Thomas Aird

Thomas Aird
Born 28 August 1802(1802-08-28)
Bowden, Roxburghshire
Died 28 April 1876(1876-04-28)
Nationality Scottish
Occupation poet

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

Aird was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he met John Wilson, Thomas Carlyle and James Hogg, as well as other men of letters. Under their influence, 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.

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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