[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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KIKKDAMDIK FAIR.
spelling and punctuation.
From the want of an influential publisher, it
was little noticed beyond the circle of his friends. It did not, however,
escape the observation of Mr Robert Chambers, who transferred three of
the poetical pieces to his collection of Scottish Songs, published in 1829.
One of these, " The Rover of Lochryan," was copied with commendation
in a review of Mr Chambers's work, which appeared in the same year in
the Edinburgh Literary Journal ;* and a wish at the sametime expressed
by the Reviewer to know something more of the author. Besides a {ew
anecdotes of little value, concerning Burns and the characters he celebrated,
the work chiefly consists of incidents which befell the travellers, of
descriptions of natural scenery, and of traditions ; and although the original
pieces of poetry are frequently represented as proceeding from his friends, the
whole of them, as well as the prose portion, were truly composed by Ainslie
himself. At the end of the volume there is a production of some length,
entitled the author's "Last Lay." It. was composed, he tells us, when
wandering in Ayrshire by his native stream ;
and, besides some allusions
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to his personal history, shows what were the views and feelings which induced
him to seek a "resting-place in the young world of the west."
What follows we take leave to transcribe from an article in the Edinburgh
Literary Journal :
" Since Mr Ainslie went to reside in America, nothing of his has appeared
in print on this side of the Atlantic, with the exception of a paper
or two in the Newcastle Magazine, which he entitled Feelings of a Fo-
'
reigner in America.' He contributes, however, to American publications;
\ and he has, from time to time, transmitted to his friends at home poetical
5 effusions of great merit." From " The Contemporaries of Burns.'"
O Robin lad, where hae ye been,
Ye look sae trig and braw, man
Wi' ruffled sark, and neat and clean.
And Sunday coat and a', man.
* No. xxsi. p. IS.
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