Introduction [to the 1991 edition by Donald A. Low]
A few weeks before his death in July 1796, Robert Burns wrote to James Johnson, the publisher of the Scots Musical Museum, with whom he had collaborated for almost ten years....

TO THE TRUE LOVERS OF CALEDONIAN
Music and Song
There has long been a just and general Complaint, that among all the Music Books of SCOTS SONGS that have been hitherto offered to the Public not one, nor even all of them put together, can be said to have merited the name of what may be called A COMPLETE COLLECTION; having been published only in detached pieces and parcels; amounting however upon the whole, to more than twice the price of this Publication; attended moreover with this further disadvantage, that they have been printed in such large unportable Sizes, that they could not by any means answer the purpose of being pocket-companions, which is no small incumbrance, especially to admirers of the social Muse.