Scottish poet and, from 1809, a clergyman of the Church of Scotland. He published The Sabbath (1804) (reviewed by Southey in the Annual Review (1806)), British Georgics (1808) (reviewed by Southey in the Quarterly Review (1810)), and The Siege of Copenhagen; a Poem (1808). In 1811 Southey wrote of him: ‘His understanding was not equal to his genius, & it required the sunshine of a brighter fortune than ever fell to his lot to counteract a natural melancholy, the constitutional mental disease of men whose feelings are stronger than their intellect … his Sabbath will always remain, – & from all his other pieces … a few rare passages may be culled which the best of us might have been proud to have written.’