© 7-20-49MM

Gift of the family of
Samuel A. Jones

7-19-49

2v.

B967 ld W 2 1898

Preface

THESE volumes contain ninety-six letters that passed,
in the course of their ten years' friendship, between
Burns and Mrs. Dunlop. Currie, in his Works of
Robert Burns (1800), printed thirty-nine letters of
Burns to Mrs. Dunlop; Cromek, in his Reliques,
printed three more; and Scott-Douglas, in his Works
of Robert Burns (1877), added a fourth from a MS.
of Mr. Locker-Lampson's. The Lochryan MSS., now
in the possession of Mr. R. B. Adam, of Buffalo,
N. Y., contain thirty-eight more original holograph
letters and parts of letters from the poet to Mrs.
Dunlop, together with MSS. of several of the
Poems, and ninety-seven letters from Mrs. Dunlop
to Burns. The whole of these, old and new, have
been reproduced here with the utmost possible cor-
rectness; the few lacunae ascertained and conjectured
are indicated. Four of the letters printed by Currie
have been collated with the original MSS. in the
collection of Mr. Adam, and the emendations and
additions thence derived are of particular interest,
both in themselves and as illustrations of Currie's
editorial method.

The Burns letters in the Lochryan (Adam) col-
lection are the surplus of the selection made for

V

Currie's use by Mrs. Dunlop and Gilbert Burns from the MSS. which the lady had in her possession at the poet's death. It is unnecessary here to do more than refer to the story of the bargain she struck with those who had charge of Burns's affairs. Comparison of the number of letters she wrote to the poet with the number he wrote to her further discredits the popular tradition as to her jocular repurchase of every one of her own with one of the poet's. And while the Lochryan MSS. proper throw no light on this subject, one at least of the four MSS. of Mr. Adam's referred to above confirms Gilbert's statement that the selection was made by Mrs. Dunlop and himself. These four are the originals of the letters of 12th February 1788, 1st January 1789, 4th March 1789, and 6th December 1792. That of 4th March 1789 is docketed "May be printed" in Mrs. Dunlop's hand. The fact that the docket on that of 12th February 1788, referred to in the text, is in a hand which is neither Mrs. Dunlop's nor Gilbert's, suggests that they had an assistant in the work of selection.

The Lochryan MSS., now published for the first time, were in all probability never seen by Currie. Manifestly none of them has ever been handled by either editor or printer. They are all in a state of beautiful preservation, and include at least as fine specimens of the poet's handwriting as any that have seen the light in the original or reproduction. Besides the letters there are in the collection

holograph MSS. of "Tam o' Shanter," the first draft of "Passion's Cry," "The Chevalier's Lament, "Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn," "On Reading in a Newspaper the Death of J. M'Leod, Esq., brother to Miss T. M'Leod, a particular friend of the Author's," "On Scaring some Water-fowl on Loch Turit," "O Love will venture in where it darena weel be seen," and two dubious originals, On a Tear," and "The Tears I shed must ever fall."

66

Mrs. Dunlop kept the Lochryan MSS. at Dunlop till her death, when she left the estate of Lochryan and the MSS. to her grandson, General Sir John Wallace, from whom the documents descended to his son and heir, the next possessor of Lochryan, who left them by will to his youngest brother, the present Colonel F. J. Wallace, from whom they were recently acquired by Mr. Adam. They have thus been continuously in the hands of the DunlopWallace family during the past century. Colonel Wallace states that to the best of his knowledge they have been kept in a box in the safe-room at Lochryan for the last fifty years.

The interweaving of this new material with the old makes the Correspondence of Burns and Mrs. Dunlop almost unique in its completeness. A careful search after possible lacunae has discovered no more than four places where it can be definitely stated that a letter of Burns is missing, and of the gross sum of Mrs. Dunlop's it appears that Burns

had lost or destroyed only nine-a circumstance which must have wiped out the memory of the many proofs the lady had received that he did not always read her communications with the most respectful care, and at the same time must have deepened the remorse she felt for her neglect of the poet during the last eighteen months of his life.

Students of Burns will be interested, in the first place, to know what light the Lochryan MSS. throw on the cause of that unhappy episode in the poet's life. The point is fully discussed in the text (vol. ii. p. 289, etc.), but it may be said generally that a broad view of the complete Correspondence, now possible for the first time, strongly favours the theory that Mrs. Dunlop's failure to answer Burns's letters of 1795 and 1796 was due to inadvertence rather than to any offence he could, consciously or unconsciously, have given her, and that if pique influenced her that is to say, if her silence was caused by his failure to answer promptly the last letter she sent him from London in January of 1795 his previous negligence had afforded her at least a pretext for the severe punishment she inflicted. A glance at the table of dates (infra) will show which of the two had the better reason, on the whole, to reproach the other with neglect.

The new matter is otherwise remarkably rich in fresh biographical details, in illustration not only of the relations between the two friends, but also of the poet's character, walk, and conversation, and in

material for study of the text of numerous poems. It reveals the fact that it was at least within the bounds of possibility that Burns might have been a military officer, and alternatively a professor in the University of Edinburgh, and that Adam Smith, who has not hitherto been known to have taken much interest in him, conceived at a very early date the idea of making him a Salt Officer in the Customs service at a salary of £30 a year. Burns certainly dallied with the notion of taking a stand of colours, and uncommon pains were taken by Mrs. Dunlop and Dr. Moore to procure for him the nomination to the Chair of Agriculture in Edinburgh, which was founded in 1787. Much that is new is brought out as to his connection with the Excise; for example, the fact that he aimed from the first at a Port-Officership with its superior emoluments, the probable date of his initiation into his profession, Corbet's services to him, and so forth.

There has hitherto been no evidence that Burns was so deeply indebted to Mrs. Dunlop in a pecuniary sense as his brother Gilbert alleged. In the new letters there is proof that she sent him an occasional gift of a £5 note. The sum of these could not have amounted to a great deal. It is of more interest to note the poet's attitude to this kindly habit of his not very wealthy friend. At first he was deeply offended, and he was, of course, never exactly comfortable under the beneficence of his correspondent;