The didactic tendency reaches its height in the _Epistle to a Young Friend_. Here there is no personal confession, but a conscious and professed sermon, unrelated, as the last line shows, to the practise of the preacher. It is, of course, only poetry in the eighteenth-century sense--
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed--
and as such it should be judged. The critics who have reacted most violently against the attempted canonization of Burns have been inclined to sneer at this admirable homily, and to insinuate insincerity. But human nature affords every-day examples of just such perfectly sincere inconsistency as we find between the sixth stanza and Burns's own conduct; while not inconsistency but a very genuine rhetoric inspires the characteristic quatrain which closes the seventh.
I lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend, A something to have sent you, Tho' it should serve nae ither end Than just a kind memento; [sort of] But how the subject-theme may gang, Let time and chance determine; Perhaps it may turn out a sang, Perhaps turn out a sermon.
Ye'll try the world soon, my lad, And, Andrew dear, believe me, Ye'll find mankind an unco squad, [queer] And muckle they may grieve ye: [much] For care and trouble set your thought, Ev'n when your end's attainéd: And a' your views may come to nought, Where ev'ry nerve is strainéd.
I'll no say men are villains a'; The real harden'd wicked, Wha hae nae check but human law, Are to a few restricked; But och! mankind are unco weak, [extremely] An' little to be trusted; If Self the wavering balance shake, It's rarely right adjusted!
Yet they wha fa' in Fortune's strife. Their fate we shouldna censure; For still th' important end of life They equally may answer. A man may hae an honest heart, Tho' poortith hourly stare him; [poverty] A man may tak a neibor's part, Yet hae nae cash to spare him.
Aye free, aff han', your story tell, When wi' a bosom crony; But still keep something to yoursel Ye scarcely tell to ony. Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can Frae critical dissection; But keek thro' ev'ry other man [pry] Wi' sharpen'd sly inspection.
The sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd love, [flame] Luxuriantly indulge it; But never tempt th' illicit rove, [attempt, roving] Tho' naething should divulge it: I waive the quantum o' the sin, The hazard of concealing; But och! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling!