I should like Robert Burns, I really should. From where I’m sitting right now I can see the hill that inspired his poem “O, Were I On Parnassus Hill”. Burns would see it on his way home from Dumfries-shire and knew it meant it wouldn’t be long til he was reunited with his wife Jean Armour. “On Corsincon I’ll glowr and spell,” he wrote, “And write how dear I love thee.”

I can also, if I walk down the road a bit, see the river that inspired Burns to write these words: “How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales, Where bounding hawthorns gayly bloom”. There’s also a line about “lambkins wantoning through the broom”. But the problem – and I appreciate there’s lots of people who disagree and love his work dearly – is that it’s all a bit, a bit, well … fromage.

Another part of the problem for me is that, whenever I read about Burns, I struggle to like him or click with him. Alan Cumming is doing a new show about the poet at the Edinburgh Festival next month and his take on the man’s life was that it followed a “rock star arc” and that it was a “hot mess”. That seems like a pretty good summary to me: mess, and mush.

However, Cumming said something else interesting: Burns, he said, was “representative of Scottish values” which is a meaningless phrase of course – there’s no such thing as Scottish values. But what I think he meant was that Burns was edgy and rebellious – and remember too that Cumming was one of the Slebs for Yes; he’s a supporter of independence and perhaps he thinks Burns would have been too.

He may be right. The perception of Burns as the edgy one – the one who might have voted Yes – may also be why the poet’s star has stayed high while Walter Scott’s has faded. There’s a common perception of Scott as a Unionist and a high Tory and that may be one reason why, for some Scots, his reputation and fame is a little more wobbly and less likeable than Burns’s.

The thing is, though, it’s all a lot more nuanced than that – as history usually is. I wrote about Scott when his home at Abbotsford was refurbished and reopened and a reader pointed out at the time that Scott’s letters show a distinct and strong Scottish voice.

Take this for example: “There has been in England a gradual and progressive system of assuming the management of affairs entirely and exclusively proper to Scotland, as if we were totally unworthy of having the management of our own concerns.” Is that “unionist” or “nationalist”? The truth is it could be both: Scott probably did support the union but he also supported a strong individual Scottish voice and action.

And if it’s true that Scott’s supposed Toryism and unionism is part of the explanation for a fading of his star in Scotland – but not in other parts of the world, far from it – then the second year of the Walter Scott festival, which starts next month, could be part of putting that right. It will be held at Abbotsford and for good reason because it’s there that you get a real and compelling sense of who Scott was.

First, he was an innovator: Abbotsford had an early version of underfloor heating and was the first house in Scotland to have gas. Second, he was a slogger: when he got into debt, he worked and worked until he paid it off. Third, he was curious: he collected all kinds of bits and pieces including a lock of Napoleon’s hair and a cape worn by Marie Antoinette. And don’t forget that he was massively popular: Waverley sold more in one year than Pride and Prejudice did in Jane Austen’s lifetime.

I also can’t forget what one of the curators at Abbotsford told me as I walked round the house, which taps into what Cumming seemed to be on about: Scott isn’t as cool or funky as Burns, the curator said. But what’s revealed at Abbotsford is an inquisitive man with prodigious energy. I like this guy and I think his reputation and popularity needs readjustment, some boosting. Down with Rabbie, I say, and up with Walter! And there’s something else the curator said that makes a lot of sense: Scotland is big enough for two great writers.

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