James Currie edited the first collection of the complete works of Robert Burns; he undertook the project primarily to raise money for Burns's widow and children. Along with the poems and letters of the poet, Currie provided a biography of Burns, in which he posited that the poet suffered from alcoholism and chronic melancholy. Currie died five years after the publication of this work and so did not realize the negative impact that it had on Burns's reputation. Charles Lamb found Currie "well-meaning" but a bad writer. Lamb advised, "ne sutor ultra crepidam" (let the cobbler stick to his rattling). William Wordsworth faulted Currie for his presentation of Burns's dissipation and suggested that Currie might have done well to have followed Burns's own dictum: "Who made the heart, 'tis he alone / Decidedly can try us." Currie's justification for including an account of Burns's failings is seen in his...