"The Road to Ruin" is one of the dozen or so plays of its century which have survived. Holcroft may be regarded as the founder of the modern school of melodrama. He was the first, too, to hastily adapt a French success to the exigencies of the English stage, after the fashion now in vogue.-HIBBERT, HENRY GEORGE, 1892, The Author of "The Road to Ruin," The Theatre, vol. 28, p. 132. A curiosity of literature and a rather typical figure of the time.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1896, A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 38. Robert Tannahill 1774-1810 One of the most popular of the song-writers of Scotland since Burns, was a native of Paisley, born in 1774. He was bred a weaver; and his favourite pursuit was to recover old and neglected airs, to which he adapted new words. "I would I were a weaver," says Falstaff; "I could sing all manner of songs. He continued to work, with some exceptions, in his native town, where, at the beginning of this century, he made an acquaintance with Robert Archibald Smith, a musical composer, who set some of his songs to original music, and adapted others to old airs. In 1807, Tannahill collected his songs into a volume, which was decidedly successful. The higher success, which he more prized, was to find his songs universally known and sung amongst all classes. But the poet was the victim of a morbid melancholy which embittered his existence. His means were above his wants; he had no special unhappiness. But he died, as Ophelia died, "Where a willow grows aslant a brook"-perhaps "chanting snatches of old tunes." This event occurred in 1810, near Paisley.-KNIGHT, CHARLES, 1847-48, Half-Hours With the Best Authors, vol. IV, p. 161. PERSONAL Tamnahill used to declare, that one of the most gratifying tributes he ever had paid to his genius, was while taking a solitary walk, in the cool of a summer's evening, he had his musings interrupted by the sweet voice of a country girl, who, on his approaching nearer the spot, he discovered was singing one of his composi tions "We'll meet beside the dusky glen on yon burn side." This, he said, was one of the sweetest and delightful moments of his life; he beheld in it a promise of future fame, and hailed it as a pledge of the rising popularity of his Songs: but the highest tribute ever paid to the genius of Tannahill, was the visit which James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, paid him, not long before his death. There was something romantic in this pilgrimage of the Mountain Bard, to feel, and see,-to converse and enjoy the fellowship of one whose heart, like his own, was gifted with the "magic voice of song:" they spent the night in each other's company. Tannahill convoyed Hogg, on the following morning, half way to Glasgow, where they parted. It was a melancholy adieu which Tannahil gave him "Farewell," he cried, "we shall never meet again,—farewell, I shall never see you more!"-RYAN, RICHARD, 1826, Poetry and Poets, vol. II, p. 246. As with the generality of people of his rank, the poet's education was limited to reading, writing, and accounts. At an early age he was sent to the loom,-then a profitable calling, -at which he distinguished himself by his industry. He was possessed of a correct musical ear, and played well on the German flute. His favourite pursuit was to recover old or neglected airs, and unite them to appropriate words. The airs he hummed over while plying the shuttle, and as the words arose in his mind, he jotted them down at a rude desk which he had attached to his loom, and which he could use without rising from his seat. Thus did he contrive to relieve the monotonous dulness of his daily occupation, by combining with it the exercise of his more gentle craft,weaving threads and verses alternately. The melancholy to which Tannahill had been occasionally subject, now became deep and habitual. He evinced a proneness to imagine that his best friends were disposed to injure him, and a certain jealous fear of his claims to genius being impugned. These imaginary grievances were confided to his faithful adviser Smith, who found it impossible to convince him of the hallucination under which he laboured. His eyes sank, his countenance became pale, and his body emaciated. The strange and incoherent texture of some poetical pieces which he wrote about this time, betrayed the state of his mind. In short, it became apparent that a breaking up of his mental and bodily powers was at hand. He now set himself to destroy all his manuscripts; not a scrap which he could possibly collect was allowed to escape the flames. This is the more to be regretted, since the corrections and additions he had made for a second edition of his works, and some unpublished pieces of much merit, all of which fell a prey to the flames, would have added greatly to his reputation. RAMSAY, PHILIP A., 1838, ed., The Works of Robert Tannahill, Memoir, pp. xv, xxxiv. The victim of disappointments which his sensitive temperament could not endure, Tannahill was naturally of an easy and cheerful disposition. As a child, his exemplary behaviour was so conspicuous that mothers were satisfied of their children's safety if they learned that they were in company with "Bob Tannahill." Inoffensive in his own dispositions, he entertained every respect for the feelings of others. He enjoyed the intercourse of particular friends, but avoided general society; in company he seldom talked, and only with a neighbour; he shunned the acquaintance of persons of rank, because he disliked patronage, and dreaded superciliousness. His conversation was simple; he possessed, but seldom used, considerable powers of satire; but he applied his keenest shafts of sarcasm against the votaries of cruelty. In performing acts of kindness he took delight, but he was scrupulous of accepting favours; he was strong in the love of independence, and had saved twenty pounds at the period of his death. His general appearance did not indicate intellectual superiority; his countenance was calm and meditative; his eyes were grey, and his hair a light brown. In person, he was under the middle size. Not ambitious of general learning, he confined his reading chiefly to poetry.-ROGERS, CHARLES, 1855-5770, The Scottish Minstrel, The Songs of Scotland Subsequent to Burns, p. 133. Robert Tannahill, a Scotch weaver, whose songs in their artless sweetness, their simplicity of diction, their tenderness of sentiment, have long since won distinction, came up to Edinburgh very poor in purse, but rich in the future that poetic aspirations imaged forth. He put his manuscripts into Constable's hands, offering the whole of them at a very small price. Day after day he waited for an answer, with a mind alternating between hope and fear. Constable, who always distrusted his own judgment in such matters, and who, perhaps, at the moment had no one else to consult, eventually returned the poems. Tannahill in a madness of despair put a period to his existence, adding one to those "young shadows" who hover round the shrine of genius, as if to warn all but the boldest from attempting to approach it.-CURWEN, HENRY, 1873, A History of Booksellers, p. 122. The good people of Paisley have cherished the memory of Tannahill. The house in which he was born has inserted in its front wall a granite memorial-stone recording the circumstance. His brother, when old age compelled him to cease from labour, was provided with a competency by his fellow-citizens, who long ago formed a Tannahill Club, which always celebrated the anniversary of the poet's birth. The centenary of the "prince of Paisley poets," as he has been called, was celebrated with the utmost enthusiasm by the inhabitants of Paisley. A general holiday was held, and the town was decorated with flags and flowers. More than 15,000 persons assembled on the Braes o' Gleniffer to listen to addresses spoken in the poet's honour, and to the singing of his own sweet songs songs that are a priceless heritage to his native land.-WILSON, JAMES GRANT, 1876, The Poets and Poetry of Scotland, vol. I, p. 502. Poor Tannahill! Paisley truly has gcod reason to be proud of her handloom weaver, who knew to mingle the whir of his busy loom, not with the jarring notes of political fret or atheistic pseudophilosophy, but with the sweet music of Nature in the most melodious season of the year. Sad to think that the author of this song, one of the most lovable, kindly, and human-hearted of mortals, and who, in spite of the deficiencies of his early culture, had achieved a reputation second only to Burns among the song-writers of his tuneful fatherland, should have bade farewell to the sweet light of the sun and the fair greenery of his native glens at the early age of thirty-six-drowning himself, poor fellow! in a pool not far from the place of his birth.-BLACKIE, JOHN STUART, 1889, Scottish Song, p. 49. GENERAL Tannahill could achieve only a song; but as the songs which he did achieve were very genuine ones, with the true faculty in them, Scotland seems to be in no danger forgetting them.-MILLER, HUGH, 1856, Essays, p. 449. of The poems of this ill-starred son of genius are greatly inferior to his songs. They have all a common-place artificial character. His lyrics, on the other hand, are rich and original, both in description and in sentiment. His diction is copious and luxuriant, particularly in describing natural objects and the peculiar features of the Scottish landscape. His simplicity is natural and unaffected, and though he appears to have possessed a deeper sympathy with nature than with the workings of human feeling, or even the passion of love, he is often tender and pathetic. CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers. -- If, as was said by Fletcher of Saltoun, song-writers are to be classed among lawgivers, then may we hail Tannahill as one of the foremost Scottish legislators ruling by the sceptre of song.-WILSON, JAMES GRANT, 1876, The Poets and Poetry of Scotland, vol. I, p. 501. For delicacy and refinement of feeling and expression, comes nearest to Burns of all our song-writers. His range was narrow, even compared with Hogg and Lady Nairne; for he had not the imagination of the one, nor the humour of the other; yet he possessed that sensitive tenderness of the poetic instinct, capable of touching the finest cords in nature to which the human soul has ever responded, in a degree which Burns alone. excelled. Like all their contemporaries he was greatly Burns's inferior in passion, both as to range and intensity. We have already remarked that his poetic range is a narrow one; out of it he produced nothing of self-sustaining merit, and his poems which are not songs are very commonplace. As a specialist his fame is secure, and as living at the . present day as when he first delighted his admiring countrymen. His songs, though true to universal nature, have certain local features which make their perfect enjoyment dependent on that sensitiveness to the influences of locality which characterises the Scotch mind, and in consequence he is not so highly appreciated anywhere as in Scotland, nor, in Scotland, anywhere as in Paisley, of which he is the poetic divinity.-Ross, J., 1884, The Book of Scottish Poems, pp. 707, 708. Setting aside Burns, there is no songwriter more popular in Scotland than Tannahill. His memory is cherished with the deepest affection of his own West country. A gathering, at which the finest of his songs are sung, is annually held on the Braes of Gleniffer, and is attended by crowds from Glasgow, Paisley, and other towns in the neighbourhood. And he thoroughly merits the place he has won in his countrymen's hearts. A poet of the people, he has not received due recognition at the hands of literary critics. He has lines than which there are none sweeter in the Scottish tongue; a lyric could not be "more lightly, musically made" than "Gloomy Winter's now awa'." He has a curiously fine sense of words, his lyrics are as finished in their diction as they are true and touching in their sentiment and spontaneous in their flow. In one respect he may, perhaps, be said to have excelled Burns; namely, in his delicate aptness of descriptive phrase when dealing with nature. An His gift exquisite artist was lost by the death of the Paisley weaver. He had not a wide range, he had almost no sense of humour, no satiric or narrative faculty. was purely lyrical, and, the gift, was in its way perfect. His love-songs, so pure and tender, so graceful in form, so musical, so admirably adapted to be sung, with the fragrance of the woodland braes he loved. so well still clinging to the lines, are almost as little likely as the songs of Burns to lose their hold on Scotchmen's hearts. -WHYTE, WALTER, 1896, The Poets of the Century, Southey to Shelley, ed. Miles, pp. 74, 75. With a more original gift of song than Cunningham, Robert Tannahill owed nothing to Scott, who was but slightly his senior, and not very much to Burns. . . . His language is not, any more than Burns's, free from occasional intrusions of discordant Anglicism; but in his own dialect he has an exquisite delicacy, and at times subtlety, of phrase. His love-songs are fine examples of the Scottish gift of painting passion by the human and sympathetic traits of landscape. - HERFORD, C. H., 1897, The Age of Wordsworth, p. 197. Tannahill versified early, and some poetical epistles to his friends-e. g. "Epistle to James Barr," written in 1804 -are not without vigor and occasional epigrammatic points, though they are too discursive and diffuse to be generally effective. "The Soldier's Return, an Interlude," contains several good songs Mary Tighe 1772-1810 Mary Tighe, the daughter of the Rev. William Blachford, by Theodosia, the daughter of William Tighe, of Rosanna, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, was married to Henry Tighe, M. P., of Woodstock, Co. Wicklow, and died March 24 1810, after an illness of six years. Perhaps she is better known to many as the subject of Moore's touching lyric, "I saw Thy Form in Youthful Prime," and Mrs. Hemans's "Grave of a Poetess, than by her own exquisite verses. Her poem of "Psyche, or the Legend of Love" (founded on the story of Cupid and Psyche as related in the Golden Ass of Apuleius), was privately printed (100 copies) by C. Whittingham, London, 1805, 12mo. After her death appeared: "Psyche, with other Poems, by the Late Mrs. Henry Tighe" (with portrait), 1811.-ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1871, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, p. 2419. PERSONAL Thou hast left sorrow in thy song, A voice not loud but deep! The glorious bowers of earth among, Perhaps no writer of merit has been more neglected by her own friends than Mrs. Tighe. With every means of giving to the public a good memoir of her, I believe no such is in existence. The very servants who had lived years in the family had never heard the name of Mrs. Tighe, the poetess, mentioned! These present Tighes had been marrying the daughters of lords this a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and Dan Tighe, a daughter of Lord Crofton. They were ashamed, probably, that ary of their name should have degraded herself by writing poetry, which a man or woman without an acre may do. When I reached the church at Innerstiogue, the matter received a most striking 'confirmation. There, sure enough, was the monument, in a small mausoleum in the church-yard. It is a recumbent figure, laid on a granite altar-shaped basement. The figure is of a freestone resembling Portland stone, and is lying on its side, as on a sofa, being said, by the person who showed it, to be the position in which she died, on coming in from a walk. The execution of the whole is very ordinary, and if really by Flaxman, displays none of his genius. I have seen much better things by a common-stone-mason. There is a little angel sitting at the head, but this has never been fastened down by cement. The monument was, no doubt, erected by the widower of the poetess, who was a man of classical taste, and, I believe, much attached to her. There is no inscription yet put upon the tomb, though one, said to be written by her husband, has long been cut in stone for the purpose. In the wall at the back of the monument, aloft, there is an oblong-square hole left for this inscription, which I understood was lying about at the house, but no single effort had been made to put it up, though it would not require an hour's work, and though Mrs. Tighe has been dead six-andthirty years! This was decisive! If these two gentlemen, nephews of the poetess, who are enjoying the two splendid estates of the family, Woodstock and Rosanna, show thus little respect to the only one of their name that ever lifted it above the mob, it is not to be expected that they will show much courtesy to strangers. Well is it that Mrs. Tighe raised her own monument, that of immortal verse, and wrote her own epitaph in the hearts of all the pure and loving, not on a stone which sordid relatives, still fonder of earth than stone, may consign to the oblivion of lumber room.-HOWITT, WILLIAM, 1846, Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, vol. 1, pp. 461, 471. PSYCHE Tell me the witching tale again, For never has my heart or ear Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain, So pure to feel, so sweet to hear. Still be the song to Psyche dear, The song, whose gentle voice was given To be, on earth, to mortal ear, An echo of her own, in heaven. verse of Moore, while it is certainly more chaste and spiritual in its sentiment.ROWTON, FREDERIC, 1848, The Female Poets of Great Britain, p. 200. Her imagination is warm, and her descriptions often voluptuous, though always refined. Perhaps she has been somewhat diffuse; but, taking her altogether she is not equalled in classical elegance by any English female, and not excelled (in that particular) by any male English poet. She has that rare quality for a poetess of not sparing the pumice-stone, her verses being seduously polished to the highest degree. She shows also her great taste in omitting obsolete words, the affectation of which so frequently disfigures imitations of the great master of English allegory. BETHUNE, GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1848, The British Female Poets. An adventurous and elaborate effort, full of power and beauty which wanted only a little more of artistic skill and concentration to have entitled it to a place among first-class productions.-MOIR, D. M., 1850-51, Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century. Displays everywhere an imagination, -MOORE, THOMAS, 1805? To Mrs. Henry immature, indeed, and wanting in vigor, Tighe on Reading Her "Psyche." Sorrow seems to be the muse of song, and from Philomela to Mrs. Tighe the most plaintive notes are the most melodious. I have read "Psyche;" I am sorry that Mrs. Tighe chose such a story: it is both too mystical and too much exhausted. For the first three cantos I felt a sort of languid elegance and luscious sweetness, which had something of the same effect as if I had been overpowered by perfumes; but the three last are of such exquisite beauty that they quite silence me. They are beyond all doubt the most faultless series of verses ever produced by a woman.—MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1812, Journal, Memoirs, ed. by his Son, vol. II, p. 195. The greater part of the poem itself is little worth, except as a strain of elegance; but now and then we meet with a fancy not unworthy a pupil of Spenser.-HUNT, LEIGH, 1847, Men, Women and Books. She is chiefly known by her splendid poem of "Psyche," which for gorgeousness of colouring and refinement of imagination, is scarcely behind the best but yet both rich and delicate, such as might have shown forth in Spenser himself if he had been a woman, or, as compared to that which we have in the "Fairy Queen, something like what moonlight is to sunshine.-CRAIK, GEORGE L., 1861, A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. II, p. 541. A very fair and gentle representative of poetry, Mary Tighe, the daughter of a clergyman, the wife of an Irish M. P., is another of the rare instances of literary production in Ireland. She was the author of a poem called "Psyche," an extremely sweet and melodious rendering of the classical legend, the external form of which, in a slim and sumptuous quarto, with creamy pages as thick as velvet enshrining in big margins a limpid stream of elaborate verse, gives a very just idea of its merit. It is one of those essays in art which at any time it would be cruel to judge rigorously, all the more as it is the composition of a gentle creature who died young and knew nothing of the world which, with a humane sense of the claims of weakness, generally does receive such |