have been conveyed with such pathetic force by any poet that ever lived, speaking in his own voice; unless it were felt that, like Burns, he was a man who preached from the text of his own errors; and whose wisdom, beautiful as a flower that might have risen from seed sown from above, was in fact a scion from the root of personal suffering.  Whom did the poet intend should be thought of as occupying that grave over which, after modestly setting forth the moral discernment and warm affections of its ‘poor inhabitant,’ it is supposed to be inscribed that

    —­Thoughtless follies laid him low,
    And stained his name.

Who but himself,—­himself anticipating the too probable termination of his own course?  Here is a sincere and solemn avowal—­a public declaration from his own will—­a confession at once devout, poetical, and human—­a history in the shape of a prophecy!  What more was required of the biographer than to have put his seal to the writing, testifying that the foreboding had been realized, and that the record was authentic?—­Lastingly is it to be regretted in respect to this memorable being, that inconsiderate intrusion has not left us at liberty to enjoy his mirth, or his love; his wisdom or his wit; without an admixture of useless, irksome, and painful details, that take from his poems so much of that right—­which, with all his carelessness, and frequent breaches of self-respect, he was not negligent to maintain for them—­the right of imparting solid instruction through the medium of unalloyed pleasure.

You will have noticed that my observations have hitherto been confined to Dr. Currie’s book:  if, by fraternal piety, the poison can be sucked out of this wound, those inflicted by meaner hands may be safely left to heal of themselves.  Of the other writers who have given their names, only one lays claim to even a slight acquaintance with the author, whose moral character they take upon them publicly to anatomize.  The Edinburgh reviewer—­and him I single out because the author of the vindication of Burns has treated his offences with comparative indulgence, to which he has no claim, and which, from whatever cause it might arise, has interfered with the dispensation of justice—­the Edinburgh reviewer thus writes:[3] ’The leading vice in Burns’s character, and the cardinal deformity, indeed, of ALL his productions, was his contempt, or affectation of contempt, for prudence, decency, and regularity, and his admiration of thoughtlessness, oddity, and vehement sensibility:  his belief, in short, in the dispensing power of genius and social feeling in all matters of morality and common sense;’ adding, that these vices and erroneous notions ’have communicated to a great part of his productions a character of immorality at once contemptible and hateful.’  We are afterwards told, that he is perpetually making a parade of his thoughtlessness, inflammability, and imprudence; and, in the next paragraph, that he