184 SCOTTISH POETRY. 



and he was on "the tiptoe to Jamaica/' where he hoped the novelty 

 of West Indian scenes would make him forget the contemptuous neg- 

 lect of the world. 



The works of Burns have run through editions and editions again, 

 but not in the Poet's life-time. Success he certainly met with,, but 

 not the success he merited. Harley and Wolcot were hailed by the 

 world as poets of the first order, while the Ayrshire ploughman was 

 considered as an intruder on the mount of Parnassus, where only col- 

 legians had a right to sit and deal poetic licence. Burns' proud inde- 

 pendent spirit was worn down to the ground by seeing the ignorant 

 lordlings of the land, " a set of dull conceited hashes," elbowing the 

 sons of genius from the places which nature had intended for them 

 by seeing villains and knaves ripen in " posts and pensions," while he 

 was left to starve in wretched misery. At his death, his papers were 

 left in heaps for the first comer j luckily, one fit for the tasK of care- 

 fully inspecting and editing them was found in Dr. Currie a man 

 with a true feeling for poetry, and the untimely fate of the poet. He 

 wrote his life and edited his works in Liverpool, giving the profits to 

 the author's afflicted family ; and there are none who admire Burns, 

 but must feel the generosity of Currie deeply. Cromek, with an all- 

 searching eye, discovered many pieces of Burns' muse which had es- 

 caped the first editor, and published them under the title of the 

 " Reliques of Robert Burns ;" but no good chronological edition had 

 appeared till Mr. Cunningham came forward, whose fitness for the 

 task it is our duty, as critics, to discuss. 



Allan Cunningham has, for a long period, been known to the world 

 as a very successful song- writer. He next came forward as an editor 

 of the songs of his native country, published in 4 vols., with critical 

 examinations of the lyric poems, characters and notes, historical and 

 illustrative. Though we are not always pleased with his alterations 

 of the olden songs, yet he has often brought their meaning clearer, 

 and exalted their poetical excellence nearer to lyric perfection ; his 

 characters are chiefly distinguished for honest impartiality, perfect 

 knowledge of the author's works, arid a general fitness from his own 

 poetical powers. In his romances of " Paul Jones" and " Sir Michael 

 Scott," his wildness of fancy generally oversteps the truth of nature ; 

 they partake more of the old English specimens given by George 

 Ellis, than our modern mock romances. Mr. Cunningham's admi- 

 rable " Lives of the Painters/' written in the style of Johnson's 

 " Lives," and suitable companions to them, conclude, with one or 

 two exceptions, Mr. Cunningnam's works. Our readers, who require 

 any knowledge of Allan Cunningham, will, we should think, have 

 gained now sufficient information of his fitness for appearing as an 

 editor of Burns. Who could we find more adapted than a poet, a 

 biographer, and a fellow-countryman, who knows more of Burns 

 than any other we could select ? 



The penning of English biography, which Johnson so much la- 

 mented, cannot be regretted in the case of Burns. The ardent admi- 

 ration of millions has collected all the knowledge of Burns' Life it is 

 possible for us to possess : and these facts have been related by such 

 men as Scott, Campbell, Jeffrey, Lockhart, Currie, and Dugald 



