on which it would be idle
to be more explicit, we always fight now on foot, and have sent our high
horse to graze all the rest of his life on the mountains of the moon.
Well then, Scotland met Burns, on his first sunburst, with one exulting
acclaim. Scotland bought and read his poetry, and Burns, for a poor man,
became rich--rich to his heart's desire--and reached the summit of his
ambition, in the way of this world's life, in a--Farm. Blithe Robin
would have scorned "an awmous" from any hands but from those of nature;
nor in those days needed he help from woman-born. True, that times
began by-and-by to go rather hard with him, and he with them; for his
mode of life was not

"Such as grave livers do in Scotland use,"

and as we sow we must reap. His day of life began to darken ere
meridian--and the darkness doubtless had brought disturbance before it
had been perceived by any eyes but his own--for people are always
looking to themselves and their own lot; and how much mortal misery may
for years be daily depicted in the face, figure, or manners even of a
friend, without our seeing or suspecting it! Till all at once he makes a
confession, and we then know that he has been long numbered among the
most wretched of the wretched--the slave of his own sins and sorrows--or
thralled beneath those of another, to whom fate may have given sovereign
power over his whole life. Well, then--or rather ill, then--Burns
behaved as most men do in misery,--and the farm going to ruin--that is,
crop and stock to pay the rent--he desired to be, and was made--an
Exciseman. And for that--you ninny--you are whinnying scornfully at
Scotland! Many a better man than yourself--beg your pardon--has been,
and is now, an Exciseman. Nay, to be plain with you--we doubt if your
education has been sufficiently intellectual for an Exciseman. We never
heard it said of you,

"And even the story ran that he could gauge."

Burns then was made what he desired to be--what he was fit for, though
you are not--and what was in itself respectable--an Exciseman. His
salary was not so large certainly as that of the Bishop of Durham--or
even of London--but it was certainly larger than that of many a curate
at that time doing perhaps double or treble duty in those dioceses,
without much audible complaint on their part, or outcry from Scotland
against blind and brutal English bishops, or against beggarly England,
for starving her pauper-curates, by whatever gen