a Scottish poet. He appears to have been well known to his literary contemporaries in Scotland and England. He became court poet to the queen of King James I and VI. He wrote poems in Latin, Greek, and English, and was one of the first Scots to write in standard English. His major work was Diophantus and Charidora. Inconstancy Upbraided is perhaps the best of his short poems. He is credited with a little poem, Old Long Syne, which probably suggested Robert Burns's famous Auld Lang Syne.
