office of a public judge of the literature
and life of his contemporaries, can have the audacity to go these
lengths in framing a summary of the contents of volumes that are
scattered over every quarter of the globe, and extant in almost every
cottage of Scotland, to give the lie to his labours; we must not wonder
if, in the plenitude of his concern for the interests of abstract
morality, the infatuated slanderer should have found no obstacle to
prevent him from insinuating that the poet, whose writings are to this
degree stained and disfigured, was 'one of the sons of fancy and of
song, who spend in vain superfluities the money that belongs of right to
the pale industrious tradesman and his famishing infants; and who rave
about friendship and philosophy in a tavern, while their wives' hearts,'
&c. &c.

[3] From Mr. Peterkin's pamphlet, who vouches for the accuracy of his
citations; omitting, however, to apologize for their length.

It is notorious that this persevering Aristarch,[4] as often as a work
of original genius comes before him, avails himself of that opportunity
to re-proclaim to the world the narrow range of his own comprehension.
The happy self-complacency, the unsuspecting vain-glory, and the cordial
_bonhommie_, with which this part of his duty is performed, do not leave
him free to complain of being hardly dealt with if any one should
declare the truth, by pronouncing much of the foregoing attack upon the
intellectual and moral character of Burns, to be the trespass (for
reasons that will shortly appear, it cannot be called the venial
trespass) of a mind obtuse, superficial, and inept. What portion of
malignity such a mind is susceptible of, the judicious admirers of the
poet, and the discerning friends of the man, will not trouble themselves
to enquire; but they will wish that this evil principle had possessed
more sway than they are at liberty to assign to it; the offender's
condition would not then have been so hopeless. For malignity _selects_
its diet; but where is to be found the nourishment from which vanity
will revolt? Malignity may be appeased by triumphs real or supposed, and
will then sleep, or yield its place to a repentance producing
dispositions of good will, and desires to make amends for past injury;
but vanity is restless, reckless, intractable, unappeasable, insatiable.

[4] A friend, who chances to be present while the author is correcting
the proof sheets, observes that Aristarchus