Page:Life of Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Bard.pdf/18

18 into the presence of a witnessing, judging and approving God."

Alluding one day to his expected dissolution, he said, he was well aware that his death would occasion some noise, and that every serapscrap [sic] of his writing would be revived against him to the injury of his future reputation; that letters and verses written with unguarded, and improper freedom, and which he earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, would be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of his resentment would restrain them, or prevent the censures of shrill-tongued malice, or the insidious sareasmssarcasms [sic] of envy from pouring forth all their venom to blast his fame.

From a village on the coast, where he had gone for the benefit of sea-bathing, he returned to Dumfries, the place of his residence, on the 18th of July, 1796, with his constitution fast wearing out. In the words of one of the inhabitants, "Dumfries was like a besieged place. It was known he was dying, and the anxiety, not of the rich and the learned only, but of the mechanics and peasants, exceeded all belief. Wherever two or three people stood together, their talk was of Burns, and of him alone. They spoke of his history―of his person―of his works―of his family―of his fame―and of his untimely and ap