d
now, with all their imperfections on their head, be thrust upon the
world. On this account he deeply regretted having deferred to put his
papers in a state of arrangement, as he was now incapable of the
exertion.... The conversation," she adds, "was kept up with great
evenness and animation on his side. I had seldom seen his mind greater
or more collected. There was frequently a considerable degree of
vivacity in his sallies, and they would probably have had a greater
share, had not the concern and dejection I could not disguise damped
the spirit of pleasantry he seemed not unwilling to indulge.

"We parted about sunset on the evening of that day (the 5th July,
1796), the next day I saw him again, and we parted to meet no more!"

It is not wonderful that Burns should have felt some anxiety about the
literary legacy he was leaving to mankind. Not about his best poems;
these, he must have known, would take care of themselves. Yet even
among the poems which he had published with his name, were some,
"which dying" he well might "wish to blot." There lay among his papers
letters too, and other "fallings from him," which he no doubt would
have desired to suppress, but of which, if they have not all been made
public, enough have appeared to justify his fears of that idle vanity,
if not malevolence, which after his death, would rake up every scrap
he had written, uncaring how it might injure his good name, or affect
future generations of his admirers. No poet perhaps has suffered more
from the indiscriminate and unscrupulous curiosity of editors, (p. 182)
catering too greedily for the public, than Burns has done.

Besides anxieties of this kind, he, during those last days, had to
bear another burden of care that pressed even more closely home. To
pain of body, absence from his wife and children, and haunting anxiety
on their account, was added the pressure of some small debts and the
fear of want. By the rules of the Excise, his full salary would not be
allowed him during his illness; and though the Board agreed to
continue Burns in his full pay, he never knew this in time to be
comforted by it. With his small income diminished, how could he meet
the increased expenditure caused by sickness? We have seen how at the
beginning of the year he had written to his friend Mitchell to ask the
loan of a guinea. One or two letters, asking for the payment of some
old debts due to him by a former companion, still remain. During his