66 burgh University, was not successful; so, after visiting Germany, he returned to London, and in 1819 produced Specimens of the British Poets. In 1820, he became editor of the New Monthly Magazine, which he conducted till 1830. In 1824, besides issuing Theoderic and other Poems," he, along with Lord Brougham, took a leading part in the establishment of the London University. In 1827, and the two following years, he was elected Rector of the Glasgow University. His last literary works were lives of Mrs Siddons, and Petrarch, the Italian poet. In 1834, he made a voyage to Algiers, and returned by France, when he was presented to Louis Philippe. His health gave way soon after, and he settled at Bologne, for the benefit of its milder atmosphere. Here he died, on the 15th June 1844, in his 67th year. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. A monument to his memory is presently (1877) being erected in his native city. LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour, I have mused in a sorrowful mood, On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower, Sweet bud of the wilderness ! emblem of all That remains in this desolate heart! The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall, But patience shall never depart ! Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright, In the days of delusion by fancy combined With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul, like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind. Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns When the faint and the feeble deplore; Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore ! Where the home of my forefathers Through the perils of chance, and the stood. All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode, And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree: And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode scowl of disdain, May thy front be unalter'd, thy courage elate ! Yea! even the name I have worshipp'd in vain Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again : To bear is to conquer our fate. WILLIAM TENNANT. 1784-1848. career. THE antiquated little town of An- which ended William's commercial struther, in Fife, has within one generation been the birth-place of three eminent men-Thomas Chalmers, William Tennant, and John Goodsir. William Tennant, the second of the group, was born on the 15th of May 1784. He was the second son of Alexander Tennant, a small merchant and farmer in Anstruther. Physically he was never robust, and though born without any defect, he lost the use of his limbs so early that he may be said never to have had it. In due time he was sent to the burgh school, where diligent application, and a special gift of acquiring languages, placed him at the head of his classes. At the age of fifteen, he was sent to St Andrew's University, where he made rapid progress in Greek and Latin; but at the end of his second session, it was found that his father's means were insufficient to enable him to complete his curriculum. After remaining some time at home, in 1803 he was sent to Glasgow, to act as clerk to his elder brother, then in business there as a corn-factor. The busi,ness, not a very prosperous one, was transferred to Anstruther in 1805, when both brothers returned to their native place, William still acting as clerk, and living at his father's house. He continued in this capacity till 1811 when a crisis occurred in his brother's affairs, During those eight years of uncongenial trafficking, he did not abandon his studies, but by unwearied application, during his leisure hours, read such poets as Ariosto, Wieland, and Camoens, in the original, and he also mastered the Hebrew Bible. Nor did he altogether forsake the Muses, with whom he first dallied at St Andrews; for we find him, before his twentieth year, attempting to sing his enjoyment of the classics. His first attempt in the humorous vein was "Anster Concert,” a purely local poem, of twenty-three stanzas, no way above the average of such effusions. Anster Fair was completed in 1811, and was published anonymously, the preface being dated Edinburgh, 5th May 1812. It soon came under the notice of Lord Woodhouselee, who was so struck with the genius it displayed, that he took immediate steps to find out the author's name; and in August 1812, he wrote Mr Cockburn, Anstruther, its publisher, in terms that must have filled Tennant's heart with joy and gratitude. In the autumn of 1813, Tennant was appointed to the office of schoolmaster of Dunino, and though the salary did not exceed forty pounds a-year, it was more than equal to his wants. The His last publication, "Hebrew Dramas," founded on incidents of Bible history, was published in 1845. Of this work Lord Jeffrey expressed a high opinion. It served to cover his retreat from the poetic arena with dignity, though it can hardly be said to have increased his fame. His death took place at Dollar, in 1848; and at his own request he was buried at Anstruther, where his friends and admirers have placed a monument over his remains. office, too, was congenial, and gave him access to the University library at St Andrew's. Here he added Arabic, Syriac, and Persian to the list of his linguistic acquirements. In 1814, he published a second edition of Anster Fair, on the publication of which Jeffrey reviewed it in The Edinburgh in very flattering terms. In 1816 he was promoted, chiefly through the influence of George Thomson, the friend and correspondent of Burns, to be parish teacher of Lasswade. In 1819, he was elected by the trustees of Dollar The works already noticed are all Academy, teacher of Classical and that he published in a collected form; Oriental languages in that institution. yet, besides a number of small poems Here settled in a highly agreeable and ballads, he contributed prose transand interesting locality, and in a posi-lations from Greek and German to the tion suited to his tastes, it was expected | Edinburgh Literary Journal, in 1830, that the promise of Anster Fair would and in the same periodical, carried on a be redeemed by something worthy of correspondence with the "Ettrick his literary and scholastic reputation. Shepherd," anent a new metrical transAccordingly, much interest was excited lation of the Psalms, which was pubwhen, in 1822, his second poem, "The lished separately. In 1836-37, he conThane of Fife," appeared. The public tributed a series of five Hebrew expectation was disappointed, for the Idylls" to the Scottish Christian Herald, poem was a manifest falling off, and if which, with a project for an edition of not an entire failure, so much so, that the Scottish poets, for which he wrote its second part never was published. a life of Allan Ramsay, and a Synopsis Of his next three poems it will be of Syriac Grammar, published in 1840, enough to give the names, seeing none form all his literary labours which apof them added to his reputation. They pear to have been published. The fame were issued in the following order: of his linguistic acquirements conveys "Papistry Stormed, or the Dingin' the impression that his power of masterDown o' the Cathedral;" "Cardinal ing languages was something wonderBethune, a Drama in 5 acts;" "John | ful. In character he was humble Baliol, an Historical Drama. In 1834, a vacancy occurred in the chair of Oriental languages in St Mary's College, St Andrew's, and he was at once appointed to the professorship by his friend Jeffrey, then Lord Advocate. 66 unassuming, and unaffectedly pious simple in his tastes, and fond of nature and innocent enjoyment, had a quick sense of the ludicrous in all things; and was an acute observer of men and manners. As a poet, he fills a niche in Scottish literature which had not been pre-occupied. He is another of the poets whom the university did not deprive of the use of his native tongue, and his less known poems are a mine of Scottish words, and as such are valued by our antiquarian collectors. Anster Fair, his passport to immortality, he treated as a sort of illegitimate progeny of his Muse in her frolicsome and unbridled youth, and he never lost hope of being able to produce something that would bear his poetic reputation more in keep-| ing with his notions of respectability. | His weakness as a poet was the want of passion; and the success of Anster Fair is owing to its being of that rare species of poetry in which passion has no place. the little elf and his wife, and having got hold of them, by his magic power he crammed the one into a pepper-box, and the other into a mustard-pot, there to remain till the hand of the fairest Scottish maid should be won in public competition by the most accomplished athlete in Scotland, The mustard-pot in the course of ages having come into the possession of Maggie Lauder, by special permission of Oberon, Tommy is liberated from his prison long enough to advise her-the fairest Scottish maid— how she may obtain the fairest man in Scotland as her husband. The manner proposed is to offer her hand as the prize of a competition at next Anster Fair. A public proclamation throughout Scotland is made to this effect, and Rob the Ranter, the cleverest man in Scotland, is successful in carrying off the fair prize. The event on which their imprisonment depended being thus brought about, the two fairies regain their liberty. The chief part of the poem, however, is devoted to a description of the various incidents of the Fair LEGEND OF ANSTER FAIR. and competition, and the various parties, ANSTER FAIR is unique in British literature, and may be defined as a descriptive poem, with two love stories and a fairy tale, the evolution of whose plots depended upon one another. The outline is as follows :- -The fairy, Tommy Puck, incensed at Susan Scott, niece of Sir Michael the Wizard, for neanly jilting her lover, Melville of Carnbee, put the latter up to a plan by which he revenged the indignity. sir Michael having discovered the real author of the plot, determined to punish including the King (James v.), who are attracted to them. ANSTER FAIR. EXTRACTS. [Evening before the Fair.] Nor less is the disport and joy without, In Anster town and loan, through all the throng: 'Tis but one vast tumultuous jovial rout, Tumult of laughing and of gabbling strong; Thousands and tens of thousands reel about, With joyous uproar blustering along; Elbows push boringly on sides with pain, Wives hustling come on wives, and men dash hard on men. There lacks no sport: tumblers in wondrous pranks, High staged, display their limbs'agility; And now a section of his face appears, And diving, now he ducks clean down o'er head and ears. Anon uprises, with blithe bagpipe's sound, A town of tents, with blankets roofèd And now, they, mountant from the A thousand stakes are rooted in the scaffold's planks, Kick with their whirling heels the clouds on high, And now, like cat, upon their dexterous shanks ground; A thousand hammers clank and clatter thick; A thousand fiddles squeak and squeal it yare ; They light, and of new monsters cheat A thousand stormy drones out-gasp in the sky; Whilst motley Merry-Andrew, with his jokes, Wide through the incorp'rate mob the bursting laugh provokes. Others upon the green, in open air, Enact the best of Davie Lindsay's plays; While ballad-singing women do not spare Their throats to give good utt'rance to their lays ; And many a leather-lung'd co-chanting pair Of wood-legg'd sailors, children's laugh and gaze, Lift to the courts of Jove their voices loud, Y-hymning their mishaps, to please the heedless crowd. groans their air. And such a turbulence of general mirth Looks, wond'ring what may be the He rests his eye on shores of Fortha's And smirks, as knowing well the And bids his gods and goddesses look To mark the rage of joy that maddens From Cellardyke to wind-swept Pitten weem, And from Balhouffie to Kilrennymill, Meanwhile the sun, fatigued (as well he Vaulted with blankets, crofts and meadows may) With shining on a night till seven o'clock, Beams on each chimney-head a farewell ray, Illuming into golden shaft its smoke ; And now in sea, far west from Oronsay, Is dipp'd his chariot-wheel's refulgent spoke, seem, So many tents the grassy spaces fill; Meantime the Moon, yet leaning on the stream, With fluid silver bathes the welkin chill, That now earth's ball, upon the side of night, Swims in an argent sea of beautiful moon light. |