and kept desolation away, though she could not keep disease. 'A tremor,' says Maxwell, pervaded his frame; his tongue, though often refreshed, became parched; and his mind, when not roused by conversation, sunk into delirium. On the second and third day after his return from the Brow, the fever increased, and his strength diminished. On the fourth day, when his attendant held a cordial to his lips, he swallowed it eagerly, rose almost wholly up, spread out his hands, sprang forward nigh the whole length of the bed, fell on his face and expired. He was thirtyseven years and seven months old, and of a form and strength which promised long life; but the great and inspired are often cut down in youth, while "Villains ripen gray with time." "His interment took place on the twenty-fifth of July; nor should it be forgotten, in relating the poet's melancholy story, that, while his body was borne along the street, his widow was taken in labor and delivered of a son, who survived his birth but a short while. The leading men of the town and neighborhood appeared as mourners; the streets were lined by the Angus-shire Fencibles and the Cinque Ports Cavalry, and his body was borne by the volunteers to the old Kirk-yard, with military honors. The multitude who followed amounted to many thousands. It was an impressive and a mournful sight; all was orderly and decorous. The measured steps, the military array, the colors displayed, and the muffled drum, I thought then, and think now, had no connexion with a pastoral bard. I mingled with the mourners. On reaching the grave into which the poet's body was about to descend, there was a pause among them, as if loth to part with his remains; and when the first shovel-full of earth sounded on the coffin-lid, I looked up, and saw tears on many cheeks where tears were not usual. The volunteers justified the surmise of Burns by three ragged and straggling vollies; the earth was heaped up, and the vast multitude melted silently away." In connexion with the biography, Mr. Cunningham has favored the public with a new edition of the works of Burns, doubtless the most complete and valuable that has yet appeared. He has endeavored to arrange the several productions, as far as might be, in the order in which they were composed, and has illustrated them with a variety of copious annotations, containing much curious and entertaining information. He has procured a large number of poetical pieces, which were not included in the edition of Currie, together with many letters, not previously published. In filling up the blanks which had been left by other editors with the names of persons and places originally intended, he has received much aid from the early friends and correspondents of Burns. Whether he may not have been more free in his revelations than was consistent with the regard due to individuals or to surviving friends, we cannot undertake to determine; but we are inclined to fear that in some instances the public curiosity will be gratified at the expense of private feeling. There can be no doubt, however, that he is eminently qualified for the execution of his task by his familiarity with the domestic habits and manners, and the other peculiarities of the peasantry of Scotland, as well as by his early acquaintance with the scenes, where a portion of the life of Burns was spent, after he had become the object of general curiosity and admiration. By all, who desire to be most intimately acquainted with the character and writings of the poet, the result of his labors will probably be regarded as superseding the necessity of any future investigation. In order to enable us to form an entirely accurate judgment of the character and powers of a man of genius, it may perhaps be desirable that we should be in possession of those minute particulars, which indicate the general current, as well as the changes of his thoughts and feelings, and which bring the individual before us, as he appeared to those who knew him in the daily intercourse of life; but it cannot be denied, that the person who is thus revealed to the world, is unfortunate beyond the ordinary lot; that he is exposed to a trial, from which few could escape unharmed. Many are happy enough to present to the public their own portraits of their own character, and to obliterate, or at least to soften the harsher features of extravagance and folly. Far different has been the fate of Burns. Every burst of passion, every violent and sometimes intolerably coarse outbreak of satire, every infidel exclamation, every howl of debauchery, every thing, in short, which fell from the lips or pen of one so conspicuous, and the very extravagance or rudeness of which caused it to be remembered, has been faithfully treasured up, and we see him as he was; his character stripped of the veil, with which tenderness is apt to cover frailty. He appears to have anticipated that such would be his fate, and sometimes alludes to it with feeling. Those who are interested in his history may yet derive from it the monitory lesson, so beautifully conveyed by Wordsworth in his address to the sons of Burns, on visiting the grave of their father. "Let no mean hope your souls enslave; And such revere : But be admonished by his grave, ART. III. Survey of the Coast. By F. R. HASSLER. Transactions of the Vol. 2. New Series. 1. Papers on various Subjects connected with the Survey of the Coast of the United States. Communicated 3d March, 1820. American Philosophical Society. Philadelphia. 1825. 2. Principal Documents relating to the Survey of the Coast of the United States since 1816. Published by F. R. HASSLER, Superintendent of the Survey. New-York. 1834. It may naturally excite some surprise, that in an age pecuTiarly characterized by an adventurous philosophy, when scarcely any plausible scheme fails for lack of patronage, so little attention should be given to an undertaking of so great public concern, and so far as its execution has proceeded, so honorable to the nation, as the Survey of the Coast. It is, indeed, perhaps not so much as generally known, that such a survey was originated nearly thirty years since; that it has, with different degrees of success, always under the patronage of the government, and, with the exception of about fourteen years, always under the same superintendent, subsisted to the present day; and that its results, so far as they have transpired, have elicited commendation in every country but our own. That it has been so, may be partly owing to a cause which we would do our part towards removing. The notice of a national work of this kind in the annual communication from the chief of a department, passes as a thing of course. A critique on the management of its details, in a periodical, which is exclusively scientific, is read only by the initiated; while the mass and influential part of the community may remain ignorant of a work, than which few have stronger claims to their favorable consideration. We propose to treat briefly of the enterprise in question, in such form as may suit a journal designed for more general circulation, presenting only so much of its history as may serve to shew the probable chain of policy, by which the government have been influenced in its adoption and prosecution to the present period; and so much of its technicality and detail as may exhibit its relation to other scientific works of the same age. In doing this we refer to the works named at the head of this paper, only as giving the most authentic history of the survey, and not for the purpose of reviewing their merits as literary productions. Most of these papers can indeed never, for such a purpose, be properly made the subject of any review. With the exception of the answer to Mr. Gallatin's circular, which contains the first detailed plan for a general survey of the coast, written in unexceptionable French, they are the descriptions and correspondence of a foreigner evidently of high attainments, but composing in a language with which he is not sufficiently familiar, and occupying, so far, a situation in which few of the most talented of the world have shown themselves to advantage. So far, therefore, as the style of these papers deserve mere literary censure, it should be most leniently bestowed. We could not justify ourselves for criticising, even in a passing notice, the literary execution of a writer evidently understanding an abstruse subject fully, writing too, for the most part, in his own defence, but writing in a language with which he is evidently too little acquainted to use it with precision. The survey seems to have been first publicly spoken of during the year 1806, and to have had for its first patrons Professor Patterson and Mr. Clay of Philadelphia, and Mr. Garnet of New Brunswick. From the account given, in page 53 of the documents, we should be inclined to consider Mr. Patterson as the originator of the project and its most zealous and efficient supporter; and that he had succeeded, perhaps through the agency of Mr. Clay, in recommending it to the consideration of Mr. Jefferson and his cabinet. There are, unfortunately, no documents preserved of that period, which explain either in what view the survey had been recommended to the notice of Mr. Jefferson, or from what motive it had been entertained and encouraged by his confidential advisers. He perhaps patronized it from the love of science, which was a predominant trait in his character, and estimated it for its general uses, as tending to the cultivation of the exact sciences in this country. They, perhaps, only appreciated it as supplying a desideratum in geographical knowledge, which was then beginning to be felt by the maritime interests of the country. Or it may be that both President and Cabinet considered it as an indispensable prerequisite to the system of gun-boat marine, which is still remembered as a favorite project of Mr. Jefferson. Whether the latter conjecture be specifically correct or not, yet, if the government have, from the commencement, patronised the survey rather for some object of immediate utility, than for any more general effect, which the enlarged patronage thus afforded to science might ultimately produce, we have at least one reason why so little should be known or said of the work, and why its importance should be underrated, even though its patronage may not appear to have been stinted. An accurate sur vey of the coast, as affording us a knowledge of the facilities and dangers of our extensive sea-board, is unquestionably of great importance to all the maritime interests of the country, and its execution a legitimate function of the general government. But as to the manner of its execution there are considerations of national honor, which an enlightened administration should regard as equivalent if not paramount to the more immediate ob ject. It should not only be executed with a view to the specific interest which it is intended to subserve, but also with the best aid which the science of the time can afford; presenting thus to the government an opportunity of grafting on knowledge at home the improvements of foreign countries, and ensuring that we shall never be ashamed of our own scientific productions, even when compared with those of older nations. Since Geodetic operations have been in progress in the old world, every one of the ancillary arts and sciences has advanced rapidly. Optics and horology had, previous to 1780, been considered only as subservient to the higher astronomy, and had of course very limited encouragement; but since the commencement of the extensive surveys authorized by almost every government in Christendom, these two arts have reached such perfection as to leave scarce any thing unknown either in their theory or its application. The trigonometrical survey of England had been commenced in 1792. The survey of the coast of the United States, as we have said before, was projected in 1806, only fourteen years after. On a comparison of the first results |