PREFACE. THIS new popular Edition of the Poetical Works of ROBERT BURNS has peculiar claims on public attention. It seems now to be universally allowed that Burns, as an author, and as a subject of instructive and deeply interesting biographical study-chiefly, as mirrored in his own writings-is entitled to stand in the foremost rank of British literature. To enable this study to be satisfactorily accomplished, it is necessary that his poems be presented unabridged and untampered with, and arranged in chronological order, the date of each composition being recorded. A very considerable number of the author's undoubted productions now, for the first time, appear in a popular edition, and great diligence has been exercised to obtain a collation of the poems with the original manuscripts so as to render this edition complete and satisfactory. |