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(Robert Burns, Tam O' Shanter) "But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white-then melts for ever; Or like the Borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the Rainbow's lovely form, Evanishing amid the storm."


The Herald
March 29 2005

Burns library to reopen after £2m renovation

A HOUSE containing one of the world's leading collections of works by Robert Burns re-opens this week after vital conservation work to prevent mould damage.
Broughton House, at Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, underwent a £2m upgrade, including computer-controlled humidity monitors to preserve the 3000 books and papers by Burns.

The collection - the fourth largest in the world - had been kept in a damp basement in the eighteenth century townhouse and, over the years, mould had developed, threatening to damage the priceless collection.

It includes one of 12 known copies of the Kilmarnock edition of Burns's work, the first printing of his poetry from 1786 - which is the rarest edition of his work and contains To a Mouse and The Twa Dugs, which gave an early insight into the Bard's prodigious talent.

Broughton House is now in the hands of the National Trust for Scotland and re-opens on Friday, after two years of renovations. Robin Robertson, property manager, said: "This is the fourth largest collection of Burns's work . so it is very, very important and one of the reasons people come here."

 

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