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their quantum of wine and sink into sottish sleep. For Burns was never a
drunkard, not even in Dumfries; though the contrary has been asserted so
often that it has all the honour that age and the respectability of
authority can give it. There was with him no animal craving for drink,
nor has he been convicted of solitary drinking; but he was intensely
convivial, and drank, as Professor Blackie put it, 'only as the carnal
seasoning of a rampant intellectuality.' There is no doubt that he came
to Dumfries a comparatively pure and sober man; and if he now began to
frequent the Globe Tavern, often to cast his pearls before swine, let it
be remembered that he was compelled frequently to meet there strangers
and tourists who had journeyed for the express purpose of meeting the
poet. Nowadays writers and professional men have their clubs, and in
general frequent them more regularly than Burns ever haunted the howffs
of Dumfries. But we have heard too much about 'the poet's moral course
after he settled in Dumfries being downward.' 'From the time of his
migration to Dumfries,' Principal Shairp soberly informs us, 'it would
appear that he was gradually dropped out of acquaintance by most of the
Dumfriesshire lairds, as he had long been by the parochial and other
ministers.' Poor lairds! Poor ministers! If they preferred their own
talk of crops and cattle and meaner things to the undoubted brilliancy
of Burns's conversation, surely their dulness and want of appreciation
is not to be laid to the charge of the poet. I doubt not had the poet
lived to a good old age he would have been gradually dropped out of
acquaintance by some who have not scrupled to write his biography.
Politics, it is admitted, may have formed the chief element in the
lairds' and ministers' aversion, but there is a hint that his irregular
life had as much to do with it. Is it to be seriously contended that
these men looked askance at Burns because of his occasional
convivialities? 'Madam,' he answered a lady who remonstrated with him on
this very subject, 'they would not thank me for my company if I did not
drink with them.' These lairds, perhaps even these ministers, could in
all probability stand their three bottles with the best, and were more
likely to drop the acquaintance of one who would not drink bottle for
bottle with them than of one who indulged to excess. It was considered a
breach of hospitality not to imbibe so long as the host ordained; and
in m