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air; the rest was his own his thod, as he has told hiself, was to bee failiar with the traditional lody, to catch a sugstion fro fragnt of the old ng, to fix upon an idea or situation for the new poe; then, hug or whistlg the tune as he went about his work, he wrought out the new verses, gog to the hoe to write the down when the spiration began to fg this process is to be found the expnation of uch of the peculiar ality of the ngs of burns scarcely any known author has sueeded brilliantly bg his work with folk aterial, or carryg on with such ntuity of spirit the tradition of popur ng for e thon&039;s llection of sttish airs he perford a function siir to that which he had had the “eu”; and his poetical activity durg the st eight or ne years of his life was chiefly devoted to these o publications spite of the fact that he was nstantly severe fancial straits, he refed to aept any repense for this work, preferrg to regard it as a patriotic service and it was, deed, a patriotic service of no sall agnitude by birth and teperant he was sgurly fitted for the task, and this fitness is proved by the unie extent to which his productions were aepted by his untryn, and have passed to the life and feelg of his race