quals he was
genial and friendly. His love of his kind manifested itself especially
in his delight in company, a delight naturally heightened by the
enjoyment of the sense of leadership which his superior wit and
brilliance gave him in almost any society. The customs of the time
associated to an unfortunate degree hard drinking with social
intercourse. But more than the whisky he enjoyed the loosening of
self-consciousness and the warmth of conviviality that it brought.

It's no I like to sit an' swallow, [not that]
Then like a swine to puke an' wallow;
But gie me just a true guid fellow [give]
Wi' right ingine, [wit]
And spunkie ance to mak us mellow, [liquor enough]
An' then we'll shine!

Burns was not a drunkard. He seems to have taken little alone, and in
the houses of some of his more fashionable friends he resented the
pressure to drink more than he wanted. Nor did he allow dissipation to
interfere with his work on the farm, or his duties in the excise. Yet,
even when contemporary manners have received their share of
responsibility, it must be allowed that on the poet's own confession
he drank frequently to excess, and that this abuse had a serious share
in the breakdown of his constitution, weakened as it was by the
excessive toil of his youth.

He was fond of women, and this passion more than any other has been
the center of the disputes that have raged round his life and
character. Again, contemporary and class customs have to be taken into
account. In spite of the formal disapproval of public opinion and the
censure of the church, the attitude of his class in the end of the
eighteenth century toward such irregularities as brought Burns and
Jean Armour to the stool of repentance was much less severe than it
would be in this country to-day. Burns himself knew he was culpable,
but the comparative laxity of the standards of the time made it easier
for him to forgive himself, and prompted him to defiance when he
believed himself criticized by puritan hypocrites. Thus in his
utterances we have a curious inconsistency, his feeling ranging from
black remorse and melancholy, through half-hearted excuse and
justification, to swaggering bravado. And none of them makes pleasant
reading.

But his relations with the other sex were not all of the nature of
sheer passion. He was capable of serious friendship, warm respect,