CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS: COLLECTED AND REPUBLISHED (FIRST TIME, 1839; FINAL, 1869). BY THOMAS CARLYLE. IN SEVEN VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 1872. MISCELLANIES. BURNS.1 IN the modern arrangements of society, it is no uncommon thing that a man of genius must, like Butler, 'ask for bread and receive a stone;' for, in spite of our grand maxim of supply and demand, it is by no means the highest excellence that men are most forward to recognise. The inventor of a spinningjenny is pretty sure of his reward in his own day; but the writer of a true poem, like the apostle of a true religion, is nearly as sure of the contrary. We do not know whether it is not an aggravation of the injustice, that there is generally a posthumous retribution. Robert Burns, in the course of Nature, might yet have been living; but his short life was spent in toil and penury; and he died, in the prime of his manhood, miserable and neglected: and yet already a brave mausoleum shines over his dust, and more than one splendid monument has been reared in other places to his fame; the street where he languished in poverty is called by his name; the highest personages in our literature have been proud to appear as his commentators and admirers; and here is the sixth narrative of his Life that has been given to the world! Mr. Lockhart thinks it necessary to apologise for this new attempt on such a subject: but his readers, we believe, will readily acquit him; or, at worst, will censure only the performance of his task, not the choice of it. The character of Burns, 1 EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. 96.-The Life of Robert Burns. By J. G. Lockhart, LL.B. Edinburgh, 1828. VOL. II. B |