Preface

tendeo drive him to frequent excesses of self-indulgence. he was often remorseful, arove painfully, if itently, after better things. but the story of his life must be admitted to be in its externals a painful and somewhat sordid icle. that it tained, however, many moments of joy aation is proved by the poems here printed.

burns' poetry falls into two main groups: english and scottish. his english poems are, for the most part, inferior spes of ventioeenth-tury verse. but in scottish poetry he achieved triumphs of a quite extraordinary kind. sihe time of the reformation and the union of the s of england and scotland, the scots dialect had largely fallen into disuse as a medium fnified writing. shortly before burns' time, however, allan ramsay and robert fergusson had been the leading figures in a revival of the vernacular, and burns received from them a national tradition which he succeeded in carrying to its highest pitch, being thereby, to an almost unique degree, the poet

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