The Poet Burn

[pioneer]

B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

No one knew the value of self-control better than the poet
Burns, and no one could teach it more eloquently to others, but when
it came to practice, Burns was as weak as the weakest. He could not
deny himself the pleasure of uttering a harsh and clever sarcasm at
another's expense. One of his biographers observed of him, that it
was no extravagant arithmetic to say that for every ten jokes he made
himself a hundred enemies. But this was not all. Poor Burns exercised
no control over his appetites, but freely gave them the rein:

  "Thus thoughtless follies laid him low,
  And stained his name."