“Nobody understood Burns; he shared his opinions with no one he knew. When, at the beginning of the French Revolution he expressed his delight and approval, the people who admired him were shocked, refused to speak to him, and regarded him either as mad or terribly wicked. His poems were not admired as much as they deserved to be, he had hardly any money, was never likely to get on in the world, was shunned and disgraced, and began, as a last resource,[28] to drink too much. Ill-health was one of his misfortunes, and this intemperance killed him. “Thus died at the age of thirty-seven, poor, friendless, despised, the man who has given pleasure to thousands, and an undying collection of poems and songs to his country.” _Q._ Give some account, as far as you can in the _style_ of Carlyle, of the Procession of May 4th. (Book studied, Carlyle’s _French Revolution_.) G. (aged 14½):— “See the doors of Notre Dame open wide, the Procession issuing[29] forth, a sea of human faces that are to reform France. First come the nobles in their gayly (_sic_) tinted robes, next the clergy, and then the commons, the Tiers Etats in their slouched hats firm and resolute, and lastly the king, and the Œuil-de-bœuf, these are greeted by a tremendous storm of vivats. Vive le roi! Vive la nation! Let us suppose we can take up some coigne (_sic_) of vantage from which we can watch the procession, but with eyes different from other eyes, namely with prophetic eyes. See a man coming, striding at the head of the Tiers Etats, tall and with thick lips and black hair, whose father and brother walk among the nobles. Close beside walks Doctor Guillotin,[29] learned Doctor Guillotin,[29] who said, ‘My friends (_mes amis_), I have a machine that will whisk off your heads in a second, and cause you no pain,’ now doomed for two years to see and hear nothing but guillotin, and for more than two centuries after yonder a desolate ghost on this (_sic_) of the Styx. Mark, too, a small mean man, a sea-green man with sea-green eyes, Robespierre by name, a small underhand secretary walking beside one Dantun (_sic_) tall and massive, cruelty and vengeance on their faces. We may not linger longer, but one other we must note, one tall and active with a cunning air, namely, Camille Desmouellins (_sic_), one day to rise to fame and the next to be forgotten. “Many more walk in that procession one day to become famous, Bailli, future president of a New Republick (_sic_), and Marat, with Broglie the War-God and others. “The Tiers Etats with Mayor Bailli march to the rooms where they are to sit, but the doors are shut: there is sound of hammering within.