Note 9 — BOOKS AND AUTHORS. (continued 2)
Reading edition
“I have seen,” says a Correspondent of the Inverness Courier, “a copy of the second edition of Burns’s ‘Poems,’ with the blanks filled up, and numerous alterations made in the poet’s handwriting: one instance, not the most delicate, but perhaps the most amusing and characteristic will suffice. After describing the gambols of his ‘Twa Dogs,’ their historian refers to their sitting down in coarse and rustic terms. This, of course, did not suit the poet’s Edinburgh patrons, and he altered it to the following:—
’Till tired at last, and doucer grown, Upon a knowe they sat them down.’
Still this did not please his fancy; he tried again, and hit it off in the simple, perfect form in which it now stands:—
‘Until wi’ daffin weary grown, Upon a knowe they sat them down.’ ”