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The same tendency to borrow a hint, to work on some one else's foundation, is notable in Burns from first to last, in the period of song-writing as well as in that of the early poems; and strikes one oddly in a man of such deep originality, who left so strong a print on all he touched, and whose work is so greatly distinguished by that character of "inevitability" which Wordsworth denied to Goethe.
The snatches scattered here and there throughout the plays of Shakspeare are perhaps the only collection of lyrics that can at all stand comparison with the wealth of minstrelsy Burns has left behind him. This was his undying legacy to the world. Song-writing was a labour of love, almost his only comfort and consolation in the dark days of his later years.
In the mean time, we must not let the love-making and the song-writing interfere with the more serious matters which these papers are expected to contain. Number Seven's compendious and comprehensive symbolism proved suggestive, as his whimsical notions often do.
But his great forte was of course his song-writing, and of this, before I speak of anything else, I wish to have my say. It was a gift, quite a compelling one, out of which, before he died, he had made thousands, all spent in the manner described.
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