The Complete Works of Robert Burns | Page 2

consciousness of injured worth attend your return to your native seats;
and may domestic happiness, with a smiling welcome, meet you at
your gates! May corruption shrink at your kindling indignant glance;
and may tyranny in the ruler, and licentiousness in the people, equally
find you an inexorable foe!
I have the honour to be,
With the sincerest gratitude and highest respect,
My Lords and Gentlemen,
Your most devoted humble servant,
ROBERT BURNS.
EDINBURGH, _April 4, 1787._

PREFACE.
I cannot give to my country this edition of one of its favourite poets,
without stating that I have deliberately omitted several pieces of verse
ascribed to Burns by other editors, who too hastily, and I think on
insufficient testimony, admitted them among his works. If I am unable
to share in the hesitation expressed by one of them on the authorship of
the stanzas on "Pastoral Poetry," I can as little share in the feelings with
which they have intruded into the charmed circle of his poetry such
compositions as "Lines on the Ruins of Lincluden College," "Verses on
the Destruction of the Woods of Drumlanrig," "Verses written on a
Marble Slab in the Woods of Aberfeldy," and those entitled "The Tree
of Liberty." These productions, with the exception of the last, were
never seen by any one even in the handwriting of Burns, and are one
and all wanting in that original vigour of language and manliness of
sentiment which distinguish his poetry. With respect to "The Tree of
Liberty" in particular, a subject dear to the heart of the Bard, can any
one conversant with his genius imagine that he welcomed its growth or
celebrated its fruit with such "capon craws" as these?
"Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,
Its virtues a' can tell, man;
It raises man aboon the brute,
It mak's
him ken himsel', man.
Gif ance the peasant taste a bit,
He's greater
than a lord, man,
An' wi' a beggar shares a mite
O' a' he can afford,
man."
There are eleven stanzas, of which the best, compared with the "A
man's a man for a' that" of Burns, sounds like a cracked pipkin against
the "heroic clang" of a Damascus blade. That it is extant in the
handwriting of the poet cannot be taken as a proof that it is his own
composition, against the internal testimony of utter want of all the
marks by which we know him--the Burns-stamp, so to speak, which is
visible on all that ever came from his pen. Misled by his handwriting, I
inserted in my former edition of his works an epitaph, beginning
"Here lies a rose, a budding rose,"

the composition of Shenstone, and which is to be found in the
church-yard of Hales-Owen: as it is not included in every edition of
that poet's acknowledged works, Burns, who was an admirer of his
genius, had, it seems, copied it with his own hand, and hence my error.
If I hesitated about the exclusion of "The Tree of Liberty," and its three
false brethren, I could have no scruples regarding the fine song of
"Evan Banks," claimed and justly for Miss Williams by Sir Walter
Scott, or the humorous song called "Shelah O'Neal," composed by the
late Sir Alexander Boswell. When I have stated that I have arranged the
Poems, the Songs, and the Letters of Burns, as nearly as possible in the
order in which they were written; that I have omitted no piece of either
verse or prose which bore the impress of his hand, nor included any by
which his high reputation would likely be impaired, I have said all that
seems necessary to be said, save that the following letter came too late
for insertion in its proper place: it is characteristic and worth a place
anywhere.
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

TO DR. ARCHIBALD LAURIE.
_Mossgiel, 13th Nov. 1786._
DEAR SIR,
I have along with this sent the two volumes of Ossian, with the
remaining volume of the Songs. Ossian I am not in such a hurry about;
but I wish the Songs, with the volume of the Scotch Poets, returned as
soon as they can conveniently be dispatched. If they are left at Mr.
Wilson, the bookseller's shop, Kilmarnock, they will easily reach me.
My most respectful compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Laurie; and a Poet's
warmest wishes for their happiness to the young ladies; particularly the
fair musician, whom I think much better qualified than ever David was,
or could be, to charm an evil spirit out of a Saul.
Indeed, it needs not the Feelings of a poet to be interested in the welfare

of one of the sweetest scenes of domestic peace and kindred love that
ever I saw; as I think the peaceful unity of St. Margaret's Hill can only
be excelled by the harmonious concord