One of Burns's finest poems, written, in his twenty-eighth year, is entitled 'A Bard's Epitaph.' It is a description, by anticipation, of his own life. Wordsworth has said of it: "Here is a sincere and solemn avowal; a public declaration from his own will; a confession at once devout, poetical and human; a history in the shape of a prophecy." It concludes with these lines:-- "Reader, attend--whether thy soul Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, Or darkling grubs this earthly hole In low pursuit; Know--prudent, cautious self-control, Is Wisdom's root." One of the vices before which Burns fell--and it may be said to be a master-vice, because it is productive of so many other vices--was drinking. Not that he was a drunkard, but because he yielded to the temptations of drink, with its degrading associations, and thereby lowered and depraved his whole nature. [1513] But poor Burns did not stand alone; for, alas! of all vices, the unrestrained appetite for drink was in his time, as it continues to be now, the most prevalent, popular, degrading, and destructive. Were it possible to conceive the existence of a tyrant who should compel his people to give up to him one-third or more of their earnings, and require them at the same time to consume a commodity that should brutalise and degrade them, destroy the peace and comfort of their families, and sow in themselves the seeds of disease and premature death--what indignation meetings, what monster processions there would be! 'What eloquent speeches and apostrophes to the spirit of liberty!--what appeals against a despotism so monstrous and so unnatural! And yet such a tyrant really exists amongst us--the tyrant of unrestrained appetite, whom no force of arms, or voices, or votes can resist, while men are willing to be his slaves. The power of this tyrant can only be overcome by moral means--by self-discipline, self-respect, and self-control. There is no other way of withstanding the despotism of appetite in any of its forms. No reform of institutions, no extended power of voting, no improved form of government, no amount of scholastic instruction, can possibly elevate the character of a people who voluntarily abandon themselves to sensual indulgence. The pursuit of ignoble pleasure is the degradation of true happiness; it saps the morals, destroys the energies, and degrades the manliness and robustness of individuals as of nations.