Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/288

552 mustard-pot and pepper-box? These were circumstances that made him write in such a rattling mirthful strain as he never afterwards reached, when every aid of an honoured and prosperous condition stood obedient beside his learned chair.

As for the mechanical structure of the poem, this too was happily suited to the subject, being as completely out of the beaten track as the tale itself. The following is his own account of it in his original preface: "The poem is written in stanzas of octave rhyme, or the ottava rima of the Italians, a measure said to be invented by Boccaccio, and after him employed by Tasso and Ariosto. From these writers it was transferred into English poetry by Fairfax, in his translation of "Jerusalem Delivered," but since his days has been by our poets, perhaps, too little cultivated. The stanza of Fairfax is here shut with the ’Alexandrine' of Spenser, that its close may be more full and sounding." It was not the least of Tennant's poetical achievements, that he restored this long-neglected stanza into full use in English poetry. It was adopted by Lord Byron in his "Beppo" and "Don Juan," and has since been followed by a whole host of imitators, both in the serious and comic strain.

As it was not by poetry, however, that William Tennant meant to live, he set himself in earnest to the humble and laborious, but less precarious occupation of a schoolmaster, for which he had been originally designed. In 1813, he was so fortunate as to be appointed teacher of a school in the parish of Denino, a district situated between Anstruthet and St. Andrews, and about five miles from the last-named seat of learning. And it speaks not a little for his contented spirit and moderate wishes, that he accepted a situation yielding only £40 a year, at a time when his poetical reputation had obtained a fair start in the race, while his acquirements as a linguist could scarcely have been matched in Scotland. But for the present he was fully content with a quiet little cottage, and access to the stores of St. Andrews' college library; and here, without any other teacher than books, he made himself master of the Syriac, Persian, and Arabic languages. From his limited means he also published a second edition of "Anster Fair," much superior in typography and external appearance to the humble little volume that had first issued from the press of Anstruther. After labouring three years at Denino, where he had little literary society of any kind, except that of Hugh Cleghorn, Esq., of Stravithie, and the minister of the parish, Tennant was promoted to the more lucrative situation of schoolmaster of Lasswade, chiefly through the kind offices of Mr. George Thomson, the friend and correspondent of Burns. Besides the superior means which he now possessed of pursuing his beloved studies, his nearness to the capital and his growing reputation brought him into full intercourse with the distinguished literary society with which Edinburgh at this time abounded, so that, both as linguist and poet, his social spirit found ample gratification. At Lasswade he continued to perform the duties of a parish school-master, when a further rise in office awaited him. The newly established and richly endowed institution of Dollar was in want of a teacher of the classical and Oriental languages, and as Tennant's reputation was now deservedly high, not only for his scholarship, but—what was of far greater importance his power of making others good scholars as well as himself, he was appointed to this profitable and important charge, in January, 1819. Even yet, however, he had not attained a promotion that was fully adequate to his merits, for in the highest charge which profound and varied scholarship could reach, he