The profits of a new edition enabled him, in the year after his arrival in Edinburgh, (1787,) to make the tour of a considerable extent of Scotland. Ile visited the tomb of Bruce, and knelt at it with characteristic devo tion. Unhappily for his habits, he returned to Edin burgh, and spent there the winter of ills vi sit seems to have been without any serious object, and consumed some portion of his capital, which would have been much better bestowed on stocking a farm, than in renewing his round of dissipation. Ile probably looked, however, to sonic permanent provision from the exten sive patronage which he nominally enjoyed. A provi sion, was, indeed, at last made for him ; but it was a mi serable provision,—the place of an exciseman, an office which condemned him to the haunts of smugglers and the society of publicans. Burns humorously expressed his consolation for the lowness of his corps and comrades, by comparing it to the encouragement which he had heard held out by a recruiting serjeant to some young soldiers " Gentlemen, you hare enlisted in the most blackguard corps in his majesty's service; if there is an honest mall among you, Inc is sure to make his fortune in the Ile now took a farm on the banks of the Nith, built himself a house with his own hands, and settled ill con jugal union with his Jane. But here his unhappy dis traction between two businesses, and the journies which he was obliged to take in his profession as an exciseman, had so bad an effect on his farming pursuits, that, at the end of three years and a half, he found it convenient, if not necessary, to resign the one. Ilis office in the excise had originally produced about fifty pounds per annum. Ilaving acquitted himself to the satisfaction of the hoard, fie was appointed to a new district in Dumfriesshire, worth about seventy pounds per annum ; and be settled in Dum fries in 1791. lithe•to, although addicted to excess in company, Burns had abstained from the habitual use of spirituous liquors ; but in Dumfries new temptations presented themselves to " the sin that so easily beset him." Ills life was embittered also by the political per secution (for it can be called nothing else,) which he sill fered for expressing the independent principles of a friend to liberty. Information of sonic unguarded expressions, which he had used in private conversation, was sent to the board of excise, and he was prevented from being cast out of bread and support, only by the interposition of his steady friend Mr Grahame of Fintry.
In the winter of 1795, his constitution, broken by cares, irregularities, and passions, fell into premature decline. The summer returned, but only to shine on his sickness and his grave. In July his mind wandered into delirium, unless reused by conversation; and in that month a fever, on the fourth day of its continuance, closed his life and sufferings, at 37 years of age.
Burns was, in his person, about five feet ten inches high, of a form that indicated strength as well as agility ; lus forehead was finely raised, indicating extensive ca pacity ; his eyes were large, dark, full of ardour and Intelligence ; his character, though marred by impru dence, was never contaminated by duplicity or mean ness.
As a poet, without accomplishing any work of exten sive or complicated design, he has exhibited all the va riety of poetical powers which can enter into the great est works, the conduct of a plan only excepted. The
English reader is alive to the force and feeling of many of his passages ; but the Scottish reader perceives also, that lie is as much a master of the ludicrous and fami liar, as of the strong and pathetic. His humour in de lineating Scottish character and manners, unfortunately for his name, depends upon a language which is fast ex piring; but as long as it remains intelligible, the gaiety and the unsophisticated charm of his pictures from rus tic life, will be deeply felt by his countrymen, and will, in all probability, be studied by glossaries, as Chaucer's able pictures of English life are now studied by the En glish scholar. As a poet, he is superior in force to Ram say ; his humour is of a richer vein than that of either Ramsay or Ferguson, both of whom, as he himself in forms us, he had frequently in his eye, but rather with a view to kindle at their flame than to servile imitation. Ferguson's Farmer's Ingle, which may be considered as a Scottise pastoral, was certainly the a•chitype of his Cotter's Saturday Xtght. The picturesque sinquicity of the former is not only caught by Burns, but it is elevat ed by touches of tenderness and sublime devotion un known to Ferguson. The description of these humble eottagcrs limning a wider 4 111 he round their w 31".D, and uniting in the worship of God, is a pit tur , as I)r Co) lie has observed, the most deeply afk( of ally w the rural muse has ewe• presented. Stoll poetry (it is well added by the sante critir,) is not to be estimate by the degree of pleasure it bestows; it is c alcul:oed far beyond any other human means to gisC permai.ci rr to the scenes and characters it so exquisitely dos( .
As a song writer, he has adapted the Scottish 'lido. dies to such appropriate words, that he seems more like one discovering by inspitation certain thoughts whirls had lain hid in the tune, than like a writer adapting his own thoughts to the music. Solo( times in his descrip tive and epistolary poetry, his mirth is coarse, but he is never vulgar (that we recollect) in his songs ; even in the rustic and bacchanalian strains. Ills love songs ar the best. In comparing the different faculties of his mind as a poet, we think his feeling predominated consider ably beyond his fancy. This may account for the sim plicity of his amatory poetry, in the language of which, fancy is always a dangerous intruder. Setting aside the now forgotten authors of ancient ballads, he has done more for Scottish song, than all the other writers in our northern dialect. Crawfurd, Skinner, Ross, and Fer guson, are names not to be put in the most distant com petition with his. Ramsay was, with all his other me rits, an indifferent song writer. There are not above half a dozen songs true to the national character and dialect, produced within the last century, which have the exquisite stamp of merit sufficient to rank with his happiest effusions. Those few arc indeed very beauti ful exceptions: The reader will, perhaps, anticipate that we allude to the " Flowers of the Forest," and " Auld Robin Gray," as the most striking instances. In one species of song he had no predecessor : we mean his war songs of Bruce to his troops, and the song of Death. In these he has risen to a lyric energy to which the pas toral genius of our music does not follow him.