Chapter IV: Part 4

Byron and Burns were sent forth as missionaries to their generation, to teach it a higher Doctrine, a purer Truth; they had a message to deliver, which left them no rest till it was accomplished; in dim throes of pain, this divine behest lay smouldering within them; for they knew not what it meant, and felt it only in mysterious anticipation, and they had to die without articulately uttering it. They are in the camp of the Unconverted; yet not as high messengers of rigorous though benignant truth, but as soft flattering singers, and in pleasant fellowship will they live there: they are first adulated, then persecuted; they accomplish little for others; they find no peace for themselves, but only death and the peace of the grave. We confess, it is not without a certain mournful awe that we view the fate of these noble {84} souls, so richly gifted, yet ruined to so little purpose with all their gifts. It seems to us there is a stern moral taught in this piece of history,--_twice_ told us in our own time! Surely to men of like genius, if there be any such, it carries with it a lesson of deep impressive significance. Surely it would become such a man, furnished for the highest of all enterprises, that of being the Poet of his Age, to consider well what it is that he attempts, and in what spirit he attempts it. For the words of Milton are true in all times, and were never truer than in this: "He who would write heroic poems must make his whole life a heroic poem."[120] If he cannot first so make his life, then let him hasten from this arena; for neither its lofty glories, nor its fearful perils, are fit for him. Let him dwindle into a modish balladmonger; let him worship and besing the idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him. If, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity! Byron and Burns could not live as idol-priests, but the fire of their own hearts consumed them; and better it was for them that they could not. For it is not in the favor of the great or of the small, but in a life of truth, and in the inexpugnable citadel of his own soul, that a Byron's or a Burns's strength must lie. Let the great stand aloof from him, or know how to reverence him. Beautiful is the union of wealth with favor {85} and furtherance for literature; like the costliest flower-jar enclosing the loveliest amaranth. Yet let not the relation be mistaken. A true poet is not one whom they can hire by money or flattery to be a minister of their pleasures; their writer of occasional verses, their purveyor of table-wit; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. At the peril of both parties, let no such union be attempted! Will a Courser of the Sun work softly in the harness of a Dray-horse? His hoofs are of fire, and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to all lands; will he lumber on mud highways, dragging ale for earthly appetites from door to door?

But we must stop short in these considerations, which would lead us to boundless lengths. We had something to say on the public moral character of Burns; but this also we must forbear. We are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average; nay from doubting that he is less guilty than one of ten thousand. Tried at a tribunal far more rigid than that where the _Plebiscita_ of common civic reputations are pronounced, he has seemed to us even there less worthy of blame than of pity and wonder. But the world is habitually unjust in its judgments of such men; unjust on many grounds, of which this one may be stated as the substance: It decides, like a court of law, by dead statutes; and not positively but negatively, less on what is done right, than on what is or is not done wrong. Not the few inches of deflection from the mathematical orbit, which are so easily measured, but the _ratio_ of these to the whole diameter, constitutes the real aberration. This orbit may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the solar system; or it may be a {86} city hippodrome; nay the circle of a ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet or paces. But the inches of deflection only are measured: and it is assumed that the diameter of the ginhorse, and that of the planet, will yield the same ratio when compared with them! Here lies the root of many a blind, cruel condemnation of Burnses, Swifts, Rousseaus, which one never listens to with approval. Granted, the ship comes into harbor with shrouds and tackle damaged; the pilot is blameworthy; he has not been all-wise and all-powerful: but to know _how_ blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the Globe, or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs.[121]

With our readers in general, with men of right feeling anywhere, we are not required to plead for Burns. In pitying admiration he lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a far nobler mausoleum than that one of marble; neither will his Works, even as they are, pass away from the memory of men. While the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves; this little Valclusa[122] Fountain will also arrest our eye: for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing current, into the light of day; and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines.

[1] The text followed is that of Carlyle's latest authorized form. Important variations from the form as printed in the _Edinburgh Review_ are pointed out.

[2] Samuel Butler (1612-1680). _Hudibras_ was one of Carlyle's favorite books.

[3] "In 1813 a public meeting was held in Dumfries; a subscription was opened, and, contributions flowing in rapidly from all quarters, a costly mausoleum was at length erected on the most elevated site which the churchyard presented. Thither the remains of the poet were solemnly transferred on the 5th of June, 1815."--Lockhart, chap. ix.

Carlyle used _brave_ ironically in the sense of _beautiful_, _splendid_. Lockhart says mildly: "The structure is perhaps more gaudy than might have been wished."

[4] The name of the _Mill Vennel_ in Dumfries, where Burns lived from May, 1793, until his death, was changed to _Burns Street_.

[5] The five _Lives_ of Burns referred to by Carlyle are probably those mentioned by Lockhart, by Walker, Currie, Heron, Irving, and Peterkin. In reality the number was still larger.

[6] To understand these references, read any good sketch of Shakespeare's life.

[7] "_The Caledonian Hunt_, an association of the principal of the nobility and gentry of Scotland, extended their patronage to our bard. He repaid the notice by a dedication of the enlarged and improved [_the first Edinburgh_] edition of his poems."--Currie's _Life of Burns_.

[8] In Scotland _writer_ is used loosely of law agents, solicitors, attorneys, and the like, and sometimes even of their principal clerks. Burns alludes to the _Ayr writers_ in _The Brigs of Ayr_.

[9] _The Edinburgh Review_ owed much of its success to Archibald Constable, its first printer. Constable rose to be one of the chief publishers of his time, and is especially famous for his connection with Scott, but became bankrupt in 1826. _Constable's Miscellany of Original and Selected Publications in Literature, Science, and the Arts_ has a pathetic interest as being the poor fulfilment of a scheme that he had formed, before his failure, of a series of cheap volumes that should sell, he told Scott, "not by thousands or tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands--aye, by millions."

[10] Author of _Notes on a Journey in America, from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois_. (London, 1818.)

[11] Carlyle's judgment on Lockhart's work seems to have improved with reflection. In a letter to his brother, June 10, 1828, he writes: "Lockhart had written a kind of _Life of Burns_, and men in general were making another uproar about Burns; it is this Book (a trivial enough one) which I am to _pretend_ reviewing."

[12] The apologetic expressions in the early part of this essay may, as Mr. H. W. Boynton well suggests in his excellent edition, be relics of Jeffrey's editing.

[13] Carlyle is always extreme in his judgments, and here is unjustly contemptuous of men whom, as the quotation from Scott below (p. 60) will show, Burns always regarded as his models, and whom he often directly and openly imitated. Ramsay has been admired by men as different as Pope and Leigh Hunt; and Stevenson, whose estimate of these men in his essay on _Some Aspects of Robert Burns_ it would be well to read, places the "poor lad Fergusson" even higher than Ramsay.

[14] Here Carlyle touches on the source of his own power,--the maxim that the pleasure of criticism deprives us of that of vivid appreciation does not apply to him.

[15] The _Tragic Fragment_ printed in Burns's works was written when he was only nineteen. And in 1790 Burns told friends that he was preparing to write a play on a subject drawn from Scottish history.

[16] Though Carlyle never changed his opinion of a true poet, his later writings show a very different estimate of the value of conquerors to the world. After his removal to London, he writes but little on literature, and is usually full of scorn for the profession of letters. He tends to idealize mere strength of will and brute force of character, if accompanied by sincerity. He praises the power of silent action; and his favorite heroes are men of deeds, like Cromwell and Frederick.

[17] See _To a Mountain Daisy_ and _To a Mouse_. Cranreuch=hoar frost.

[18] This passage is suggested by a prose entry in Burns's _Common-Place Book_ (April, 1784), which serves as introduction to the poem _Winter_. The words in italics are from Psalm 104.

[19] The figure is a favorite one with Burns; see, for example, the passage quoted below, page 30. The present quotation may be from Richter (compare p. 81), in whom, according to Mr. Boynton, the figure is also frequent.

[20] "Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adflent
Humani voltus; si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi."
--_Ars Poetica_, 101-103.

"As men's faces laugh with those that laugh, so they weep with those that weep; if thou wouldst have me weep, thou must first feel grief thyself."

[21] Sincerity is the test by which Carlyle judges all men; praise of it is one of the keynotes of his writings. Unfortunately he often confounds it with mere brute force of character and fixity of purpose.

[22] "How perpetually he [Burns] was alive to the dread of being looked down on as a man, even by those who most zealously applauded the works of his genius, might perhaps be traced through the whole sequence of his letters. When writing to men of high station, at least, he preserves, in every instance, the attitude of self-defence."--Lockhart, chap. v.

[23] Scott, Byron, Moore, Southey, and Cooper are the most obvious objects of this attack; but they had a host of imitators. Carlyle, because of his intense moral earnestness, had no sympathy with literature written only to give amusement, regardless of truth to life. As usual, his view, though stimulating, is one-sided. Many of the most justly famous books, notably the _Arabian Nights_, are great by the pure charm of incident and invention.

[24] "A printing-house in London, which was noted in the eighteenth century for the publication of trashy sentimental novels."--_Century Dictionary of Names_.

[25] A famous gaming club-house in London.

[26] The reference is to Macaulay, essay on Milton.

[27] The two poems, _Halloween_ and _The Holy Fair_, must be read to understand the references. Any encyclopædia will explain the Council of Trent and the Roman Jubilee.

[28] Carlyle had little interest in the fine arts for their own sake; perhaps he was attracted to Retzsch by his illustrations of Schiller and Goethe.

[29] The passage beginning here, and extending through the quotation on page 27, is not found in the _Edinburgh Review_.

[30] _Bock'd_, vomited.

[31] _Fabulosus_ Hydaspes! [Note by Carlyle] see _Horace_: Odes, I. 22.

[32] Thaws that melt the snow in spots.

[33] Rolls.

[34] Spate, torrent.

[35] Muddy splashes.

[36] From _The Brigs of Ayr_. It is the fall of the new brig that is prophesied: a strange slip on Carlyle's part.

[37] See _Iliad_, xviii. and xxii. Pope's translation may be bought for a few cents; and is still in many ways the best.

[38] A name for a blacksmith, shortened to _Burnewin_, in _Scotch Drink_.

[39] These lines are incorrectly quoted from an Irish song altered by Burns, _Open the Door to Me, oh!_ They should read:

"The wan Moon is setting behind the white wave,
And Time is setting with me, oh:
False friends, false love, farewell! for mair
I'll ne'er trouble them nor thee, oh."

[40] _To William Simpson_. _Wat_, wet.

[41] Dugald Stewart, professor of moral philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, in a letter published in the _Life of Burns_, by Dr. James Currie.

[42] In this sentence, as printed in the _Edinburgh Review_, we have certainly a trace of Jeffrey's editing (cf. above, p. 7). There, by the change of _weak-eyed maudlin_ into _extreme_, and of _random_ into _pervading_, the sneer is converted into a compliment. Elsewhere Carlyle says of Keats: "The kind of man he was gets ever more horrible to me. Force of hunger for pleasure of every kind, and want of all other force.... Such a structure of soul, it would once have been very evident, was a chosen 'Vessel of Hell.'" (Nichol: _Life of Carlyle_, chap. v.) Such is the absurd result to which Carlyle is led by his view of the necessity of a moral aim in all literature.

[43] Letter to Mrs. Dunlop, January 1, 1789. The passage is also quoted in Lockhart, chap. viii.

[44] Struggle.

[45] _A Winter Night_.

[46] _Ibid_.

[47] _Address to the Deil_.

[48] The quotation is from _Tristram Shandy_, vol. iii. chap. xi. In the _Edinburgh Review_ it is preceded by the sentence: "He did not know, probably, that Sterne had been beforehand with him." As a matter of fact, Burns was well acquainted with Sterne; and it is perhaps for that reason that Carlyle omitted the line when this essay was reprinted, even though he thereby made a very abrupt transition.

[49] The two following paragraphs, including the quotation from Burns, were not in the essay as printed in the _Edinburgh Preview_.

[50] "Facit indignatio versum."--_Juvenal_, I. 79.

[51] Dr. Johnson said of his friend Dr. Bathurst: "Dear Bathurst was a man to my very heart's content; he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig. He was a very good hater."--Piozzi's _Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson_. Carlyle himself, in his scornful epigrams at men and institutions that seemed to him false and insincere, is a near approach to a "good hater."

[52] Cf. _Paradise Lost_, I. 63.

[53] _Ode, Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald_.

[54] The authority for this account is a letter from Mr. Syme, printed in Currie's _Life_. Burns himself sent _Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled_ to Thomson September 1, 1793, in company with a letter, in which he says that the song was composed on an evening walk the day before.

[55] See Virgil, _Æneid_, viii. 185-279.

[56] The reference is to Milton's _Il Penseroso_. The struggle of fate and man's free will is the central idea of the typical Greek tragedies.

[57] _Tristram Shandy_ was one of Carlyle's favorite books: Sterne probably appealed to him by his humor and kindliness. Cf. p. 33, above.

[58] Both Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) and Johann Karl August Musäus (1735-1787) worked with materials drawn from popular legend. But Musäus, in his most famous work, _Volksmärchen der Deutschen_ (_German Folk-Tales_), could not keep from introducing his own satirical tone. Thus the book lacks the simplicity of genuine folk-lore. Remember that Carlyle had already published translations from both these men.

[59] Fearless crone.

[60] The scene of _The Jolly Beggars_ was an actual tavern in Mauchline, kept by a Mrs. Gibson, called "Poosie-Nansie."

[61] David Teniers, the Younger (1610-1690).

[62] By John Gay (1685-1732).

[63] By John Fletcher (1579-1625).

[64] In particular, Lockhart, chap. ix.

[65] Jeronymo Osorio (1506-1580), called "the Cicero of Portugal:" "Men began to hunt more after words than matter; more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius the Portugal bishop, to be in price."--Bacon: _Of the Advancement of Learning_, I. iv. 2.

[66] Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun (1655-1716), in his _Account of a Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind_, says: "I knew a very wise man" who "believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."

[67] Richard Glover (1712-1785) was once famous for his epic _Leonidas_. There is an account of him, with specimens of his work, in Ward's _English Poets_. Nothing can better illustrate Carlyle's lack of a judicial habit of mind than his coupling Glover's name with Gray's. Read once more the _Elegy written in a Country Churchyard_, and form your own idea of the correctness of Carlyle's opinion.

[68] Apparently Carlyle's memory was treacherous, like that of ordinary mortals: man and work are both given incorrectly here. _Human Nature in its Fourfold State_, by Thomas Boston (1677-1732), is still a classic of the Calvinistic theology.

[69] The names are all readily found in any cyclopædia; except possibly that of Charles Batteux (1713-1780), who, as might be inferred from the text, was a French literary critic of the same school as Boileau.

[70] At one time Hume's residence in France, where he composed his _Treatise on Human Nature_.

[71] Chapter xi. of Book I. of Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ has the title _Of the Rent of Land_. _The Natural History of Religion_ is by Hume.

[72] In spite of the example of Burns, the publisher of _Waverley_ hesitated for some time to accept the manuscript, on account of the Scotch dialect interwoven in it. Now, on the contrary, a local dialect seems a commendation to a work of fiction.

[73] Burns, in his autobiographical letter to Dr. Moore (August 2, 1787), says, in reference to _The History of Sir William Wallace_, one of his first books: "The story of Wallace poured a Scotch prejudice in my veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest." The reader will by this time have noticed Carlyle's carelessness about small points.

[74] This may refer to Burns's poetical epistles to David Sillar and John Lapraik, obscure poets of his own time; or, more probably, to his erecting a memorial, at his own expense, over the neglected grave of Fergusson.

[75] _Answer to Verses addressed to the Poet by the Guidwife of Wauchope House_.

[76] Burns himself says of his early days, in his autobiographical letter to Dr. Moore: "The great misfortune of my life was never to have an aim."

[77] Perhaps Carlyle is misled in his estimate of Burns by his own high conception of the vocation of the man of letters. The profession of literature is hardly older than our own century; Dr. Johnson is really the first example of it. For a man, unsupported by a patron, to make poetry his means of subsistence, was almost unknown in the eighteenth century. Burns was too proud to depend on a patron, and his refusal to accept money for his contributions to Johnson's _Museum_ and Thomson's _Scottish Airs_ was only in accord with the ideas of his time; besides, he feared that such a proceeding would injure his spontaneity. To receive pay for a volume of poems, originally written without reference to publication, was quite a different matter.

Carlyle, in his lecture on _The Hero as Man of Letters_, in _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, develops his own point of view more fully.

[78] Burns himself says of his father: "I have met with few who understood Men, their manners and their ways, equal to him."

[79] These words seem like a prophecy of Carlyle's own career, which was just beginning when this essay was written.

[80] See _The Cotter's Saturday Night_.

[81] Wordsworth: _Resolution and Independence_ (1807 edition). Our editions read: "Following his plough, along the mountain side." The reference in the poem is to Burns.

[82] Apparently the "best evidence" is conflicting. Burns, in his autobiographical letter to Dr. Moore, says of himself as a boy: "I was, perhaps, the most ungainly, awkward being in the parish." And Murdock, Burns's schoolmaster, in a letter printed in Currie's _Life_ and reproduced in Lockhart's, says: "Robert's ear was remarkably dull, and his voice untamable.... Robert's countenance was generally grave and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind."

[83a] The phrases are drawn from Burns's letter to Dr. Moore.

[83b] The phrases are drawn from Burns's letter to Dr. Moore.

[84] _Farewell Song to the Banks of Ayr_. The last line should read:--

Farewell, the bonie banks of Ayr.

[85] Shakespeare, Richard II. iv. 1. Carlyle was a man of enormous reading, and no one can hope to recognize _all_ his allusions. But the two books to which he, like most of the great writers of modern England, refers most frequently, are within the reach of every one: they are the Bible and Shakespeare.

[86] Lockhart, chap. v.

[87] Ovid, _Tristia_, IV. x. 51.

[88] Adam Ferguson (1723-1816), professor of philosophy at Edinburgh University. He was succeeded by Dugald Stewart.

[89] Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811) was an amateur artist and caricaturist of some note.

[90] The poem may be found in Chalmers's _British Poets_, vol. xvi., under the title _The Country Justice_. There the second line reads: "Perhaps that parent mourn'd her soldier slain." John Langhorne (1735-1779) and his brother William made the translation of Plutarch's _Lives_ which, in spite of its dreary style, is still the one in general use.

[91] Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840) painted in 1787 a bust portrait of Burns, which is the likeness most commonly reproduced.

[92] Quoted in Lockhart, chap. v.

[93] Lockhart gives in a foot-note (at end of chap. iv.) the following quotation from a letter of Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, August 17, 1773:--

"This morning I saw at breakfast Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light, and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence."

[94] Cf. John v. 1-9.

[95] Words of Burns quoted in Lockhart, chap. vii.

[96] "If Burns had much of a farmer's skill, he had little of a farmer's prudence and economy. I once inquired of James Corrie, a sagacious old farmer, whose ground marched with Elliesland, the cause of the poet's failure. 'Faith,' said he, 'how could he miss but fail, when his servants ate the bread as fast as it was baked? I don't mean figuratively, I mean literally. Consider a little. At that time close economy was necessary to have enabled a man to clear twenty pounds a year by Elliesland. Now Burns's own handywork was out of the question; he neither ploughed, nor sowed, nor reaped, at least like a hard-working farmer; and then he had a bevy of servants from Ayrshire. The lasses did nothing but bake bread, and the lads sat by the fireside, and ate it warm, with ale. Waste of time and consumption of food would soon reach to twenty pounds a year.'"--(Letter to Lockhart from Allan Cunningham, quoted in Lockhart's _Life_, chap, vii.)

[97] In reality Burns occasionally borrowed money; but at his death he left only a few small debts.

[98] There is one little sketch by certain "English gentlemen" of this class, which, though adopted in Currie's narrative, and since then repeated in most others, we have all along felt an invincible disposition to regard as imaginary: "On a rock that projected into the stream, they saw a man employed in angling, of a singular appearance. He had a cap made of fox-skin on his head, a loose greatcoat fixed round him by a belt, from which depended an enormous Highland broad-sword. It was Burns." Now, we rather think, it was _not_ Burns. For, to say nothing of the foxskin cap, the loose and quite Hibernian watchcoat with the belt, what are we to make of this "enormous Highland broad-sword" depending from him? More especially, as there is no word of parish constables on the outlook to see whether, as Dennis phrases it, he had an eye to his own midriff or that of the public! Burns, of all men, had the least need, and the least tendency, to seek for distinction, either in his own eyes or those of others, by such poor mummeries.--[Carlyle's note.]

Carlyle thinks this petty vanity inconsistent with Burns's wise self-control at Edinburgh. But we cannot reason thus in the case of a man with so variable a temperament, and the anecdote is fairly well authenticated.

[99] Mæcenas was the great literary patron of the Augustan age of Rome. Virgil addressed to him his _Georgics_, and Horace honors his name repeatedly.

[100] Lockhart (chap. viii.) devotes much time to confuting them.

[101] Lockhart, chap. viii.

[102] _Ubi sœva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare nequit_. Swift's Epitaph. [Carlyle's note.]

[103] _A Bard's Epitaph_.

[104] The parody is from _The Merchant of Venice_, iv. 1.

[105] Cf. page 1, above.

[106] Cf. Matthew vii. 16.

[107] An echo from Burns's dedication to the first Edinburgh edition of his poems. Cf. page 3, above.

[108] Cf. Daniel iv. 30.

[109] The first half of this precept occurs eight times in the New Testament; the second only in Galatians vi. 2.

[110] This cry of indignation at the absorption of men in the cares of this world, and their indifference to higher things, occurs repeatedly in Carlyle.

[111] Every reader should have a clear idea, not necessarily of the details in the lives of these men, but of the general significance of each in the history of the world.

[112] Matthew v. 12; and compare Luke vi. 23.

[113] There is an allusion to Ephesians iv. 8.

[114] This moral is worked out with wonderful power in _Sartor Resartus_.

[115] The word means simply _restorer_; but Carlyle uses it to denote a man who uses his literary talent merely to give amusement, not to inculcate truth. Here again is a veiled sneer at Byron and Scott.

[116] See _Paradise Lost_, vii. 24-31.

[117] The _Araucana_ is the best of a score of epics written in the reign of Philip II. of Spain in imitation of the Italian poets Ariosto and Tasso. Its author, Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga (1533-1595), writes of the Spanish campaigns against the Indians of Arauco, in which he himself took part. The early part of the poem was written in the field, in the manner that Carlyle describes. The _Araucana_ is now little read; and its author is no way comparable to the great epic poets of Italy and England.

[118] Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825) is one of Carlyle's favorite authors, and one of those who influenced him most. He is the subject of Carlyle's first essay in the _Edinburgh Review_ (1827), and is treated again in another and a greater essay in the _Foreign Review_ (1830). These two papers by Carlyle remain among the best accounts of Richter accessible in English.

[119] "I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry perpetually about me, in order to study the sentiments, the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid unyielding independence, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship in that great personage--Satan."--Letter of Burns, quoted in Lockhart, chap. vi.

Bitter epigrams like this on Byron become a characteristic of Carlyle's style in his later writings.

[120] Milton's real words are: "I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he has in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy."--_Apology for Smectymnuus_.

[121] Shipping ports in southern England. Carlyle is writing from the point of view of a Scotchman.

[122] _Vaucluse_ (_Valclusa_ in Italian) is a town in southeast France where the great Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374) lived for some time, and where he did much of his best work. Its fountain is celebrated in his poems.