them.  And, of poets more especially, it is true—­that, if their works be good, they contain within themselves all that is necessary to their being comprehended and relished.  It should seem that the ancients thought in this manner; for of the eminent Greek and Roman poets, few and scanty memorials were, I believe, ever prepared; and fewer still are preserved.  It is delightful to read what, in the happy exercise of his own genius, Horace chooses to communicate of himself and his friends; but I confess I am not so much a lover of knowledge, independent of its quality, as to make it likely that it would much rejoice me, were I to hear that records of the Sabine poet and his contemporaries, composed upon the Boswellian plan, had been unearthed among the ruins of Herculaneum.  You will interpret what I am writing, liberally.  With respect to the light which such a discovery might throw upon Roman manners, there would be reasons to desire it:  but I should dread to disfigure the beautiful ideal of the memories of those illustrious persons with incongruous features, and to sully the imaginative purity of their classical works with gross and trivial recollections.  The least weighty objection to heterogeneous details, is that they are mainly superfluous, and therefore an incumbrance.

But you will perhaps accuse me of refining too much; and it is, I own, comparatively of little importance, while we are engaged in reading the Iliad, the Eneid, the tragedies of Othello and King Lear, whether the authors of these poems were good or bad men; whether they lived happily or miserably.  Should a thought of the kind cross our minds, there would be no doubt, if irresistible external evidence did not decide the question unfavourably, that men of such transcendant genius were both good and happy:  and if, unfortunately, it had been on record that they were otherwise, sympathy with the fate of their fictitious personages would banish the unwelcome truth whenever it obtruded itself, so that it would but slightly disturb our pleasure.  Far otherwise is it with that class of poets, the principal charm of whose writings depends upon the familiar knowledge which they convey of the personal feelings of their authors.  This is eminently the case with the effusions of Burns;—­in the small quantity of narrative that he has given, he himself bears no inconsiderable part, and he has produced no drama.  Neither the subjects of his poems, nor his manner of handling them, allow us long to forget their author.  On the basis of his human character he has reared a poetic one, which with more or less distinctness presents itself to view in almost every part of his earlier, and, in my estimation, his most valuable verses.  This poetic fabric, dug out of the quarry of genuine humanity, is airy and spiritual:—­and though the materials, in some parts, are coarse, and the disposition is often fantastic and irregular, yet the whole is agreeable