Substantial pieces on Scottish themes are assembled in this volume, from Albyn (1927) to A Political Speech delivered at Glasgow University in 1972.The editor has focused on MacDiarmid's view of powerful figures in Scottish culture, notably David Hume and - of particular interest in this Burns bicentenary year - Robert Burns.MacDiarmid's consideration of Burns in the year celebrating the bicentenary of his birth (1952) has lost none of its iconoclastic force.