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AYTOUN, or AYTON, SIR ROBERT (1570-1638)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 77 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AYTOUN, or AYTON, See also:SIR See also:ROBERT (1570-1638)  , Scottish poet, son of See also:Andrew See also:Aytoun of Kinaldie, Fifeshire, was See also:born in 1570 . He was educated at the university of St See also:Andrews, where he was incorporated as a student of St Leonard's See also:College in 1584 and graduated M.A. in 1588 . He lived for some years in See also:France, and on the See also:accession of See also:James VI. to the See also:English See also:throne he wrote in See also:Paris a Latin See also:panegyric, which brought him into immediate favour at See also:court . He was knighted in 1612 . He held various lucrative offices, and was private secretary to the queens of James I. and See also:Charles I . He died in See also:London and was buried in See also:Westminster See also:Abbey on the 28th of See also:February 1638 . His reputation with his contemporaries was high, both personally and as a writer, though he had no ambition to be known as the latter . Aytoun's remains are in Latin and English . In respect of the latter he is one of the earliest Scots to use the See also:southern See also:standard as a See also:literary See also:medium . The Latin poems include the panegyric already referred to, an Epicedium in ohitum See also:Thoma Rhodi; Basics, sive Strena ad Jacobum Hayum; Lessus in funere Raphaelis Therei; Carina See also:Caro; and See also:minor pieces, occasional and epitaphic . His first English poem was See also:Diophantus and Charidora (to which he refers in his Latin panegyric to James) . He has See also:left a number of pieces on amatory subjects, including songs and sonnets .

Aytoun's Latin poems are printed in Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (See also:

Amsterdam, 16,39 i. pp . 40-75 . His English poems are preserved in a MS. in the: See also:British Museum (Add . See also:MSS . 10,308), which was pre-pared by his See also:nephew, See also:Sir See also:John Aytoun . Both were collected by Charles See also:Rogers in The Poems of Sir See also:Robert Aytoun (London, privately printed, 1871) . This edition is unsatisfactory, though it is better than the first issue by the same editor in 1844 . Additional poems are included which cannot be ascribed to Aytoun, and which in some cases have been identified as the See also:work of others . The poem I do confess See also:thou'rt smooth and See also:fair " may be suspected, and the old version of " Auld See also:Lang Syne " and " Sweet Empress " are certainly not Aytoun's . Some of the English poems are printed in See also:Watson's Collection (1706–1711) and in the See also:Bannatyne See also:Miscellany, i. p . 299 (1827) . There is a memoir of Aytoun in Rogers's edition, and another by See also:Grosart in the Dict. of Nat .

Biog . Particulars of his public career will be found in the printed Calendars of See also:

State Papers and See also:Register of the Privy See also:Council of the See also:period .

End of Article: AYTOUN, or AYTON, SIR ROBERT (1570-1638)
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