Lines Written and Printed at the Request of a Friend, by whom the Melancholy Story is related. To which are added, Lines to the Author of an Answer to the above; with a fragment of a poem, called My Native Dale. The whole of which shall be published at some future Period.

Bookseller Notes

Second edition. The first edition, published in the same year, is rare, wih only 2 copies in the BL recorded in COPAC: that edition consisted of only 8 pages. Here, at the foot of p. 8, is the mark of the printer, and so we suppose that the first part of the volume is in fact a re-issue. A number of words added in pencil, look as if they might be authorial corrections, but the notes on the endpaper are in a different hand: this comprises a league table of poets referred to in the text, Burns at the top with 14 mentions. The author of "Lines to R. Alderson", who has scant regard for Alderson's effort, suggests that Burns's penchant 'to seek a solitude in some wild glen... to wail, unheard' was proof that Burns was not one 'who drinks, like other stupid boors, Stiff whisky punch until his mind is blank', since the drunkard cannot make it out of doors.