William Nicholson, the 'Galloway Poet' (1782-1849), was the son of a carrier, and was born near Borgue in Kirkcudbright. He became a pedlar in boyhood, but not before he was master of all the available chapbooks, ballads, and lore of the country-side. He also composed and recited songs, published a volume of verse-tales and poems in 1814 (2nd ed. in 1828; 3rd ed. 1878, with Memoir), and was ultimately a professional piper at fairs and weddings, and occasionally a cattledrover. Unluckily tippling kept him unsettled and unprosperous, even after he became an advocate of universal redemption. Some of his songs are tuneful and tender: his Brownie of Blednoch, in celebration of a kindly local sprite, is his most successful piece, and is known to readers of Dr John Brown's Hora Subseciva. Wi' a dreary, dreary hum. His face did glow like the glow o' the west, I trow the bauldest stood aback, Wi' a gape an' a glower till their lugs did crack, As the shapeless phantom mum'ling spak— 'Hae ye wark for Aiken-drum?' O, had ye seen the bairns's fright As they stared at this wild and unyirthly wight; His matted head on his breast did rest, To look at Aiken-drum. gray ears swooned thong 'I lived in a lan' where we saw nae sky, 'I'll shiel a' your sheep i' the mornin' sune, If ye 'll keep puir Aiken-drum. I'se tame 't,' quoth Aiken-drum. 'To wear the tod frae the flock on the fell, fold thresh lull waterfall churn fox shirt 'I'se seek nae guids, gear, bond, nor mark; dish of wealth Quoth the wylie auld wife: 'The thing speaks weel; Roun' a' that side what wark was dune For mony a day a toiled wight was he; But a new-made wife, fu' o' rippish freaks, Let the learned decide when they convene, Awa', ye wrangling sceptic tribe, Wi' your pros an' your cons wad ye decide Though the Brownie o' Blednoch' lang be gane, The mark o' his feet 's left on mony a stane; An' mony a wife an' mony a wean Tell the feats o' Aiken-drum. crop neat weep child E'en now, light loons that gibe an' sneer An' guidly folks hae gotten a fright, When the moon was set an' the stars gied nae light, son of William Laidlaw (1780-1845) was the Ettrick Shepherd's master at Blackhouse, and is well known to all who have read Lockhart's Life of Scott. He was Scott's companion in some of his early wanderings, his friend and land-steward in advanced years, his amanuensis in the composition of some of his novels, and he was one of the few who watched over his last sad moments. After Scott's death Laidlaw became factor on an estate in Ross-shire, where he died. One song of his is exceptionally well known: Lucy's Flittin'. Twas when the wan leaf frae the birk-tree was fa'in, She cam there afore the bloom cam on the pea ; As down the burn-side she gaed slow wi' her flittin', She heard the craw sayin 't, high on the tree sittin', Then what gars me wish ony better to be? sad intended gave I fear I hae tint my puir heart a' thegither, She thocht the dear place she wad never mair see. Lies cauld in her grave, and will never return!] The last four lines were, somewhat superfluously, added by Hogg to complete the story.' William Tennant (1785-1848) published in 1812 a singular mock-heroic poem, Anster Fairwritten in an ottava rima almost the same as that used in 1817 by Hookham Frere, and afterwards made so popular by Byron in his Beppo and Don Juan. The subject was the marriage of Maggie Lauder, a rude, rustic heroine of Scottish song; but the author exalted Maggie to higher dignity, and wrote rather for the admirers of that conventional poetry, half serious and sentimental, half ludicrous and satirical, which was cultivated by Pulci, Berni, and many other Italians. Classic imagery was lavished on familiar subjects; supernatural machinery was (as in the Rape of the Lock) blended with the ordinary details of domestic life, and with lively and fanciful description. Exuberance of animal spirits lifted the author over perilous obstacles, and his wit and fancy were rarely at fault. Such a sprightly volume, in a style then unhackneyed, was sure of success; Anster Fair sold rapidly, and has since been often republished. The author, William Tennant, a native of Anstruther, or Anster, in Fife, was a cripple from birth, and, whilst clerk to a corn-dealer, studied Eastern and Western tongues and ancient and modern literature. His attainments were rewarded in 1813 with an appointment as parish schoolmaster at Lasswade, at a salary of £40 per annum-a reward not unlike that conferred on Mr Abraham Adams in Joseph Andrews, who, being a scholar and man of virtue, was 'provided with a handsome income of £23 a year, which, however, he could not make a great figure with, because he lived in a dear country, and was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.' Tennant was afterwards (1835) appointed teacher of classics in an academy at Dollar, and finally (1835) professor of Oriental languages in St Mary's College, St Andrews. But the Orientalist produced still a couple of tragedies on the story of Cardinal Beaton (1823) and on John Baliol (1825); and two poems, The Thane of Fife and Papistry Stormed; or Dinging Down of the Cathedral. It was said of Sir David Wilkie that he took most of the figures in his pictures from living persons in his native county of Fife; it is obvious that Tennant's poems are in like manner grounded on Fife men and things, racy of the soil, and indeed their eminently local colour has probably told against their wider popularity. Anster Fair, the most diversified and richly humorous of them all, is the author's only real success, and is a distinctly animated, witty, and entertaining poem. Summer Morning. I wish I had a cottage snug and neat The bright-gowned Morning tripping up her side: And when the low Sun's glory-buskined feet Walk on the blue wave of the Ægean tide, Oh, I would kneel me down, and worship there The God who garnished out a world so bright and fair! The saffron-elbowed Morning up the slope Up heaven's blue causeway, of her beams profuse, Round through the vast circumference of sky One speck of small cloud cannot eye behold, Save in the east some fleeces bright of dye, That stripe the hem of heaven with woolly gold, Whereon are happy angels wont to lie Lolling, in amaranthine flowers enrolled, That they may spy the precious light of God, Flung from the blessed east o'er the fair Earth abroad. The fair Earth laughs through all her boundless range, Heaving her green hills high to greet the beam ; City and village, steeple, cot, and grange, Gilt as with Nature's purest leaf-gold seem; Up from their nests and fields of tender corn As half the bells of Fife ring loud and swell the sound. For when the first upsloping ray was flung On Anster steeple's swallow-harbouring top, Its bell and all the bells around were rung Sonorous, jangling, loud, without a stop; For, toilingly, each bitter beadle swung, Even till he smoked with sweat, his greasy rope, And almost broke his bell-wheel, ushering in The morn of Anster Fair with tinkle-tankling din. And, from our steeple's pinnacle outspread, The town's long colours flare and flap on high, Whose anchor, blazoned fair in green and red, Curls, pliant to each breeze that whistles by; Whilst on the boltsprit, stern, and topmast head Of brig and sloop that in the harbour lie, Streams the red gaudery of flags in air, All to salute and grace the morn of Anster Fair. On the Road to the Fair. Comes next from Ross-shire and from Sutherland The horny-knuckled kilted Highlandman: From where upon the rocky Caithness strand Breaks the long wave that at the Pole began, And where Loch Fyne from her prolific sand Her herrings gives to feed each bordering clan, Arrive the brogue-shod men of generous eye, Plaided and breechless all, with Esau's hairy thigh. They come not now to fire the Lowland stacks, Or foray on the banks of Fortha's firth; Claymore and broadsword, and Lochaber axe, Are left to rust above the smoky hearth; Their only arms are bagpipes now and sacks; Their teeth are set most desperately for mirth; And at their broad and sturdy backs are hung Great wallets, crammed with cheese and bannocks and cold tongue. Nor stayed away the Islanders, that lie To buffet of the Atlantic surge exposed; From Jura, Arran, Barra, Uist, and Skye, Piping they come, unshaved, unbreeched, unhosed; And from that Isle whose abbey, structured high, Within its precincts holds dead kings enclosed, Where St Columba oft is seen to waddle, Gowned round with flaming fire, upon the spire astraddle. Next from the far-famed ancient town of AyrSweet Ayr! with crops of ruddy damsels blest, That, shooting up, and waxing fat and fair, Shine on thy braes, the lilies of the west! And from Dumfries, and from Kilmarnock-where Are night-caps made, the cheapest and the bestBlithely they ride on ass and mule, with sacks In lieu of saddles placed upon their asses' backs. Close at their heels, bestriding well-trapped nag, Or humbly riding ass's backbone bare, Come Glasgow's merchants, each with money-bag, To purchase Dutch lint-seed at Anster FairSagacious fellows all, who well may brag Of virtuous industry and talents rare; The accomplished men o' the counting-room confessed, And fit to crack a joke or argue with the best. Nor keep their homes the Borderers, that stay Where purls the Jed, and Esk, and little Liddel, Men that can rarely on the bagpipe play, And wake the unsober spirit of the fiddle; Avowed freebooters, that have many a day Stolen sheep and cow, yet never owned they did ill; Great rogues, for sure that wight is but a rogue That blots the eighth command from Moses' decalogue. And some of them in sloop of tarry side, Come from North Berwick harbour sailing out; Others, abhorrent of the sickening tide, Have ta'en the road by Stirling brig about, And eastward now from long Kirkcaldy ride, Slugging on their slow-gaited asses stout, While dangling at their backs are bagpipes hung, And dangling hangs a tale on every rhymer's tongue. See the Memoir of Tennant by Conolly (1861). Andrew Picken (1788–1833) was the son of a Paisley manufacturer, and was for a time in business in the West Indies. He failed as a bookseller in Liverpool, and went to London to pursue literature as a profession. His first work, Tales and Sketches of the West of Scotland, gave offence by its satirical portraits. His novel of The Sectarian; or the Church and the Meeting-house (1829), by the representation it gave of the Dissenters as selfish, hypocritical, and sordid, irritated a great body of readers. The Dominie's Legacy (1830) was warmly welcomed for its sketches of Scottish life, somewhat akin to Carleton's Irish tales-some humorous and some pathetic; Minister Tam and Mary Ogilvy almost rival the happiest efforts of Picken partly succeeded in conciliating the Galt. evangelical Dissenters by interesting Travels and Researches of Eminent English Missionaries (1830). In 1831 he issued The Club-Book, a collection of original tales by different authors; G. P. R. James, Galt, Moir, James Hogg, Allan Cunningham, and others contributed each a story, and the editor himself wrote two-'The Deer-stalkers' and the 'Three Kearneys'-the latter of which was dramatised. Picken planned his Traditionary Stories of Old Families as the first part of a series which was to embrace the legendary history of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He had just completed what he thought his best work, The Black Watch (on the gallant 42nd Regiment), when he succumbed to the apoplexy that carried him off. Picken was, according to one of his friends, 'the dominie of his own tales-simple, affectionate, retiring; dwelling apart from the world, and blending in all his views of it the gentle and tender feelings reflected from his own mind.'-An earlier Paisley author of the same name, Ebenezer Picken (1769–1816), wrote two volumes of poems, mostly in the vernacular, and published a pocket dictionary of the Scottish dialect (1818). William Glen (1789-1826), born in Glasgow, was for a time in the West Indies, failed as a Glasgow merchant, and sank into poverty, dissipation, and ill-health. His poems-'The Battle Song 'The Maid of Oronsey,' and the restare mostly forgotten; but the Jacobite lament, 'Wae's me for Prince Charlie,' remains one of the most popular of Scottish songs. 'Wae's me for Prince Charlie.' I took my bannet aff my head, For weel I lo'ed Prince Charlie. Quoth I: My bird, my bonny, bonny bird, Are these some words ye 've learnt by heart, Oh, no, no, no!' the wee bird sang; But sic a day o' wind and rain Oh, wae's me for Prince Charlie. 'On hills that are by right his ain, On every side he 's pressed by want- 'Dark night cam' on, the tempest roared And where was 't that your Prince lay down, He rowed him in a Hieland plaid, Which covered him but sparely, And slept beneath a bush o' broomOh, wae's me for Prince Charlie.' But now the bird saw some red-coats, I'll tarry here nae langer.' Ere he departed fairly; But weel I mind the fareweel strain Was, 'Wae's me for Prince Charlie.' William Motherwell (1797-1835) was born in Glasgow, went to school in Edinburgh, and after his eleventh year was brought up under the care of an uncle in Paisley. Having studied one session at Glasgow University, he was, at the age of twenty-one, appointed depute to the sheriff-clerk at Paisley; but he early showed a love of poetry, and in 1819 became editor of a miscellany entitled the Harp of Renfrewshire. A taste for antiquarian research, 'Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,' divided with the muse the empire of his genius, and he attained an unusually familiar acquaintance with the early history of Scottish traditionary poetry. The results appeared in Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern (1827), a collection of Scottish ballads, prefaced by a very able historical introduction, the basis of most later investigations. In the following year he became editor of a weekly journal in Paisley, and established a magazine to which he contributed some of his happiest verses. His editorial skill and vigour advanced him in 1830 to the more important charge of the Glasgow Courier, which he retained till his death. In youth a Radical reformer, he early became a rather pronounced Tory. In 1832 he collected and published his poems in one volume. He joined with Hogg in editing the works of Burns, and was collecting materials for a Life of Tannahill, when he was suddenly cut off by a fit of apoplexy at the early age of thirty-eight. He was highly successful in versifying the Scandinavian folksongs, and in imitating those of his own land; but he is chiefly remembered by his lyrics. His best songs show imagination, warmth, and tenderness. Jeanie Morrison. I've wandered east, I've wandered west, Through mony a weary way; But never, never can forget The love o' life's young day! The fire that's blawn on Beltane e'en O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison, Still fling their shadows ower my path, Tears trinkled doun your cheek, When hearts were fresh and young, I marvel, Jeanie Morrison, Gin I hae been to thee As closely twined wi' earliest thochts Oh, tell me gin their music fills Thine ear as it does mine; Oh, say gin e'er your heart grows grit I've wandered east, I've wandered west, But in my wanderings, far or near, The fount that first burst frae this heart, O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison, Since we were sindered young, I've never seen your face, nor heard The music o' your tongue; But I could hug all wretchedness, And happy could I dee, Did I but ken your heart still dreamed O' bygane days and me! grat trickled great, heavy sundered In a love more abiding than that the heart knows And noble blood springing, And cloven, yawn helmet, stout hauberk, and shield. See the Life by M'Conechy prefixed to the edition of 1846, reedited in 1848 and reprinted in 1881. James Hyslop (1798–1827), a shepherd poet was born in the Dumfriesshire parish of Kirkconnel. Mainly self-taught, he began amidst farmwork to contribute prose and verse to the provincial newspapers; and while serving as shepherd near Airdsmoss, Ayrshire, the scene of Richard Cameron's death, he wrote 'The Cameronian's Dream.' He taught a school at Greenock for a year or two, through the influence of Lord Jeffrey was appointed tutor on a man-of-war, and died cruising off the Cape Verd Islands. His poems, nearly a hundred in number, were collected by the Rev. P. Mearns in 1887; but only one is really well known. It was made the foundation of a cantata in the last year of the century by Mr Hamish MacCunn, and so became known out of Scotland. Cameron, the field-preacher, published an extravagant 'Declaration' in 1680 against the Government of Charles II., and a month afterwards fell, with many of his sixty armed followers, in a skirmish with the royal dragoons. The Cameronian's Dream. In a dream of the night I was wafted away To the muirland of mist where the martyrs lay; Where Cameron's sword and his Bible are seen Engraved on the stone where the heather grows green. 'Twas a dream of those ages of darkness and blood, When the minister's home was the mountain and wood; When in Wellwood's dark valley the standard of Zion, All bloody and torn, 'mong the heather was lying. 'Twas morning; and summer's young sun from the east Lay in loving repose on the green mountain's breast; On Wardlaw and Cairntable the clear shining dew Glistened there 'mong the heath-bells and mountain flowers blue. And far up in heaven, near the white sunny cloud, And Wellwood's sweet valleys breathed music and gladness, The fresh meadow blooms hung in beauty and redness ; But, ah! there were hearts cherished far other feelings |