disorder of his senses and the
confusion of his understanding, put to test by a deliberate attempt to
count the horns of the moon!

But whether she had three or four
He could na' tell.

Behold a sudden apparition that disperses this disorder, and in a moment
chills him into possession of himself! Coming upon no more important
mission than the grisly phantom was charged with, what mode of
introduction could have been more efficient or appropriate?

But, in those early poems, through the veil of assumed habits and
pretended qualities, enough of the real man appears to show that he was
conscious of sufficient cause to dread his own passions, and to bewail
his errors! We have rejected as false sometimes in the letter, and of
necessity as false in the spirit, many of the testimonies that others
have borne against him; but, by his own hand--in words the import of
which cannot be mistaken--it has been recorded that the order of his
life but faintly corresponded with the clearness of his views. It is
probable that he would have proved a still greater poet if, by strength
of reason, he could have controlled the propensities which his
sensibility engendered; but he would have been a poet of a different
class: and certain it is, had that desirable restraint been early
established, many peculiar beauties which enrich his verses could never
have existed, and many accessary influences, which contribute greatly to
their effect, would have been wanting. For instance, the momentous truth
of the passage already quoted, 'One point must still be greatly dark,'
&c. could not possibly have been conveyed with such pathetic force by
any poet that ever lived, speaking in his own voice; unless it were felt
that, like Burns, he was a man who preached from the text of his own
errors; and whose wisdom, beautiful as a flower that might have risen
from seed sown from above, was in fact a scion from the root of personal
suffering. Whom did the poet intend should be thought of as occupying
that grave over which, after modestly setting forth the moral
discernment and warm affections of its 'poor inhabitant,' it is supposed
to be inscribed that

--Thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stained his name.

Who but himself,--himself anticipating the too probable termination of
his own course? Here is a sincere and solemn avowal--a public
declaration _from his own will_--a confession at once devout, poetical,
and human--a history in