*Carlyle.
The writer of that song was, like Caedmon long ago, a son of the
soil, he, too, was a "heaven-taught ploughman."*
*Henry Mackenzie.
While Goldsmith lay a-dying in London, in the breezy Scottish
Lowlands a big rough lad of fifteen called Robert Burns was
following his father's plow by day, poring over Shakespeare, the
Spectator, and Pope's Homer, of nights, not knowing that in years
to come he was to be remembered as our greatest song writer.
Robert was the son of a small farmer. The Burns had been farmer
folk for generations, but William Burns had fallen on evil days.
From his northern home he drifted to Ayrshire, and settled down
in the village of Alloway as a gardener. Here with his own hands
he built himself a mud cottage. It consisted only of a "room"
and a kitchen, whitewashed within and without. In the kitchen
there was a fireplace, a bed, and a small cupboard, and little
else beyond the table and chairs.
And in this poor cottage, in the wild January weather of 1759,
wee Robert was born.
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