Ayrshire, lashed with unsparing and terrible sarcasm and wit the vices and superstitions of his age, and, unfortunately, fell a victim to the social habits of the day, before his better judgment and nobler principles had gained the moral ascendency over the burning passions of his youth? Following out this view of the infirmities of men, we are prepared to look with sad complacency on the rudeness and superstition of Johnson--the madness and misery of poor Chatterton, who "perished in his pride"--the gourmandizing of Pope--the sublime wailings of disappointed ambition in Young--the baffled rage and insanity of Swift--the misery of the exquisite Elia--the hallucinations of the inspired Coleridge, whose whole life was a distempered dream--the bright morning dream of Keats--the cruel disappointment and heart-breaking of poor Haydon, when he stood in solitude among his great pictures, and saw the whole world of London flocking to gaze on General Tom Thumb!--the solitary pride of Wordsworth--the egotism of the Ettrick Shepherd--the intolerance of Scott--the mirth and melancholy of Hood, who has given to the world the most powerful and pathetic song that has sounded from the poetic lyre in our day, illustrating the sad truth, that "_Laughter_ to _sadness_ is so near allied, But thin partitions do their bounds divide"-- in short, all the long and sorrowful catalogue of "mighty poets in their misery dead"--that terrible death-roll, inscribed with "fears of the brave and follies of the wise," and written within and without with mourning, and lamentation, and woe. And so of Robert Burns. From his earliest years, we learn, he was subject to palpitation and nervous excitement. The victim of hypochondria, with fitful glimpses or sunbursts, lighting up the waste of life with ineffable beauty and love, to escape from its terrible shadow, which haunted him through life, he, unfortunately, was driven to take refuge from himself in the excitement and vivacity of the social board, as Johnson fled from himself to the tavern dinner, to revel in his astonishing powers of conversation, while Burke and Beauclerk quailed under the eye of the critical dictator.