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
Auld Lang Syne each word, rather than the slight melisma required to fit Burns' original words to the melody. The tune to which "Auld Lang Syne" is commonly sung is a pentatonic Scots folk melody, probably originally a sprightly dance in a much quicker tempo. English composer William Shield seems to quote the "Auld Lang Syne" melody briefly at the end of the overture to his opera "Rosina"', which may be its first recorded use. The contention that Burns borrowed the melody from Shield is for various reasons highly unlikely, although they may very well both have taken it from a common source,