Robert Burns, the most celebrated of all Scottish poets, is remembered with great devotion - his birthday on 25th January provokes fervour and festivity among Scots and many others the world over. Born in 1759 into miserable rustic poverty, by the age of eighteen Burns had acquired a good knowledge of both classical and English literature. In June 1786 his first collection of verse, Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which included To a Mouse and The Cotter's Saturday Night, was greeted with huge acclaim by all classes of society. His later poems and ballads include Auld Lang Syne, the beautiful song My Love is like a Red Red Rose, Highland Mary, Scots Wha Hae and his masterpiece, Tam O'Shanter. AUTHOR: Robert Burns was born on 25th January 1759 in Alloway Scotland, the eldest of the seven children of William Burness. He was a Scottish poet and a lyricist and is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland who is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a "light" Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these works, his political and civil commentary is often at its most blunt. Burns is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement and after his death became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism.