Advice often asked for but rarely taken

Published on Monday 24 January 2011 15:07

EXPERTS have long been interested in the letters between Robert Burns and James Gregory.

Scholars of Scotland's Bard have already studied letters sent from Gregory to the poet, in which the medic and budding literary critic was less than kind.

Indeed, what appears to be a direct reply to the newly discovered letter was published in an 1851 biography of Burns by Robert Chambers.

In it, Gregory writes: "The hare is a pretty good subject, but the measure or stanza you have chosen for it is not a good one: it does not flow well, and the rhyme of the fourth line is almost lost by its distance from the first."

Burns is recorded as saying: "Gregory is a good man, but he crucifies me."

Professor Purdie said: "It includes some … suggestions which, had Burns adopted them, would have wrecked the poem. But Burns did delete his second last verse. When it appeared in the 1793 Edinburgh Edition of Burns poems, the fourth verse was gone.

"Burns often asked for critique but rarely adopted any amendments."