that genius, the 'rath primrose which forsaken dies,' is
patronized by any of the nobility, so that writers of the first talents
are left to the capricious patronage of the public."

It was the taste of his time to desire, if not solicit patronage. In our
opinion literature is degraded by _patronage_, while it is honored by
the friendship of the good and great. Nothing is so loathsome in the
history of letters as the debased dedications which men of mind some
years ago laid at the feet of the so-styled "patron!" Literature in our
days has only to assert its own dignity, to be true and faithful to the
right, to avoid ribaldry, and preserve a noble and brave independence;
and then its importance to the state, as the minister of good, must be
acknowledged. It is only when forgetful of great purposes and great
power, that literature is open to be forgotten or sneered at. Still the
indifference an Englishman feels towards genius, even while enjoying its
fruits, was likely enough to check and chill the enthusiasm of Burke,
and drive him to much mystery as to his early literary engagements. One
of his observations made during his first visit to Westminster Abbey,
while hopes and ambitions quickened his throbbing pulse, and he might
have been pardoned for wishing for a resting-place in the grand
mausoleum of England, is remarkable, as showing how little he changed,
and how completely the youth

"Was father to the man."

"Yet after all, do you know that I would rather sleep in the southern
corner of a country church-yard than in the tomb of the Capulets? I
should like, however, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust; the
good old expression, 'family burying-grounds,' has something pleasant in
it, at least to me."

This was his last, as it seems to have been his first desire; and it has
found an echo in many a richly dowered heart.

"Lay me," said Allan Cunningham, "where the daisies can grow on my
grave;" and it is well known that Moore--

"The poet of all circles,"--

and, as a poor Irishman once rendered it--

"The _darlint_ of his own,"

has frequently expressed a desire to be buried at Sloperton beside his
children.

The future orator found the law, as a profession, alien to his habits
and feelings, for at the expiration of the usual term he was not even
called to the bar. Some say he desired the professorship of logic at the
University of Glasgow, and even stood the contest; but this has bee