e
rather little than much," this old man told me; "sat rather silent in
those early days, as in the company of persons above him; and always
when he did speak, it was to throw new light on the matter." I know not
why any one should ever speak otherwise!--But if we look at his
general force of soul, his healthy _robustness_ every way, the rugged
downrightness, penetration, generous valor and manfulness that was in
him,--where shall we readily find a better-gifted man?

Among the great men of the Eighteenth Century, I sometimes feel as if
Burns might be found to resemble Mirabeau more than any other. They
differ widely in vesture; yet look at them intrinsically. There is the
same burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul;--built, in both
cases, on what the old Marquis calls a _fond gaillard_. By nature, by
course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of bluster;
a noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of Mirabeau too
is veracity and sense, power of true _insight_, superiority of vision.
The thing that he says is worth remembering. It is a flash of insight
into some object or other: so do both these men speak. The same raging
passions; capable too in both of manifesting themselves as the tenderest
noble affections. Wit; wild laughter, energy, directness, sincerity:
these were in both. The types of the two men are not dissimilar. Burns
too could have governed, debated in National Assemblies; politicized, as
few could. Alas, the courage which had to exhibit itself in capture of
smuggling schooners in the Solway Frith; in keeping _silence_ over so
much, where no good speech, but only inarticulate rage was possible:
this might have bellowed forth Ushers de Breze and the like; and made
itself visible to all men, in managing of kingdoms, in ruling of great
ever-memorable epochs! But they said to him reprovingly, his Official
Superiors said, and wrote: "You are to work, not think." Of your
_thinking-faculty_, the greatest in this land, we have no need; you are
to gauge beer there; for that only are you wanted. Very notable;--and
worth mentioning, though we know what is to be said and answered! As if
Thought, Power of Thinking, were not, at all times, in all places and
situations of the world, precisely the thing that was wanted. The fatal
man, is he not always the unthinking man, the man who cannot think and
_see_; but only grope, and hallucinate, and _mis_see the nature of the
thing he works