Thomas Aird

Aird, Thomas (1802–1876). Poet, born at Bowden, Roxburghshire, went to Edinburgh, where he became the friend of Professor Wilson, Carlyle, and other men of letters. He contributed to Blackwood’s Magazine, and was editor of the Dumfries Herald (1835–63). His chief poem is The Captive of Fez (1830); and in prose he wrote Religious Characteristics, and The Old Bachelor in the Old Scottish Village (1848), all of which were received with favour. Carlyle said that in his poetry he found everywhere “a healthy breath as of mountain breezes.”

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