SIR ROBERT 1570-1638. AYTON, BY THE REV. A. B. GROSART, LL.D. F.S.A. EDITOR, "SIBBE'S WORKS"; "THE FULLER WORTHIES' LIBRARY"; "CHERTSEY WORTHIES' LIBRARY," ETC. ETC. SIR ROBERT AYTON was born at the castle of Kinaldie, in the parish of Cameron, near St. Andrews in 1570. He entered St. Leonard's College in 1584, taking his degree of M.A. in 1588. He obtained his patrimony in 1590, and thereupon went on the usual round of continental travel. He also studied civil law at the University of Paris. According to Thomas Dempster (Historia Eccles. Gentis Scotorum) "he long cherished useful learning in France, and left there distinguished proof and reputation of his worth" in certain verses in Latin, Greek, and French. An overlooked book by David Echlin (Echlinus) "Periurium Officiosum ad Vere Nobilem et Generosum optimeque de me meritum virum Robertum Aytonum Equitem 1626," more than bears out the laudation of Dempster. He is thus addressed :— Rarum Aytone decus Britanniarum Musarum soboles Apollinisque Ayton returned from the continent in 1603, bringing over with him a Latin poem in hexameters, addressed to James I.: "De Fœlici, et semper Augusto Jacobi VI. Scotia Insularumque adiacentium Regis, Imperio nunc recens florentissimis Angliæ et Hiberniæ Sceptris amplificato Roberti Aytoni Scoti Panegyris. Paris 1603." He was cordially received at the English court. He rose at once into royal favour, and shared in the king's lavish, if rather indiscriminate bounty to his fellow-countrymen. He was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber and private secretary to the queen. He received knighthood at Rycot on 30th Aug., 1612. He was sent as ambassador to Germany to deliver the king's "apology" before published anonymously, but now avowed, to all the sovereigns of Europe by its complacent author. On 11th December 1619, he obtained a grant of 500l. per annum on certain "royal profits (Docquet Book of Exchequer) for "thirty-one years; " but in 1620 this was commuted for a life-pension of the same amount. Dr. Charles Rogers has printed a number of his letters on these and other" affairs." In 1623 he was a candidate in competition with Bacon for the provostship of Eton. It fell to Sir Henry Wotton, notwithstanding an application addressed to James by Ayton in verse. This correspondence and casual notices in State and domestic papers show him to have been on intimate terms with the literary men of the period. "Rare Ben" told Drummond [q.v.] of Hawthornden proudly that "Sir Robert Ayton loved him (Jonson) dearly." Aubrey says of him that "he was acquainted with all the wits of his time in England," and that "he was a great acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, who told me he made use of him 66 (together with Ben Jonson) for an Aristarchus, when he drew up his epistle dedicatory for his translation of Thucydides." On the death of James I. in 1625, all his offices and honours were continued to him by Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria. In 1633-4 he is found mixed up with a "patent" quarrel. In 1636 he was appointed Master of the Royal Hospital of St. Katherine, with 200 a-year. He was also made Master of Requests and of Ceremonies and Privy Councillor. In his various offices, and on receiving his successive advances, it was acknowledged in his lifetime that he conducted himself with such moderation and prudence that when he obtained high honours in the palace, all held he deserved greater." He died at Whitehall, February 1637-8 in his sixty-ninth year, having a few days before prepared his will. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and his great monument, which includes his life-like bust, remains with us unto this day. He is thus entered in the register of Westminster :-" 1637-8, Feb. 28, Sir Robert Aeton, secretary to His Majesty, near the steps ascending to King Henry VII's Chapel." On Woman's Inconstancy. I LOVED thee once, I'll love no more; Nothing could have my love o'erthrown, Yea if thou hadst remained thy own, I might perchance have yet been thine. That it thou mightst elsewhere enthrall; A captive's captive to remain ? When new desires had conquered thee, It had been lethargy in me, Not constancy, to love thee still; Since we are taught no prayers to say SIR ROBERT AYTON. Yet do thou glory in thy choice, The height of my disdain shall be, The Forsaken Mistress? с I DO Confess thou'rt smooth and fair, And I might have gone near to love thee; That lips could speak had power to move thee: As worthy to be loved by none. I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find And since thou canst love more than one, The morning rose, that untouched stands, But scent and beauty both are gone, Such fate, ere long, will thee betide, And thou shalt sigh, when I shall smile, Hath brought thee to be loved by none. 33 PROF. WM. 1813-1865. BY SIR THEODORE MARTIN, K.C.B. LL.D. J.P. etc. LORD RECTOR OF ST. ANDREW'S UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF THIS poet, born in Edinburgh on 21st June, 1813, was the son of Roger Aytoun, writer to the Signet, and of Joan Keir. Through both father and mother he belonged to old Scottish families, his progenitors on the father's side being the Aytouns of Inchdairnie in Fifeshire, and the Edmonstounes, formerly of Edmonstoune and Ednam, and afterwards of Corehouse in Lanarkshire, and on the mother's side the Keirs of Kinmouth and West Rhynd in Perthshire. Among his ancestors he counted Sir Robert Ayton, who followed James VI. to England, and was attached to the court till his death in 1638, when he was buried in Westminster Abbey, having been a friend of all the leading men of letters in London, including Ben Jonson and Hobbes of Malmesbury, and himself taken rank among them as a poet. In that character he is chiefly known as the reputed author of two songs, which Burns worked into more modern shape, one of them being 66 Should auld acquaintance be forgot," the song, of all others, dear to Scotchmen. [See Ayton or Aytoun, Sir Robert]. Both Aytoun's parents were of literary tastes, and by his mother he was early imbued with a passion for ballad poetry and an imaginative sympathy for the royal race of Stuart. She had seen much of Sir Walter Scott in his boyhood and youth, and supplied his biographer, Lockhart, with many of the details for his life of Scott. Her knowledge of ballad lore was great, and was very serviceable in enabling her son to fill up gaps, and to correct false readings when preparing his edition of the "Ballads of Scotland" in 1858. Aytoun was educated at the Edinburgh academy and university, and wrote verses fluently and well while still a student. At the age of seventeen he published a small volume called "Poland, Homer, and other Poems," in which the qualities of his later style were already apparent. He thought of going to the English bar, but after a winter in London, attending the courts of law, he abandoned this intention. Aytoun disliked the idea of following his father's profession, but after a residence of some months at Aschaffenburg, where he devoted himself with enthusiasm to the study of German literature, he returned to Edinburgh. Having no fortune, he put aside the thought of devoting himself to literary pursuits, resumed his place in his father's office, and was admitted as a writer of the Signet in 1835. The discipline of his legal practice was of great use in giving him a power of mastering the details of political and other questions PROF. WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN. 35 which was of distinct service to him at a later piod. In 1840 he w to the Scottish bar, which had more attraction for him than the irksome monotony of a solicitor's practice, and made a fair position for himself there during the years in which he remained in active practice. His heart, however, was in literary pursuits, and he had already begun to feel his way in them by translations from Uhland, Homer, and others, as well as in original poems, which appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine" during the years from 1836 to 1840. Between that period and 1844 he worked together with (Sir) Theodore Martin [q.v.] in the production of what are known as the Bon Gaultier Ballads," which acquired such great popularity that thirteen large editions of them were called for between 1855 and 1877. They were also associated at this time in writing many prose magazine articles of a humorous character, as well as a series of translations of Goethe's ballads and minor poems, which, after appearing in" Blackwood's Magazine," were some years afterwards (1858) collected and published in a volume. It was during this period that Aytoun began to write the series of ballads known as "Lays of the Cavaliers," which first drew attention to him as an original poet, and which have taken so firm a hold of the public that no less than twenty-nine editions of them have appeared, eleven of them since Aytoun's death in 1865. In 1844 he became one of the staff of "Blackwood's Magazine," to which he continued till his death to contribute political and other articles on a great variety of subjects with unflagging industry and variety of resource. Among these were several tales, in which Aytoun's humour and shrewd practical sense were conspicuous. Of these perhaps the most amusing were "My first Spec in the Biggleswades," and "How we got up the Glenmutchkin Railway, and how we got out of it"; and they had a most salutary effect in exposing the rascality and folly of the railway mania of 1845. People laughed, but they profited-for a time-by the lessons there read to them. In 1845 Aytoun was appointed professor of rhetoric and belles lettres in the university of Edinburgh. Here he was in his element; and he made his lectures so attractive that he raised the number of students from 30 in 1846 to upwards of 1,850 in 1864. His professorial duties did not interfere with his position at the bar, and in 1852 when the Tory party came into power they requited his services as a political writer by appointing him sheriff of Orkney. In the following year Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L. The duties of Aytoun's sheriffship did not engross much of his time. These, and his work as professor, both most conscientiously discharged, left him leisure for literary work. In 1854 he produced the dramatic poem "Firmilian," perhaps the most brilliant of his works, which was written in ridicule of the extravagant themes and style of Bailey, Dobell, and Alexander Smith. It was, however, so full of imagination and fine rhythmical swing, that its object was mistaken, and what was meant for caricature was accepted as serious poetry. In 1856 Aytoun published Bothwell," a poetical monologue dealing with the relations between the hero and Mary Queen of Scots. It contained many fine passages, and three editions of it were published. In 1858 he published a collection, in two volumes, of the "Ballads of Scotland," carefully collated and annotated, of which four editions, the last in 1860, have been published. In 1861 his novel of "Norman Sinclair" was published: it had already appeared in " Blackwood's Magazine," and is interesting for its pictures of |