never fully called forth; because easy circumstances have never demanded
any great exertion from them. This leaves out a class larger probably
in our country than in any other, of children of fortune, who have
plunged headlong into ruin, finding an early and dishonored death, who,
had they been compelled to work, would at least have acquitted
themselves decently in life. Some of the most dreadful death-scenes on
record are those of men who have had few earthly trials to bear, men of
wealth, who have wrought their own ruin, and half of whose lives have
been passed in efforts to work the ruin of the young and innocent of the
other sex. If Chatterton and Otway are sad instances of genius subdued
and crushed by adversity, Beckford and many others show where the too
lavish gifts of fortune have perverted talent and rendered its possessor
far worse than a merely useless member of society.

The world-wide Burns Celebration probably caused many humble men to
think of the number of great minds who have been compelled to undergo
this ordeal of poverty. How perfectly, in some instances, does the man's
soul and intellect seem to have been separated from _the man himself_.
It does seem a marvel that seventy years ago _this_ man should have been
in want and harassed by fears for the family he was to leave behind him,
when now so many hundred thousand men seem ready to worship him. How
many envy fame! and how proud men are, for generations afterward, who
can trace back their descent to one who, while on earth, may have
suffered all the annoyances and discomforts of penury! The poet seemed
to know that he would be more highly esteemed after he had left the
world than while he was in it; but did this thought really afford him
much consolation, or would he have been willing, if possible, to
sacrifice a more prosperous present for a great posthumous fame? How
many great men have languished long years in dungeons, as some languish
in them even now. How many have borne years of bodily infirmity. How