dialect enables him to add two additional | considered as attractive in a different notes to the bottom of his scale.

Great efforts have been made by the nhabitants of Scotland, of the superior ranks, to approximate in their speech to the pure English standard; and this has made it difficult to write in the Scottish dialect, without exciting in them some feelings of disgust, which in England are scarcely felt. An Englishman who understands the meaning of the Scottish words, is not offended, nay, on certain subjects, he is perhaps, pleased with the rustic dialect, as he may be with the Doric Greek of Theocritus.

:

point of view. Estranged from their native soil, and spread over foreign lands, the idiom of their country unites with the sentiments and the descriptions on which it is employed, to recal to their minds the interesting scenes of infancy and youthto awaken many pleasing, many tender recollections. Literary men, residing at Edinburgh or Aberdeen, cannot judge on this point for one hundred and fifty thou sand of their expatriated countrymen.*

To the use of the Scottish dialect in one species of poetry, the composition of songs, the taste of the public has been for some time reconciled. The dialect in question excels, as has already been ob served, in the copiousness and exactness of its terms for natural objects; and in pastoral or rural songs, it gives a Doric simplicity, which is very generally approved. Neither does the regret seem well founded which some persons of taste have expressed, that Burns used this dialect in so many other of his compo

But a Scotchman inhabiting his own country, if a man of education, and more especially if a literary character, has banished such words from his writings, and has attempted to banish them from his speech and being accustomed to hear them from the vulgar, daily, does not easily admit of their use in poetry, which requires a style elevated and ornamental. A dislike of this kind is, however, acci-sitions. His declared purpose was to dental, not natural. It is one of the spe- paint the manners of rustic life among his cies of disgust which we feel at seeing a humble compeers," and it is not easy female of high birth in the dress of a rus- to conceive, that this could have been tic; which, if she be really young and done with equal humour and effect, if he beautiful, a little habit will enable us to had not adopted their idiom. There are overcome. A lady who assumes such a some, indeed, who will think the subject dress, puts her beauty, indeed, to a se- too low for poetry. Persons of this sickverer trial. She rejects-she, indeed, op-ly taste will find their delicacies consulted poses the influence of fashion; she possibly abandons the grace of elegant and flowing drapery; but her native charms remain the more striking, perhaps, because the less adorned; and to these she trusts for fixing her empire on those affections over which fashion has no sway. If she succeeds, a new association arises. The dress of the beautiful rustic becomes itself beautiful, and establishes a new fashion for the young and the gay. And when in after ages, the contemplative observer shall view her picture in the gallery that contains the portraits of the beauties of successive centuries, each in the dress of her respective day, her drapery will not deviate, more than that of her rivals, from the standard of his taste, and he will give the palm to her who excels in the lineaments of nature.

Burns wrote professedly for the peasantry of his country, and by them their native dialect is universally relished. To a numerous class of the natives of Scotland of another description, it may also be

in many a polite and learned author: let them not seek for gratification in the rough and vigorous lines, in the unbridled humour, or in the overpowering sensibility of this bard of nature.

To determine the comparative merit of Burns would be no easy task. Many persons, afterwards distinguished in literature, have been born in as humble a situation of life; but it would be difficult to find any other who, while earning his subsistence by daily labour, has written

*These observations are excited by some remarks of respectable correspondents of the description alluded to of Scotland is not altogether arbitrary, and it is probably below the truth. It is, in some degree, founded on

This calculation of the number of Scotchmen living out

the proportion between the number of the sexes in Scotland, as it appears from the invaluable Statistics of Sir John Sinclair. For Scotchmen of this description, more

particularly, Burns seems to have written his song, be ginning, Their groves o' sweet myrtle, a beautiful strain, which, it may be confidently predicted, will be sung with equal or superior interest on the banks of the Ganges or of the Mississippi, as on those of the Tay o the Tweed

ΤΟ

DR. CURRIE'S

EDITION OF THE CORRESPONDENCE.

selves worthy of a place in this volume, we have not hesitated to insert them, though they may not always correspond exactly with the letters transmitted, which have been lost or witnheld.

Our author appears at one time to have formed an intention of making a collection of his letters for the amusement of a friend. Accordingly he copied an inconsiderable number of them into a book, which he presented to Robert Riddel, of Glenriddel, Esq. Among these was the account of his life, addressed to Doctor Moore, and printed in the first volume.* In copying from his imperfect sketches, (it does not appear that he had the letters actually sent to his correspondents before him,) he seems to have occasionally enlarged his observations, and altered his expressions. In such instances his emendations have been adopted; but in truth there are but five of the letters thus se

Of the following letters of Burns, a considerable number were transmitted for publication, by the individuals to whom they were addressed; but very few have been printed entire. It will easily be believed, that in a series of letters written without the least view to publication, va- | rious passages were found unfit for the press, from different considerations. It will also be readily supposed, that our poet, writing nearly at the same time, and under the same feelings to different individuals, would sometimes fall into the same train of sentiment and forms of ex-lected by the poet, to be found in the pression. To avoid, therefore, the tedi- present volume, the rest being thought of ousness of such repetitions, it has been inferior merit, or otherwise unfit for the found necessary to mutilate many of the public eye. individual letters, and sometimes to exscind parts of great delicacy-the unbridled effusions of panegyric and regard. But though many of the letters are printed from originals furnished by the persons to whom they were addressed, others are printed from first draughts, or sketches, found among the papers of our Bard. Though in general no man committed his thoughts to his correspondents with less consideration or effort than Burns, yet it appears that in some instances he was dissatisfied with his first essays, and wrote out his communications in a fairer character, or perhaps in more studied language. In the chaos of his manuscripts, some of the original sketches were found; and as these sketches, though less perfect, are fairly to be considered as the offspring of his mind, where they have seemed in them

In printing this volume, the editor has found some corrections of grammar necessary; but these have been very few, and such as may be supposed to occur in the careless effusions, even of literary characters, who have not been in the habit of carrying their compositions to the press. These corrections have never been extended to any habitual modes of expression of the poet, even where his phraseology may seem to violate the delicacies of taste; or the idiom of our language, which he wrote in general with great accuracy. Some difference will indeed be found in this respect in his earlier and in his later compositions; and this volume will exhibit the progress of his style, as well as the history of his mind. In the fourth edition, several new letters were introduced, and some of inferior impor

* Dr. Currie's edition of Burns's Works was origi-tance were omitted nally published in four volumes, of which the followng Correspondence formed the second.

GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE

OF

ROBERT BURNS.

LETTERS, &C.

No. I.

TO MR. JOHN MURDOCH,
SCHOOLMASTER,

STAPLES INN BUILDINGS, LONDON.

Lochlee, 15th January, 1783.

DEAR SIR,

As I have an opportunity of sending you a letter, without putting you to that expense which any production of mine would but ill repay, I embrace it with pleasure, to tell you that I have not forgotten nor ever will forget, the many obligations I lie under to your kindness and friendship.

who tricks me of my money, if there be
any thing original about him which shows
me human nature in a different light from
any thing I have seen before. In short,
the joy of my heart is to "study men,
their manners, and their ways ;" and for
this darling object, I cheerfully sacrifice
every other consideration. I am quite
indolent about those great concerns that
and if I have to answer for the present
set the bustling busy sons of care agog;
hour, I am very easy with regard to any
of the unfortunate and the wretched does
thing further. Even the last worthy shift,
not much terrify me: I know that even
then my
talent for what country-folks call

a sensible crack," when once it is sanctified by a hoary head, would procure me I do not doubt, Sir, but you will wish learn to be happy.* However, I am unso much esteem, that even then-I would to know what has been the result of all der no apprehensions about that; for, the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher; and I wish I could though indolent, yet, so far as an extremegratify your curiosity with such a recitally delicate constitution permits, I am not as you would be pleased with; but that

is what I am afraid will not be the case.

lazy; and in many things, especially in

tavern-matters, I am a strict economist;

not indeed for the sake of the money, but tion is a kind of pride of stomach, and I one of the principal parts in my composi above every thing, I abhor, as hell, the scorn to fear the face of any man living; idea of sneaking in a corner to avoid a whom in my heart I despise and detest. dun-possibly some pitiful, sordid wretch, "Tis this, and this alone, that endears

I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of vicious
habits; and in this respect, I hope my
conduct will not disgrace the education I
have gotten; but as a man of the world,
I am most miserably deficient.--One
would have thought that bred as I have
been, under a father who has figured
pretty well as un homme des affaires,
might have been what the world calls a
pushing, active fellow; but, to tell you
the truth, Sir, there is hardly any thing
more my reverse. I seem to be one sent
into the world to see, and observe; and
I very easily compound with the knave of an itinerant beggar.

economy to me.

indeed, I am very profuse. My favourite authors are of the sentimental kind, such

In the matter of books,

*The last shift alluded to here, must be the condition