below that in
which the writers and readers of expensive volumes are usually found.
Critics upon works of fiction have laid it down as a rule that
remoteness of place, in fixing the choice of a subject, and in
prescribing the mode of treating it, is equal in effect to distance of
time;--restraints may be thrown off accordingly. Judge then of the
delusions which artificial distinctions impose, when to a man like
Doctor Currie, writing with views so honourable, the _social condition_
of the individual of whom he was treating, could seem to place him at
such a distance from the exalted reader, that ceremony might he
discarded with him, and his memory sacrificed, as it were, almost
without compunction. The poet was laid where these injuries could not
reach him; but he had a parent, I understand, an admirable woman, still
surviving; a brother like Gilbert Burns!--a widow estimable for her
virtues; and children, at that time infants, with the world before them,
which they must face to obtain a maintenance; who remembered their
father probably with the tenderest affection;--and whose opening minds,
as their years advanced, would become conscious of so many reasons for
admiring him.--Ill-fated child of nature, too frequently thine own
enemy,--unhappy favourite of genius, too often misguided,--this is
indeed to be 'crushed beneath the furrow's weight!'

Why, sir, do I write to you at this length, when all that I had to
express in direct answer to the request, which occasioned this letter,
lay in such narrow compass?--Because having entered upon the subject, I
am unable to quit it!--Your feelings, I trust, go along with mine; and,
rising from this individual case to a general view of the subject, you
will probably agree with me in opinion that biography, though differing
in some essentials from works of fiction, is nevertheless, like them, an
_art_--an art, the laws of which are determined by the imperfections of
our nature, and the constitution of society. Truth is not here, as in
the sciences, and in natural philosophy, to be sought without scruple,
and promulgated for its own sake, upon the mere chance of its being
serviceable; but only for obviously justifying purposes, moral or
intellectual.

Silence is a privilege of the grave, a right of the departed: let him,
therefore, who infringes that right, by speaking publicly of, for, or
against, those who cannot speak for themselves, take heed that he opens
not his mouth without