Calumny

Robert Burns kept his feet on the ground in spite of all the adulation and being lionised in Edinburgh.

He wrote to Mrs Dunlop in Jan 1787, "When proud misfortune's ebbing tide recedes, you will bear me witness, that when my bubble of fame was at the highest, I stood, unintoxicated, with the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time when the blow of Calumny should dash it to the ground, with all the eagerness of vengeful triumph."

Calumny, in its commonly accepted signification it means the unjust damaging of the good name of another by imputing to him a crime or fault of which he is not guilty.