"all in honour of a more-or-less uneducated farmer who died at 37"

One thing he (Robert Burns) most certainly wasn't was "more-or-less uneducated". He was educated in English, Mathematics, French, Latin and some classical Greek. Later in life, as an Excise Officer, he acquired a "working" knowledge of German.

He was extremely articulate, and a gifted debater, he took on many of the most powerful and influential men of the day in Scotland. Most had the sense not to resort to law or to react - they knew that they would lose. The others were too thick to realise that they were being lampooned.

In 1794 Burns was offered a job writing for a London newspaper, The Morning Chronicle, he turned then down.