Let Meg now take away the flesh,
And Jock bring in the spirit.”
Than Burns’s epitaph “On a Suicide,” nothing more scathingly sarcastic was ever written. It is as if he could not express too much scorn of the miserable coward who would eschew the obligations of life by an act of self-destruction:—
“Earth’d up, here lies an imp o’ hell,
Planted by Satan’s dibble;
Poor, silly wretch, he’s damned himsel’
To save the Lord the trouble.”
Burns was standing one day on the quay at Greenock, when a wealthy merchant belonging to the town had the misfortune to fall into the harbour. He was no swimmer, and would certainly have been drowned had not a sailor, at the risk of his own life, plunged in and rescued him from his dangerous situation. The merchant, upon recovering a little from his fright, put his hand into his pocket and presented the sailor with a shilling. The crowd, who were by this time collected, loudly protested against the insignificance of the sum; but Burns, with a smile of ineffable scorn, entreated them to restrain their clamour, “For,” said he, “the gentleman is, of course, the best judge of the value of his own life.”
A writer who happened to be present in a company along with Burns when the conversation turned on “Tam o’ Shanter,” and stung, perhaps, with the sarcastic touch on the legal fraternity—