THE Poems of Burns appear in these volumes as arranged and edited by Robert Chambers in his Life and Works of Robert Burns, Edinburgh and London, 1856. Such parts of the Biography as are necessary for the understanding of the poems, or of the occasions which gave rise to them, are retained in the form of prefaces to the individual pieces. Verbal changes of a trifling description have here and there been required.
The Memoir of Burns is taken from the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.