THE LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS, BY DR. CURRIE: WITH HIS CORRESPONDENCE AND FRAGMENTS. LONDON: PRINTED BY J. F. DOVE; And Sold by all the BOOKSELLERS in ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, and IRELAND. 1826. PREFACE. IN presenting to the Public a new edition of BURNS'S LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE, it is deemed necessary to state the grounds on which its pretensions to public favour are founded. To the admirers of the Scottish Bard, it has been a subject of just regret, that a complete and respectable edition of his works has not hitherto appeared;-for while the fastidious taste of Dr. Currie has excluded some pieces of genuine merit, other editors have admitted into their pages letters and poems, written, doubtless, by our Poet in an unguarded moment, but the publication of which he never would have sanctioned.-In the present edition those faults have been carefully avoided. Currie's Life of Burns, which is undoubtedly the best that has yet appeared, has been retained: but to his selection of the Correspondence (the whole of which is given) many letters are added, from other sources, which contain, in addition to strong external evidence, indubitable internal proofs of authenticity. The Letters to Clarinda, which Dr. Currie refused to give to the world, are also inserted:-these effusions breathe sentiments of the most ardent affection and esteem, and contain no expressions calculated to offend the most scrupulous stickler for morality. Burns's Poems and Songs, carefully collated with other editions, and rendered the most complete of any hitherto published, forms another volume of Dove's English Classics. The original Explanatory Notes, which have been furnished for this edition by a literary gentleman, will be found highly interesting and valuable to the English reader. |