Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/210

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

during Burns' life. We occupy ourselves end- lessly and severely with the offenses of Burns; we heave an elegant sigh over the hundred lapses of Charles James Fox and Charles Edward Stuart.

Again, it is quite clear that, tho exceptionally sober in his earlier years, he drank too much in later life; but this, it must be remembered, was but an occasional condescendence to the vice and habit of the age. The gentry who pressed him to their houses and who were all convivial have much to answer for. His admirers, who thronged to see him, and who could only conveniently sit with him in a tavern, are also responsible for this habit so perilously attractive to men of genius, from the decorous Addison and the bril- liant BolingbroLe onward. The eighteenth cen- tury records hard drinking as the common in- cident of intellectual eminence. To a man, who had shone supreme in the most glowing society, and who was now an exciseman in a country town, with a home which can not have been very exhilarating, with the nervous system highly strung, the temptation of the warm tavern and the admiring circle there may well have been almost irresistible.

Some attempt to say that his intemperance was exaggerated. I neither affirm nor deny it. If he succumbed it was to good-fellowship and cheer. Eemember, I do not seek to palliate or excuse, and, indeed, none will be turned to dis- 180

�� �