ADVERTISEMENT. In the following remarks on the Poems of Burns tend in any degree to point out their beauties and their defects to the great body of those readers who admire or censure them without knowing why, they will answer the only purpose for which they are offered to the public. To the poetical reader of highly cultivated taste they are not offered; and therefore nothing like philosophical criticism has been here attempted. If the country gentleman, the farmer, the artisan, and all those who have moved in the same sphere with the poet, shall be led to look into themselves for the truth of those pictures which he has painted in such vivid colours, the object of this publication will be completely answered. It is proper to add, that the arrangement which has been here followed is that in which the poems are printed in the edition published by the trustees of the late James Morison, bookseller in Perth; though the remarks may be equally acceptable and equally useful to those who are possessed of the other editions. The philosophical critic and the man of taste are again requested to observe, that no attempt is here made to instruct them; and that the sole object of the present publication is to enable men of less cultivated minds to instruct themselves, by the aid of engravings, |