[Footnote G: Nous sommes nés pour la vérité, et nous ne pouvons souffrir
son abord. Les figures, les paraboles, les emblémes, sont toujours des
ornements nécessaires pour qu'elle puisse s'annoncer: on veut, en la
recevant, qu'elle soit _déguisée_.]




ROBERT BURNS


_Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect_. _By_ ROBERT BURNS,
_Kilmarnock_.

When an author we know nothing of solicits our attention, we are but too
apt to treat him with the same reluctant civility we show to a person
who has come unbidden into company. Yet talents and address will
gradually diminish the distance of our behaviour, and when the first
unfavourable impression has worn off, the author may become a favourite,
and the stranger a friend. The poems we have just announced may probably
have to struggle with the pride of learning and the partiality of
refinement; yet they are intitled to particular indulgence.

Who are you, Mr. Burns? will some surly critic say. At what university
have you been educated? what languages do you understand? what authors
have you particularly studied? whether has Aristotle or Horace directed
your taste? who has praised your poems, and under whose patronage are
they published? In short, what qualifications intitle you to instruct or
entertain us? To the questions of such a catechism, perhaps honest
Robert Burns would make no satisfactory answers. 'My good Sir, he might