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NOTES. 167
FAREWELL TO AYRSHIRE.
This Song has generally been attributed to Burns, and is
admitted as his in Dr Currie's edition. But Mr Stark, in
his Biographia Scotica, says : " One of Mr Gall's songs, in
particular, the original manuscript of which I have by me, has
acquired a high degree of praise, from its having been printed
among the works of Burns, and generally thought the pro-
duction of that poet. The reverse, indeed, was only known to
a few of Mr Gall's friends, to whom he communicated the
verses before they were published. The fame of Burns stands
in no need of the aid of others to support it ; and to render
back the song in question to its true author, is but an act of
distributive justice due alike to both these departed poets,
whose ears are now eqvially insensible to the incense of flattery
or the slanders of malevolence. At the time when the Scots
Poetical Museum was published at Edinburgh by Mr John-
son, several of Burns' songs made their appearance in that
publication. Mr Gall wrote the following song, entitled,
* A Farewell to Ayrshire,' prefixed Burns' name to it, and
sent it anonymously to the publisher of that work. From
thence it has been copied into the later editions of the works
of Burns. In publishing the song in this manner, Mr Gall
probably thought that it might, under the sanction of a name