excellence in character. We love and admire, even while we deeply blame,
such men as Burns; but for Savage our feeling is a curious compost of
sympathy with his misfortunes, contempt for his folly, and abhorrence
for the ingratitude, licentiousness, and other coarse and savage sins
which characterised and prematurely destroyed him.


THE BASTARD.

INSCRIBED, WITH ALL DUE REVERENCE, TO MRS BRETT,
ONCE COUNTESS OF MACCLESFIELD.

In gayer hours, when high my fancy ran,
The Muse exulting, thus her lay began:
'Blest be the Bastard's birth! through wondrous ways,
He shines eccentric like a comet's blaze!
No sickly fruit of faint compliance he!
He! stamped in nature's mint of ecstasy!
He lives to build, not boast a generous race:
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face:
His daring hope no sire's example bounds;
His first-born lights no prejudice confounds.
He, kindling from within, requires no flame;
He glories in a Bastard's glowing name.

'Born to himself, by no possession led,
In freedom fostered, and by fortune fed;
Nor guides, nor rules his sovereign choice control,
His body independent as his soul;
Loosed to the world's wide range, enjoined no aim,