Page 1. The tale of the Twa Dogs,' Gilbert Burns writes, was composed after the resolution of publishing was nearly taken. Robert had a dog which he called Luath, that was a great favourite. The dog had been killed by the wanton cruelty of some person the night before my father's death. Robert said to me, that he should like to confer such immortality as he could bestow on his old friend Luath, and that he had a great mind to introduce something into the book, under the title of Stanzas to the Memory of a Quadruped Friend; but this plan was given up for the poem as it now stands. Cæsar was merely the creature of the poet's imagination, created for the purpose of holding chat with his favourite Luath.

Page 1, 26. Luath, Cuchullin's dog in Ossian's Fingal. R. B.

Page 2, 18. Var.

Till tired at last wi' many a farce,
They sat them down upon their a—.
Till tired at last, an' doucer grown,
Upon a knowe they sat them down.

Page 3, 14. Burns alludes to the factor in the autobiographical sketch communicated to Dr. John Moore.

'My father's generous master died: the farm proved a ruinous bargain: and, to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of the " Twa Dogs". my indigna

tion yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.'

Page 8, I 10. In the first edition the stanza closed as follows:

Wae worth them for't!

While healths gae round to him, wha tight,
Gies famous sport.

Page 9, 125. This was wrote before the Act anent the Scotch Distilleries, of Session, 1786: for which Scotland and the author return their most grateful thanks. R. B.

Page 11, 1. The allusion in the text is primarily to Hugh Montgomerie of Coilsfield, twelfth Earl of Eglintoune.

Page 11, 12. James Boswell of Auchinleck, Johnson's biographer.

Page 11, 17. George Dempster, Esq. of Dunnichen.

Page 11, 18. Sir Adam Fergusson of Kilkerran, Bart.

Page 11, 20. The Marquis of Graham, eldest son of the Duke of Montrose.

Page 11, 22. The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Treasurer of the Navy, and M.P. for the city of Edinburgh.

Page 11, 24. Lord Frederick Campbell, second brother of the Duke of Argyle, and Ilay Campbell, Lord Advocate of Scotland.

Page 12, 13. The Earl of Chatham, Pitt's father, was the second son of Robert Pitt of Boconnock, in the county of Cornwall.

Page 12, 15. A worthy old hostess of the author's in Mauchline, where he sometimes studies politics over a glass of guid old Scotch drink. R. B. Nanse was surprised at her house and name being thus dragged before the public. She declared that Burns had never taken three half-mutchkins in her house in all his life.

Page 14, 1. Holy Fair is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occasion. R. B.

Page 15, 39.

Var.

Bet B-r there, an' twa-three whores. Racer Jess was a half-witted daughter of Poosie Nansie. She was a great pedestrian, and died at Mauchline in 1813.

Page 15, 43. Var. An' there, a batch o' wabster brawds.

Page 16, 12. Var. An' ithers on their claes. Page 16, 122. Var.

Wi' tidings o' salvation. The change in the text was made at the suggestion of Dr. Blair.

Page 16, 25. Var. The vera sight o' Sawnie's face.

Page 16, 26. Var. had sent him.

Page 16, 141. Var.

Tae hell wi' speed

Geordie begins his cauld harangues. The Rev. George Smith, minister at Galston. Page 16, 42. Var. On practice and of morals.

It was

Page 19. The composition of Death and Doctor Hornbook' was suggested by the circumstances related in the Preface. composed rapidly. Burns met the apothecary at a meeting of the Torbolton Masonic lodge, and the next afternoon he repeated the entire With reference to its compopoem to Gilbert. sition, Mr. Allan Cunningham supplies the following tradition, which is nonsense on the face of it.

'On his way home,'-from the Masonic meeting the Poet found a neighbour lying tipsy by the road-side; the idea of Death flashed on his fancy, and seating himself on the parapet of a bridge, he composed the poem, fell asleep, and when awakened by the morning sun, he recollected it all, and wrote it down on reaching Mossgiel.'

The laughter occasioned by the publication of the satire drove, it is said, John Wilson, schoolmaster and apothecary, out of the county. He ultimately settled in Glasgow, became Session Clerk of the Gorbals, and died in 1839. 'Death and Doctor Hornbook' first appeared in the Edinburgh edition of the poems.

Page 19, 129. Var. A rousing whid at times to vend.

Page 19, 37. Mr. Robert Wright, in his Life of Major-General James Wolfe, states that 'Hell' was the name given to the arched passage in Dublin which led into the area on the south side of Christ Church, and east of the law courts. A representation of the Devil, carved in oak, stood above the entrance.

Page 20, 132. This rencounter happened in seed-time, 1785. R. B.

Page 21, 19. An epidemical fever was then raging in that country. R. B.

Page 21, 21. This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is, professionally, a brother of the Sovereign Order of the Ferula, but by intuition and inspiration is at once an apothecary, surgeon, and physician. R. B.

Page 21, 25. Buchan's Domestic Medicine. R. B.

Page 22, 31. The grave-digger. R. B.

Page 26, 11 & 12. This couplet-the most picturesque and memorable in the poem-does not occur in the MS. copy.

Page 26, 15. A noted ford, just above the Auld Brig. R. B. Page 26, I 30.

Var.

Or haunted Garpal draws its feeble source. The banks of Garpal water is one of the few places in the west of Scotland where those fancyscaring beings known by the name of Ghaists still continue pertinaciously to inhabit. R. B. Page 26, 31. Var. Aroused by blust'ring winds an' spotted thowes.

Page 26, 135. 'Glenbuck,' the source of the river Ayr. R. B.

Page 26, 136. 'Ratton-Key,' a small landing-place above the large key. R. B.

Page 28, 13 Var. To liken them to your auld warld bodies.

Page 28, 14. Var. I must needs say comparisons are odious.

Var. Page 28, 14. stept kindly in to aid them.

Plain kind stupidity

Page 30, 21, 2 col. 'New Light' is a cant phrase in the west of Scotland for those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich has so strenuously defended. R. B.

Page 30, 28. With reference to this piece Burns wrote to a correspondent:-'Warm recollection of an absent friend presses so hard upon my heart, that I send him the prefixed bagatelle, pleased with the thought that it will greet the man of my bosom, and be a kind of distant language of friendship. . . . It was merely an extemporaneous production, on a wager with Mr. Hamilton that I would not produce a poem on the subject in a given time.' The Rev. Mr. Steven was afterwards minister of one of the Scotch churches in London-where, in 1790, William Burns, the Poet's brother, heard him preach-and he finally settled at Kilwinning in Ayrshire.

Page 31. Gilbert Burns says: 'It was, I think, in the winter of 1784, as we were going together with carts for coal to the family fire (and I could yet point out the particular spot), that the author first repeated to me the "Address to the Deil." The curious idea of such an address was suggested to him by turning over in his mind the many ludicrous accounts and representations we have from various quarters of this august personage.'

Page 32, 13. This stanza was originally as follows:

Lang syne in Eden's happy scene,

When strappin' Adam's days were green,
And Eve was like my bonie Jean,

My dearest part,

A dancin', sweet, young, handsome quean,
WI' guileless heart.

Page 32, 11, 2 col.
R. B.

29.

Vide Milton, Book vi.

Page 32, This was one of Burns' earliest poems, the first indication of that peculiar moral humour of which the 'Twa Dogs' is the finest example. It was written before 1784, and Gilbert Burns informed Dr. Currie that 'the circumstances of the poor sheep were pretty much as he has described them: he had, partly by way of frolic, bought a ewe and two lambs from a neighbour, and she was tethered in a field adjoining the house at Lochlea. He and I were going out with our teams, and our two younger brothers to drive for us, at mid-day, when Hugh Wilson, a curious-looking, awkward lad, clad in plaiding, came to us with much anxiety in his face, with the information that the ewe had entangled herself in the tether, and was lying in the ditch. Robert was much tickled with Hughoc's appearance and postures on the occasion. Poor Mailie was set to rights, and when

Page 33, 26, 2 col. This stanza was originally written:

She was nae get o' runted rams,

Wi' woo' like goats, and legs like trams;
She was the flower o' Fairlie lambs,
A famous breed:

Now Robin, greetin', chows the hams
O' Mailie dead.

Page 34. Mr. James Smith was, when this epistle was written, a shopkeeper in Mauchline. He afterwards removed to Avon near Linlithgow, where he established a calico-printing manufactory. Being unsuccessful in his speculations, he emigrated to the West Indies, where he died.

Page 35, 19, 2 col. George Dempster, Esq. of Dunnichen.

Page 36. Certain of Burns' friends-Mrs. Dunlop, and Mrs. Stewart of Stair-considered the 'Dream' to contain perilous stuff. These ladies, it is said, vainly solicited the Poet to omit it in the second edition of his poems. The 'Dream,' if not a high, is a very characteristic effort: there never was an easier handgallop of verse.

Page 36, 14, 2 col. An allusion to the loss of the North American colonies.

Page 37, 17. On the supplies for the Navy being voted, Spring 1786, Captain Macbride counselled some changes in that force, particularly the giving up of sixty-four gun-ships, which occasioned a good deal of discussion." Chambers.

Page 37, 35. Charles James Fox.

Page 37, 6, 2 col. Frederick, Bishop of Osnaburg, afterwards Duke of York.

Page 37, 15, 2 col. William, afterwards Duke of Clarence, and King William IV.

Page 37, 17, 2 col. Alluding to the newspaper account of a certain royal sailor's amour. R. B.

Page 38. Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his 'Cath-Loda,' vol. ii. of McPherson's translation. R. B.

Page 38, 27, 2 col. This line supplies a curious instance of the fluctuations of Burns' mind and passion. It was originally written as it stands in the text, but in the bitter feeling induced by the destruction of the marriage lines he had given to Jean Armour he transferred

the compliment to the reigning favourite of the hour. In the first edition the line stood

And such a leg! my Bess, I ween.

In the Edinburgh edition, the old affection being in the ascendant again, the line was restored to its original shape.

Page 39, 19. This and the six following stanzas appeared for the first time in the second edition.

Page 39, 26. The Wallaces. R. B. William Wallace. R. B. Page 39, 2, 2 col.

Page 39, 1, 2 col.

Adam Wallace of

Richardton, cousin of the immortal preserver of Scottish independence. R. B.

Page 39, 3, 2 col. Wallace, Laird of Craigie, who was second in command, under Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous battle on the banks of the Sark, fought anno 1448. That glorious victory was principally owing to the judicious conduct and intrepid valour of the gallant Laird of Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action. R. B.

Page 39, 17- col. Coilus, King of the Picts, from whom the district of Kyle is said to take its name, lies buried, as tradition says, near the family seat of the Montgomeries of Coilsfield, where his burial-place is still shown. R.B.

Page 39, 13, 2 col. Barskimming, the seat of the Lord Justice Clerk. R. B. (Sir Thomas Miller of Glerlee, afterwards President of the Court of Session.)

Page 39, 19, 2 col. Catrine, the seat of the late Doctor, and present Professor, Stewart. R. B.

Page 39, 125, 2 col. Colone! Fullarton. R.B. Page 41. 18, 2 col. In the Appendix to the second volume of Mr. Robert Chambers' 'Life and Works of Burns' are printed the following additional stanzas of the 'Vision,' taken from a MS. in the possession of Mr. Dick, bookseller, Ayr. After the 18th stanza of printed copies :

With secret throes I mark'd that earth,
That cottage, witness of my birth;
And near I saw, bold issuing forth,
In youthful pride,

A Lindsay, race of noble worth,
Famed far and wide.

Where, hid behind a spreading wood,
An ancient Pict-built mansion stood,
I spied, among an angel brood,

A female pair;

Sweet shone their high maternal blood

And father's air.

An ancient tower to memory brought
How Dettingen's bold hero fought;
Still, far from sinking into nought,
It owns a lord

Who 'far in western' climates fought
With trusty sword.

There, where a sceptred Pictish shade
Stalk'd round his ashes lowly laid,
I saw a martial race portray'd
In colours strong:

Bold, sodger-featured, undismay'd,
They stalked along.

Among the rest I well could spy
One gallant, graceful, martial boy;
The sodger sparkled in his eye,
A diamond water;

I blest that noble badge with joy
That owned me frater. •

After the 20th stanza :

Near by arose a mansion fine,
The seat of many a Muse divine;
Not rustic Muses such as mine,
With holly crowned,

But th' ancient, tuneful, laurelled nine
From classic ground.

I mourned the card that fortune dealt,
To see where bonie Whitefoords dwelt;
But other prospects made me melt,-
That village near.

There nature, friendship, love, I felt,
Fond-mingling dear.

Hail nature's pang, more strong than death'
Warm friendship's glow, like kindling wrath!
Love, dearer than the parting breath"

Of dying friend!

Not even with life's wild devious path
Your force shall end

The power that gave the soft alarms
In blooming Whitefoords' rosy charms,
Still threats the tiny-feathered arms,
The barbed dart,

While lovely Wilhelmina charms
The coldest heart.

After the 21st:

Where Lugar leaves his moorland plaid,
Where lately Want was idly laid,
1 marked busy, bustling Trade
In fervid flame,

Beneath a patroness's air

Of noble name.

While countless hills I could survey,
And countless flocks as well as they;
But other scenes did charms display
That better please,

Where polished manners dwelt with Gray
In rural ease.

Where Cessnock flows with gurgling sound, And Irwine marking out the bound, Enamoured of the scenes around,

Slow runs his race,

A name I doubly honoured found
With knightly grace.

Brydone's brave ward I saw him stand,
Fame humbly offering her hand,
And near his kinsman's rustic band
With one accord
Lamenting their late blessed land
Must change its lord.

The owner of a pleasant spot,
Near sandy wilds I did him note:
A heart too warm, a pulse too hot,
At times o'erran,

But, large in every feature wrote,
Appeared the man.

Page 41, 19. This poem was first printed in the second edition of Burns' works.

Page 42, 117. When this worthy old sportsman went out last muir-fowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian's phrase, the last of his fields,' and expressed an ardent desire to die and be buried in the muirs. On this hint the author composed his Elegy and Epitaph. R. B.

Captain James Montgomery, Master of St. James's Lodge, Torbolton, to which the author has the honour to belong. R. B.