ON

THE DEATH OF BURNS,

BY MR ROSCOE.

A GREAT number of poems have been written on the death of BURNS, some of them of considerable poetical merit. To have subjoined all of them to the present edition, would have been to have enlarged it to another volume at least; and to have made a selection, would have been a task of considerable delicacy.

The Editor, therefore, presents one poem only on this melancholy subject; a poem which has not before appeared in print. It is from the pen of one who has sympathized deeply in the fate of Burns, and will not be found unworthy of its author-the Biographer of Lorenzo de' Medici. Of a person so well known, it is wholly unnecessary for the Editor to speak; and, if it were necessary, it would not be easy for him to find language that would adequately express his respect and his affection.

REAR high thy bleak majestic hills,
Thy sheltered valleys proudly spread,
And, SCOTIA, pour thy thousand rills,
And wave thy heaths with blossoms red⚫
But ah! what poet now shall tread

Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign,
Since he, the sweetest bard, is dead,
That ever breath'd the soothing strain!

As green thy towering pines may grow,
As clear thy streams may speed along,
As bright thy summer suns may glow,
As gaily charm thy feathery throng;
But now, unheeded is the song,

And dull and lifeless all around,
For his wild harp lies all unstrung,
And cold the hand that waked its sound.

What tho' thy vigorous offspring rise
In arts, in arms, thy sons excel;
Tho' beauty in thy daughters' eyes,

And health in every feature dwell;
Yet who shall now their praises tell,
In strains impassion'd, fond, and free,
Since he no more the song shall swell
To love, and liberty, and thee.

With step-dame eye and frown severe
His hapless youth why didst thou view?

For all thy joys to him were dear,
And all his vows to thee were due ;

Nor greater bless his bosom knew,
In opening youth's delightful prime,
Than when thy favouring ear he drew
To listen to his chanted rhyme.

Thy lonely wastes and frowning skies
To him were all with rapture fraught;
He heard with joy the tempest rise

That waked him to sublimer thought;
And oft thy winding dells he sought, [fume,
Where wild flow'rs pour'd-their rathe per-
And with sincere devotion brought

To thee the summer's earliest bloom.

But ah! no fond maternal smile]
His unprotected youth enjoy'd,'

His limbs inur'd to early toil,
His days with early hardships tried;
And more to mark the gloomy void,
And bid him feel his misery,
Before his infant eyes would glide
Day-dreams of immortality.

Yet, not by cold neglect depress'd,
With sinewy arm he turn'd the soil,
Sunk with the evening sun to rest,
And met at morn his earliest smile.
Waked by his rustic pipe, meanwhile
The powers of fancy came along,
And sooth'd his lengthened hours of toil,
With native wit and sprightly song.

G

GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE

OF

ROBERT BURNS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

It is impossible to dismiss this Volume of the | Correspondence of our Bard, without some anxiety as to the reception it may meet with. The experiment we are making has not often been tried; perhaps on no occasion has so large a portion of the recent and unpremeditated effusions of a man of genius been committed to the press.

of his mind, where they have seemed in themselves 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 withheld.

Ac

Our author appears at one time to have formed an intention of making a collection of his letters for the amusement of a friend. cordingly 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 Dr 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 selected by the poet, to be found in the present volume, the rest being thought of inferior merit, or otherwise unfit for the public eye.

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, various 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 expression. To avoid, therefore, the tediousness of such repetitions, it has been found necessary to mutilate many of the 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 com-idiom of our language, which he wrote in genemunications 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

Dr Currie's edition of Burns' Works was origin. ally published in four volumes, of which the following Correspondence formed the second

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

ral 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 importance were omitted.

Occupying from page xxvi to page xxxii of this

Edition.