Burns was one of the few poets fit to be seen. It has been asserted that genius is a disease--the malady of physical inferiority. It is certain that we have heard of Pope, the hunchback: of Scott and Byron, the cripples: of the epileptic Julius Cæsar, who, it is said, never planned a great battle without going into fits; and of Napoleon, whom a few years of trouble killed: where Cobbett (a man of talent, not of genius) would have melted St. Helena, rather than have given up the ghost with a full belly. If Pope could have leaped over five-barred gates, he probably would not have written his inimitable sofa-and-lap-dog poetry; but it does not follow that he would not have written the "Essay on Man;" and they who assert that genius is a physical disease, should remember that, as true critics are more rare than true poets, we having only one in our language, William Hazlitt, so, very tall and complete men are as rare as genius itself, a fact well known to persons who have the appointment of constables. And if it is undeniable that God wastes nothing, and that we, therefore, perhaps seldom find a gigantic body combined with a soul of Æolian tones; it is equally undeniable, that Burns was an exception to the rule--a man of genius, tall, strong, and handsome, as any man that could be picked out of a thousand at a country fair. But he was unfortunate, we are told. Unfortunate! He was a tow-heckler who cleared six hundred pounds by the sale of his poems: of which sum he left two hundred pounds behind him, in the hands of his brother Gilbert: two facts which prove that he could neither be so unfortunate, nor so imprudent, as we are told he was. If he had been a mere tow-heckler, I suspect he would never have possessed six hundred shillings. But he _was_ imprudent, it is said. Now, he is a wise man who has done one act that influences beneficially his whole life. Burns did three such acts--he wrote poetry--he published it; and, despairing of his farm, he became an exciseman. It is true he did one imprudent act; and, I hope, the young persons around me will be warned by it; he took a farm, without thoroughly understanding the business of farming. It does not appear that he wasted or lost any capital, except what he threw away on his farm. He was unlucky, but not imprudent in giving it up when he did. Had he held it a little longer, the Bank Restriction Act would have enriched him at the expense of his landlord; but Burns was an honest man, and, therefore, alike incapable of desiring and foreseeing that enormous villainy.