The same personality that stands forth in the poems is everywhere present in all essential features in the letters. We have in the latter the same view of life, present and future; the same fierce contentment with honest poverty; the same aggressive independency of manhood; the same patriotism, susceptibility to female loveliness, love of sociality, undaunted likes and dislikes. The humour is the same, though often too elaborately expressed.[d] In one important respect, however, his letters fail to reflect that image of him which his poetry presents. It is remarkable that his descriptions of rural nature, and one might add of rustic life, so full and plentiful in his verse, are so few and slight in his letters. He seems to have reserved these descriptions for his verse. The best, because the most genuine, biography of Burns is furnished by his own writings. His letters will, if carefully studied, disprove many of the positions taken up so confidently by would-be interpreters of his history. It is not the purpose of this discursive paper to take up the details of the Clarinda episode; but philandering is scarcely the word by which to describe the mutual relations of the lovers. As for Mrs. M'Lehose, the severest thing that can with justice be said against her is that, if she maintained her virtue, she endangered her reputation. One remarkable position taken up by a recent writer[e] on the subject of Burns's amours is, that he never really loved any woman, and least of all Jean Armour. The letters would rather warrant the converse of his statement. They go to prove that while Burns's affections were more than oriental in their strength and liberality, they were especially centred upon Jean. He felt "a miserable blank in his heart with want of her;" "a rooted attachment for her;" "had no reason on her part to rue his marriage with her;" and "never saw where he could have made it better." If Burns was never really in love, it is more than probable that the whole world has been mistaking some other passion for it. It is this same writer who in one breath speaks of Burns philandering with Clarinda, and yet declaring his attachment to her in the best songs he ever wrote. Another error which the letters should correct is the belief expressed in some quarters that Burns was no longer capable of producing poetry after his fatal residence in Edinburgh. It was, as a matter of fact, subsequent to his residence in Edinburgh that he wrote the poems for which he is now, and for which he will be longest, famous--namely, his songs. The writer already referred to compares the composition of these songs to the carving of cherry-stones. They were, he says in effect, the amusement of a man who could do nothing better in literature! The world has agreed that they are the best things Burns has done; and rates him for their sake in the highest rank of its poets. The truth is that Burns came to Ellisland with numerous schemes of future