with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

16
gallant though unfortunate house of Stuart, the
kings of our fathers for so many heroic ages, is a
theme much more interesting than * * ^ *
resentment of the guilty great, or their descendants. Thou
mightest then have rolled in affluence, and ceased to struggle
under the insulting taunts of every little upstart in office. Thou,
mightest have flourished in thy day, and left behind thee an off-
spring securely treading the path of honours and preferment, in-
stead of leaving thy v\?ife and children poor and pennyless, at the
mercy of the vporld.—All this tliou mightest have done ; but
then thou would'st not have been a poet. Thy mantle has in-
deed been claimed by the first of a new order of poets, who
has done all that thou would'st have disdained to do. The world
has seen with astonishment, the solid treasures realized by the
speculating muse ; but the meretricious laurel will soon wither
around the wearer's brow, and succeeding generations will turn
with contempt from the cold and the courtly strain.
I do not mean to say that poetry and prudence are altogether
incompatible; but that prudence which would stifle the feelings
which should glow in every manly bosom, can never exist with
true and genuine poetry. The prudence that would suppress
the indignant strain of a Campbell at the horrors of Warsaw, or
at the cries of the helpless women and children of our American
brethren mangled and murdered by Savages, spurred on by
cold and unfeeling politicians ;—the prudence that could see
unmoved the smoking villages and unhallowed butchery which
followed in the train of Culloden, the unsophisticated muse
will ever disdain. He can never be a poet who does not feel as
a man. Ed,