The Edinburgh magnates (to conclude this episode at once)
behaved well to Burns from first to last. Were heaven-born
genius to revisit us in similar guise, I am not venturing too
far when I say that he need expect neither so warm a welcome
nor such solid help. Although Burns was only a peasant, and
one of no very elegant reputation as to morals, he was made
welcome to their homes. They gave him a great deal of good
advice, helped him to some five hundred pounds of ready
money, and got him, as soon as he asked it, a place in the
Excise. Burns, on his part, bore the elevation with perfect
dignity; and with perfect dignity returned, when the time had
come, into a country privacy of life. His powerful sense
never deserted him, and from the first he recognised that his
Edinburgh popularity was but an ovation and the affair of a
day. He wrote a few letters in a high-flown, bombastic vein
of gratitude; but in practice he suffered no man to intrude
upon his self-respect. On the other hand, he never turned
his back, even for a moment, on his old associates; and he
was always ready to sacrifice an acquaintance to a friend,
although the acquaintance were a duke. He would be a bold
man who should promise similar conduct in equally exacting
circumstances. It was, in short, an admirable appearance on
the stage of life - socially successful, intimately self-
respecting, and like a gentleman from first to last.

In the present study, this must only be taken by the way,
while we return to Burns's love affairs. Even on the road to
Edinburgh he had seized upon the opportunity of a flirtation,
and had carried the "battering" so far that when next he