THOMAS AIRD. 1802-1876. BY WALTER J. KAYE, M.A. THOMAS AIRD was the second son of James Aird and his wife, Isabella Paisley. He was born at Bowden, Roxburghshire, 28th August, 1802, and died at Castle Bank, Dumfries, April 25th, 1876. Educated at the Parish School of Bowden, Aird early evinced a striking love for literature. In 1816 his tutors considered him sufficiently advanced to proceed to the University at Edinburgh. There he made the acquaintance of Thomas Carlyle. While still a student he became private tutor in the family of a Mr. Anderson, farnier, of Crosscleugh, Selkirkshire, where he frequently met James Hogg [q.v.] the Ettrick Shepherd. His friends endeavoured to persuade him to join the Church of Scotland, but he preferred to devote himself at Edinburgh to the profession of letters. In 1826 his first work appeared-" Martzoufle, a tragedy in three acts, with other Poems." This volume, however, neither attracted much notice nor met with that success to which its genuine poetic worth entitled it. In 1827 he contributed several articles to Blackwood's Magazine, and also produced his "Religious Characteristics," a series of prose essays displaying much religious fervour, which Professor Wilson [q.v.] reviewed in very laudatory terms. Professor Wilson was shortly afterwards introduced to Aird, to whom he proved of the greatest service. In 1830 appeared Aird's "Captive of Fez," a long narrative poem in five cantos. In 1832 James Ballantyne died, and Aird was chosen to succeed him in the editorship of the " Edinburgh Weekly Journal." This post he only occupied for one year. In 1835 he left Edinburgh to undertake the editorship of the " Dumfriesshire and Galloway Herald," to which Professor Wilson had recommended him-a post he filled for twenty-eight years. In 1845 he issued his "Old Bachelor in the Scottish Village," a prose delineation of Scottish character, with descriptive sketches of the seasons. This book met with immense success, and in 1857 a second edition was called for. In 1848 he prepared for the press a collected edition of his poems, which added considerably to his reputation. Many of them appealed to the religious instincts of his countrymen, and others showed a weird imagination. In 1852 Aird edited, with a memoir, the works of his friend, David Macbeth Moir [q.v.]; but after this date he suffered much from ill-health, and his literary efforts were confined to contributions to his newspaper. Aird never married; he lived an unostentatious life, rarely quitting Dumfries, except to visit his brother James at Dundee. During his literary career he made a large circle of friends, who always spoke of him in enthusiastic terms. With Carlyle he maintained an intimacy until his death, and, so long as Carlyle paid an annual visit to his friends near Dumfries, Aird met him yearly. Carlyle said of his poetry, that "He found everywhere a healthy breath as of mountain breezes; a native manliness, veracity and geniality which ... is withal so rare, just now, as to be doubly and trebly precious." Amongst his friends he numbered Motherwell [q.v.], De Quincy, and Lockhart. In 1856 he received a visit from the Rev. A. P. Stanley, M.A., afterwards Dean of Westminster. He was a devoted admirer of Burns and Scott. In 1841 he presided at the annual dinner given at Dumfries by the Burns Club, and in 1859 took an active part in organising the celebration of Burns' centenary. In 1871 he presided at Dumfries at the banquet given in honour of the centenary of Sir W. Scott. In 1878 Aird's poems reached a fifth edition, and to that edition the Rev. Jardine Wallace contributed a full memoir of the author. The Goldspink and Thistle. OUR marly road is cracked and white, (Rough, the more to make him tinkle, The goldspink hangs: the down is shed: How sweet to think, You little spink, Far back in the abysses deep, Where thought conditioned fails to sweep, Pleased with thy archetypal delicate tinklings, To show thee best, For man a zest, He hung thee on the thistle in the wind. The Shepherd's Dog. LOVED and loving, God her trust, The shepherd's wife goes dust to dust; Their dog, his eye half sad, half prompt to save, Follows the coffin down into the grave. Behind his man he takes his drooping stand The clods jar hollow on the coffin lid: To that quick shudder of the master's pain, THOMAS AIRD. No kind old pressure answers; shrinking back, Yet loyal, grave-ward, down he lies, His muzzle flat along the snowy track. The mourners part! The widowed shepherd goes That dog. What a strange trouble in his eye- Is it the creature yearning in dumb stress 23 The Swallow. THE little comer's coming, the comer o'er the sea, How pleasant, through the pleasant sleep, thy early twitter heard Oh, swallow by the lattice! glad days be thy reward. Thine be sweet morning, with the bee that's out for honey-dew, And glowing be the noontide, for the grass-hopper and you; And mellow shine, o'er day's decline, the sun to light thee home, What can molest thy airy nest? sleep till the morrow come. The river blue, that lapses through the valley, hears thee sing, And murmurs much beneath the touch of thy light dipping wing; The thunder-cloud, over us bow'd in deeper gloom is seen, The silent power that brings thee back, with leading strings of love, To haunts where first the summer sun fell on thee from above, Shall bind thee more to come, aye to the music of our leaves, For here thy young, where thou hast sprung, shall glad thee in Our eaves. THIS true poet of nature was born at Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire, on the 4th November, 1774. His father was a flax dresser, and our bard was the third of a family of ten children. By trade a muslin weaver, he early in life began to write songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, often composing them at the loom, and he received from Tannahill [q.v.] (who, like himself, was a Renfrewshire weaver and song writer), both praise and encouragement. In fact with Tannahill, Allan lived on terms of the most cordial friendship. He contributed several songs to the "Scottish Minstrel" (1820), and the editor (R. A. Smith) set the majority of them to music. The same year a number of Allan's poems appeared in a volume entitled "The Harp of Renfrewshire." His first and only volume of poems was issued in 1836, under the editorship of Robert Burns Hardy, a Glasgow teacher of elocution. Naturally, Allan was of a genial and kindly disposition, but in the winter of life he became peculiarly irritable; he fancied that his poetic gifts had not been fully appreciated, and this feeling became so deeply rooted in his mind that he decided on leaving the land "which he deemed had not sufficiently estimated his genius." Accordingly, in direct opposition to the advice and wishes of his friends, he sailed for New York in his 67th year. He survived the passage, however, only six days, and died at New York, June 1st, 1841. His poems as a rule are pure and elevated in sentiment, melodious and pathetic, and entitle their author to an honourable position as a writer of Scottish song. The Thistle and the Rosen THERE grew in bonnie Scotland And aye they twined and clasp'd, It could ilk bosom charm, A bonnie laddie tended The rose baith ear' and late: But the weird sisters sat ROBERT ALLAN. And aye they twined the mystic thread, A bonnie laddie tended The rose baith ear'an' late; And Scotland's heart was broken, To a Linnety CHAUNT no more thy roundelay, Sad it steals upon mine ear; Till the smiling morn appear. Smiling with the morning beam. The Primrose is bonny in Spring. THE primrose is bonny in spring, It's bonnie when the sun gaes down, It's bonnie to see the cloud Sae red in the dazzling lowe. When the night is a' sae calm, An' comes the sweet twilight gloom; When the birds in bush and brake, Oh! what an hour to sit The gay gowden links amang. 25 |