Scotland/Scots > Life of Robert Burns

ROBERT BURNS.
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sion to plunder distant provinces, or massacre
peaceful nations, he returns, perhaps, laden with
the spoils of rapine and murdt ; lives wicked and
respected, and dies a ******* and a lord
Nay, worst of all, alas for helpless woman ! the
needy prostitute, who has shivered at the corner
of the street, waiting to earn the wages of casual
prostitution, is left neglected and insulted, ridden
down by the chariot-wheels of the coroneted rip,
hurrying on to the guilty assignation ; she, who,
without the same necessities to plead, riots night¬
ly in the same guilty trade.—Well ! Divines may
say of it what they please, but execration is to the
mind, what phlebotomy is to the body; the vital
sluices of both are wonderfully relieved by their
respective evacuations. ”*
In such evacuations of indignant spleen the
proud heart of many an unfortunate genius, besides
this, has found, or sought relief: and to other
more dangerous indulgences, the affliction of such
sensitive spirits had often, ere his time, condescend¬
ed. The list is a long and a painful one; and it
includes some names that can claim but a scanty
share in the apology of Burns. Addison himself,
the elegant, the philosophical, the religious Addi¬
son, must be numbered with these offenders :—
Jonson, Cotton, Prior, Parnell, Otway, Savage, all
sinned in the same sort; and the transgressions of
them all have been leniently dealt with, in com¬
parison with those of one whose genius was pro¬
bably greater than any of theirs ; his appetites
more fervid, his temptations more abundant, his
repentance more severe. The beautiful genius of
* Letter to Mr Peter Hill, bookseller, Edinburgh. Ge¬
neral Correspondence, p. 328.
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