"The Lounger" a periodical paper published at Edinburgh in the years 1785 and 1786 - 3rd Edition

"The Lounger" was a weekly Edinburgh publication consisting of articles on a range of current topics.  The copy for 9 December 1786 contained a review of Robert Burns' work by Henry MacKenzie.   Following the publication of the Kilmarnock edition of Burns' "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect" earlier that year, this commendation by MacKenzie helped to make his name known amongst the Edinburgh literati.  The review also established the myth of Burns as the unlettered "Heaven - taught ploughman".  Nevertheless, Burns held MacKenzie in high regard, describing his novel, "The Man of Feeling" as "a book I prize next to the Bible".