BURNS AND THE BIOGRAPHER [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—My attention has only just been drawn to a letter hi your issue of November Sth, from the author of the latest life of the poet Robert Burns, in which the Burns Federation is referred to in disparaging and undeserved terms. I do not wish to engage in any controversy, but as President of the Burns Federation I feel it my duty to deny emphatically the allegation that the Federation is either obscurantist or obstruc- tive in regard to the elucidation of the material facts of Burns' life. The work of the Federation stands for all to see, and no book has been published on Burns in the last thirty years, not excepting Mrs. Carswell's biography, that does not owe a very great debt—not always acknowledged—to the Burns Federa• tion, its Members and their work.
The policy of the Federation is to promote an appreciative interest in Burns and to stimulate and assist in the publication of authentic records and data concerning the poet. Its annual reports and the various results of its activities are available for the use of all students of Burns' life, as is its assistance and advice at all times. It appears to me that Mrs. Carswell, whose biography I have read with the greatest interest, does not perhaps realize or appreciate this policy.
It would be idle to conceal the fact that there arc parts of Mrs. Carswell's biography where the Federation—and not the Federation alone—questions the taste as well the accuracy. But in spite of differences of opinion the Federation will always be ready to assist in any honest endeavour to produce a true picture of Robert Burns, and when the second and revised edition of Mrs. Carswell's work is being prepared I can promise her the Federation's assistance.—I am, Sir, &c., ALEXANDER GUM. (President Burns Federation.) Queen Anne's Lodge, Westminster, London, S.W. 1.
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