"It's hardly in a body's power To keep, at times, frae being sour, To see how things are shar'd; How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, And ken na how to wair't."[72] But "a man's a man for a' that," and the peasant is as good as the lord. There are men noble by nature, and they alone are noble; the coat is the business of the tailor, titles a matter for the Herald's office. "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, the man's the gowd for a' that." Against men who reverse this natural equality Burns is pitiless; the least thing puts him out of temper. Read his "Address of Beelzebub, to the Right Honourable the Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Right Honourable and Honourable the Highland Society, which met on the 23d of May last at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of five hundred Highlanders, who, as the society were informed by Mr. Mackenzie of Applecross, were so audacious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters, whose property they were, by emigrating from the lands of Mr. M'Donald of Glengarry to the wilds of Canada, in search of that fantastic thing--liberty!" Rarely was an insult more prolonged and more biting, and the threat is not far behind. He warns Scotch members like a revolutionist, to withdraw "that curst restriction on aquavitæ, get auld Scotland back her kettle": "An', Lord, if ance they pit her till't, Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt, An' durk an' pistol at her belt, She'll tak the streets, An' rin her whittle to the hilt I' the first she meets!"[73] In vain he writes, that "In politics if thou wouldst mix And mean thy fortunes be; Bear this in mind, be deaf and blind, Let great folks hear and see."[74] Not alone did he see and hear, but he also spoke, and that aloud. He congratulates the French, on having repulsed conservative Europe, in arms against them. He celebrates the Tree of Liberty, planted "where ance the Bastile stood": "Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit, Its virtues a' can tell, man; It raises man aboon the brute, It makes him ken himsel', man. Gif ance the peasant taste a bit, He's greater than a Lord, man.... King Loui' thought to cut it down, When it was unco sma', man. For this the watchman cracked his crown. Cut off his head and a', man."[75] A strange gayety, savage and nervous, and which, in better style, resembles that of the _Ça ira._