John Skinner, born on 3 October 1721 and dead on 16 June 1807, lived through an age of political defeat, religious repression, agricultural change, intellectual expansion, and remarkable literary revival in Scotland. He is remembered above all as the author of “Tullochgorum,” the exuberant song that Robert Burns called “the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw.” Yet that deservedly famous lyric represents only one part…
“Your acknowledgment of my poor but just encomiums on your surprising genius, and your opinion of my rhyming excursions, are both, I think, by far too high.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Hymn Writers, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Anger, Sorrow
James Beattie, born on 25 October 1735 and dead on 18 August 1803, occupied an unusual and revealing place in eighteenth-century British culture. He was at once a Scottish professor, a poet of landscape and sensibility, a popular moral philosopher, a Christian apologist, a music lover, a man of sociable ambition, and a bereaved father whose final years were darkened by illness and loss. In his own lifetime he was fam…
“There is not a book on earth so favorable to all the kind and to all the sublime affections, or so unfriendly to hatred and persecution, to tyranny, injustice, and every sort of malevolence, as the Gospel.”
Neighbourhood:
Enlightenment Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Spirituality
