the premium at Dijon. This news awakened all the ideas
which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the
fermentation of my heart of that first leaves of heroism and virtue
which my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy.
Nothing now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous,
superior to fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior
circumstances; although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation
at first prevented me from conducting myself according to these
principles, and from suddenly quarrelling with the maxims of the age in
which I lived, I from that moment took a decided resolution to do
it. . . .

ROBERT BURNS

(1759-1796)

THE PLOUGHMAN-POET

A note of pride in his humble origin rings throughout the following
pages. The ploughman poet was wiser in thought than in deed, and his
life was not a happy one. But, whatever his faults, he did his best
with the one golden talent that Fate bestowed upon him. Each book that
he encountered was made to stand and deliver the message that it
carried for him. Sweethearting and good-fellowship were his bane, yet
he won much good from his practice of the art of correspondence with
sweethearts and boon companions. And although Socrates was perhaps
scarcely a name to him, he studied always to follow the Athenian's
favourite maxim, _Know thyself_; realizing, with his elder brother of
Warwickshire, that "the chiefest study of mankind is man."

From an autobiographical sketch sent to Dr. Moore.

[_To Dr. Moore_]

MAUCHLINE, August 2, 1787.

For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am
now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it,
in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of
ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name
has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour
to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful
account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that
character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give you an
honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense; for
I assure you, sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in
the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I resemble--I have, I
say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him,
too, frequently shaken