Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/326

590 the next merry meeting of his comrades, at their headquarters of Musselburgh, and a corporal's troop, with a led horse, and a mock warrant for seizure, were d'espatched to apprehend and bring back the deserter. Tytler, who espied the coming of this band, escaped by a back-door, and took shelter in the wood above Woodhouselee. After he had remained there for such a length of time that he thought the danger must be over, he ventured to return to the house; but ill had he calculated upon the double sharpness of the lawyer-soldiers of the Lothian Yeomanry. He was captured at the very threshold by the ambush that awaited his return, deprived of his arms, mounted upon the led horse, and carried off in triumph to the military encampment. This diverting pantomime, of what in the stern realities of war is often a moving tragedy, so greatly tickled his fancy, that on the same evening he composed a song, detailing, in most comic fashion, the circumstances of his capture, which he sang at the mess-table on the following day, amidst the applauding peals of his companions, who were thus well requited for their trouble. This song ever after continued to be the most popular of all his lyrical productions.

But we must hasten to the mournful termination the last scene of all." In 1843 Mr. Tytler had finished his "History of Scotland;" and although he had already written so much, and this, too, upon subjects where the apparent quantity of labour bears but a small proportion to the toil and research that have produced it, he was still earnest to accomplish more, and hopeful, after a period of rest, to be enabled to resume those occupations which had now become the chief element of his existence. But even already his literary life had drawn to a close. Although of a healthy vigorous constitution, active habits, and cheerful temperament, his over-wearied mind and exhausted frame had no longer power to rally; and after wandering over the Continent in a hopeless pursuit of health, he returned home to die. His death occurred on the morning of Christmas Eve (24th December), 1849, after several years of sickness and suffering, and when he had entered his fifty-ninth year.

Mr. Tytler was twice married. His first wife, who died in 1835, was Rachel Elizabeth, daughter of the late Thomas Hog, Esq., of Newliston, by whom he had two sons, Alexander and Thomas Patrick, both in the East India Company's military service, and one daughter. His second wife, who still survives him, was Anastasia, daughter of the late Thomson Bonar, Esq., of Camden Place, Kent.

VEDDER, .—This warm-hearted enthusiastic sailor-poet, whose open countenance and massive form have so recently disappeared from among us, was born in the parish of Burness, Orkney, in 1790. His father was a small proprietor near Kirkwall; but of him he was bereaved in early boyhood; his widowed mother, however, directed the first steps of his education with singular ability, and carefully led him into that good path which he followed out to the end of his days. Being left an orphan at the age of twelve, David chose the occupation most natural to an island boy and Orcadian—it was that of a sailor,