Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 046.djvu/278

270 observations that could alone occur to us here, we shall conclude this article by laying before our readers some of our poet's comic effusions in a foreign dress, which may at once amuse by its novelty, and help us to judge of their intrinsic merits, and to form a conjecture as to the ideas regarding them which may be acquired by those who are total strangers to the language in which they are written. Our extracts are taken from a small and rather scarce volume, published at Paris in 1826, and bearing the following title: "Morceaux Choisis de Burns, Poete Ecossais; Traduits par MM. James Aytoun et J. B. Mesnard." The Monsieur James Aytoun who has a share in these translations is no other, we believe, than the very amiable person with whom our townsmen are well acquainted as a member of the Scottish Bar, and as having on at least one occasion come forward as a candidate for the representation of Edinburgh. The work contains translations, all of them in prose, of several of Burns's best pieces, both serious and comic, including "The Cottar's Saturday Night," and "Tam o' Shanter." But we confine our quotations to one or two of the comic songs, as most in accordance with our own plan, and most likely to interest and amuse our readers. We refrain from making any comment whatever on the translations, except here and there to print in italics some of the passages which appear the most striking. We place the original and the translation opposite to each other:—