ng from one friend's house to another," to avoid the
jail with which he was threatened by Jean Armour's father, that the
volume appeared, containing the immortal poems (1786). That Burns
himself had some true estimate of their real worth is shown by the way
in which he expresses himself in his preface to his volume.

Ushered in with what Lockhart calls, a "modest and manly preface," the
Kilmarnock volume went forth to the world. The fame of it spread at
once like wild-fire throughout Ayrshire and the parts adjacent. This
is the account of its reception given by Robert Heron, a young
literary man, who was at that time living in the Stewartry of
Kirkcudbright:--"Old and young, high and low, grave and gay, learned
or ignorant, were alike delighted, agitated, transported. I was at
that time resident in Galloway, contiguous to Ayrshire, and I can well
remember how even ploughboys and maid-servants would have gladly
bestowed the wages they earned most hardly, and which they wanted to
purchase necessary clothing, if they might procure the works of
Burns." The edition consisted of six hundred copies--three hundred and
fifty had been subscribed for before publication, and the remainder
seems to have been sold off in about two mouths from their first (p. 034)
appearance. When all expenses were paid, Burns received twenty pounds
as his share of the profits. Small as this sum was, it would have more
than sufficed to convey him to the West Indies; and, accordingly, with
nine pounds of it he took a steerage passage in a vessel which was
expected to sail from Greenock at the beginning of September. But from
one cause or another the day of sailing was postponed, his friends
began to talk of trying to get him a place in the Excise, his fame was
rapidly widening in his own country, and his powers were finding a
response in minds superior to any which he had hitherto known. Up to
this time he had not associated with any persons of a higher grade
than the convivial lawyers of Mauchline and Ayr, and the mundane
ministers of the New Light school. But now persons of every rank were
anxious to become acquainted with the wonderful Ayrshire Ploughman,
for it was by that name he now began to be known, just as in the next
generation another poet of as humble birth was spoken of as The
Ettrick Shepherd. The first persons of a higher order who sought the
acquaintanceship of Burns were Dugald Stewart and Mrs. Dunlop of
Dunlop. The former of these t