He ceased to lead, as he formerly was wont to do, the opinions and pursuits of his neighbours. They had always bowed to his criticisms, his logic, his lectures; but criticism, logic, and lectures were now silent. He would sit in the chair of dignity hour after hour, and utter no word: sometimes, however, he would appear to shake off, with a painful struggle, the feelings which oppressed him, and would break out suddenly into flashes of a broad but irresistible humour, which Burns, in his brightest moments, could not have surpassed; and then he would relapse again into gloom and taciturnity. But his mind, thus kept in a state of continual agitation and excitement, was sinking fast beneath it. The girl, too, whom he loved, was wretched through his refinement of passion. She believed herself slighted, and her coldness aggravated his torments. This could not last! It did not. One day he did not make his appearance in the village. One of his friends, going to his cottage, found the door fastened; and, upon calling, received no answer. The neighbourhood became alarmed; and several of his acquaintance searched in vain for him. He was not by the stream, where he often sat in solitude till the noxious dew fell round him; nor in the grove, where he used to listen to the nightingales till fancy filled up the pauses in their songs; nor by the window, where he would stand and gaze unconsciously till the sight of that dear face drove him from the scene of enchantment. At last they forced open his door; I entered with them. The poor youth was sitting at his writing-table, in his old patron’s armchair; the pen seemed to have just fallen from his hand; the ink on its nib was hardly dry; but he was quite still, quite silent, quite cold. His last thoughts seemed to have been spent upon the stanzas which were on the table before him. I will transcribe them, rather as an illustration of his story than as a specimen of his talents. Some of the lines gave rise to a conjecture that he had been the author of his own death, but nothing appeared to warrant the suspicion. I have a devil in my brain!-- He haunts me when I sleep, And points his finger at my ρain, And will not let me weep: And ever, as he hears me groan, He says the cause is all my own. I shall be calm anon!--I had A pleasant dream of bliss; And now they tell me I am mad-- Why should I mourn for this? My good, kind parents! Answer ye, For what I am, and am to be. Alas! I have forgotten, dear, The pledging and the vow; There is a falsehood in my tear, I do not love thee now: Or how could I endure to go, And look, and laugh, and leave thee so? Thou shall not come to my caress, Thou shalt not bear my name; Nor sorrow in my wretchedness, Nor wither in my shame; Mine is the misery and the moan, And I will die--but die alone!