as in the former place, but not in the latter, he had it in his power to exercise a personal control over the expenditure. I have been told also, that after his death the domestic expenses were greater than while he was alive. These facts are all consistent with a considerable development of Acquisitiveness; for when that organ is small, there is habitual inattention to pecuniary concerns, even although the love of independence, and dislike to ask a favour, be strong. The indifference with respect to money, which Burns occasionally ascribes to himself, appears therefore to savour of affectation; a failing into which he was not unfrequently led by Love of Approbation and Secretiveness. Indeed, in one of his letters to Miss Chalmers, he expressly in"timates a wish to be rich."

Burns, as we have already seen, was in common silent and reserved. This resulted chiefly from large Secretiveness. His appearance, on the occasion of a visit by Mr Mackenzie, was very characteristic. "The poet," says that gentleman, "seemed distant, suspicious, and without any wish to interest or please. He kept himself very silent in a dark corner of the room, and before he took any part in conversation, I frequently observed him scrutinizing me, while I conversed with his father and his brother."-(Cunningham, p. 61.) His love adventures, above noticed, furnish another illustration. Sometimes also, like Sir Walter Scott, whose Secretiveness was no way inferior to his, he disowned the authorship of his productions. "Burns," says Cromek, "sometimes wrote poems in the old ballad style, which, for reasons best known to himself, he gave to the world as songs of the olden time. That famous soldier's song, in particular, first printed in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, beginning, Go fetch to me a pint of wine,' has been pronounced by some of our best living poets, an inimitable relique of some ancient minstrel! Yet I have discovered it to be the actual production of Burns himself. The ballad of Auld Lang Syne was also introduced in this ambiguous manner, though there exist proofs that the two best stanzas of it are indisputably his; hence there are strong grounds for believing this poem also to be his production, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary. It was found among his MSS. in his own handwriting, with occasional interlineations, such as occur in all his primitive effusions."-(Reliques, p. 112.) Secretiveness is a chief ingredient in humour, of which Burns possessed a distinguished share.

Self-Esteem was a very prominent quality in the character of Burns. The organ is largely developed, and, besides partaking of the general activity of his brain, was peculiarly stimulated by adverse circumstances, and the painful consciousness that his station in life was not that to which his talents made him

entitled. Self-esteem, in fact, was a chief source of the annoyances which embittered his days. "There are," he says in his common-place-book, "There are few of the sore evils under the sun give me more uneasiness and chagrin than the comparison how a man of gemus, nay of avowed, worth, is received every where, with the reception which a mere ordinary character, decorated with the trappings and futile distinctions of fortune, meets. I imagine a man of abilities, his breast glowing with honest pride, conscious that men are born equal, still giving honour to whom honour is due; he meets, at a great man's table, a Squire Something, or a Sir Somebody; he knows the noble landlord, at heart, gives the bard, or whatever he is, a share of his good wishes, beyond, perhaps, any one at table; yet how will it mortify him to see a fellow, whose abili ties would scarcely have made an eightpenny tailor, and whose heart is not worth three farthings, meet with attention and notice, that are withheld from the son of genius and poverty? The noble Glencairn," he adds, "has wounded me to the soul here; because I dearly esteem, respect, and love him. He shewed so much attention-engrossing attention-one day, to the only blockhead at table, (the whole company consisted of his lordship, dunderpate, and myself), that I was within half a point of throwing down my gage of contemptuous defiance." Again, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, he says, "When I must skulk in a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim, What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule and the key of riches in his puny fist, and I am kicked into this world, the sport of folly, or the victim of pride?"" It was under the influence of such feelings that he composed his song "For a' that and a' that," every line of which is an ebullition of Self-esteem. He had an intense admiration of Smollett's Ode to Independence, and hated, above all things, to lie under an obligation. "One of the principal parts in my composition," he writes to his teacher Murdoch, "is a kind of pride of stomach, and I scorn to fear the face of any man living: above every thing, I abhor as hell the idea of sneaking in a corner to avoid a dun-possibly some pitiful sordid wretch, whom, in my heart, I despise and detest." It was his powerful Self-esteem and Combativeness, along with great general size of brain, that gave him that coolness and self-possession in the company of men far above his station, which various authors have remarked with surprise: His manners in that society were, as Professor Stewart notices, "strongly expressive of conscious genius and worth"

VOL. IX.-NO. XLI.

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Love of Approbation was still more powerful than Selfesteem. Burns was greedy of fame and applause, and extremely annoyed by disapprobation. This was one of the strongest motives by which he was actuated. His cogitations before printing the first edition of his poems, and when he had the full intention of emigrating to Jamaica, are thus recorded by himself:-"Before leaving my native country for ever, I resolved to publish my poems. I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power: I thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears." He writes to Mrs Dunlop : "I am fully persuaded that there is not any class of mankind so feelingly alive to the titillations of applause as the sons of Parnassus; nor is it easy to conceive how the heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those whose character in life gives them a right to be polite judges, honour him with their approbation." In another letter, the following remark occurs:" I have a little infirmity in my disposition, that where I fondly love or highly esteem, I cannot bear reproach." He might have added that advice was almost equally intolerable. Mr Robert Riddell, one of his friends, mentions that the poet often lamented to him that fortune had not placed him at the bar or in the senate: "He had great ambition," says Mr Riddell," and the feeling that he could not gratify it preyed upon him severely."-(Cunningham's Life, p. 350.) "He was far from averse," says the female writer already quoted, "to the incense of flattery, and could receive it tempered with less delicacy than might have been expected." The apologies with which his letters abound, shew how desirous he was to retain the good opinion of his friends; and the anxiety which he manifested respecting his posthumous reputation was very great. "My honest fame," he says, "is my dearest concern, and a thousand times have I trembled at the idea of the degrading epithets that malice or misrepresentation may affix to my name." This letter is so well known that it is unnecessary to quote farther. One additional illustration of Burns's love of notoriety -from "The Poet's Welcome to an Illegitimate Child"-may be given :

"The mair they talk, I'm ken'd the better;

E'en let them clash !"

Cautiousness is much larger than Hope; in consequence of which circumstance, joined to delicate health, external misfortunes, and the raging of passions within, Burns was afflicted by constitutional melancholy, or liability to blue devils. His teacher Murdoch records that, in youth, "Robert's countenance was generally grave, and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind;" and Allan Cunningham, who lived

"

near him at Ellisland, mentions that "his face was deeply marked by thought, and the habitual expression intensely melancholy." My constitution and frame," says Burns himself, "were, ab origine, blasted with a deep incurable taint of hypochondria, which poisons my existence. And again, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop There is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the hour of care; consequently the dreary objects seem larger than life." He always looked forward with gloomy anticipations to the future, and dreaded la time when he should return to his primitive obscurity. The temperament of genius, it may be remarked, adds strength to the causes of hypochon dria; for, by the laws of physiology, every transport of inspiration is followed by a corresponding depression of mind.

The organ of Benevolence is very largely developed. This feeling was strong in Burns, and was one of his grand redeeming virtues. Its effusions frequently occur in his correspondence. In a letter to Mr Hill, he says: Mankind are by nature be nevolent creatures. There are in every age a few souls that all the wants and woes of life cannot debase to sel fishness, or even to the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. If I am in danger of vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this side of my disposition and character. God knows I am no saint; I have a whole host of sins and follies to answer for; but if I could, and I believe I do it as far as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all eyes." Professor Stewart says: "Ire collect he once told me, when I was admiring a distant pros pect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind, which none could understand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth which they contained." "His charities," says Mr Gray," were great beyond his means." In particular, he shewed great kindness to the harmless imbecile creatures about Dumfries. (See Cunningham, p. 271.) It is believed by some phrenologists, that Philoprogenitiveness gives sympathy for weak and helpless objects in general, and directs Benevolence in an especial manner to these. The doctrine certainly receives confirmation from the head of Burns. He could not bear to see a bird robbed of her young; he spared and bewailed the fate of the mouse whose dwelling was upturned by his plough; and the verses written on seeing a wounded hare pass by, are expressive of the strongest compassion. His feelings on the latter occasion were a remarkable combination of Benevolence and Destructiveness; two feelings which, though antagonists, by no means neutralize each other, but may be simultaneously in a state of high excitement. The poem is compounded of the language of imprecation and pity, in almost equal proportions:

Phren. Journ. ii. 495, 499, and viii. 394.

“Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eve;
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel beart!
“Go, live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little that of life remains :

No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!

The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom pressed.

"Oft as by winding Nith, I musing wait

The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn,

And curse the ruthian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate."

... The individual who thus received the malediction of Barns for the very common offence of shooting a hare, related to Allan Cunningham the circumstances from which this poem took its rise. The hares," he said, "often came and nibbled our wheat braird; and once, in the gloaming-it was in April-I shot at one, and wounded her; she ran bleeding by Burns, who was pacing up and down by himself, not far from me. He started, and with a bitter curse ordered me out of his sight, or he would instantly throw me into the Nith. And had I stayed, I'll warrant he would have been as good as his word, though I was both young and strong." (Lockhart, p. 199.)

It was Benevolence which made Burns, in the stormy nights of winter, bethink him on the owrie cattle and silly sheep;" and lament the cheerless condition of the little birds which in milder seasons delighted him with their song.

Some may be surprised to be told that Veneration was a powerful sentiment in Burns. That such was the case, however, there seems to be no room for doubt. The feeling was there, though its direction was not, in all respects, the one which it commonly takes. In early youth, as he tells in his letter to Dr Moore, he was a good deal noted for an enthusiastic idiot piety;" and he afterwards studied with great avidity those excellent works, Derham's Physico and Astro-Theology, and Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation. Professor Stewart says, "He had a very strong sense of religion, and expressed deep regret at the levity with which he had heard it treated occasionally in some convivial meetings which he frequented." Allan Cunningham states, that at Ellisland" he performed family worship every evening." (Lockhart, p. 193.) It was chiefly of natural religion that Burns was an admirer; for it is well known that he entertained sceptical opinions. The Old Light Clergy heartily disgusted him; and he rejected the Calvinistic doctrines of original sin, and the eternal punishment of the wicked. But his Wonder