The most serious, almost the only charge brought against the prose style of Burns is the charge of affectation more or less occasional. All the earlier critics make it or imply it, and with such an apparent show of proof that it has generally been believed. Later critics, while unable to deny the feature of his style which so looks like affectation, have explained it to such good effect as to make it appear a beauty; they have asked us to regard it as the happy result of a sympathetic mind adapting itself to the object of its address. This looks very like blaming Burns's correspondents for the badness of his style. There is some truth in the explanation, putting it even so extremely. But when this allowance is made, there still remains a wide and well-marked difference between his use of English prose and his mastery of Scottish verse. The latter is complete--it is the mastery of an originator of style. The former, on the other hand, is the attainment of a clever pupil when the sentiment is commonplace; when it is deep and vehement, it is often, in the language of Carlyle, "the effort of a man to express something which he has no organ fit for expressing." Common people, to whom niceties of style are unknown, and who read primarily or exclusively for the sake of the matter, perceive nothing of this affectation, and think scarcely less highly of Burns's letters than they do of his poetry. J. LOGIE ROBERTSON. 7 LOCKHARTON TERRACE, SLATEFORD, EDINBURGH. [Footnote a: This is really the exposure of an absurdity.] [Footnote b: By Jeffrey.] [Footnote c: Dr. Hately Waddell.] [Footnote d: See, for example, the _Cheese_ Letter to Peter Hill, or the _Snail's-horns_ Letter to Mrs. Dunlop.] [Footnote e: Mr. R. L. Stevenson.] GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. LETTERS I.--To ELLISON OR ALISON BEGBIE (?) [1] What you may think of this letter when you see the name that subscribes it I cannot know; and perhaps I ought to make a long preface of apologies for the freedom I am going to take; but as my heart means no offence, but, on the contrary, is rather too warmly interested in your favour,--for that reason I hope you will forgive me when I tell you that I most sincerely and affectionately love you. I am a stranger in these matters, A---, as I assure you that you are the first woman to whom I ever made such a declaration; so I declare I am at a loss how to proceed. I have more than once come into your company with a resolution to say what I have just now told you; but my resolution always failed me, and even now my heart trembles for the consequence of what I have said. I hope, my dear A----, you will not despise me because I am ignorant of the flattering arts of courtship: I hope my inexperience of the work will plead for me. I can only say I sincerely love you, and there is nothing on earth I so ardently wish for, or that could possibly give me so much happiness, as one day to see you mine.