Scottish “weaver of rhymes,” and known as the “Canadian Burns,” born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, in 1818. His family emigrated to Canada when the poet was but two years old, and settled on a farm in western Canada. Here the Canadian bard received his humble education and grew to manhood, nursing the poetic faculty and drawing inspiration for his backwoods muse from rural sights and sounds. Most of his poems belong peculiarly to Canadian life. Two features of the poet’s character which reveal themselves in his verse are his religious seriousness, relieved by quiet touches of humor. He died at Orangeville, ON, the 20th of March 1896. See also “May,” “Old Hannah,” “Elora” and “Canada.”
