him by whom it had been gratified, at the expense of the public. Burns was therefore in a place where he could turn his peculiar endowments to little advantage; and where he could not, without injustice, be preferred to the most obtuse and uninteresting of his brethren, who surpassed him in the humble recommendation of exactness, vigilance, and sobriety. Attention to these circumstances might have prevented insinuations against the liberality of his superior officers, for showing so little desire to advance him, and so little indulgence to those eccentricities for which the natural temperament of genius could be pleaded. For two years, however, Burns stood sufficiently high in the opinion of the Board, and it is surely by no means improper, that where professional pretensions are nearly balanced, the additional claims of literary talent should be permitted to turn the scale. Such was the reasoning of a particular member of the Board, whose taste and munificence were of corresponding extent, and who saw no injustice in giving some preference to an officer who could write permits as well as any other, and poems much better." Not for worlds would we say a single syllable derogatory from the merits of the Board of Excise. We respect the character of the defunct; and did we not, still we should have the most delicate regard to the feelings of its descendants, many of whom are probably now prosperous gentlemen. It was a Board that richly deserved, in all its dealings, the utmost eulogies with which the genius and gratitude of Josiah Walker could brighten its green cloth. Most criminal indeed would it have been in such a Board-most wicked and most sinful—“to pardon any incorrectness on account of Burns's literary genius, as on account of his dexterity in ploughing." Deeply impressed with a sense-approaching to that of awe of the responsibility of the Board to its conscience and its country, we feel that it is better late than never, thus to declare before the whole world, A. D. 1840, that from winter 1791 to summer 1796, the "Board had no power to indulge their poetical taste, or their tenderness for him by whom it had been gratified, at the expense of the public." The Board, we doubt not, had a true innate poetical taste, and must have derived a far higher and deeper delight from the poems than the permits of Burns; nay, we are

willing to believe that it was itself the author of a volume of poetry, and editor of a literary journal.

* * *

But surpassing even Josiah Walker in our veneration of the Board, we ask, what has all this to do with the character of Burns? Its desire and its impotency to promote him are granted; but of what incorrectness had Burns been guilty, which it would have been criminal in, the Board to pardon? By whom, among the "most obtuse and uninteresting of his brethren," had he been surpassed "in the humble recommendation of exactness, vigilance, and sobriety?" Not by a single one. Mr. Findlater, who was Burns's supervisor from his admission into the Excise, and sat by him the night before he died, says, "In all that time, the superintendence of his behavior, as an officer of the revenue, was a part of my official province, and it may be supposed I would not be an inattentive observer of the general conduct of a man and a poet so celebrated by his countrymen. In the former capacity he was exemplary in his attention, and was even jealous of the least imputation on his vigilance. It was not till near the latter end of his days, that there was any falling off in this respect, and this was amply accounted for in the pressure of disease and accumulating infirmities. I will farther avow, that I never saw him-which was very frequently while he lived at Ellisland-and still more so, almost every day, after he removed to Dumfries, but in hours of business he was quite himself, and capable of discharging the duties of his office; nor was he ever known to drink by himself, or ever to indulge in the use of liquor on a forenoon. I have seen Burns in all his various phases-in his convivial moments, in his sober moods, and in the bosom of his family; indeed, I believe that I saw more of him than any other individual had occasion to see, after he became an excise officer, and I never beheld any. thing like the gross enormities with which he is now charged. That when set down on an evening with a few friends whom he liked, he was apt to prolong the social hour beyond the bounds which prudence would dictate, is unquestionable; but in his family I will venture to say he was never otherwise than as attentive and affectionate to a high degree." Such is the testi

mony of the supervisor respecting the gauger; and in that capacity Burns stands up one of its very best servants before the Board. There was no call, therefore, for Josiah's Jeremiad. But our words have not been wasted; for Burns's character has suffered far more from such aspersions as these, which, easily as they can be wiped away, were too long left as admitted stains on his memory, than from definite and direct charges of specific facts; and it is still the duty of every man who writes about him, to apply the sponge. Nothing, we repeat, shall tempt us to blame or abuse the Board. But we venture humbly to confess that we do not clearly see that the Board would have been "gratifying its tenderness at the expense of the public," had it, when told by Burns that he was dying, and disabled by the hand of God from performing actively the duties of his temporary supervisorship, requested its maker to continue to him for a few months his full salary-seventy pounds a-year-instead of reducing it in the proportion of one-half-not because he was a genius, a poet, and the author of many immortal productions— but merely because he was a man and an exciseman, and moreover the father of a few mortal children, who with their mother were in want of bread.

Gray, whom we knew well and highly esteemed, was a very superior man to honest Findlater-a man of poetical taste and feeling, and a scholar-on all accounts well entitled to speak of the character of Burns; and though there were no bounds to his enthusiasm when poets and poetry were the themes of his discourse, he was a worshipper of truth, and rightly believed that it was best seen in the light of love and admiration. Compare his bold, generous, and impassioned eulogy on the noble quali ties and dispositions of his illustrious friend, with the timid, guarded, and repressed praise for ever bordering on censure, of biographers who never saw the poet's face, and yet have dared to draw his character with the same assurance of certainty in their delineations as if they had been of the number of his familiars, and had looked a thousand times, by night and day, into the saddest secrets of his heart. Far better, surely, in a world like this, to do more rather than less than justice to the goodness of great men. No fear that the world, in its final

judgment, will not make sufficient deduction from the laud, if it be exaggerated, which love, inspired by admiration and pity, delights to bestow, as the sole tribute now in its power, on the virtues of departed genius. Calumny may last for ages-we had almost said for ever; lies have life even in their graves, and centuries after they have been interred they will burst their cerements, and walk up and down, in the face of day, undistinguishable to the weak eyes of mortals from truths-till they touch; and then the truths expand, and the lies shrivel up, but after a season to reappear, and to be welcomed back again by the dwellers in this delusive world.

"He was courted," says Gray, "by all classes of men for the fascinating powers of his conversation, but over his social scene uncontrolled passion never presided. Over the social bowl, hi wit flashed for hours together, penetrating whatever it struck, like the fire from heaven; but even in the hour of thoughtless gaiety and merriment I never knew it tainted by indecency. It was playful or caustic by turns, following an allusion through all its windings; astonishing by its rapidity, or amusing by its wild originality and grotesque yet natural combinations, but never, within my observation, disgusting by its grossness. In his morning hours, I never saw him like one suffering from the effects of last night's intemperance. He appeared then clear and unclouded. He was the eloquent advocate of humanity, justice, and political freedom. From his paintings, virtue appeared more lovely, and piety assumed a more celestial mien. While his keen eye was pregnant with fancy and feeling, and his voice attuned to the very passion which he wished to communicate, it would hardly have been possible to conceive any being more interesting and delightful. * * * The men with whom he generally associated, were not of the lowest order. He numbered among his intimate friends, many of the most respectable inhabitants of Dumfries and the vicinity. Several of those were attached to him by ties that the hand of calumny, busy as it was, could never snap asunder. They admired the poet for his genius, and loved the man for the candor, generosity, and kindness of his nature. His early friends clung to him through good and bad report, with a zeal and fidelity that prove their

disbelief of the malicious stories circulated to his disadvantage. Among them were some of the most distinguished characters in this country and not a few females, eminent for delicacy, taste, and genius. They were proud of his friendship, and cherished him to the last moment of his existence. He was endeared to them even by his misfortunes, and they still retain for his memory that affectionate veneration which virtue alone inspires."

Gray tells us too that it came under his own view professionally, that Burns superintended the education of his childrenand promising children they were, nor has that promise been disappointed-with a degree of care that he had never known surpassed by any parent whatever; that to see him in the happiest light you had to see him, as he often did, in his own house, and that nothing could exceed the mutual affection between husband and wife in that lowly tenement. Yet of this man, Josiah Walker, who claims to have been his friend as well as James Gray, writes, "soured by disappointment, and stung with occasional remorse, impatient of finding little to interest him at home, and rendered inconstant from returns of his hypochondriacal ailment, multiplied by his irregular life, he saw the difficulty of keeping terms with the world; and abandoned the attempt in a rash and regardless despair!”

It may be thought by some that we have referred too frequently to Walker's Memoir, perhaps that we have spoken of it with too much asperity, and that so respectable a person merited tenderer treatment at our hands. He was a respectable person, and for that very reason, we hope by our strictures to set him aside for ever as a biographer of Burns. He had been occasionally in company with the Poet in Edinburgh, in 1787, and had seen him during his short visit at Athol house. "Circumstances led him to Scotland in November, 1795, after an absence of eight years, and he felt strongly prompted" to visit his old friend; for your common-place man immediately becomes hand in glove with your man of genius, to whom he has introduced himself, and ever after the first interview designates him by that flattering appellation "my friend." "For this purpose I went to Dumfries, and called upon him early in the forenoon. I found him in a small house of one story. He was sitting in a win.