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James Currie
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James Currie : Life of Robert Burns
'[letter to Mrs --] 'books, for a certain length of time, are a charming substitute for common conversation. I do not know that I ever read one from which my mind received a higher degree of pleasure than "Currie's life of Burns". To me, its charm was enhanced by a thousand pleasing recollections - a thousand associations, that gave a strong additional interest to every word. The strength of Burns's feelings, the character of his mind, had excited an enthusiastic admiration, at a period when my own enthusiastic feelings were in perfect unison with those of the poet; and in him alone did I meet with the expression of a sensibility with which I could perfectly sympathise: in his emotions there was a strength, an energy, that came home to my heart; while the tender sorrows of other poets had to me appeared mawkish and insipid. Even the strong light in which he saw the ridiculous, was, I fear, too agreeable to me. The idea I then formed of his mind has been confirmed by Dr Currie's delineation of it'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Print: Book
James Currie : Life of Burns
'[Letter to H.M. Esq.] I have purchased your friend "Currie's Life of Burns"; which, I confess, has operated like a charm on my benumbed imagination. Never have I been more highly gratified than by the perusal of his inestimable work, which is a [italics] chef-d'oeuvre [end italics] of cultivated and discriminating taste. On reading the poems that are added to the collection, I once more tasted of all that delicious enthusiasm with which the first productions of this child of nature and genius had feasted my soul'.
