Robert Pearse Gillies (1788–1858): Born in Forfarshire, the son of a small landowner. After losing most of his fortune, he settled in Edinburgh in 1815 and pursued a literary career. Gillies became an expert on German literature, publishing many translations in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and was a close friend of Walter Scott. At Scott’s suggestion, he persuaded Messrs Truettel and Wurtz to set up the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1827, with Gillies as editor; Southey contributed to the first issue. Gillies remained as editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review until 1830, but his financial position was dire and he retreated to Boulogne in 1840–1847 and was arrested for debt on his return. His Memoirs of a Literary Veteran (1851) is a valuable record of literary life.