The contemporaries of Burns Author:Robert Burns Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The widow of Lapraik survived till the 5th of March 1825, when she expired in the eighty-third year of her age. All her husband's books and papers continued in h... more »er possession ; but, as no importance was attached to them, scarcely a vestige of his MSS. is now in existence; and none of his family have even a copy of his Poems, the few that remained having been either complimented or carried away by friends who had no intention of returning them. Lapraik was interred in the Churchyard of Muirkirk, where a large tabular stone records the death of himself, his wife, and several children. JEANIE GLOVER, Burns communicated this song to " Johnson's Scots Musical Museum;" and in his " Remarks on Scottish Songs and Ballads," lie states, in language somewhat rude, that it " is the composition of a Jean Glover, a girl who was not only a , but also a thief; and in one or other character has visited most of the correction-houses in the west. She was born, I believe, in Kilmar- nock : I took the song down from her singing as she was strolling with a slight-of-hand blackguard through the country." Though the song alluded to has been long popular, and copied into numerous collections, this is all that has hitherto transpired respecting Jeanie Glover. That the song was her own we are left in no manner of doubt; for it must be inferred, from the positive statement of the Poet, that she had herself assured him of the fact. It is well that Burns expressed himself in decided language ; for otherwise it would scarcely be credited that one of oursweetest and most simple lyrics should have been the production of a person whose habits and course of life were so irregular:— " Comin' thro' the Craigs o' Kyle, Amang the bonnie blooming heather, There I met a bonnie lassie Keeping a' h...« less