XLI.

LAMENT,

OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE

OF A

FRIEND'S AMOUR.

"Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself! And sweet affection prove the spring of woe."

HOME.

[The hero and heroine of this little mournful poem, were Robert Burns and Jean Armour. "This was a most melancholy affair," says the poet in his letter to Moore, "which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart and mistaken the reckoning of rationality." Hogg and Motherwell, with an ignorance which is easier to laugh at than account for, say this Poem was "written on the occasion of Alexander Cunningham's darling sweetheart alighting him and marrying another:--she acted a wise part." With what care they had read the great poet whom they jointly edited in is needless to say: and how they could read the last two lines of the third verse and commend the lady's wisdom for slighting her lover, seems a problem which defies definition. This mistake was pointed out by a friend, and corrected in a second issue of the volume.]