be half forgotten; Dr. Currie, the physician, has been found "unable to heal himself"; Mr. Shepherd of Gatacre is a name and a shadow; Mr. Clarke is a shadow without a name; the tailor, who set the table in a roar, is dust and ashes; and three men at the most remain of all who in those convivial meetings held it right to look down upon Burns as upon one whose spirit was rebellious overmuch against the institutions of man, and jacobinical in a sense which "men of property" and master manufacturers will never brook, albeit democrats by profession.[31] [31] De Quincey's strictures in this paper of 1837 on the Liverpool literary coterie of 1801 gave great offence in that town. The Liverpool papers attacked him for it; and Dr. Shepherd of Gatacre, apparently then the sole survivor of the coterie, addressed a letter of remonstrance to the editor of _Tait's Magazine_. It appeared in the number of the magazine for May 1837, with some editorial comments. "The question of which I have to treat," wrote Dr. Shepherd, "is a question of accuracy of recollection; and I am constrained to remark that, as, from the appellation by which, with an extraordinary kind of taste, Mr. De Quincey chooses to designate himself in his literary character, he seems to have been at one period of his life the slave of a deleterious drug, which shakes the nerves, and, inflaming the brain, impairs the memory, whilst _I_ have avoided that poison even in its medical application, therefore _my_ recollection is more likely to be correct that his." The letter proceeds to vindicate Dr. Currie, Mr. Roscoe, and the writer himself, from the charge of defective appreciation of the manly demeanour of Burns in his relations with the Scottish aristocracy and lairds; after which come some words of special self-defence of the writer in the matters of his political consistency and his jests at Hannah More. The letter altogether is destitute of effective point; and the editor of _Tait_ was quite justified in standing by De Quincey. This is done in every particular of the offending paper, with this included sting: "It may tempt a smile from the few who are likely to trouble themselves about this foolish affair to find that, though solemnly assuming the office of advocate-general for the other members of the extinct coterie, Dr. Shepherd, as well as the newspaper writers, has entirely overlooked the vivacious tailor celebrated by Mr. De Quincey, of whom we think none of his literary friends have the least reason to be ashamed."----The main matter of interest now in this little controversy of 1837 respects De Quincey's own estimate of Burns. Although he had taken up the cudgels for Burns in that particular in which he thought Dr. Currie and the rest of the Liverpool coterie of 1801, professed democrats though they were, had done Burns injustice,--viz. his