CHIEFLY IN THE

SCOTTISH DIALECT,

sco

ROBERT BURNS.

BY

THE Simple Bard, unbroke by rules of Art,
He pours the wild effufions of the heart :

And if inspir'd, 'tis Nature's pow'rs inspire ;
Her's all the melting thrill, and her's the kindling fire.

Entered in Stationers-Hall.

REPRINT AND FAC-SIMILE
OF THE

ORIGINAL KILMARNOCK EDITION. (Limited to 600 Copies, being the extent of the original issue.)

PRINTED AT KILMARNOCK, IN 1867, BY

Jamesch

No. 532

Libr.
Edwards
5.20.43

47609

(iii)

PREFACE.

'HE following trifles are not the production of the Poet, who, with all the advantages of learned art, and perhaps amid the elegancies and idleneffes of upper life, looks down for a rural theme, with an eye to Theocrites or Virgil. To the Author of this, these and other celebrated names their contrymen are, in their original languages, A fountain shut up, and a 'book fealed.' Unacquainted with the necessary requifites for commencing Poet by rule, he fings the sentiments and manners, he felt and saw in himself and his ruftic compeers around him, in his and their native language. Though a Rhymer from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulses of the softer paffions, it was not till very lately, that the applause, perhaps the partiality, of Friendship, wakened his vanity so far as to

make him think any thing of his was worth showing; and none of the following works were ever composed with a view to the press. To amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toil and fatigues of a laborious life; to transcribe the various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears, in his own breaft; to find some kind of counterpoife to the ftruggles of a world, always an alien scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind; these were his motives for courting the Mufes, and in these he found Poetry to be it's own reward.

Now that he appears in the public character of an Author, he does it with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even he, an obfcure, nameless Bard, shrinks aghaft, at the thought of being branded as ‘An impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the world; and because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel, Scotch rhymes together, looks upon himself as a Poet of no small confequence forfooth.'

It is an observation of that celebrated Poet, * whofe divine Elegies do honor to our language,

* Shenflone.

our nation, and our species, that 'Humility has depreffed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised one to fame.' If any Critic catches at the word genius, the Author tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as poffeft of fome poetic abilities, otherwise his publishing in the manner he has done, would be a manœuvre below the worst character, which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever give him: but to the genius of a Ramfay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor, unfortunate Ferguson, he, with equal unaffected fincerity, declares, that, even in his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretensions. These two justly admired Scotch Poets he has often had in his eye in the following pieces; but rather with a view to kindle at their flame, than for fervile imitation.

To his Subscribers, the Author returns his most fincere thanks. Not the mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the Bard, conscious how much he is indebted to Benevolence and Friendship, for gratifying him, if he deferves it, in that dearest wish of every poetic bofom to be distinguished. He begs his read