e Lindsay.

Of this fact Burns was perfectly aware, and he was not only candid but
generous in his acknowledgment of his debt to his immediate
predecessors.

My senses wad be in a creel, [head would be turned]
Should I but dare a hope to speel, [climb]
Wi' Allan, or wi' Gilbertfield,
The braes o' fame; [hills]
Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel, [lawyer-fellow]
A deathless name.

He knew Ramsay's collection and had a perhaps exaggerated admiration
for _The Gentle Shepherd_. This poem, published in 1728, not only
holds a unique position in the history of the pastoral drama, but is
important in the present connection as being to Burns the most signal
evidence of the possibility of a dignified literature in the modern
vernacular. Hamilton and Ramsay had exchanged rhyming epistles in the
six-line stanza, and in these Burns found the model for his own
epistles. Hamilton's _Last Dying Words of Bonny Heck_--a favorite
grey-hound--had been imitated by Ramsay in _Lucky Spence's Last
Advice_ and the _Last Speech of a Wretched Miser_, and the form had
become a Scottish convention before Burns produced his _Death and
Dying Words of Poor Mailie_. As important as any of these was the
example set by Ramsay and bettered by Burns of refurbishing old
indecent or fragmentary songs. Robert Fergusson (1750-1774) was
regarded by Burns still more highly than Ramsay, and his influence was
even more potent. In his autobiographical letter to Doctor Moore he
tells that about 1782 he had all but given up rhyming: "but meeting
with Fergusson's _Scotch Poems_, I strung anew my wildly-sounding,
rustic lyre with emulating vigour." In the preface to the Kilmarnock
edition he is still more explicit as to his attitude.

"To the poems of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor,
unfortunate Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity,
declares, that, even in the highest pulse of vanity, he has not
the most distant pretensions. These two justly admired Scotch
Poets he has often had in his eye in the following pieces; but
rather with a view to kindle at their flame, than for servile
imitation."

To be more specific, Burns found the model for his _Cotter's Saturday
Night_ in Fergusson's _Farmer's Ingle_, for _The Holy Fair_ in his
_Leith Races_, for _Scotch Drink_ in his _Caller Water_, for _The Twa