When the young and still obscure Robert Burns arrived in Edinburgh in 1786, he was hailed as the heav'n-taught ploughman, a characterization that, with its aura of primitive purity, strongly appealed to the intellectuals of the sentimental era. Today, this demeaningly rustic image of Burns persists - at least outside Scotland -in the form of a general critical view that denies the skill and sophistication of his finest works, including the ironic...