belong to a limited class; for well I know that among peers there are as ardent admirers of Burns as among peasants. All I would say is, that even religious feelings may take edge and bitterness from other causes. But to the other class,—those who from loyalty and gratitude are apt to follow Burns too far,—well I know that my husband would have said, "Receive all genius as the gift of God, but never let it be to you as God. It ought never to supersede the exercise of your own moral sense, nor can it ever take the place of the only infallible guide,—the Word of God."
But I beg the reader's pardon for digressing thus, when I ought to be pursuing the proper business of a preface, which is, to state any explanatory circumstances that may be necessary in connexion with the work in hand.
The "Recollections of Ferguson" are exquisitely painful—so much so, that I would fain have begun with something brighter; but these two contributions being the most important, and likewise the first in order of a series, they seemed to fall into the beginning as their natural place. I have gone over the Life of Ferguson, which the reader may do for himself, to see whether there is any exaggeration in the "Recollections." I find them all perfectly faithful to the facts. The neglected bard, the stone cell, the straw pallet, the stone paid for by a brother bard out of his own straitened means, are not flattering to the "Embro'
