The being he supposes," with senses more de- | tained by the excellence of a single faculty of licate and refined, with perceptions more acute mind. Experience teaches us, that it has been and penetrating," is to be found in real life. acquired by those only who have possessed He is of the temperament of genius, and per- the comprehension and the energy of general haps a poet. Is there, then, no remedy for talents, and who have regulated their applicathis inordinate sensibility? Are there no means tion, in the line which choice, or perhaps acciby which the happiness of one so constituted dent may have determined, by the dictates of by nature may be consulted? Perhaps it will their judgment. Imagination is supposed, and be found, that regular and constant occupation, with justice, to be the leading faculty of the irksome though it may at first be, is the true poet. But what poet has stood the test of remedy. Occupation in which the powers of time by the force of this single faculty? Who the understanding are exercised, will diminish does not see that Homer and Shakspeare exthe force of external impressions, and keep the celled the rest of their species in understand. imagination under restraint. ing as well as in imagination; that they were pre-eminent in the highest species of knowledge-the knowledge of the nature and character of man? On the other hand, the talent of ratiocination is more especially requisite to the orator; but no man ever obtained the palm of oratory, even by the highest excellence in this single talent, who does not perceive that Demosthenes and Cicero were not more happy in their addresses to the reason, than in their appeals to the passions? They knew, that to excite, to agitate, and to delight, are among the most potent arts of persuasion; and they enforced their impression on the understanding, by their command of all the sympathies of the heart. These observations might be extended to other walks of life. He who has the faculties fitted to excel in poetry, has the faculties which, duly governed and differently directed, might lead to pre-eminence in other, and as far as respects himself, perhaps in happier destir.ations. The talents necessary to the construction of an Iliad, under different discipline and application, might have led armies to victory, or kingdoms to prosperity; might have wielded the thunder of eloquence, or discovered and enlarged the sciences that constitute the power, and improve the condition of our species. That the bent of every man's mind should be followed in his education and in his destination in life, is a maxim which has been often repeated, but which cannot be admitted with out many restrictions. It may be generally true when applied to weak minds, which, being capable of little, must be encouraged and strengthened in the feeble impulses by which that little is produced. But where indulgent nature has bestowed her gifts with a liberal hand, the very reverse of this maxim ought frequently to be the rule of conduct. In minds of a higher order, the object of instruction and of discipline is very often to restrain rather than to impel; to curb the impulses of imagination so that the passions also may be kept under control.* Hence the advantages, even in a moral point of view, of studies of a severe nature, which, while they inform the understanding, employ the volition, that regulating power of the mind, which like all our other faculties, is strengthened by exercise, and on the superiority of which, virtue, happiness, and honourable fame, are wholly dependent. Hence also the advantage of regular and constant application, which aids the voluntary power by the production of habits so necessary to the support of order and virtue, and so difficult to be formed in the temperament of genius. The man who is so endowed and so regulated, may pursue his course with confidence in almost any of the various walks of life which choice or accident shall open to him; and provided he employs the talents he has cultivated, may hope for such imperfect happiness, and such limited success, as are reasonably expected from human exertions. The pre-eminence among men, which procures personal respect, and which terminates in lasting reputation, is seldom or never ob. Quinctilian discusses the important question, whether the bent of the individual's genius should be followed in h.s education (an secundum sui quisque in. genii docendus sit naturam,) chiefly, indeed, with a reference to the orator, but in a way that admits of very general application. His conclusions coincide very much with those of the text. An vero Isocrates cum de Ephoro atque Theopompo sic judicaret, ut ALTERI FRENIS, ALTERI CALCARIBUS OPUS ESSE diceret; aut in illo lentiore tarditatem, aut in illo pene præcipiti concitationem adjuvandum docendo existimavit ? cum alte. rum alterius natura miscendum arbitraretur. Imbecilis tamen ingeniis sane sic obsequendum sit, ut tantum in id quo vocat natura, ducantur. Ita enim, quod solum possunt, melius efficient.-Instit. Orator. lib. ii. 9. the same individual could have excelled in all these di*The reader must not suppose it is contended that rections. A certain degree of instruction and practice is necessary to excellence in every one, and life is too acquiring this in all of them. It is only asserted, that short to admit of one man, however great his talents, the same talents differently applied, might have suc ceeded in any one, though perhaps, not equally well in tations, which the reader's candour and judgment will each. And, after all, this position requires certain limisupply. In supposing that a great poet might have made a great orator, the physical qualities necessary to oratory are presupposed. In supposing that a great orator might have made a great poet, it is a recessary condition, that he should have devoted himself to poetry, and that he should have acquired a proficiency in metrical numbers which by patience and attention may be acquired, though the want of it has embarrassed and chilled many of the first efforts of true poetical genius. In supposing that Homer might have led armies to victory, more indeed is assumed than the physical qualities of a general. To these must be added that hardihood of mind, that coolness in the midst of difficulty and danger, which great poets and orators are found sometimes, but not always, to possess. The nature of the institutions of Greece and Rome produced more instances of single individuals who excelled in various departments of active and speculative life, than occur in modern Europe, where the employments of men are subdivided. Many of the greatest warriors of antiquity excelled in literature and in oratory. That they had the minds of great poets, Such talents are, indeed, rare among the productions of nature, and occasions of bringing them into full exertion are rarer still. But safe and salutary occupations may be found for men of genus in every direction, while the useful and ornamental arts remain to be cultivated, while the sciences remain to be studied and to be extended, and the principles of science to be applied to the correction and improvement of art. In the temperament of sensibility, which is in truth the temperament of general talents, the principal object of discipline and instruction is, as has already been mentioned, to strengthen the self-command; and this may be promoted by the direction of the studies, more effectually perhaps than has been generally understood. If these observations be founded in truth, they may lead to practical consequences of some importance. It has been too much the custom to consider the possession of poetical talents as excluding the possibility of application to the severer branches of study, and as in some degree incapacitating the possessor from attaining also will be admitted, when the qualities are justly appreciated which are necessary to excite, combine, and command the active energies of a great body of men to rouse that enthusiasm which sustains fatigue, hunger, and the inclemencies of the elements, and which triumphs over the fear of death, the most powerful instinct of our nature. those habits, and from bestowing that attention, which are necessary to success in the details of business, and in the engagements of active life. It has been common for persons conscious of such talents, to look with a sort of disdain on other kinds of intellectual excellence, and to consider themselves as in some degree absolved from these rules of prudence by which humbler minds are restricted. They are too much disposed to abandon themselves to their own sensations, and to suffer life to pass away without regular exertion, or settled purpose. But though men of genius are generally prone to indolence, with them indolence and unhappiness are in a more especial manner allied. The unbidden splendours of imagination may indeed at times irradiate the gloom which inactivity produces; but such visions, though bright, are transient, and serve to cast the realities of life into deeper shade. In bestowing great talents, Nature seems very generally to have imposed on the possessor the necessity of exertion, if he would escape wretchedness. Better for him than sloth, toils the most painful, or adventures the most hazardous. Happier to him than idleness, were the condition of the peasant, earning with incessant labour his scanty food; or that of the sailor, though hanging on the yard arm, and wrestling with the hurricane. These observations might be amply illustratThe authority of Cicero may be appealed to in favoured by the biography of men of genius of every of the close connection between the poet and the orator. denomination, and more especially by the bioEst enim finitimus oratori poeta, numeris adstrictior paulo, verborum autem licentia liberior, &c. DE ORA-graphy of the poets. Of this last description TOR. lib. i. c. 16. See also, lib. iii. c. 7.-It is true the of men, few seem to have enjoyed the usual example of Cicero may be quoted against his opinion. His attempts in verse, which are praised portion of happiness that falls to the lot of hu by Plutarch, did not meet the approbation of Juvenal, manity, those excepted who have cultivated or of many others. Cicero probably did not take sufficient time to learn the art of the poet: but that he had poetry as an elegant amusement in the hours the afflatus necessary to poetical excellence, may be of relaxation from other occupations, or the abundantly proved from his compositions in prose. On small number who have engaged with success the other hand, nothing is more clear, than that, in the in the greater or more arduous attempts of the character of a great poet, all the mental qualities as an orator are included. It is said by Quinctilian of Homer, muse, in which all the faculties of the mind Omnibus eloquentiae partibus exemplum et ortum dedit, have been fully and permanently employed. Lib. i. 47. The study of Homer is therefore recommended to the orator, as of the first importance. Of Even taste, virtue, and comparative independthe two sublime poets in our own language, who are ence, do not seem capable of bestowing, on scarcely inferior to Homer, Shak-peare and Miton, a men of genius, peace and tranquillity, without similar recommendation may be given. How much an acquaintance with them has availed the great orator such occupation as may give regular and healthwho is now the pride and ornament of the English bar, ful exercise to the faculties of body and mind. need not be mentioned, nor need we point out by name The amiable Shenstone has left us the records a character which may be appealed to with confidence when we are contending for the universality of genius, of his imprudence, of his indolence, and of his The identity, or at least the great similarity of the unhappiness, amidst the shades of the Leastalents necessary to excellence in poetry, oratory, painting, and war, will be admitted by some, who will owes; and the virtues, the learning, and the be inclined to dispute the extension of the position to genius of Gray, equal to the loftiest attempt science or natural knowledge. On this occasion I may of the epic muse, failed to procure him in the quote the following observations of Sir William Jones, whose own example will, however, far exceed in academic bowers of Cambridge, that tranquilweight the authority of his precepts. "Abul Olo had lity and that respect which less fastidiousness so flourishing a reputation, that several persons of un- of taste, and greater constancy and vigour of common genius were ambitious of learning the art of poetry from so able an instructor. His most illustrious exertion, would have doubtless obtained. scholars were Feleki and Khakani, who were no less eminent for their Persian compositions, than for their skill in every branch of pure and mixed mathematics, and particularly in astronomy; a striking proof that a sublime poet may become master of any kind of learning which he chooses to profess; since a fine imagination, a lively wit, an easy and copious style, cannot possibly obstruct the acquisition of any science whatever; but must necessarily assist him in his studies, and shorten his labour."-Sir William Jones's Works, Vol. II. p. 317 It is more necessary that men of genius should be aware of the importance of self-command, and of exertion, because their indolence is peculiarly exposed, not merely to unhappiness, but to diseases of mind, and to errors of See his letters, which, as a display of the effects of poetical idleness, are highly instructive. conduct, which are generally fatal. This interesting subject deserves a particular investiga. tion -Morning comes; your cares return but we must content ourselves with one or two cursory remarks. Relief is sometimes sought from the melancholy of indolence in practices, which for a time soothe and gratify the sensations, but which in the end involve the sufferer in darker gloom. To command the external circumstances by which happiness is affected, is not in human power: but there are various substances in nature which operate on the system of the nerves, so as to give a fictitious gaiety to the ideas of imagination, and to alter the effect of the external impressions which we receive. Opium is chiefly employed for this purpose by the disciples of Mahomet, and the inhabitants of Asia; but alcohol, the principle of intoxication in vinous and spirituous liquors, is preferred in Europe, and is universally used in the Christian world. Under the various wounds to which indolent sensibility is exposed, and under the gloomy apprehensions respecting futurity to which it is so often a prey, how strong is the temptation to have recourse to an antidote by which the pain of these wounds is suspended, by which the heart is exhilarated, ideas of hope and of hap- It is the more necessary for men of genius piness are excited in the mind, and the forms to be on their guard against the habitual use of of external nature clothed with new beauty!-wine, because it is apt to steal on them insen There are a great number of other substances which may be considered under this point of view-Tobacco, tea, and coffee, are of the number. These substances essentially differ from each other in their qualities: and an inquiry into the particular effects of each on the health, morals, and happiness, of those who use them, would be curious and useful. The effects of wine and of opium on the temperament of sensibility, the Editor intended to have discussed in this place at some length; but he found the subject too professional to be introduced with propriety. The difficulty of abandoning any of these narcoties (if we may so term them.) when inclination is strengthened by habit, is well known. Johnson, in his distresses, had experienced the cheering but treacherous influence of wine, and by a powerful Such are the pleasures and the pains of intoxication, as they occur in the temperament of sensibility, described by a genuine poet, with a degree of truth and energy which nothing but experience could have dictated. There are, indeed, some individuals of this temperament on whom wine produces no cheering influence. On some, even in very moderate quantities, its effects are painfully irritating; in large doses it excites dark and melancholy ideas; and in doses still larger, the fierceness of insanity itself. Such men are happily exempted from a temptation, to which experience teaches us the finest dispositions often yield, and the influence of which, when strengthened by habit, it is a humiliating truth, that the most powerful minds have not been able to resist. sibly; and because the temptation to excess usually presents itself to them in their social hours, when they are alive only to warm and generous emotions, and when prudence and moderation are often contemned as selfishness and timidity. It is the more necessary for them to guard against excess in the use of wine, because on them its effects are physically and morally, in an especial manner, injurious. In proportion to its stimulating influence on the system (on which the pleasurable sensations depend), is the debility that ensues; a debility that destroys digestion, and terminates in habitual fever, dropsy, jaundice, paralysis, or insanity. As the strength of the body decays, the volition fails; in proportion as the sensations are soothed and gratified, the sensibility increases; and morbid sensibility is the parent of indolence, because, while it impairs the regulating power of the mind, it exaggerates all the obstacles to exertion. Activity, perseverance, and self-command, be. come more and more difficult, and the great purposes of utility, patriotism, or of honourable ambition, which had occupied the imagination, die away in fruitless resolutions, or in feeble efforts. effort, abandoned it. He was obliged, however, to use tea as a substitute, and this was the solace to which he constantly had recourse under his habitual melancholy. To apply these observations to the subject The praises of wine form many of the most beautiful lyrics of the poets of Greece and Rome, and modern of our memoirs, would be a useless as well as a Europe. Whether opium, which produces visions still painful task. It is, indeed, a duty we owe to more ecstatic, has been the theme of the eastern poets, I the living, not to allow our admiration of great do not know. Wine is taken in small doses at a time, in company, where, for a time, it promotes harmony and genius, or even our pity for its unhappy dessocial affection. Opium is swallowed by the Asiatics in tiny, to conceal or disguise its errors. But full doses at once, and the inebriate retires to the soli- there are sentiments of respect, and even of tary indulgence of his delirious imaginations. Hence the wine-drinker appears in a superior light to the im- tenderness, with which this duty should be biber of opium, a distinction which he owes more to performed; there is an awful sanctity which the form, than to the quality of his liquor. invests the mansions of the dead; and let those who moralize over the graves of their contemporaries, reflect with humility on their own errors, nor forget how soon they may themselves require the candour and the sympathy they are called upon to bestow. Soon after the death of Burns, the following article appeared in the Dumfries Journal, from which it is copied into the Edinburgh newspapers, and into various other periodical publications. It is from the elegant pen of a lady already alluded to in the course of these memoirs, whose exertions for the family of our bard, in the circles of literature and fashion in which she moves, have done her so much honour. "It is not probable that the late mournful event, which is likely to be felt severely in the literary world, as well as in the circle of private friendship which surrounded our admired poet, should be unattended with the usual profusion of posthumous anecdotes, memoirs, &c. that commonly spring up at the death of every rare and celebrated personage. I shall not attempt to enlist with the numerous corps of biographers, who, it is probable, may without possessing his genius, arrogate to themselves the privilege of criticising the character or writings of Mr Burns. The inspiring mantle' thrown over him by that tutelarly muse who first found him, like the prophet Elisha, at his plough ' has been the portion of few, may be the portion of fewer still; and if it is true that men of genius have a claim in their literary capacities to the legal right of the British citizen in a court of justice, that of being tried only by his peers, (I borrow here an expression I have frequently heard Burns himself make use of,) God forbid I should, any more than the generality of other people, assume the flattering and peculiar privilege of sitting upon his jury. But the intimacy of our acquaintance for several years past, may perhaps justify my presenting to the public a few of those ideas and observations I have had the opportunity of forming, and which, to the day that closed for ever the scene of his happy qualities and of his errors, I have never had the smallest cause to deviate in, or to recall. "It will be the misfortune of Burns' reputation, in the records of literature, not only to future generations and to foreign countries, but even with his native Scotland and a number of his contemporaries, that he has been regarded as a poet, and nothing but a poet. It must not be supposed that I consider this title as a trivial one: no person can be more penetrated with the respect due to the wreath bestowed by the muses than myself; and much certainly is due to the merit of a self taught bard, deprived of the advantages of a classical educa tion, and the intercourse of minds congenial to his own, till that period of life, when his native fire had already blazed forth in all its wild graces of genuine simplicity and energetic eloquence of sentiment. But the fact is, that even when all his honours are yielded to him, Burns will perhaps be found to move in a sphere less splendid, less dignified, and, even in his own pastoral style, less attractive, than several other writers have done; and that poetry was (I appeal to all who had the advantage of being personally acquainted with him) actually not his forte. If others have climbed more successfully to the heights of Parnassus, none certainly ever out-shone Burns in the charms-the sorcery I would almost call it, of fascinating conversation; the spontaneous eloquence of social argument, or the unstudied poignancy of brilliant repartee. His personal endowments were perfectly correspondent with the qualifications of his mind. His form was manly; his action energy itself; devoid, in a great measure, however, of those graces, of that polish, acquired only in the refinement of societies, where in early life he had not the opportunity to mix; but where, such was the irresistible power of attraction that encircled him, though his appearance and manners were always peculiar, he never failed to delight and to excel. His figure certainly bore the authentic impress of his birth and original station in life; it seemed rather moulded by nature for the rough exercise of agriculture, than the gentler cultivation of the belles lettres. His features were stamped with the hardy character of independence, and the firmness of conscious, though not arrogant pre-eminence. I believe no man was ever gifted with a larger portion of the vivida vis animi: the animated expressions of his countenance were almost pe culiar to himself. The rapid lightnings of his eye were always the harbingers of some flash of genius, whether they darted the fiery glances of insulted and indignant superiority, or beamed with the impassioned sentiment of fervent and impetuous affections. His voice alone could improve upon the magic of his eye; sonorous, replete with the finest modulations, it alternately captivated the ear with the melody of poetic numbers, the perspicuity of nervous reasoning, or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic patriotism. The keenness of satire was, (I am almost at a loss whether to say his forte or his foible;) for though nature had endowed him with a portion of the most pointed exceloften to be the vehicle of personal, and somelence in that perilous gift,' he suffered it too times unfounded animosities. It was not only that sportiveness of humour, that unwary pleasantry,' which Sterne has described to us with touches so conciliatory; but the darts of ridicule were frequently directed as the caprice | engagements of friendship. Much indeed has been said of his inconstancy and caprices: but I am inclined to believe, they originated less from a levity of sentiment, than from an impetuosity of feeling, that 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 a moment, the value of a frank acknowledgment was enhanced tenfold towards a generous mind, from its never being attended with servility. His mind, organized only for the stronger and practicable 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. of the instant suggested, or the altercations of parties or of persons happened to kindle the restlessness of his spirit into interest or aversion. This was not however, unexceptionably 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 by the least desire to wound. The suppression of an arch and full pointed bon mot, from the 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;' and much allow-more acute operation of the passions, was imance 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. The vivacity of his wishes and temper was indeed 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. His soul was never languid or inactive, and his genius was extinguished only with the last sparks of retreating life. His passions rendered him, according as they disclosed themselves in affection or antipathy, the object of enthusiastic attachment, or of decided enmity; for he possessed none of that negative insipidity of character, whose love might be regarded with indifference, or whose resentment could be considered with contempt. In this it should seem the temper of his companions took 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; and it has been frequently asserted of him, that unsusceptible of indifference, often hating where he ought to have despised, he alternately opened his heart, and poured forth all the treasures of his understanding to such as were incapable of appreciating the homage, and elevated to the privileges of an adversary, some who were unqualified in talents, or by nature, 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 little short even of the surly Doctor in this qualification, as long as the disposition to ill-will continued; but the fervour of his passions was fortunately tempered by their versatility. He was seldom, never indeed implacable in his resentments, and sometimes, it has been alleged, not inviolably steady in his "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 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 should seem had a view to detract from, though they could not hope wholly to obscure that native brilliancy, which the powers of 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. The Cotter's Saturday Night, Tam o' Shanter, and the Mountain Daisy, besides a number of later productions, where the maturity of his genius will be readily traced, and which will be given the public as soon as his friends have collected and arranged them, speak sufficiently for themselves; and had they fallen from a hard 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. "To the obscure scene of Burns's education, and to the laborious, though honourable station of rural industry, in which his parentage enrolled him, almost every inhabitant in the south of Scotland can give testimony. His only surviving brother, Gilbert Burns, now guides the ploughshare of his forefathers in Ayrshire, at a small farm near Mauchline ;* removed to Dumfries-shire. He rents lands on the *This very respectable and very superior man is now |