This weeks article is a guest submission by a good friend and colleague of mine, Michael Murray. Michael is a member of the Irvine Burns club and is a past president of that club. He also took this picture of the statue of Burns situated on Irvine Moor.

Robert Burns 25 Jan 1759 - 21 Jul 1796

Edinburgh and Success

Robert had been rejected as a son in law by James Armour despite the fact that Robert an Jean Armour had an Attestation of Marriage which was a legal form of marriage in Scotland until well into the twentieth century. The marriage was finally recognised formally in 1788, some three years after the original attestation.

After the success of the Kilmarnock Edition, Robert was invited to Edinburgh where he was lionised by the literary society and he published an Edinburgh Edition of his poems in 1787. Also around this time he made a number of tours of various parts of Scotland. This prompted Burns to begin what is a very underrated part of his work. He spent many years collecting old songs and fragments of songs, many of which had not been committed to print. He reworked these and contributed them at no profit to himself, to Johnson's "Scots Musical Museum" and Thomson's "Select Collection of Scottish Airs."

This work did much to preserve a very important part of Scotland's cultural heritage. These works include such famous songs as "Auld Lang Syne" and "My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose" . Much of the work, which he prepared for Thomson was songs which were written by Burns to tunes supplied by Thomson. Two of the great songs, which came from this work are "Scots Wha Hae", and "A Mans A Man", which would both be on most Scots shortlist for a Scottish anthem.

As stated earlier much of his best work was written during the Mauchline years. This work includes " To a Mouse", "The Twa Dogs", "The Holy Fair", "The Cotter's Saturday Night", "The Jolly Beggars", Holy Willie's Prayer" "Death and Doctor Hornbook" and "The First Epistle to John Lapraik", to name but a few.

Although heavily involved with his work for the excise whom he joined when he moved to Ellisland, in Dumfries in 1788 he still managed to write poetry, work long hours with the Excise, contribute to Thomson's publication, and bring up a family. It was shortly before he gave up the lease of Ellisland farm in 1791 that he wrote what many believe to be his masterpiece, "Tam o' Shanter".