Note 82 — Front matter (continued 2)

Apparently the "best evidence" is conflicting. Burns, in his autobiographical letter to Dr. Moore, says of himself as a boy: "I was, perhaps, the most ungainly, awkward being in the parish." And Murdock, Burns's schoolmaster, in a letter printed in Currie's Life and reproduced in Lockhart's, says: "Robert's ear was remarkably dull, and his voice untamable.... Robert's countenance was generally grave and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind."