THOMAS

See also:

• THOMAS AIRD (1802-1876)

AIRD (1802-1876)  , Scottish poet, was born at Bowden, Roxburghshire, on the 28th of August 1802 . He was educated at Edinburgh University, where he made the acquaintance of Carlyle and James Hogg, and he decided to devote himself to literary work . He published Martzoufle, a Tragedy, with other Poems (1826), a volume of essays, and a long narrative poem in several cantos, The Captive of Fez (1830) . For a year he edited the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, and for twenty-eight years the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Herald . In 1848 he published a collected edition of his poems, which met with much favour . Carlyle said that he found in them " a healthy breath as of mountain breezes." Among Aird's other friends were De Quincey, Lockhart, Stanley (afterwards dean of Westminster) and Motherwell . He died at Dumfries on the 25th of April 1876 .