The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-31 00:00:00

BURNS.

In the morning of life, Burns met lords with gyre
and embarrassment ; in the afternoon of etigtentei
he encountered them with suspicion or scorn. Those
who named a lord, or alluded to a persan of rank
in his company, were instantly crushed in an epi-
gram, or insulted by some sarcastic sally. The
conduct of the Scottish aristocracy had sunk to his
heart, and the neglect of the Pitt administration was
seldom away from his fancy. The more he saw of
the world, and the more he reflected, these unwel-
come thoughts pressed the more upon him. lie
could not but know that the high-born and the
well-connected prospered; that thousands less
worthy than himself were fastening on posts and
pensions, and elbowing the sons of genius out of
what he reckoned their patrimony ; he had also
been made to feel his dependance, in that insulting
mandate from the Board of Excise, that his duty
was "to act and not to think." It is true that his
dislike might have been expressed with more cour-
tesy, and his wit might have had less ferocity, with
equal keenness of point. Yet, when he proposed to,
drink the health of Washington instead of Pitt, it
was a less matter of ill-breeding or republican feel-
ing, than a burst of anger : he considered the Pre-
mier as one of his oppressors, and perhaps the want of
courtesy belonged to him who invited the poet to
dinner, and greeted him with this unwelcome toast.

In the company of ladies, Burns was quite
another being : for them he calmed down his im-
petuous temper, and allowed all that was winning
in his nature to shine out. He was fierce as Moloch
among men; among women he was a Bella], soft,
insinuating and eloquent : his eyes, which before
sparkled like those of the serpent, becume meek like
those of the dove : the love of contradiction died
within him, and he courted his way to their hearts
and their understandings at the same time. In this
his letters differ widely from his conversation: the
presence of beauty inspired him ; when it was no
longer before him he seems to hunt for thoughts
and hesitate for words, and, amid much natural
emotion, is affected and cumbrous. Nothing more
untrue was ever uttered than that his female pa-
tronesses shrunk from the vehement familiarity of
his admiration ; there is no proof to he found of this:
Margaret Chalmers, indeed, scrupled to have a
song published in her praise; and Miss Alexander
chose to resent by her silence the song of the " Lass
of Ballochmyle ;" but there is no instance of ladies
shrinking from the audacity of his admiration. His
most constant correspondents were ladies of birth
and talent; the ladies of the north, much to their
honour, sympathized with their poet to the last; and
the day after he was buried some of the proudest
dames of Dumfriesshire shed tears as they scattered
flowers over his grave. In truth, he did not express
the rapture of an enamoured peasant, as Jeffrey as-
sures us he did, but the admiration of a man : he
preferred the good breeding of nature to the iced
civilities of polished life.—Cunningham's Life of
Burns.

CAPTAIN WATHEN'S SERvIcE.---Captain
A. Watben was appointed a Deputy-Assistant Commis-
sary-General in December, 1814; be served with that
department in Flanders in 1815 ; at Corfu in 1817 ; a
Malta in 1818; and afterwards in the lonian Isles till his
appointment as Cornet to the Bth Royal Irish Hussars, in
July, 1820; in June, 1823, Lieutenant in the Ist Dra-
goons ; 1824 be was removed to the 15th Hussars ; Sep-
tember 1826, a Captain in the same corps.
_ _

FORCE OF HABIT.—It is related by an eye-
witness, that many of the soldiers, during the retreat of
Sir John Moore, actually fell asleep on the march, yet still
' continued walking on, and it has occurred to ourselves
more than once, after a long and fatiguing day's sport, to
walk, after nightfall, a considerable length of a road—we
shall not say exactly in a state of somnolency, but
clearly without any continued act of volition on our parts,
or any consciousness of what we had done or passed. Nor
is this at all difficult to explain. Every one knows how
many actions, begun voluntarily, are continued alter the
will no longer influences them, and the attention is drawn
away to another subject. It is in this way that people ac-
quire those habitudes called tricks, and an alderman, who
originally twirled his thumbs for diversion, and employed
:t distinct act of volition in setting his thumbs going, will
continue to twirl them after he has lost all consciousness
of the matter, merely from the force of habit. In march-
ing, too, the soldier exercises a distinct act of volition at
his first setting off, but lie does nut require that this
should be renewed for every succeeding step ; the itnpul•e
once given, the motion is continued without his further
attention to the matter ; and, if he be impressed with a
general feeling of the necessity of advancing, more particu-
larly if he find himself in the centre of an advanci ig holy,
lea will continue to progress, whether his mental ficulties
lie engaged, as we all know they may, in some far distant
speculation, or are withdrawn equally in another manner,
by being laid to sleep.—Atheficcunt.
PRIVATE LIFE OF THE ANCIENT RO-
NIANS. —The Roma❑ family life was entirely Samnite ;
in other words, rural, simple, moral, and moderate. The
residence of a Roman, that of the senators excepted, was,
in earlier times, in the country; be only resorted to the
town on business, and returned as soon as his business was
finished. Round about him lived his children, grand-
children, and clients, who stood upon a similar footing ;
he was at once father and judge, and the state did nut
concern itself about whst passed in the interior of the fa-
mily. Such a constitution seems to involve horrible ty-
ranny, as the husband was lord over the life and death of
his wife, the father of his son, whom he could even sell as
a slave three times successively. L is well known, how.
ever, that the feelings of nature, when cherished, are su-
perior to all ordinances. Exatnp!ea of the abuse of the
paternal power are rare, though it cannot he denied that
such examples do here and there occur. The government
of families rendered it possible to dispense with courts of
justice and with law books in the earlier times. When,
however, the inhabitants of the town increased in number,
ind were more mixed, other regulations became necessary.
The Roman housewife was not severed, like the Grecian,
from political life and social intercourse, confined to her
own chamber, and excluiled from the circles ofahe mascu-
line sex, which, amongst the Greek,, could only be visited
by a hetaira. The Raman matron was educated, honoured,
land admitted into male society, and a divorce, easy as it
was, continued, in the times of which we treat, a thing
,inhear I of.—. Lardner's Cabinet Cyelortedia.