But Burke would not grant him an interview; he positively refused to see him.

On his return to town, Fox told his friend Coke the result of his journey; and when Coke lamented Burke's obstinacy, Fox only replied, goodnaturedly: "Ah! never mind, Tom; I always find every Irishman has got a piece of potato in his head." Yet Fox, with his usual generosity, when he heard of Burke's impending death, wrote a most kind and cordial letter to Mrs.Burke, expressive of his grief and sympathy; and when Burke was no more, Fox was the first to propose that he should be interred with public honours in Westminster Abbey--which only Burke's own express wish, that he should be buried at Beaconsfield, prevented being carried out.] [Footnote 1513: When Curran, the Irish barrister, visited Burns's cabin in 1810, he found it converted into a public house, and the landlord who showed it was drunk.

"There," said he, pointing to a corner on one side of the fire, with a most MALAPROPOS laugh-"there is the very spot where Robert Burns was born." "The genius and the fate of the man," says Curran, "were already heavy on my heart; but the drunken laugh of the landlord gave me such a view of the rock on which he had foundered, that I could not stand it, but burst into tears."] [Footnote 1514: The chaplain of Horsemongerlane Gaol, in his annual report to the Surrey justices, thus states the result of his careful study of the causes of dishonesty: "From my experience of predatory crime, founded upon careful study of the character of a great variety of prisoners, I conclude that habitual dishonesty is to be referred neither to ignorance, nor to drunkenness, nor to poverty, nor to overcrowding in towns, nor to temptation from surrounding wealth--nor, indeed, to any one of the many indirect causes to which it is sometimes referred--but mainly TO A DISPOSITION TO ACQUIRE PROPERTY WITH A LESS DEGREE OF LABOUR THAN ORDINARY INDUSTRY." The italics are the author's.] [Footnote 1515: S.C.Hall's 'Memories.'] [Footnote 1516: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo.Ed., p.

182.] [Footnote 1517: Captain Basil Hall records the following conversation with Scott:-"It occurs to me," I observed, "that people are apt to make too much fuss about the loss of fortune, which is one of the smallest of the great evils of life, and ought to be among the most tolerable."-- "Do you call it a small misfortune to be ruined in money-matters ?" he asked.
"It is not so painful, at all events, as the loss of friends."-- "I grant that," he said.

"As the loss of character ?"--"True again." "As the loss of health ?"--"Ay, there you have me," he muttered to himself, in a tone so melancholy that I wished I had not spoken.