he
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
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 p