Thomas Aird

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Thomas Aird

Thomas Aird (August 28, 1802 - April 28, 1876), Scottish poet, was born at Bowden, Roxburghshire.

Aird was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of Professor Wilson, Carlyle and James Hogg, and other men of letters, and so he decided to devote himself to literary work. He published Martzoufle, a Tragedy, with other Poems (1826), a volume of essays, and a long narrative poem in several cantos, The Captive of Fez (1830).

For a year Aird edited the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, and for twenty-eight years the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Herald. He also contributed to Blackwood's Magazine. In 1848 he published a collected edition of his poems, which met with much favor. Carlyle said that he found in them "a healthy breath as of mountain breezes." His chief poem is The Captive of Fez (1830).

In prose Aird wrote Religious Characteristics, and The Old Bachelor in the Old Scottish Village (1848). Among Aird's other friends were De Quincey, Lockhart, Stanley (afterwards dean of Westminster) and Motherwell.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.