and strikingly attractive.  Plague, then, upon your remorseless hunters after matter of fact (who, after all, rank among the blindest of human beings) when they would convince you that the foundations of this admirable edifice are hollow; and that its frame is unsound!  Granting that all which has been raked up to the prejudice of Burns were literally true; and that it added, which it does not, to our better understanding of human nature and human life (for that genius is not incompatible with vice, and that vice leads to misery—­the more acute from the sensibilities which are the elements of genius—­we needed not those communications to inform us) how poor would have been the compensation for the deduction made, by this extrinsic knowledge, from the intrinsic efficacy of his poetry—­to please, and to instruct!

In illustration of this sentiment, permit me to remind you that it is the privilege of poetic genius to catch, under certain restrictions of which perhaps at the time of its being exerted it is but dimly conscious, a spirit of pleasure wherever it can be found,—­in the walks of nature, and in the business of men.—­The poet, trusting to primary instincts, luxuriates among the felicities of love and wine, and is enraptured while he describes the fairer aspects of war:  nor does he shrink from the company of the passion of love though immoderate—­from convivial pleasure though intemperate—­nor from the presence of war though savage, and recognized as the handmaid of desolation.  Frequently and admirably has Burns given way to these impulses of nature; both with reference to himself and in describing the condition of others.  Who, but some impenetrable dunce or narrow-minded puritan in works of art, ever read without delight the picture which he has drawn of the convivial exaltation of the rustic adventurer, Tam o’Shanter?  The poet fears not to tell the reader in the outset that his hero was a desperate and sottish drunkard, whose excesses were frequent as his opportunities.  This reprobate sits down to his cups, while the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion;—­the night is driven on by song and tumultuous noise—­laughter and jest thicken as the beverage improves upon the palate—­conjugal fidelity archly bends to the service of general benevolence—­selfishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of social cordiality—­and, while these various elements of humanity are blended into one proud and happy composition of elated spirits, the anger of the tempest without doors only heightens and sets off the enjoyment within.—­I pity him who cannot perceive that, in all this, though there was no moral purpose, there is a moral effect.

    Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
    O’er a’ the ills of life victorious.