anyone. He made the best amends he could to "the bonnie lass" by
giving her his written acknowledgment of marriage--a process perfectly
legal in Scotland, though irregular--but her father still hoped for a
more advantageous alliance for his daughter, and refused her to the
poor poet; a sentiment in which the daughter, to all appearances,
heartily joined.

It is interesting to think of this poverty-stricken family rejecting
Burns, even after matters had gone thus far, on account of his lack of
wealth, when he had at that very time, in his little desk, poems for
which the world has since paid millions of pounds. But the future is
often unseen, even by those highest in learning and deepest in wit;
and it is little wonder that the unsophisticated family were unable to
know even the pecuniary value of our young ploughman's brain.

Discouraged and depressed the young poet resolved on emigrating to
Jamaica, as book-keeper of a wealthy planter. In order to procure the
money with which to pay the expenses of his journey, and no doubt
partly in pursuance of the plan made that day in the garden, he
decided to publish a small volume, by subscription, which he did, at
Kilmarnock, in July, 1786, having as the title-page of the book,
"Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect; by Robert Burns." It will be
seen that he now dropped the fifth and sixth letters from the name
inherited of his father, and the boy Burness became the man Burns.

This book achieved immediate and unexpected success; and having
realized a few pounds from its profits, Burns set out for Greenock,
where he was to take ship for his new West Indian home. But his poems
had attracted so much attention, and had been the cause of such
commendation, that he was finally encouraged to stay and enjoy some of
the fruits of his genius, which the world was now beginning to
discover.

In November of the same year, encouraged by verbal praises and written
commendations, some of them all the way from the literary centre of
Edinburgh, he journeyed to that city, where he was received with great
cordiality by many of the leading people, and urged to issue a second
edition of his poems, which he did in April of the ensuing year. It
was sold, like the first one, by subscription, and netted the author a
much larger sum; while it procured him fame, all through the country,
as "The Ploughman Poet."

During this year he took several tours in different parts of his
native Scotland, in