Thomas Wilson Bayne

“ Burns summarily disposes of him as 'a sleight-of-hand blackguard.' Jean Glover had the reputation of being the best singer and actor in the company, and in gaudy attire she used to play on a tambourine in the street to attract customers to her husband 'juggling in a room down a close.' In her player's finery she struck one ingenuous observer as 'the brawest woman that had ever been seen to step in leather shoon.' Her bright, melodious lyric 'Ower the muir among the Heather' is a genuine addition to Scottish pastoral poetry. She may have composed others, but they are not preserved ”

“ His father impressed him by his manly self-dependence and his sterling integrity, while his mother by her songs and legends gave him a taste for literature and a bias towards her beloved west highlands. ”

“ In 1771 Fergusson became a regular contributor to Ruddiman's ‘Weekly Magazine, or Edinburgh Amusement.’ He began with ‘Pastorals,’ according to the orthodox method of the eighteenth century. Presently, however, by the contribution of several Scottish poems, he was hailed as the direct successor to Allan Ramsay. From all parts of the country his fame began to be sounded, and before the end of 1772 he was the intimate friend of many of the most important and the most gifted men of Scotland. ”

“ He was born in 1700 in Aberdeen, and was educated there. He may be the James Ogilvie who graduated at King's College, Aberdeen, in 1790. Emigrating to America, he for some time conducted a classical academy in Richmond, Virginia, leaving the impression of being 'a man of singular endowments,' gifted with the power of rousing the mind from its torpor and lending it wings' (Southern Literary Messenger, vol. xiv.) Of a philosophical temperament, Ogilvie developed from a school rhetorician into a public lecturer, rebutting the theories of Godwin, of which in youth he had been enamoured. ”

“ On the war breaking out with France in 1793, Dougall was transferred to the yacht Clarence, trading to the Mediterranean from the north of Scotland, and furnished with a letter of marque authorising reprisals on the high seas. When this vessel was lying at Greenock news was received, on 14 June 1794, of Lord Howe's great victory a fortnight earlier over the French, and, on a salute being fired in honour of the event, an accidental discharge from a mismanaged gun wounded Dougall terribly in the right side and permanently destroyed his eyesight. ”

“ His plans were taken up and matured by Brougham, Hume, and others, and he was fond of recurring to the accomplished fact of the London University as ‘the only important event in his life's little history.’ His interest in education and his eminence as an author were recognised by the students of Glasgow University, who elected him lord rector three times in succession (1826–9) , the third time over no less formidable a rival than Sir Walter Scott. Mrs. Campbell's death, in 1828, was an incalculable loss to an unmethodical man like Campbell, who was never quite himself afterwards. ”

“ In 1757 Wilkie published ‘The Epigoniad,’ in nine books, based on the fourth book of the ‘Iliad,’ and written in heroic couplets in the manner of Pope's ‘Homer.’ To a second edition in 1759 he appended an ingenious apologetic ‘Dream in the manner of Spenser.’ On the appearance of this edition Hume warmly eulogised ‘The Epigoniad’ in a letter to the ‘Critical Review,’ complaining that the journal had unduly depreciated the poem when first published. Wilkie has no genuine right to be called ‘the Scottish Homer,’ but as a mere achievement in verse his ‘epic’ is creditable ”

“ Henryson is abreast of the culture of his time, and loftily moralises (both in the ‘Fables’ and the philosophical lyrics) on the troubles of his fatherland. His ‘Abbey Walk,’ ‘Garmond of Gude Ladeis,’ ‘Ressoning betwixt Aige and Yowth,’ and the like, show him as a strict didactic philosopher and Christian optimist. He is the first pure lyrist among Scottish poets. ”

“ He was the second son of James Hamilton of Bangour, advocate, whose grandfather, James, second son of John Hamilton of Little Earnock, Lanarkshire, founded the Bangour family. On the death of his elder brother, without heir, in 1750, Hamilton succeeded to the estate. His naturally delicate constitution, as well as his tastes, had all along prevented him from going much into fashionable society, and from his early years he had given himself to poetry, receiving ready commendation from his friends. ”

“ Hogg deserved the approbation he received from his distinguished compeers. Scott probably understood him best, and invariably advised him well, receiving him heartily after a period of alienation owing to the ‘Poetic Mirror,’ and acting as peacemaker when Hogg became exasperated with Blackwood and the magazine. Wilson had a real and deep affection for the Ettrick Shepherd, as the idealism of the ‘Noctes’ shows, and it is to be regretted that he did not write Hogg's biography, as at one time he intended. ”

“ An acquaintanceship, begun in 1833, resulted in Kennedy's appointment as secretary to the Earl of Durham, when he went to Canada in 1838 as governor-general. After the earl's retirement at the end of the year Kennedy travelled in America, and sent to London a municipal report on Canadian institutions, which was printed for parliamentary use. He studied the question of local government in the principal cities of the United States, and settled for some months in Texas, where he formed lasting friendships with leading men and amassed materials for a history of that country. ”

“ Wrinkle, wile, falsehood, he avers, abounded in his conduct as long as he ‘did beir the freiris style,’ but he felt he must be otherwise placed to give full expression to his genuine manhood. He would remain devoted to the church, but he would likewise seek to be honest, and true to his higher nature. ”

“ He spent the remainder of his days in Edinburgh, devoting himself zealously to the production and the criticism of Scottish song. He had published in 1811 a volume entitled ‘Poems and Songs,’ which went into a second edition at the end of three years. In 1813, on a visit to Anstruther, he had joined in the formation of a ‘Musomanik Society,’ a medium through which, in the four years of its existence, the members made original contributions to Scottish song. ”

“ The problem, in all likelihood, will never be solved. The one thing clear about Dunbar after Flodden is that he was dead in 1530, for in that year Sir David Lyndsay, in his ‘Testament and Complaynt of the Papyngo,’ pays him a high tribute as a poet of the past. There is something to be said for Laing's inference, from Lyndsay's reference to Gawin Douglas as the greatest of poets recently deceased, that Dunbar's death must be placed earlier than 1522, the year in which Douglas is known to have died. ”

“ Although self-taught in musical theory, Hume was very successful in setting tunes both to standard Scottish lyrics and songs of his own. He has composed an appropriate melody to Burns's 'Afton Water;' his own pathetic lyric, 'My ain dear Nell,' has simple emotional fervour and tuneful grace. ”

“ Campbell went to the Glasgow grammar school in his eighth year, and became both a good classical scholar and a promising poet, under the fostering care of his teacher, David Alison, who prophesied distinction for his pupil. On going to the university in October 1791, he studied very hard, and quickly excelled as a classical scholar, debater, and poetical translator from Greek. Genial and witty, he was liked and admired by professors and fellow-students. ”

“ Scott, in addition to frequent references, embalmed his ‘bright and brief career’ in the ‘Lord of the Isles,’ iv. xi. Lord Cockburn, after referring to his unconscious egotism and his uncouth aspect and uncompromising demeanour—characteristics also noted by Scott and Lockhart—declares there was ‘no walk in life, depending on ability, where Leyden could not have shone’ (Memorials of his Time, p. 179) . The Ettrick Shepherd bewailed the loss of the poet's ‘glowing measure,’ and Lockhart fully recognised his extraordinary abilities and attainments as a scholar (Life of Scott, i. 324, &c.) ”

“ His fellow-student, Hamilton Paul, sent him a playful letter here, enclosing a few lines entitled ‘Pleasures of Solitude,’ and, after a jocose reference to Akenside and Rogers, bade Campbell cherish the ‘Pleasures of Hope’ ‘that they would soon meet in Alma Mater.’ This probably was the germ of the poem that was completed within a few years. Campbell returned to the university for the winter, finally leaving it in the spring of 1796. ”

“ Kennedy published in 1826 ‘Fancy's Tour with the Genius of Cruelty, and other Poems.’ In the leading piece he studies ‘what man has made of man,’ drawing upon sacred and profane history from the time of Cain to that of Claverhouse, and producing a series of bold and striking pictures. ”

“ Montgomerie, in the course of his appeal, denominates Hudson the 'only brother of the Sisters nyne,' and predicts for him a secure immortality through his 'Homer's style' and his 'Petrarks high invent.' Four sonnets by him alone survive. ”

“ The suggestion, sometimes made, that Dunbar may have been morally unfit for the position of parish priest is worthless, for besides the fact that a man's character must have been very bad indeed to debar him in those days from church preferment, it has been ascertained that Dunbar was in full orders. ”

“ After her mother and sisters had died, and she lived alone in the house in Brown Square, Edinburgh, while cautiously coming forward with the fashions, she was slow to break with the past, and was prone to condemn the novelties following in the wake of the French revolution. She is said to have been the last woman in Edinburgh to make regular use of her own sedan-chair. ”

“ While at his loom, however, during the day, he had his book conveniently placed for study, and his evenings were occupied with literature or in attending such meetings as those of an ‘essay club,’ to the members of which he inscribes his clever and witty, if somewhat irregular, ‘Thoughts on Horace.’ From 1807 to 1815 he was in the royal Ayrshire militia, serving both in Great Britain and Ireland. ”

“ LOGAN, JAMES (1794?–1872) , author of the ‘Scottish Gael,’ was born in Aberdeen about 1794, his father being a substantial merchant. He was educated at the grammar school and Marischal College, Aberdeen. He intended to become a lawyer, but a fracture of the skull, accidentally incurred while taking part in athletic sports, ruined his plans, and he took to drawing as a pastime. His friends urged him to persevere as an artist; he settled in London under the patronage of Lord Aberdeen, and studied in connection with the Royal Academy. ”

“ In 1801 Hogg and Laidlaw helped Scott with materials for the ‘Border Minstrelsy.’ After two unsuccessful attempts at farming, in Peeblesshire and Midlothian respectively, Laidlaw in 1817 became steward to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. Master and man suited each other exactly, Laidlaw proving himself not only an exemplary servant but a worthy counsellor and a devoted friend. ”

“ Hume's elder brother, Lord Polwarth, is more likely than Hume himself to have been one of the antagonists in the extravagant combat of wits known as 'The Flytin betwixt Montgomerie and Polwart.' Alexander's finest poems are 'A Description of the Day Estivall,' a lyric on a summer day, and a piece on the destruction of the Armada, characteristically entitled 'The Triumph of the Lord after the Manner of Men: alluding to the Defait of the Spanish Navie,' 1588. ”

“ He improved the estate exceedingly; laid out the village of New Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, in 1783, and did much in subsequent years to advance the interests of the villagers as well as of the tenantry. Forbes became known for his public spirit in Edinburgh. The High School, the Merchant Company, the Morningside Lunatic Asylum, and the Blind Asylum all owe much of their present excellence to his sagacity. Forbes shares with his partner, Hunter Blair, the credit due for the formation of the South Bridge. He also succeeded in giving the Scottish episcopalians a real and sure standing in Edinburgh. ”

“ Nor is this to be wondered at, for no ballad in the language is more remarkable for its dramatic propriety and its exhaustive delineation of its theme.
Within a few years after 1756 many changes took place in the family of Minto. Sir Gilbert himself died, and was succeeded by his son Gilbert; other sons were making their way in the world; and Jane Elliot with her mother and sisters left their home and settled in Edinburgh. ”

“ AINSLIE, HEW (1792–1878) , Scottish poet, was born in the parish of Dailly, in Ayrshire, 5 April 1792. After a fair education, he became in turn a clerk in Glasgow, a landscape gardener in his native district, and a clerk in the Register House, Edinburgh. For a short time he was amanuensis to Dugald Stewart. In 1822, being then ten years married to his cousin, Ainslie emigrated to America, where he continued to live with varied fortune for the rest of his days, paying a short visit to Scotland in 1864. ”

“ Towards the end of 1810 Lord Minto appointed Leyden assay-master of the mint at Calcutta, and in 1811 he accompanied Lord Minto to Java, ‘to assist,’ as he wrote to his father on the voyage, ‘in settling the country when conquered, and as interpreter for the Malay language’ (White, Supplement to Sir Walter Scott's Memoir, p. 103) . When the expedition halted for some days at Malacca, Leyden journeyed inland, scrutinising ‘original Malays’ and visiting sulphurous hot wells. Java was reached on 4 Aug., and as there was no opposition at Batavia a leisurely possession was effected. ”

“ HUME, ANNA (fl. 1644) , daughter of David Hume of Godscroft (1560?–1630?) [q. v.] , superintended the publication of her father's 'History of the House and Race of Douglas and Angus.' William Douglas, eleventh earl of Angus, and first marquis of Douglas [q. v.] , who was dissatisfied with Hume's work, consulted Drummond of Hawthornden. Drummond admitted various defects and extravagant views in Hume, adding, however, that the suppression of the book would ruin the gentlewoman, 'who hath ventured, she says, her whole fortune' on its publication (Arch. Scot. iv. 95) . ”

“ During his last five years he was an active member of literary and debating societies, and contributed poems to the ‘Compass,’ a local literary paper, and to the ‘Liverpool Mercury.’ Thackeray somewhat tardily accepted for the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ his ‘Leaf of Woodruff,’ which Leighton meanwhile, impatient of editorial delay, had published in the ‘Compass.’ He gradually mastered a fluent and energetic style. ”