SOME THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. OME apology must be deemed necessary for any new attempt to write the "Life of Burns." The present adventurer on that field has only this to offer—that Dr. Currie's Memoir cannot be, with propriety, detached from the collection of the Poet's works which it was expressly designed to accompany; and the regretted projector of "Constable's Miscellany" sought in vain for any other narrative sufficiently detailed to meet the purposes of his publication. The last reprint of Dr. Currie's Edition had the advantage of being superintended by Mr. Gilbert Burns; and that excellent man, availing himself of the labours of Cromek, Walker, and Peterkin, and supplying many blanks from the stores of his own recollection, produced at last a book, in which almost everything that should be—and some things that never should have been-told, of his brother's history, may be found. There is, however, at least for indolent readers, no small inconvenience in the arrangement which Currie's Memoir, thus enlarged, presents. The frequent references to notes, appendices, and letters, not included in the same volume, are somewhat perplexing. And it may, moreover, be seriously questioned, whether Gilbert Burns's best method of answering many of his amiable author's unconscious mis-statements and exaggerations, would not have 1 For which publication this Memoir was written. Mr. Archibald Constable died in July, 1827. 2 [Gilbert's revisal appeared in 1820, after five years' promise, and the result was very disappointing. Mr. Lockhart's flattering reference to it here can be explained only by a conjecture that his knowledge of its contents was derived from the "prospectus "-not from a personal perusal of the performance.] the been to expunge them altogether from a work with which posterity were to connect, in any shape or measure, authority of his own name. As to criticism on Burns's poetry, no one can suppose that anything of consequence, remains to be added on a subject which has engaged successively the pens of Mackenzie, Heron, Currie, Scott, Jeffrey, Walker, Wordsworth, Campbell, and Wilson. The humble purpose of the following Essay was, therefore, no more than to compress, within the limits of a single small volume, the substance of materials already open to all the world, and sufficient, in every point of view, for those who have leisure to collect, and candour to weigh them. For any little touches of novelty that may be discovered in a Narrative, thus unambitiously undertaken, the writer is indebted to respectable authorities, which shall be cited as he proceeds. As to the earlier part of Burns's history, Currie and Walker appear to have left little unexplored; it is chiefly concerning the incidents of his closing years that their accounts have been supposed to admit of a supplement. LONDON, April, 1828. J. G. L. OCTOBER, 1829. A new edition of this Narrative being called for, the author has corrected some errors, obligingly pointed out to him by Mr. H. Paul, Mr. Sillar, and others. He has also been enabled to fill up some lacunæ from Burns's MS. correspondence with the late Lady Harriet Don, sister of the Earl of Glencairn ; and, above all, he has to acknowledge, with a lively sense of gratitude, the kindness of Mr. James Burnes of Montrose, in intrusting him with an interesting and valuable series of the Poet's Letters to his relatives in the North of Scotland, from which various extracts are interwoven in the following pages. |