op. Thomson's Collection. Acting as Supervisor of
Excise

CCCXXVI. To the Right Hon. William Pitt. Address of the Scottish
Distillers

CCCXXVII. To the Provost, Bailies, and Town Council of Dumfries.
Request to be made a freeman of the town

1796.

CCCXXVIII. To Mrs. Riddel. "Anarcharsis' Travels." The muses

CCCXXIX. To Mrs. Dunlop. His ill-health.

CCCXXX. To Mr. Thomson. Acknowledging his present to Mrs. Burns of a
worsted shawl

CCCXXXI. To the same. Ill-health. Mrs. Hyslop. Allan's etchings.
Cleghorn

CCCXXXII. To the same. "Here's a health to ane I loe dear"

CCCXXXIII. To the same. His anxiety to review his songs, asking for
copies

CCCXXXIV. To Mrs. Riddel. His increasing ill-health

CCCXXXV. To Mr. Clarke, acknowledging money and requesting the loan of
a further sum

CCCXXXVI. To Mr. James Johnson. The Scots Musical Museum. Request for
a copy of the collection

CCCXXXVII. To Mr. Cunningham. Illness and poverty, anticipation of
death

CCCXXXVIII. To Mr. Gilbert Burns. His ill-health and debts

CCCXXXIX. To Mr. James Armour. Entreating Mrs. Armour to come to her
daughter's confinement

CCCXL. To Mrs. Burns. Sea-bathing affords little relief

CCCXLI. To Mrs. Dunlop. Her friendship. A farewell

CCCXLII. To Mr. Thomson. Solicits the sum of five pounds. "Fairest
Maid on Devon Banks"

CCCXLIII. To Mr. James Burness. Soliciting the sum of ten pounds

CCCXLIV. To James Gracie, Esq. His rheumatism, &c. &c.--his loss of
appetite

Remarks on Scottish Songs and Ballads

The Border Tour

The Highland Tour

Burns's Assignment of his Works

Glossary

LIFE

OF

ROBERT BURNS.

Robert Burns, the chief of the peasant poets of Scotland, was born in
a little mud-walled cottage on the banks of Doon, near "Alloway's auld
haunted kirk," in the shire of Ayr, on the 25th day of January, 1759.
As a natural mark of the event, a sudden storm at the same moment
swept the land: the gabel-wall of the frail dwelling gave way, and the
babe-bard was hurried through a tempest of wind and sleet to the
shelter of a securer hovel. He was the eldest born of three sons and
three daughters; his father, William, who in his native
Kincardineshire wrote his name Burness, was bred a gardener, and
sought for work in the West; but coming from the lands of the noble
family of the Keiths, a suspicion accompanied him that he had been
out--as rebellion was softly called--in the forty-five: a suspicio