Not for his poetry alone was Burns an extraordinary man. He equally excelled in colloquial talent. It is not always, indeed not generally, the case, that such as have the greatest power in deliberate composition are also highly gifted with the ability to express themselves readily and forcibly in extemporaneous conversation: a quite different talent is called into exercise, and men seldom possess a great number of distinguished powers. Burns was one of the few who, mighty in their slower and solitary movements, were also quick and strong in their unpremeditated activity. His conversation is described by his biographers as singularly energetic and beautiful. All social circles which he honored with his presence, whether of the high or low in rank, were delighted egen to amazement, with the facility and grace with which the most eloquent and profound remarks, on all conceivable subjects, were emitted, as from an exhaustless reservoir of brilliant, flowing thoughtcrystal scholars and boors, judges and draymen, lords and boot-blacks, equally paused to listen as to an inspired oracle, and when he had spoken were ready to enquire, "Whence hath this man wisdom ?"

Oh! genius is an inspiration truly divine. He whose lips have been touched with a live coal from off an heavenly altar, will speak and men can but listen, and their hearts will burn within them as his lava words come rushing in a glowing stream from their volcanic fountain. When a great soul looks out from under its high, calm brow, and breathes forth its vivifying breath, sweetening the grateful air, men may hate but they must respect. Mind is the true sovereign, and though maltreated by rebellious subjects, it is still glorious in its regal dignity. Little men may spit at great ones, but they feel very little when they do it.

Robert Burns had but to appear in any society and speak, and the thought-king stood revealed, the hero was acknowledged; and men's prejudices, however stiff-necked, must bend with a bow of reverence to intellectual greatness. Yet, though every where a welcome guest, a certain suspicious apprehension, the result of pride, that he was less respected in proportion to his real merit, than the puppet dignitaries of artificial society, made him prefer the company of those who could claim no tinsel superiority to himself. And among these friends of his own condition he was prone to conviviality, relishing with infinite gust the sweets of social intercourse, including, alas! the mountain-dew of bacchanalian celebrity. Poets, from Anacreon to Tom Moore, have sung the praise of alcoholic drinks. They seem as a race to have an innate affection for that source of a temporary ecstasy somewhat resembling their more peculiar and more ethereal intoxication. It is a lamentable predisposition, but not perhaps indicative of a very black depravity. Burns was particularly exposed to temptation in this respect, by reason of the eagerness with which his company was sought on all hands, and his own preeminently companionable disposition. He spent, at this period, a far greater portion of his time in social assemblies than he had ever before been in the habit of doing. He also participated very freely in the nectarian refreshments so common among his roistering countrymen. No inconvenience was the immediate result, while his brilliant volubility was doubtless increased by the brain-quickening draught. But the end was not yet. The second edition of his poems put our bard in possession of a greater sum than he had ever before called his own; and with a poet's prudence he resolved to expend it in visiting the classical scenery of his beloved land. With this

22

CONTRIBUTIONS TO HEROGRAPHÝ.

view he bade farewell to the scene of his temporary triumph, and on the 6th day of May, 1787, began his patriotic pilgrimage. A gladsome period was spent among scenes where, as has been said, "Every field has its battle and each rivulet its song."

I cannot think Burns was unwise in undertaking this poetic tour. I would that all men would oftener lay aside for a time the cares of business and give their minds a Sabbath-month—a month of relaxation—of travel-of communion with nature and of social interchange. From such a change of action and of scene, from a contemplation of other than the features of his counting-house, office, study, workshop, or farm, from at least an annual respiration of other than the confined air of his own town or county, I should anticipate the acquisition of a new elasticity of soul, a continued expansion of intellect and a general growth in practical wisdom. It seems to me that the mechanism of business life hath great need thus to be broken in its operation, that the working mind may not grow to its treadwheel, revolving with the same regularity and soon with equal thought. The rock-bound oyster knows no elevation in the scale of being, and the human shell-fish, secure in his impervious coat of provincialism from all approach of out-door influence, is as unlikely to see or feel anything beyond the limits of his own narrow cove. Doubtless, the greatest want of civilized society at the present day is a systematic arrangement of its dissipations. "Dulce est desipere in loco," is not a heathen but a human sentiment. That severer duties must divide our time with those of a lighter character, no sagacious observer of moral phenomena ever doubted; that we should totally abstain from amusements, no wise man ever taught. Now I dare not say that there is too little of this indispensable dissipation;

THE PARNASSIAN PLOWMÁN.

23

I rather agree with the graver portion of community that there is far too much, and would therefore that men were enlightened on a subject of so great importance, and would learn to afford themselves that portion of time which might be profitably given to travel and society, and not waste valuable hours in a manner which entirely unfits them for laborious exertion in the appropriate time for labor.

But to return to our. poet. After visiting many of the spots famous for natural beauty or consecrated by human heroism, he returned to his home at Manchline, where for once a prophet found honor in his own country. His friends and neighbors opened wide the arms of their affections, to clasp the returning friend of Scotland and of man, feeling themselves honored by the reflection of his glory. Only six months before, he had left them poor and unknown. He came back, his brow resplendant with a bardie crown imposed by the most noble hands. His brief campaign had been an Alexandrine conquest. He was now the undisputed monarch of Scotia's Parnassus. And yet the cordiality of his reception and the enthusiastic expressions of his neighbors' regard were not quite grateful to his somber temper, and he writes to a friend: "I never thought mankind capable of any thing very generous; but the stateliness of the patricians of Edinburgh and the servility of my plebeian brethren, (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance,) since I came home, have put me out of conceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry perpetually about me, in order to study the sentiments, the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid, unyielding perseverance, the desperate daring and noble defiance of hardship in that great personage, Satan. The many ties of acquaintance and friendship I have, or think I have, in life, I have felt along the lines; and,

24

CONTRIBUTIONS TO HEROGRAPHY.

damn them, they are almost all of them of such frail texture that I am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune."

Burns was prone to suspicion, and often thought he saw some lurking baseness where perhaps there was really nothing but the most noble sentiment. A man of genius, conscious of his own superiority to the pigmies around him, and accustomed to be misunderstood and insulted, is very much exposed to the danger of falling into a morbid misanthropy, disposing him to suspect humanity of the meanness justly chargeable upon many of its wearers ; and thus our divine nature is disgraced with the greatest and best, by the detestable misconduct of the littlest and vilest.

Having completed his peregrinations, our poet returned to Edinburgh, where he spent the ensuing winter; and we regret that historical fidelity requires us to add that he did. not lead as exemplary a life as was desirable in one upon whom so many eyes were turned in admiration. Such as occupy a conspicuous position in society should pay for their envied eminence by more strenuous exertions in the cause of virtue than is demanded from the obscure, and by a less free indulgence in those innocent pleasures which in their weaker brethren lean towards vice, than will readily be granted by public opinion to other men.

Burns was, as has been previously remarked, of an eminently social disposition, and the consequence of unrestrainedly gratifying his taste for convivial entertainments was, that he gradually slid into an intemperate indulgence, which continued to tarnish his otherwise reproachless character. Meanwhile, his pecuniary circumstances became so embarrassed, and the prospect before him so dismal, that he found himself forced to think of some more reliable means of support than was presented by his poetic reputa