Robert Burns (1759-96), was the eldest son of a tenant farmer in Ayrshire. He endured hardship and frustration before emerging as poet and song-writer in his native dialect as well as English. His Poems were published in 1787, and when he received part of the money which the new edition earned for him, he made a number of tours, to the Borders and to the Highlands. Otherwise, apart from a return visit to Ayrshire, he was to spend the winter of 1787-8 in Edinburgh also. Later, he lived in Dumfriesshire and became an Excise Officer. Burns's literary work in the remaining years of his life consists of many outstanding songs, and the poem 'Tam o' Shanter'.