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A 'Heavenly taught ploughman' <ref>The History Today Who's Who,p 122</ref> the poet and songwriter Robert Burns was born into a farming family at Alloway in Ayrshire on January the 25th 1759. He died in Dumfries at the early age of 37 yet in his short life he took the literary world by storm establishing himself as a poet of "tenderness, roughness &mdash; delicacy, coarseness &mdash; sentiment, sensuality &mdash; dirt and deity"<ref>Lord Byron</ref> Burns is a Scottish cultural icon and his birthday is celebrated each year with supper on Burns Nicht.

A 'Heavenly taught ploughman' <ref>The History Today Who's Who,p 122</ref> the [[poet]] and songwriter '''Robert Burns''' was born into a farming family at Alloway in Ayrshire on January the 25th 1759. He died in Dumfries at the early age of 37 yet in his short life he took the literary world by storm establishing himself as a poet of "tenderness, roughness &mdash; delicacy, coarseness &mdash; sentiment, sensuality &mdash; dirt and deity"<ref>Lord Byron</ref> Burns is a Scottish cultural icon and his birthday is celebrated each year with supper on Burns Nicht.

His father, William Burnes, was a poor farmer but he recognised the importance of an education and so with help from friends contracted the services of a local teacher, John Murdoch. At an early age, it was apparent to Murdoch that the young Robert showed potential.<ref>Scotland, William Ferguson,p220</ref> Like most farm children though the opportunity for formal education was limited because children had to help on the farm, especially at harvest time. This hard physical work caused Robert Burns to develop the heart condition rheumatic fever which was later to claim his life at an early age.

His father, William Burnes, was a poor farmer but he recognized the importance of an education and so with help from friends contracted the services of a local teacher, John Murdoch. At an early age, it was apparent to Murdoch that the young Robert showed potential.<ref>Scotland, William Ferguson,p220</ref> Like most farm children though the opportunity for formal education was limited because children had to help on the farm, especially at harvest time. This hard physical work caused Robert Burns to develop the heart condition rheumatic fever which was later to claim his life at an early age.

In 1766 William Burness rented on borrowed money the farm of Mount Oliphant, and in taking his share in the effort to make this undertaking succeed, the future poet seems to have seriously over strained his health. In 1771 Burns went to the neighboring town of Irvine to learn flax-dressing. The only result of this experiment, however, was the formation of an friendship with a dissipated sailor, whom he afterward blamed as the prompter of his first licentious adventures.<ref>Scotland, William Ferguson,p221</ref> His father died in 1784, and with his brother Gilbert the poet rented the farm of Mossgiel; but this venture was as unsuccessful as the others. In the meantime he had formed an irregular intimacy with Jean Armour, for which he was censured by the local Kirk (church) session. As a result of his farming misfortunes, and the attempts of his father-in-law to overthrow his irregular marriage with Jean, he decided to emigrate; and in order to pay for the passage he published ''Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect'' (Kilmarnock, 1786), a volume of the poems which he had been composing from time to time for some years. This volume was hugely successful, so that, instead of sailing for the West Indies, he went up to Edinburgh, and during that winter he was the chief literary celebrity of the season, the toast of the Scottish Enlightenment. An enlarged edition of his poems was published there in 1787, and the money derived from this enabled him to help his brother, and to buy the farm of Ellisland in Dumfriesshire.  

In 1766 William Burness rented on borrowed money the farm of Mount Oliphant, and in taking his share in the effort to make this undertaking succeed, the future poet seems to have seriously over strained his health. In 1771 Burns went to the neighboring town of Irvine to learn flax-dressing. The only result of this experiment, however, was the formation of an friendship with a dissipated sailor, whom he afterward blamed as the prompter of his first licentious adventures.<ref>Scotland, William Ferguson,p221</ref> His father died in 1784, and with his brother Gilbert the poet rented the farm of Mossgiel; but this venture was as unsuccessful as the others. In the meantime he had formed an irregular intimacy with Jean Armour, for which he was censured by the local Kirk (church) session. As a result of his farming misfortunes, and the attempts of his father-in-law to overthrow his irregular marriage with Jean, he decided to emigrate; and in order to pay for the passage he published ''Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect'' (Kilmarnock, 1786), a volume of the poems which he had been composing from time to time for some years. This volume was hugely successful, so that, instead of sailing for the West Indies, he went up to Edinburgh, and during that winter he was the chief literary celebrity of the season, the toast of the Scottish Enlightenment. An enlarged edition of his poems was published there in 1787, and the money derived from this enabled him to help his brother, and to buy the farm of Ellisland in Dumfriesshire.