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
George Darley was born in Dublin in December 1795 and died in London on 23 November 1846. He belongs among those gifted nineteenth-century writers whose lives complicate the comforting assumption that talent naturally finds its public. During his lifetime he was respected by a small number of discerning contemporaries, employed steadily enough in literary and educational work, and capable of producing poetry of extra…
“Fashionability is a kind of elevated vulgarity.”
Neighbourhood:
Irish Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Wonder
