SOURCE: "The 'Annus Mirabilis,' 1785," in Robert Burns and the 18th-Century Revival of Scottish Vernacular Poetry, Aberdeen University Press, 1969, pp. 169-89.

In the following excerpt Angus-Butterworth examines the histories and inspirations of several of Burns's famous poems.

The Cottar's Saturday Night

It has often been noticed that Burns drew his inspiration for The Cottar's Saturday Night from Fergusson's poem The Farmer's Ingle, and this as a bare statement may give the impression that one is derived from the other. Actually the connection between the two is so slight that little more than the general idea was borrowed.

We can imagine the impact made on Burns's mind by the descriptions which the earlier poet gives of the farmer's home life, and how his imagination must have been fired by the depiction of scenes which he knew much better than Fergusson. Here, indeed, was a theme so intimately within his...