" Ten years later,
when a married man, the father of a family, a farmer, and an
officer of Excise, we shall find him out fishing in
masquerade, with fox-skin cap, belted great-coat, and great
Highland broadsword. He liked dressing up, in fact, for its
own sake. This is the spirit which leads to the extravagant
array of Latin Quarter students, and the proverbial velveteen
of the English landscape-painter; and, though the pleasure
derived is in itself merely personal, it shows a man who is,
to say the least of it, not pained by general attention and
remark. His father wrote the family name BURNES; Robert
early adopted the orthography BURNESS from his cousin in the
Mearns; and in his twenty-eighth year changed it once more to
BURNS. It is plain that the last transformation was not made
without some qualm; for in addressing his cousin he adheres,
in at least one more letter, to spelling number two. And
this, again, shows a man preoccupied about the manner of his
appearance even down to the name, and little willing to
follow custom. Again, he was proud, and justly proud, of his
powers in conversation. To no other man's have we the same
conclusive testimony from different sources and from every
rank of life. It is almost a commonplace that the best of
his works was what he said in talk. Robertson the historian
"scarcely ever met any man whose conversation displayed
greater vigour;" the Duchess of Gordon declared that he
"carried her off her feet;" and, when he came late to an inn,
the servants would get out of bed to hear him talk.
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