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sions into the recesses, the gross breaches upon the sanctities, of domestic life, to which we have lately been more and more accustomed, are to be regarded as indications of a vigorous state of public feeling—favourable to the maintenance of the liberties of our country.—Intelligent lovers of freedom are, from necessity, bold and hardy lovers of truth; but, according to the measure in which their love is intelligent, is it attended with a finer discrimination, and a more sensitive delicacy? The wise and good (and all others, being lovers of license rather than of liberty, are in fact slaves) respect, as one of the noblest characteristics of Englishmen, that jealousy of familiar approach, which, while it contributes to the maintenance of private dignity, is one of the most efficacious guardians of rational public freedom.
But, passing from such general disquisition, Mr Wordsworth commences a most furious and most unfair attack upon Dr Currie's Life of Burns, which, in his opinion, is false, crude, erroneous, imperfect, and unphilosophical. Let us see how he makes out his charges against that excellent man, whom all the world, save Messrs Wordsworth and Peterkin, consider an admirable biographer. He accuses Dr Currie of "sacrificing Burns' memory, almost without compunction." This is false. Never, in any one instance, does Dr Currie speak of the failings or errors of Burns, but with emotions of pity and indulgence; and the concluding sentences of his 'Life' are of themselves sufficient to vindicate his memory from this absurd and insolent slander.
"It is indeed a duty we owe to the living, not to allow our admiration of great genius, or even our pity for its unhappy destiny, to conceal or disguise its errors. But there are sentiments of respect, and even of tenderness, with which this duty should be performed; there is an awful sanctity which invests the mansions of the dead; and let those who moralize over the graves of their contemporaries reflect with humility on their own errors, nor forget how soon they may themselves require the candour and the sympathy they are called upon to bestow."
There is more sense, more feeling, more truth, more beauty of expression, in this small paragraph, than in all the thirty-seven pages of Mr Wordsworth's epistle.
But when Mr Wordsworth brings his specific charge against Dr Currie, what is it?—He accuses him of narrating Burns' errors and misfortunes, without affording the reader any information concerning their source or cause. This error of the biographer, he says, gave him "acute sorrow," excited "strong indignation," "moved him beyond what it would become him to express." Now Mr Wordsworth might have spared himself all this unnecessary emotion; for the truth is, that no man can, with his eyes open, read Dr Currie's Life of Burns, and the multitude of letters from and to the poet which his edition contains, without a clear, distinct, and perfect knowledge of all the causes from which the misfortunes and errors of that mighty genius sprung. His constant struggles with poverty through boyhood, youth, and manhood,—the warmth and vehemence of his passions,—his sudden elevation to fame and celebrity,—the disappointment of his hopes,—the cruel and absurd debasement of his occupation,—the temptations which assailed him from every quarter,—his gradual and in- creasing indulgences,—the sinkings of heart and soul which consequently oppressed him,—his keen remorse for every violation of duty which his uncorrupted conscience often forced him to feel more acutely than the occasion seemed to demand,—the pure and lofty aspirations after a nobler kind of life, which often came like a sun-burst on his imagination,—his decay of health, of strength, and spirit,—the visitations of melancholy, despondency, and despair, which at the close of his eventful life, he too often endured;—this, and more than all this, Mr Wordsworth might have learnt from the work he pretends to despise: and with such knowledge laid before the whole world, shame to the man who thus dares to calumniate the dead, and to represent as the ignorant, illiberal, and narrow-minded enemy to genius, him who was its most ardent admirer,—its most strenuous, enlightened, and successful defender!
Mr Wordsworth brings another accusation against Dr Currie, equally false with the preceding. He asserts, that Dr Currie spoke of Burns' errors and failings in an undisguised and open manner, because the "social condition" of the poet was lower than his own; and that he would not have ventured to use the same language, had he been speaking of a gentleman. Of this no proof is given, and it is there-