1914] on Some Portraits of Shakespeare and Burns 



39 



of Arran, is just that represented by the skull of Robert Burns. The 

 same type is found in the long l3arrows of Ens^land. Of the six 

 skulls, one was 210 millimetres long, another 201. In Fig. 13, one 

 of these skulls — one of the most complete — from the Cairn at 

 Clachaig is represented. The outline of Burns' skull, drawn to the 

 same scale, is indicated by a stippled line. There can be no doubt 

 as to the identity of types. The poet's skull is fuller and wider than 

 the neolithic ones. In the neolithic period — 4000 years or more 

 before our time — the race to which Burns belonged lived in the 

 country round the Firth of Clyde. "\Ye find that the ancestor of the 

 poet who settled in Kincardine and took the name of Burness was 



2oa 



BURNS 



Fig. 12 



OLMO 



View of the cast of Burns' skull seen from above and contrasted 

 with a similar view of the Olmo skull. 



originally Walter Campbell, of Argyll. His mother, Agnes Brown, 

 was an Ayrshii'e woman. Burns, then is a direct descendant of the 

 long-headed people who lived in England and Scotland during the 

 neolithic period — at least, during the later part of that period. 

 Where those long-headed people were originally evolved, where they 

 came from, we do not know. They were certainly of the same stock 

 as that race which goes by the name of Iberian. When they reached 

 Britain, they found that country already populated by a long-headed 

 and closely allied race. Thus we have in Shakespeare and Burns — 

 in our two national poets — representatives of two of the most diver- 

 gent of European stocks. If we use the term " Celt " in the same 

 sense as it is employed on the Continent, then we must call Shakes- 



