Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/289

Rh would have been found the best fitted to occupy it. The opportunity seemed to occur in 1831, when the chair of Oriental languages in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, became vacant, and Tennant offered himself as candidate for the professorship, and had almost succeeded, his claims and those of his rival, Dr. Scott, minister of Corstorphine, having been for some time doubtfully deliberated by the crown authorities. The latter, however, was preferred, and Tennant continued three years longer at Dollar, when, by the death of Dr. Scott, he was, on the strength of his former competition, appointed to the professorship.

In this way the author of "Anster Fair," by a series of steps, ascended from the lowest to one of the highest grades of Scottish academical distinction. But while he was thus struggling onward as a teacher, and at every stage adding to his philological acquirements, he did not lose sight of that poetical character through which he had first risen into notice. Some years, therefore, after his Anstruther production, he produced a new poem, entitled "Papistry Stonn'd, or the Dingin' doun o' the Cathedral." The subject, as may be guessed, was the demolition of the cathedral of St. Andrews, the metropolitan church of Scotland at the commencement of the Reformation; and in the style of the narrative he endeavoured to imitate the quaint and vigorous manner of Sir David Lyndesay. But it was not easy for a poet of the 19th century to imitate one who impersonated the very fashion and spirit of the 16th; and, therefore, it is no wonder that the attempt was a failure. Had there been a "No Popery" cry, or had the poem been published in the present day, the subject, independently of the intrinsic merits of the work, might have forced it into wide though temporary popularity; but as it was, the age had not yet got reconciled to the demolition of the stately strongholds of Antichrist, and, therefore, his "Dingin' doun o' the Cathedral," was as complete a downfall as the eversion it tried to commemorate.

The next poetical attempt of Tennant was a poem of the epic character, which he published in 1822, under the title of the "Thane of Fife," having for its theme the invasion of the east coast of Fife by the Danes in the 9th century, when Constantine, the Scottish king, was slain, and the enemy obtained a footing on the coast of Fifeshire, to the great advantage of our fishing villages, and the provision of skate, haddocks, and oysters for the tables of the present generation. But who of our living race could otherwise care for Hungar and his hard-knuckled belligerent Scandinavians, although the poet brought in Odin, the sire of gods and men, and Niord, the god of the winds, to back them? Therefore, although the poem was a very good poem as far as the rules of epic poetry went even better by half than Sir Richard Blackmore's "Arthur" and although the correctness of the Runic mythology was such that an ancient Scald would have translated it into a rune without alteration, the "Thane of Fife " was such an utter failure, that it met with less acceptance than its predecessor. Luckily, only the first part of the poem, con- sisting of six cantos, was published; the rest, like the story of "Cambuscan Bold," or of "The Wondrous Horse of Brass," remained unsung.

Only a year after the "Thane" (in 1823;, Tennant published his "Cardinal Beaton, a Tragedy, in five acts." This dramatic poem few have read, and of that few not half of the number would greatly care to remember it. The subject itself is a noble one, and the character of the cardinal, that "less than a king, yet greater," was amply fitted to develope the very highest of poetic