Introduction.

Robert Burns, in a unique sense the national poet of Scotland, was probably the first of his ancestral line to attain very special distinction. The eldest child of William Burnes and Agnes Broun, he was born, 25th January 1759, in the "clay biggin" built by his father's own hands at the hamlet of Alloway-about two miles south of the county town of Ayr-on a portion of the seven acres of nursery ground which he had taken on lease. Both on the paternal and maternal side the poet was of ancient farmer descent, his paternal ancestors having an immemorial connection with Kincardineshire in the northern portion of Scotland, and his maternal ancestors with Ayrshire in the south-west. The advocates of the "Celtic element" in Burns have mooted the theory that he was really descended from one Walter Campbell of Argyleshire, who having for some reason fled to Kincardineshire was known there as Walter Burnhouse or Burnes; but the story is a mere baseless conjecture, opposed to well-established facts. On the mother's side, however, the Celtic element may have been more predominant, for Ayrshire is included in the district of the Strathclyde Welsh. Still all such theorizing is more or less fallacious. Burns, like most lowland Scots, was probably a blend of several racial elements, and whether he derived his exceptional genius from a particular race, or a particular blend, it would be merely futile to enquire.

Only this may be said that it was not of distinctively Celtic type; such Celtic characteristics as his poetry may occasionally betray are external rather than intrinsic, and seem to have a more direct connection with his perusal of Ossian than his own native idiosyncrasy.

More relevant to the question of his poetic origination and character, is the fact that both by descent and environment he was peculiarly a "son of the soil." Celtic Norse, Saxon, or aboriginal, in whatever proportions, the blood, the bodily frame, the mental disposition and habit which he inherited were, by long ancestral lines, those of the Scottish peasant-farmer; and to the last the radical elements of his nature were those of the peasant. During his earlier years the seal of peasanthood was also impressed upon him in characters that cut deep into his nature. Indeed his early experiences-combining, as he asserted, "the cheerless gloom of the hermit with the ceaseless toil of the galley slave"-were of a kind to have hopelessly barbarized him, but for certain redeeming circumstances. These were created mainly by his father's highly enlightened sense of parental duty. Exceptionally intelligent for one of his class, he took a peculiar interest in fostering the intelligence of his children. True, the rudiments of education had almost since the Reformation been within the reach of most Scottish children even of the poorer classes; but the mere rudiments of education could have done little to ameliorate the moral and intellectual lot of those young peasants. Happily, however, the ideals of education entertained by William Burnes were of a somewhat comprehensive character, and even as regards the mere rudiments he was rather punctilious. At Alloway he induced a number of his neighbours to combine in engaging John Murdoch, a young man of special abilities, as a teacher of their children, a room