Traces the first newspaper and chapbook publication of Robert Burns's poem "Written in Friar's Carse Hermitage," written in 1788 and first published in September 1791 in the Glasgow Courier; links the publication to that of Burns's "Ode to the Shade [or in Memory] of [James] Thomson," written for the Earl of Buchan's Thomson commemoration that year; and also connects publication in both formats to Burns's friend the Glasgow publisher William Reid, although this chapbook antedates by several years the date usually given for the first chapbook publications by the firm of Brash and Reid.