But the national importance of Burns, though increased by his influence upon the liberalizing movements of his and by his vital de scriptions and characterizations of the peasant life of the Scotland Of his time, is based chiefly on his songs. The period of Presbyterian des potism already referred to had forced the lyric muse of Scotland into low company and as a result Burns found Scottish song still pure and fine in melody, but hopelesly degraded in point of both poetry and decency. From youth he had been interested in collecting the sordid frag ments he heard sting in cottage and tavern, or found printed in broadsides and chapbooks; and the resuscitation of this all-but-lost national heritage came to be regarded by hitt in the light of a vocation. Two points are especially to be noted about his song-making: first, that almost all sprang from real emotional experiences; second, that almost all were composed to a pre viously existing melody. He had begun the composing of love-songs while still almost a boy, and he continued it to the end. During his visit to Edinburgh in 1786-87, he formed a con nection with the editor of Johnson's Musical Museum, and for this publication he undertook to supply material. Few of the traditional songs were such as could appear in a reputable volume, and Burns's task was to make them over into presentable form. Sometimes he re tained a stanza or two, sometimes only a line or refrain, sometimes merely the name of the melody: the rest was his own. His method was to familiarize himself with the traditional air, to catch a suggestion from some stanza or phrase of the old song, to fix upon an idea or situation for the new poem ; then, humming or whistling the melody about the fields or the farmyard, as imagination and emotion warmed within him, he worked out the new verses, com ing into the house to write them down when the inspiration began to flag. Careful consideration of this process, for the reality of which we have his own authority as well as the evidence of the raw material and the finished product, will explain much of the precise quality and func tion of. Burns as a song-writer. In George
Thomson's collection of 'Scottish Airs' he had a share similar to that in Johnson's undertak ing, his work for these two publications con stituting the greater part of his poetical activity during the last eight or nine years of his life. It was characteristic that, in spite of his finan cial stringency during these years, he refused to accept any recompense, preferring to regard this as a patriotic service. And a patriotic service it was of no small magnitude. By birth and temperament he was singularly fitted for just such a task, and his fitness is proved not only by the impossibility of separating, by a mere examination of the finished songs, the new from the old, but by the unique extent to which his productions were accepted by his country men, and have passed into the life and feeling of his race. See TAM 0' SHANTER ; COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT; JOLLY BEGGARS, THE.
Bibliography.— Early collections by Currie, Allan Cunningham, Hogg and Motherwell have been incorporated in modern editions. Consult Chambers, R. and Wallace, W. (4 vols., London and New York 1896) • W. Scott Douglass (6 vols. Edinburgh 1877-79 and 3 vols., Edin burgh 1893); Smith, Alexander, *Globe* edition (1 vol.) • *Cambridge edition (Boston 1897) ; Lang, A., and Craigie, W. A., (1 vol., New York 1896) ; McKie, 'Bibliography of Burns' (Kilmarnock 1881) ; Henley, W. E. and Hen derson, T. F., 'The Centenary of (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1896) • Henderson, T. F., 'Robert Burns' (New York 1904) ; Dougall, 'The Burns Country' (New York 1911) ; Wal lace (editor), 'Correspondence between Burns and Mrs. Dunlop' (London 1898) • Carlyle, 'Burns' in his 'Essays' (London 1847) ; Ste venson, 'Robert Burns' (in 'Familiar Sketches of Men and Books' (London 1882).