And the nature of the songs is itself
characteristic of these idle later years; for they are often
as polished and elaborate as his earlier works were frank,
and headlong, and colloquial; and this sort of verbal
elaboration in short flights is, for a man of literary turn,
simply the most agreeable of pastimes. The change in manner
coincides exactly with the Edinburgh visit. In 1786 he had
written the ADDRESS TO A LOUSE, which may be taken as an
extreme instance of the first manner; and already, in 1787,
we come upon the rosebud pieces to Miss Cruikshank, which are
extreme examples of the second. The change was, therefore,
the direct and very natural consequence of his great change
in life; but it is not the less typical of his loss of moral
courage that he should have given up all larger ventures, nor
the less melancholy that a man who first attacked literature
with a hand that seemed capable of moving mountains, should
have spent his later years in whittling cherry-stones.
Meanwhile, the farm did not prosper; he had to join to it the
salary of an exciseman; at last he had to give it up, and
rely altogether on the latter resource. He was an active
officer; and, though he sometimes tempered severity with
mercy, we have local testimony oddly representing the public
feeling of the period, that, while "in everything else he was
a perfect gentleman, when he met with anything seizable he
was no better than any other gauger.
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