Thomas Aird

AIRD, THOMAS (1802-1876), Scottish poet, was born at Bowden, Roxburghshire, on the 28^th of August 1802.  He was educated at Edinburgh University, where he made the acquaintance of Carlyle and James Hogg, and he decided to devote himself to literary work.  He published Martzoufie, 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 he edited the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, and for twenty-eight years the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Herald. In 1848 he published a collected edition of his poems, which met with much favour.  Carlyle said that he found in them “a healthy breath as of mountain breezes.” Among Aird’s other friends were De Quincey, Lockhart, Stanley (afterwards dean of Westminster) and Motherwell.  He died at Dumfries on the 25^th of April 1876.