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CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



The Works of Robert Bums, with his Life, by Allan Cunningham-. 

 London : Cochrane and M'Crone, 11, Waterloo Place. 1834. 

 Vols. I. to VI. 



When Allan Cunningham commenced the brief preface to his life of 

 Burns, by stating, that "with something of hope and fear he offered 

 that work to his country," he made but a simple admission of fact : he 

 hoped that to Scotland his memoir of one of her principal poets would 

 be a meed grateful in acceptance, but he feared, and with reason, that 

 to England it could scarcely be as agreeable, since its whole tendency 

 was to fix a charge of neglect and oppression upon the country which, 

 only, could have realised any of the fanciful expectations in which the 

 bard loved to indulge. We have, already, recorded our opinion of the 

 feeling with which Mr. Cunningham set about penning his memoir, 

 and at no small hazard to himself, striving to reconcile with the established 

 principles of religion and morality, the actions of a man, who, unhappily 

 for his credit and welfare, lived too much at variance with what good 

 men and wise deem the essentials of a fair and virtuous life. We will 

 now enter upon our promised task of investigating the merits and 

 interests of this little volume as a piece of biography ; its literary pre- 

 tensions require not a moment's discussion. " Allan Cunningham" has 

 been, for years, before the public, as a writer of fiction : as such he has 

 obtained a popularity since extended by his ** Lives of the Painters," 

 a work probably not adapted to his calibre, or free from defects and 

 inaccuracies, but, possessing many excellencies ; and his style, always 

 striking, original, and delightful — always poetical and forcible, is as 

 well known to the republic of letters as the name of the *' illustrious 

 peasant," in whose honor he has at length come forward and erected a 

 temple of purity. In the course of our remarks we shall speak plainly 

 and fearlessly, because we think — and not lightly — that Mr. Cunningham 

 has more than insinuated chimerical charges against the British Adminis- 

 tration ; that he has, wilfully, we must say, overlooked the real features 

 of Burns's character and conduct, and has permitted himself to gaze upon 

 an air-drawn vision *' steeped in the hues of the rainbow," and girt with a 

 glory and a brightness which belong not to the sober tints of truth and- 

 identity. Scotchmen love to think and speak of Burns as a sacrifice to 

 the jealousy of the great, a victim to the narrow-souled and cold- 

 blooded Ministry of his day, a burnt-oiFering on the altar of pride and 

 prejudice ; but in the ardour of their nationality they forget that with 

 all his virtues, his vices, and his follies, his genius, his claims, and his 

 misfortunes, he was suffered to perish in misery and comparative 

 starvation, by his own countrymen ; and that by disposition, habit, 

 and education he was utterly unfit to receive or to profit by such 

 brilliant patronage as they now seem to suppose he deserved. Burns 

 mused on a seat in the Parliament of the land — he deemed himself 

 peculiarly qualified for this commanding position ; and it is possible 

 that he considered himself an injured, a slighted, and an oppressed 

 individual because he was not called to the House. Again, possibly, 

 he dreamed of the Church, or the Bar, or the Army, of distinguished 

 preferment, or a commission which might entitled him to rank with the 



