o say of what he owed to an old maid of his mother's,
remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. 'She had, I
suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs
concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks,
spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions,
cantraips, enchanted towers, giants, dragons, and other trumpery. This
cultivated the latent seeds of Poesy; but had so strong an effect on my
imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes
keep a sharp lookout in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more
sceptical in these matters than I, yet it often takes an effort of
philosophy to shake off these idle terrors.'

It ought not to be forgotten that Burns had a better education than most
lads of his time. Even in the present day many in better positions have
not the advantages that Robert and Gilbert Burns had, the sons of such a
father as William Burness, and under such an earnest and thoughtful
teacher as Mr. Murdoch. It is important to notice this, because Burns is
too often regarded merely as a _lusus naturae_; a being gifted with song,
and endowed by nature with understanding from his birth. We hear too
much of the _ploughman_ poet. His genius and natural abilities are
unquestioned and unquestionable; but there is more than mere natural
genius in his writings. They are the work of a man of no mean education,
and bear the stamp--however spontaneously his songs sing themselves in
our ears--of culture and study. In a letter to Dr. Moore several years
later than now, Burns himself declared against the popular view. 'I have
not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn the Muses' trade is a
gift bestowed by Him who forms the secret bias of the soul; but I as
firmly believe that _excellence_ in the profession is the fruit of
industry, attention, labour, and pains. At least I am resolved to try my
doctrine by the test of experience.' There is a class of people,
however, to whom this will sound heretical, forbidding them, as it were,
the right to babble with grovelling familiarity of Rab, Rob, Robbie,
Scotia's Bard, and the Ploughman Poet; and insisting on his name being
spoken with conscious pride of utterance, Robert Burns, Poet.

Gilbert Burns, writing to Dr. Currie of the school-days under Mr.
Murdoch, says: 'We learnt to read English tolerably well, and to write a
little. He taught us, too, the English Grammar. I was to