Preface

ces; sed, that almost all were posed to old melodies. while in edinburgh he uook to supply material for johnson's “musical museum,” and as few of the traditional songs could appear in a respectable colle, burns found it necessary to make them over. sometimes he kept a stanza or two; sometimes only a line or chorus; sometimes merely the name of the air; the rest was his own. his method, as he has told us himself, was to bee familiar with the traditional melody, to catch a suggestion from some fragment of the old song, to fix upon an idea or situation for the new poem; then, humming or whistling the tune as he went about his work, he wrought out the new verses, going into the house to write them dowhe inspiration began to flag. in this process is to be found the explanation of much of the peculiar quality of the songs of burns. scarcely any known author has succeeded so brilliantly in bining his work with folk material, or in carrying on with such tinuity of spirit the tradition of popul

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