Besides this fine poem, “On Skye,” Sheriff Nicolson has translated the “Birlinn” of Alexander Macdonald, and has written many moving verses full of Gaelic sentiment of a robust kind.
SIR NOËL PATON.
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Joseph Noël Paton was born at Dunfermline on the 13th of December 1821; and while his father was also of partial Celtic origin, Sir Noël is, through his mother, the descendant of the last of the Scoto-Celtic kings. Of his career as a painter it is not necessary to speak here. His two volumes of poetry are Poems by a Painter (1861) and Spindrift (1867). The best account of the life and work of this distinguished Scot is the monograph recently published by Mr David Croal Thomson, as the “Art-Annual” of The Art Journal. The two poems by which Sir Noël is represented in this book are not to be found in either of his volumes, and their appearance here is due to the courtesy of the author.
WILLIAM RENTON.
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Mr Renton was born in Perthshire, of Scoto-Celtic parents. “Mountain Twilight” is taken from his first volume of poems called Oils and Water Colours (Hamilton, Edinburgh, 1876). Mr Renton’s only other volume of verse is his Songs (Fisher Unwin, 1893).
LADY JOHN SCOTT.
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The author of “Durisdeer” was of mixed Highland and Lowland descent. Her poem has a permanent place in our literature because of its haunting passion and pain.
EARL OF SOUTHESK.
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Lord Southesk (James Carnegie) was bom in 1827. He first made his name in literature by his strange and vigorous Jonas Fisher (1875). This was followed by Greenwood’s Farewell (1876), and The Meda Maiden (1877); though most of the poems contained in these two volumes, with several others, are comprised in The Burial of Isis (1884).
JOHN CAMPBELL SHAIRP.
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