man whose speech 'led them off
their feet.' This is beautiful: but still more beautiful that which
Mr. Lockhart has recorded, which I have more than once alluded to, How
the waiters and ostlers at inns would get out of bed, and come
crowding to hear this man speak! Waiters and ostlers:--they too were
men, and here was a man! I have heard much about his speech; but one
of the best things I ever heard of it was, last year, from a venerable
gentleman long familiar with him. That it was speech distinguished by
always _having something in it_. "He spoke rather little than much,"
this old man told me; "sat rather silent in those early days, as in
the company of persons above him; and always when he did speak, it was
to throw new light on the matter." I know not why any one should ever
speak otherwise!--But if we look at his general force of soul, his
healthy _robustness_ everyway, the rugged down-rightness, penetration,
generous valour and manfulness that was in him,--where shall we
readily find a better-gifted man?

Among the great men of the Eighteenth Century, I sometimes feel as if
Burns might be found to resemble Mirabeau more than any other. They
differ widely in vesture; yet look at them intrinsically. There is the
same burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul;--built, in both
cases, on what the old Marquis calls a _fond gaillard_. By nature, by
course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of
bluster; a noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of
Mirabeau too is veracity and sense, power of true _insight_,
superiority of vision. The thing that he says is worth remembering. It
is a flash of insight into some object or other: so do both these men
speak. The same raging passions; capable too in both of manifesting
themselves as the tenderest noble affections. Wit, wild laughter,
energy, directness, sincerity: these were in both. The types of the
two men are not dissimilar. Burns too could have governed, debated in
National Assemblies; politicised, as few could. Alas, the courage
which had to exhibit itself in capture of smuggling schooners in the
Solway Frith; in keeping _silence_ over so much, where no good speech,
but only inarticulate rage was possible: this might have bellowed
forth Ushers de Breze and the like; and made itself visible to all
men, in managing of kingdoms, in ruling of great ever-memorable
epochs! But they said to him reprovingly, his Official Superiors said,
and wr