself and his opinions, which he never supposed could be taken literally. I dare say it never entered into his head, for instance, that when he was speaking in that manner of Milton's Satan, any one should gravely suppose that was the model on which he wished to form his own character. Yet on such rants, which the author evidently intends should be considered a mere play of imagination, joined to some abstract reasoning of the critic, many of the heavy accusations brought

against the Poet for bad taste and worse morals, rest.-Burns, GILBERT, 1814, Letter to Alexander Peterkin, Sep. 29; Life and Works of Robert Burns, ed. Peterkin.

IN AETERNUM HONOREM
ROBERTI BURNS

POETARUM CALEDONIAE SUI AEVI LONGE
PRINCIPIS

CUJUS CARMINA EXIMIA PATRIO SERMONE SCRIPTA

ANIMI MAGIS ARDENTIS VIQUE INGENII QUAM ARTE VEL CULTU CONSPICUA FACETIIS JUCUNDITATE LEPORE AFFLUENTIA

OMNIBUS LITTERARUM CULTORIBUS
SATIS NOTA

CIVES SUI NECNON PLERIQUE OMNES MUSARUM AMANTISSIMI MEMORIAMQUE VIRI ARTE POETICA TAM PRAECLARI FOVENTES HOC MAUSOLEUM

SUPER RELIQUIAS POETAE MORTALES
EXTRUENDUM CURAVERE

PRIMUM HUJUS AEDIFICII LAPIDEM
GULIELMUS MILLER ARMIGER
REIPUBLICAE ARCHITECTONICAE APUD

SCOTOS

IN REGIONE AUSTRALI CURIO MAXIMUS
PROVINCIALIS

GEORGIO TERTIO REGNANTE
GEORGIO WALLIARUM PRINCIPE
SUMMAM IMPERII PRO PATRE TENENTE
JOSEPHO GASS ARMIGERO DUMFRISIAE
PRAEFECTO

THOMA F. HUNT LONDINENSI ARCHITECTO POSUIT

NONIS JUNIIS ANNO LUCIS VMDCCCXV

SALUTIS HUMANAE MDCCCXV. -INSCRIPTION ON TOMB, 1815.

The truth is, that the convivial excesses or other errors of Robert Burns, were neither greater nor more numerous than those which we every day see in the conduct of men who stand high in the estimation of society; of some men, who, like Burns, have, in their peculiar spheres, conferred splendid gifts of genius on their country, and whose names are breathed in every voice, with pride and enthusiasm, as the benefactors of society. Are their errors officiously dragged from the tomb, or emblazoned amidst the trophies of victory without universal reprobation? All we ask is the same measure of justice and of mercy for Burns.-PETERKIN, ALEXANDER, 1815, ed., The Life and Works of Robert Burns, vol. I, p. xlix.

One song of Burns's is of more worth to you than all I could think for a whole

year in his native country.

His misery is

a dead weight upon the nimbleness of one's quill; I tried to forget it-to drink toddy without any care-to write a merry sonnet-it won't do-he talked with bitches, he drank with blackguards; he was miserable. We can see horribly clear, in the works of such a man, his whole life, as if we were God's spies.KEATS, JOHN, 1818, Letters.

He had a strong mind, and a strong body, the fellow to it. He had a real heart of flesh and blood beating in his bosom-you can almost hear it throb. Some one said, that if you had shaken hands with him, his hand would have burnt yours. The gods, indeed, "made him poetical;" but nature had a hand in him first. His heart was in the right place. He did not "create a soul under the ribs of death," by tinkling siren sounds, or by piling up centos of poetic diction; but for the artificial flowers of poetry, he plucked the mountain-daisy under his feet; and a field mouse, hurrying from its ruined dwelling, could inspire him with the sentiments of terror and pity. He held the plough or the pen with the same firm, manly grasp; nor did he cut out poetry as we cut out watch-papers, with finical dexterity, nor from the same flimsy materials. Burns was not like Shakspeare in the range of his genius; but there is something of the same magnanimity, directness, and unaffected character about him. He was not a sickly sentimentalist, a namby-pamby poet, a mincing metre ballad-monger, any more than Shakspeare. He would as soon hear "a brazen candlestick tuned, or a dry wheel grate on the axletree." He was as much of a man-not a twentieth as much of a poet-as Shakspeare. With but little of his imagination or inventive power, he had the same life of mind: within the narrow circle of personal feeling or domestic incidents, the pulse of his poetry flows as healthily and vigorously. He had an eye to see; a heart to feel :-no more.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1818, Lectures on the English Poets, Lecture vii.

his advancement as a placeman. -MOORE, THOMAS, 1819, Journal, June 5; Memoirs, ed. Russell, vol. II, p. 322.

Dumfries was like a besieged place. It was known that he was dying, and the anxiety, not of the rich and the learned only, but of the mechanics and peasants, exceeded all belief. Wherever two or three people stood together, their talk was of Burns, and of him alone. They spoke of his history of his person-of his works of his family-of his fameand of his untimely and approaching fate, with a warmth and an enthusiasm which will ever endear Dumfries to my rememberance. All that he said or was sayingthe opinions of the physicians (and Maxwell was a kind and a skillful one), were eagerly caught up and reported from street to street, and from house to house.

His good humour was unruffled, and his wit never forsook him. He looked to one of his fellow volunteers with a smile, as he stood by the bed-side with his eyes wet, and said, "John, don't let the awkward squad fire over me." He repressed with a smile the hopes of his friends, and told them he had lived long enough. As his life drew near a close, the eager, yet decorous solicitude of his fellow-townsmen, increased. It is the practice of the young men of Dumfries to meet in the streets during the hours of remission from labour, and by these means I had an opportunity of witnessing the general solicitude of all ranks and of all ages. difference with them on some important points were forgotten and forgiven; they thought only of his genius-of the delight his compositions had diffused-and they talked of him with the same awe as of some departing spirit, whose voice was to gladden them no more.

His

I

went to see him laid out for the grave, several elder people were with me. He lay in a plain unadorned coffin, with a linen sheet drawn over his face, and on the bed, and around the body, herbs and flowers were thickly strewn, according to the usage of the country. He was wasted somewhat by long illness; but death had not increased the swarthy hue of his face, which was uncommonly dark and deeply marked his broad and open brow was pale and serene, and around it his sable hair lay in masses, slightly touched with grey. The room where he lay was plain

and neat, and the simplicity of the poet's humble dwelling pressed the presence of death more closely on the heart than if his bier had been embellished by vanity, and covered with the blazonry of high ancestry and rank. We stood and gazed on him in silence for the space of several minutes-we went, and others succeeded us-not a whisper was heard. This was The multitude who accompanied Burns to several days after his death. the grave went step by step with the chief mourners. They might amount to

ten or twelve thousand. Not a word was heard. It was an impressive and mournful sight to see men of all ranks and persuasions and opinions mingling as brothers, and stepping side by side

down the streets of Dumfries, with the remains of him who had sung of their loves and joys and domestic endearments, with a truth and a tenderness which none perhaps have since equalled.-CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN, 1824, Robert Burns and Lord Byron, London Magazine.

He

I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him; but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word, otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. His person was strong and robust: his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity which received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school-i. e. none of your modern agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the douce gudeman who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and

shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, and glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or terest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men in my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognize me, as I could not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but (considering what literary emoluments have been since his day) the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling. SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1827, Letter to Lockhart, Memoirs by Lockhart, vol. I, pp. 166, 167.

Burns, eager of temper, loud of tone, and with declamation and sarcasm equally at command, was, we may easily believe, the most hated of human beings, because the most dreaded, among the provincial champions of the administration of which he thought fit to disapprove. But that he ever, in his most ardent moods, upheld the principles of those whose applause of the French Revolution was but the mask of revolutionary designs at home, after these principles had been really developed by those that maintained them, and understood by him, it may be safely denied. There is not in all his correspondence, one syllable to give countenance to such a charge. Here, then, as in most other cases of similar controversy, the fair and equitable conclusion would seem to be, "truth lies between." To whatever Burns's excesses amounted, they were, it is obvious, and that frequently, the subject of rebuke and remonstrance even from his own dearest friends-even from men who had no sort of objection to potations deep enough in all conscience. That such reprimands, giving shape and form to the thoughts that tortured his own bosom, should have been received at times with

To the ill-starred Burns was given the power of making man's life more venerable, but that of wisely guiding his own was not given. Destiny-for so in our ignorance we must speak-his faults, the faults of others, proved too hard for him; and that spirit, which might have soared, could it but have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glorious faculties trodden under foot in the blossom, and died, we may almost say, without ever having lived. And so kind and warm a soul; so full of inborn riches, of love of all living and lifeless things! . . He has a just selfconsciousness, which too often degenerates into pride; yet it is a noble pride, for defence, not for offence, no cold, suspicious feeling, but a frank and social one. The peasant poet bears himself, we might say, like a king in exile: he is cast among the low, and feels himself equal to the highest; yet he claims no rank that none may be disputed to him. this was he for whom the world found no fitter business than quarreling with smugglers and vintners, computing excise dues upon tallow, and gauging ale barrels ! In such toils was that mighty spirit sorrowfully wasted: and a hundred years may pass on before another such is given us to waste.. We had something

And

to say on the public moral character of Burns, but this also we must forbear. We are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average; nay, from doubting that he is less guilty than one of ten thousand. Tried at a tribunal far more rigid than that where the plebiscita of common civic reputations are pronounced, he had seemed to us even there less worthy of blame than of pity and wonder.-CARLYLE, THOMAS, 1828, Essay on Burns.

In early life he laboured under a disorder of the stomach, accompanied by palpitations of the heart, depression of the spirits, and nervous pains in the head, the nature of which he never appears to have understood, but which evidently arose from dyspepsia. These sufferings, be it remembered, are complained of in his

letters years before he had committed any excess; and so far from being the consequence of intemperance, as they are generally considered to have been, the exhaustion they produced was probably the cause which drove him in his moments of hypochondria, to the excitement of the bottle for a temporary palliation of his symptoms.-MADDEN, R. R., 1833, Infirmities of Genius, vol. 1, p. 276.

The cranial bones were perfect in every respect, if we except a little erosion of their external table, and firmly held together by their sutures; even the delicate bones of the orbits, with the trifling exception of the os unguis in the left, were sound, and uninjured by death and the grave. The superior maxillary bones still retained the four most posterior teeth on each side, including the dentes sapientiae, and all without spot or blemish; the incisores, cuspidati, &c., had in all probability recently dropped from the jaw, for the alveoli were but little decayed. The bones of the face and palate were also sound. Some small portions of black hair, with a very few gray hairs intermixed, were observed while detaching some extraneous matter from the occiput. Indeed, nothing could exceed the high state of preservation in which we found the bones of the cranium, or offer a fairer opportunity of supplying what has so long been desiderated by phrenologists-a correct model of our immortal poet's head: and in order to accomplish this in the most accurate and satisfactory manner, every particle of sand, or other foreign body, was carefully washed off, and the plaster of Paris applied with all the tact and accuracy of an experienced artist. The cast is admirably taken, and cannot fail to prove highly interesting to phrenologists and others. Having completed our intention, the skull, securely enclosed in a leaden case, was again committed to the earth, precisely where we found it. BLACKLOCK, DR. ARCHIBALD, 1834, Report on the Cranium of Robert Burns.

I. DIMENSIONS OF THE SKULL.

-COMBE, GEORGE, 1834, Report on the Cast of Burns's Skull.

A £10 bank note, by way of subscription for a few copies of an early edition of his poems-this the outside that I could ever see proof given of Burns having received anything in the way of patronage; and doubtless this would have been gladly returned, but from the dire necessity of dissembling. Lord Glencairn is the "patron" for whom Burns appears to have felt the most sincere respect. Yet even he did he give him more than a seat at his dinner table? Lord Buchan again, whose liberalities are by this time pretty well appreciated in Scotland, exhorts Burns, in a tone of one preaching upon a primary duty of life, to exemplar gratitude towards tude towards a person who had given him absolutely nothing at all. The man has not yet lived to whose happiness it was more essential that he should live unencumbered by the sense of obligation; and, on the other hand, the man has not lived upon whose independence as professing benefactors so many people practised, or who found so many others ready to ratify and give value to their pretences. Him, whom beyond most men nature had created with the necessity of conscious independence, all men beseiged with the assurance that he was, must be, ought to be dependent; nay, that it was his primary duty to be grateful for his dependence

not merely that, with his genius, and with the intellectual pretentions generally of his family, he should have been called to a life of early labour, and of labour unhappily not prosperous, but also that he, by accident about the proudest of human spirits, should have been by accident summoned, beyond all others, to eternal recognitions of some mysterious gratitude which he owed to some mysterious patrons little and great, whilst yet, of all