common love which Burns breathed through them. By that
admirable artist, so like our great bard in a too early death, they
were married to an air of exquisite pathos, "such as the meeting soul
may pierce." Burns, Jessy Lewars, Felix Mendelssohn--genius, goodness,
and tragic melancholy, all combined in one solemn and profoundly
affecting association!'

In numberless instances, the hitherto loosely stated facts of Burns's
life are corrected in the present work, partly through the accuracy of
a strictly historical arrangement, and partly by direct reference to
written documents. On account of the value of dates in placing the
facts and compositions in that order which gives so much illustration
to the character of the poet, the editor has taken what might appear
in other circumstances a pedantic degree of pains on that score. Of
this we have an example in regard to the chronology of Burns's
attachment to Highland Mary. To fix that affair as occurring in the
summer of 1786--an episode in the connection of the poet with the
young woman who ultimately became his wife--it is necessary to
establish the death of Mary as occurring about the 20th of October
that year. This is done partly by reference to a register of burial
sites in a church-yard, and partly by a chain of curious evidence
respecting the day which Burns celebrated three years after as the
anniversary of the event. He composed on that day his beautiful
address _To Mary in Heaven_, beginning--

Thou lingering star with lessening ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn, &c.

Mrs Burns had a recollection of the day, which, she said, was in
September, at the end of harvest, and which, she added, he spent in
his usual duties, though labouring under a cold. As the twilight
deepened, he grew sad about something, and wandered out into the
barn-yard, to which she followed him, entreating him in vain to
observe that frost had set in, and to return to the fireside. She
finally found him there stretched on a mass of straw, with his eyes
fixed on a beautiful planet, which shone like another moon. He was
engaged at that moment in apostrophising the soul of Mary. Out of this
anecdote, the editor of the present work contrives to obtain evidence
as to the true date in the following manner:--

'In the first place, the harvest was late that year. We find in the
Scottish newspapers of the time, that, in the middle of October, a
great deal of grain was still _out_ even