Excerpt from The Poetry of Robert Burns, Vol. 1 Burns's verse falls naturally into two main divisions. One, and that the larger, appeals with persistency and force, on the strength of some broadly human qualities, to the world in general: for the reason that the world in general is rich in sentiment but lacks the literary sense. The other, being a notable and lasting contri bution to literature, is the concern of com 11 paratively few. The present Edition of Burns's verse is primarily addressed to the second of these two bodies of readers. Of necessity, however, it is as nearly complete as existing canons of taste will permit; and 'tis hoped that it will prosper, though for different reasons and on different grounds, with both sections of what, after all, is one, and that a world-wide, public. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.