text:  As it is by his virtues that man may best hope to live in the memory of man is there not something unnatural something monstrous in seeking to eternize here below that of which the proper doom is obscurity and oblivion? How beneficent thus becomes the power of example! The good that men do then indeed "lives after them"--all that was ethereal in their being alone survives--and thus ought our cherished memories of our best men--and Burns was among our best--to be invested with all consistent excellences; for far better may their virtues instruct us by the love which they inspire than ever could their vices by aversion