Excerpt from Robert Burns as a Volunteer: Some Fresh Facts Which Further Help to Confound the Poet's Critics More, than sixty years ago the dull looking Excise Register Of Censures, discovered at Somerset House, rescued one side Of the Poet's character, and now, a hundred and twenty-two years after Burns's death, an Obscure manuscript volume of the Minutes Of the Dumfries Volunteers has come to light to con found the critics still further. The great value Of the new discovery lies in this, that the Volunteers set up a standard Of discipline in some ways even more rigid than that of the Church, and yet Burns stands the test and comes off with flying colours. His attitude to his military duties shows that his membership was not, as has been suggested, a mere piece Of hypocrisy meant to deceive or placate his superiors in the Excise who told him, when he sought to defend his attitude to the French Revolution, that his duty was to act not to think.

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