Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 6.djvu/125

Rh LOWE,, a poet of considerable celebrity, though the author of only one small lyrical piece which has acquired popularity, was born at Kenmore in the stewartry of Kircudbright, in tlie year 1750. His father was gardener to Mr Gordon of Kenmore, son of the unfortunate viscount Kenmore; and young Lowe was reared to the business of a country weaver. Having, however, a strong desire of rising above his native lot, he fitted himself by his own exertions for entering an academical career at the university of Edinburgh, where his expenses were chiefly defrayed, it is said, by friends whom he had secured by his agreeable character and evident talents. While pursuing the study of divinity, h& was engaged as family tutor by a country gentleman of his native district, Mr M'Ghie of Airds. The residence of this gentleman, as partly implied by its Celtic appellation, was situate on a piece of lofty and picturesque ground, at the confluence of the Dee with the long narrow lake, in which the Ken meets with that river. Lowe, already addicted to versification, rejoiced with a poet's ardour in the beautiful scenery of the Airds, amidst which he constructed an arbour still called "Lowe's Seat." He here composed a considerable number of poems, fragments of which are still recollected in the district; and here also he became attached to one of the beautiful daughters of his employer, who, it is to be supposed, must have materially added to the inspiring powers of the scenery. His happy lyric, entitled "Mary's Dream," but for which, in all probability, he never would have been heard of beyond his native district, WPS written at the Airds, in reference to the death of a gentleman named Miller, a surgeon at sea, who was attached to the sister of his own mistress, and perished in the manner described in the poem.

It is not certain that Lowe, though he seems to have completed his theological studies, ever became a licentiate of the Scottish church. In 1773, he was induced to proceed to America, in order to become family tutor to a brother of the illustrious' Washington. He subsequently set up a boarding academy at Fredericksburg in Virginia, which succeeded for a time, but afterwards failed. Before leaving Scotland, he had interchanged pledges of mutual love with Miss M'Ghie, and it was understood that their marriage should take place as soon as he should be properly settled in life. The lapse of years distance hopelessness, perhaps, of ever reaching the necessary degree of fortune, and not impossibly the intervention of seven years of war between the two countries, conspired to annul this engagement; and the parties eventually married different individuals in their respective countries. Lowe is charged by his biographers with glaring infidelity to his promise; but the case is too obscurely related, to enable us to join in the censure which he has thus incurred. The fondest lovers, when divided by time and space from each other, will hardly be able to maintain their flame: as love is often at first the result of exclusive intercourse, so is it apt to expire when the parties cease for a length of time to enjoy that intercourse, or become exposed to a wider range of society. We are far from implying that a breach of youthful vows is justifiable on any principle; but yet when we see a young female bind herself up to a person who has no immediate prospect of being able to make her his wife, and who, perhaps, before that event, has to spend a long time in a distant land, where his very character is exposed to a radical change, we cannot help perceiving that such a woman perils her happiness upon a point in human nature, and a series of contingencies, where the chances are greatly against her, and therefore is not entitled to throw the whole blame of her misfortune, should it arrive, upon one who is simply, perhaps, the partner of her early imprudence. Lowe eventually paid his addresses to a Virginian lady, who rejected them, but whose sister had conceived for him a violent affection, and whom he afterwards married, from a