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 had married the eldest son of Mrs. Oliphant of Lanton, Midlothian, and Pennecuik gave with her the estate of Newhall. Her husband, however, got into debt, and in 1703 Newhall was sold to Sir David Forbes, father to John Forbes, Pennecuik's friend and Ramsay's patron. Pennecuik lived at Romanno until his death, when he left that property to a younger daughter, who had married Mr. Farquharson of Kirktown of Boyne, Aberdeenshire.

Pennecuik's works were reprinted at Edinburgh in 1762 (‘A Collection of curious Scots Poems … by Alexander Pennecuik’); at Leith in 1815, ‘with copious notes;’ and again at Edinburgh in 1875. The poems are chiefly occasional, and frequently in the Scottish dialect. The satires and other pieces possess humour, though they are often coarse. His imitations from earlier and foreign writers are of little interest; the value of his verses lies in the picture they give of the rural life of the time. He cared little for scenery apart from mankind, and had no appreciation for nature in her grander aspects.

The following pieces appeared in separate form: 1. ‘Caledonia Triumphans,’ broadside, 1699, reprinted in Laing's ‘Various Pieces of Fugitive Scotch Poetry,’ 1823. 2. ‘A Panegyric to the King,’ broadside, 1699. 3. ‘The Tragedy of Graybeard,’ 1700, 8vo. 4. ‘Lintoun Address to his Highness the Prince of Orange,’ broadside, 1714; this piece was first printed in the first part of Watson's ‘Choice Collection of Scots Songs,’ 1706.

Dr. Pennecuik is often confused with another

(d. 1730), said to be his nephew. The younger Pennecuik was in all probability a relative, for commendatory verses by ‘Al. P., Mercator Edinburgensis,’ were prefixed to the elder Pennecuik's ‘Description of Tweeddale,’ 1715, and lines ‘To my honoured friend, Dr. P——k,’ were printed by the younger Pennecuik in 1720 in his best known volume, ‘Streams from Helicon, or Poems on Various Subjects, in three parts, by Alexander Pennecuik, Gent.,’ Edinburgh; some copies are marked as second edition, and others bear a London imprint. In 1726 he published ‘Flowers from Parnassus,’ and before his death he appears to have begun a periodical, ‘Entertainment for the Curious.’ He was buried in the Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh, on 28 Nov. 1730, being described in the register as ‘Alexander Pencook, merchant’ (Chalmers's ‘Life of Ramsay,’ prefixed to Poems, 1800, vol. i. pp. lvii–lviii). Pennecuik's life was dissipated, and, according to James Wilson (‘Claudero’), who seems to have succeeded him as town laureate, he, ‘like poor Claud, was short of pence,’ though he sang sweetly, and ‘starving, died in turnpike neuk’ (Collection of Poems, 1761?, ‘Claudero's Farewell to the Muses and Auld Reikie’). After Pennecuik's death there appeared ‘A Collection of Poet Pennecuik's Satires on Kirkmen,’ &c., 1744; ‘A Compleat Collection of all the Poems wrote by that famous and learned Poet, Alexander Pennecuik,’ six parts, no date, but published about 1750; and ‘A Collection of Scots Poems on several occasions, by the late Mr. Alexander Pennecuik, Gent., and others,’ Glasgow, 1787. Other similar collections were printed in 1756 and 1769. The younger Pennecuik published in separate form: 1. ‘A Pastoral Poem sacred to the Memory of Lord Basil Hamilton,’ 1701. 2. ‘A Pil for Pork-eaters,’ 1705, an attack on the English (included in the ‘Compleat Collection’). 3. ‘Britannia Triumphans, in four parts … sacred to 28 May, the Anniversary of the Birth of George I,’ 1718. 4. ‘An Historical Account of the Blue Blanket, or Craftsmen's Banner,’ by ‘Alex. Pennecuik, burgess and guild-brother of Edinburgh,’ 1722; a prose account, several times reprinted, of the crafts of Edinburgh. 5. ‘Corydon and Cochrania: a Pastoral on the Nuptials of the Duke of Hamilton,’ 1723. 6. ‘Groans from the Grave, or Complaints of the Dead against the Surgeons for raising their Bodies out of the Dust,’ anonymous, but stated in a manuscript note in Maidment's copy in the British Museum to have been published at Edinburgh by Pennecuik on 13 March 1725. 7. ‘Rome's Legacy to the Kirk of Scotland,’ no place or date. It has been suggested that Pennecuik was the author of ‘The Flight of Religious Piety from Scotland upon account of Ramsay's Lewd Books,’ published about 1736, on the ground that he was a frequent rival or imitator of Ramsay. Pennecuik's own writings are constantly marred by obscenity; but there is wit in some of his satires, which were generally aimed against whigs and presbyterians.

[The principal source of information respecting Dr. Pennecuik is the life prefixed to the 1815 edition of his Works, which is stated (Cat. of the Signet Library) to be by Robert Brown of Newhall; Thomson's Biogr. Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen; Lives of the Scottish Poets, 1822, iii. 36–40, 155; Memoirs of the Life of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, ed. J. M. Gray, pp. 114, 235–6; The Gentle Shepherd, with illustrations of the scenery, 1808, i. 45–7, ii. 408–13, 640–2, Scots Magazine, 1805 p. 905, 1806 pp. 249, 581, 1807 p. 170; Catalogues of British Museum,