Robert Aytoun of the first Scots to write in standard English. His major work was "Diophantus and Charidora". "Inconstancy Upbraided" is perhaps the best of his short poems. He is credited with a little poem, "Old Long Syne", which probably suggested Robert Burns's famous "Auld Lang Syne". He is also the author of a ballad called "Bothwell" about the battle fought by James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell with the border reiver, John Elliot of Park, also known as Little Jock Elliot or Little Jock of the Park. The ballad recounts how Bothwell, in attempting to arrest Little Jock Elliot, suffers life-threatening
Clifton Johnson (author) (1896) and ‘’The Days of Auld Lang Syne’’ (which the New York times predicted would appeal to the reading public and prove popular as gifts), as well as Barrie’s "Window in Thrums" (1896). On his third trip to Great Britain (1897), Johnson took photographs for an illustrated edition of Charles Dicken’s "Illustrated History of England" (1898). He traveled by train, stagecoach, river boat, canal barge, hired horse or even by foot. He liked to stay in small towns and villages rather than cities and preferred to sleep in farmhouses which he felt gave him a better chance to observe habitual