Poet. As one of Scotland's greatest poets, his works became a major influence and inspiration to Scottish poet Robert Burns. The youngest of three surviving children, his father was employed as a copying clerk. He received his formal schooling at Edinburgh's Royal High School and the High School of Dundee, Scotland. In 1765 he was enrolled at the University of Saint Andrews in Fife, Scotland where he began writing poetry. Two years later, his father died, and he returned to Edinburgh without completing his studies, in order to provide support for his mother as his older siblings had left home. Having rejected the clergy, medicine, and law as career options that were available to him due to his university training, he opted to follow his father's career. During this time, he became a regular contributor of poems to "The Weekly Magazine" or "Edinburgh Amusement," and became involved in Edinburgh's social and artistic circles, rubbing shoulders with musicians, artists, actors, and booksellers, who were also publishers. In 1769 he befriended Italian castrato singer Giusto Fernando Tenducci, who was touring with a production of the opera Artaxerxes. Tenducci asked him to write some Scottish airs for the Edinburgh performance and he supplied three, which were performed and published with the libretto. In 1771 he began contributing his poems to Walter Ruddiman's "Weekly Review", first in the English language and later in the Scottish language. His first poem, "The Daft Days," was published in January 1772 and from then on, he submitted poetry in both languages. His poetry gained popularity, persuading Ruddiman to publish a first general edition of his poems, which sold around 500 copies, enabling him to clear a profit. Shortly after that he attempted his own publication of "Auld Reekie," his most famous poem that described, in the Scottish language, a day in the life of his home city that was intended to be the first part of a planned long poem. His later works appeared to become more darkly melancholic, suggesting that he was suffering from a deep depression. In late 1773 he wrote "Poem to the Memory of John Cunningham," which was composed on learning the death of that poet in an asylum in Newcastle, Scotland, and expressed fears of a similar fate. He fell prey to what at the time was called "religious melancholia", during which he completely stopped writing, withdrawing from his friends and riotous social life, and spent his time reading the Bible. In August 1774 he sustained a severe head injury under circumstances that are obscure (some say that he fell down a flight of stairs). His mother attempted to care for him, but he was finally admitted against his will into the Edinburgh Darien House "hospital" (a public asylum) where he died at the age of 24 and was buried in an unmarked grave at the Canongate Churchyard. In 1789 Robert Burns paid to have a headstone placed on his grave. In October 2004 a memorial statue in his honor was erected outside of the Canongate Churchyard.