Scottish man of letters, born at Auchintoul, Aberdeenshire, on the 10th of October 1845. He was educated at Aberdeen University, and spent a year at Merton College, Oxford. He was assistant professor under Alexander Bain at Aberdeen for some years; from 1874 to 1878 he edited the Examiner, and in 1880 he was made full professor of logic and English at Aberdeen. In 1872 he published a Manual of English Prose Literature, which was distinguished by sound judgment and sympathetic appreciation; and his Characteristics of English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley (1874) showed the same high qualities. His other works include The Literature of the Georgian Era (1894) edited with a biographical introduction by W. Knight a monograph on Defoe in the English Men of Letters series (1879); three novels of small importance, and numerous articles on literary subjects in the 9th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. He died on the 1st of March 1893. (See authored articles: Thomas Dekker, John Dryden, John Stuart Mill, Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Scott, Edmund Spenser, Sir Richard Steele, Laurence Sterne, William Wordsworth.)
