he was one of the first to plead for a more generous recognition of Jean Armour.

Mr. Hugh M'Coll died at Glasgow on 13th October, 1928, in his 77th year. He was a native of Glasgow, in whose history he was keenly interested; and was for a period President of the Old Glasgow Club. He was for two terms President of the Rosebery Burns Club, and was elected President of the Burns House Club on its foundation at Glasgow in 1920. Mr. M'Coll was elected a Vice-President of the Federation in 1911, becoming an Hon. Vice-President in 1925.

Mr. Alexander M'Kenzie died on 29th September, 1928, in his 72nd year. He was for nearly fifty years connected with The Glasgow Herald, whose staff he joined in 1876. He was a member of the Rosebery and the Tam o' Shanter Burns Clubs; and was elected a VicePresident of the Federation in 1916, becoming an Hon. Vice-President-with Messrs. Sulley and M'Coll-in

1925.

REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS.

Large-Paper Edition: The complete writings of Robert Burns.
With essay on Burns's life, genius, and achievement, by W.
E. Henley; and an introduction by John Buchan.
In ten
volumes. (London: The Waverley Book Company, 96
Farringdon Street, E.C.4; £12: 12/-.)

The anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns has in the past brought to readers, students, and collectors many fine books dealing with his life and work, but until now it has never been the occasion of anything so splendid as the "Large-Paper Edition" of his Complete writings which has been issued by the Waverley Book Company-for Great Britain -and by the Houghton Mifflin Company-for the United States. This edition, in ten octavo volumes, is beautifully printed on cream-coloured paper at the Riverside Press, is illustrated by an excellent series of portraits, views, and facsimiles of manuscripts, and is quarter-bound with crimson morocco. The first five volumes contain Burns's Poems; the sixth is devoted to Notes (on the Poems), Glossary, and Indexes; and in the last four his Letters and other prose writings are collected. An Introduction" by Mr. John Buchan is followed by the late W. E. Henley's essay on "Burns's Life, Genius, Achievement." Nothing like this "Large-Paper Edition " has been done for Burns since 1877-79, when Scott Douglas issued his handsome six-volume " Library Edition," and it is unlikely that anything on the same scale will again be attempted in our generation.

POETRY.

The text of the Poems is that of the " Centenary Edition " of 1896-97, prepared by the late W. E. Henley and T. F. Henderson, whose arrangement is strictly followed. The pieces published by Burns himself in his volumes of 1786, 1787, and 1793 are succeeded by those published posthumously. These again are followed successively by the songs which he contributed to James Johnson's Scots musical museum and to George Thomson's Original Scotish airs, by short pieces which the editors described as "Interpolations (in poems written by his contemporaries), and by "Improbables " (pieces which in their judgment were not composed by Burns). At the end of the fifth volume are printed eight Poems now first collected." Four of these are from

the manuscripts in possession of Sir Alfred J. Law, of Honresfeld, who kindly permitted Mr. Davidson Cook to print them in recent contributions to the Burns Chronicle; two are now printed for the first time nearly 140 years after they were written from the originals preserved in the Museum of the Cottage at Alloway; the remaining two are from manuscripts formerly in possession of a London firm of dealers.

One of the two pieces from the Alloway Cottage Museum is reprinted on page 5 of this number of the Chronicle; the other, in four stanzas, is "The Hue and Cry of John Lewars, a poor man ruined and undone by robbery and murder,' and concerns Lewars's passion for Miss Woods, a governess in Dumfries. It begins

"A Thief and a Murderer! stop her who can !
Look well to your lives and your goods!
Good people, ye know not the hazard you run,

'Tis the far-famed and much-noted Woods."

The editors of the " Centenary Burns" included in their work some verses "On the Duchess of Gordon's Reel Dancing," originally published in Stuart's Star in 1789 and "here first reprinted." Careless search on the part of Henderson was responsible for the acceptance of the piece as Burns's, for the poet subsequently stated emphatically that he was "guiltless of the miserable piece of rhyme." Also, the " Elegy on Stella" and the verses "On the Destruction of Drumlanrig Woods "-included among their Improbables -are now known not to have been composed by Burns; while "The Vowels "-another "Improbable "has definitely been identified as his work. This new edition omits all mention of these discoveries, those responsible apparently being of opinion that the "Centenary "editors' text ought to remain intact. Henley and Henderson claimed that their text was definitive"; though it is the best which has so far been achieved, such a claim is inadmissible so long as uncollated manuscripts and unpublished pieces are in existence. Generous recognition of their work ought not now to stand in the way of justice to Burns and consideration for present-day students; brief notes on these " Improbables would have satisfied the demands of scholarship without belittling the editors.

In the " Centenary Edition " the text, which was the result of an exhaustive collation of holograph and printed versions of the poetical writings, was set forth with no less exhaustive bibliographical and historical annotations, together with notes on metres and sources. These extending

in the aggregate to nearly 600 printed pages have not been reprinted in the "Large-Paper Edition." Instead, most of the pieces are prefaced by brief notes stating their occasion and history; as an illustration, the eight pages of collations and notes to the "Address to the Deil" in the original edition have now been reduced to two pages. In addition to these, however, numerous short notes explanatory of the text are gathered together in the sixth volume, along with indexes of persons and places, of first lines and titles of pieces.

PROSE.

The four volumes (VII.-X.) of letters and other prose writings have been edited by Mr. Francis H. Allen (of the Houghton Mifflin Company) who, with the aim of making his text as complete and authoritative as possible, has made free use of previous editions and has collated them with originals or with photographic facsimiles of originals. Mr. Allen has treated the letters simply as letters, not as biography; yet, arranged chronologically, they form an entrancing autobiography. They largely speak for themselves, so that little in the way of comment is required from Mr. Allen.

The four volumes consist of nearly 670 letters written by Burns to relatives, friends, and acquaintances, together with his Common-place Books, Journals of His Tours, and Notes on Scottish Songs. The first edition (1800) of Burns's Works contained only 180 of his letters; with the passage of time the necessity for suppression became less, so that later editors were able to print more freely. Scott Douglas's Library Edition of 1877-79 includes 534 pieces in prose, to which the Chambers-Wallace edition of 1896 added nearly 50. During the last 30 years many new letters have come to light. These were communicated to the publishers of this edition by the Editor of the Burns Chronicle, and so the "LargePaper Edition" may claim to be the greatest collection of the prose, as well as of the poetry, of Burns. For the better understanding of the correspondence numerous letters addressed to Burns are also given. One of the most remarkable of these is a long epistle written from Glasgow in 1779 by James M'Candlish: it is the earliest letter to Burns that is known to exist, and is here published for the first timealso from the original at Alloway.

INTRODUCTION AND ESSAY.

In a brief, yet comprehensive, introduction Mr. John Buchan uses his own unhesitating and balanced admiration