Scottish poet, was born at Firth, parish of Lilliesleaf, Roxburghshire, 17 Aug. 1789. After receiving elementary education at Lilliesleaf and Musselburgh, he farmed without success near Langholm, Dumfriesshire, from 1812 to 1817. He “became too soon his own master,” says Scott, “and plunged into dissipation and ruin.” His farming career over, he returned to his native place. In 1820 his family settled in Edinburgh, and Knox became a journalist. Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, and others befriended him, and Scott frequently gave him substantial pecuniary relief. His convivial habits undermined his health, and he died at Edinburgh of paralysis, 12 Nov. 1825. Besides a prose, “Visit to Dublin,” and a Christmas tale, “Mariamne, or the Widower’s Daughter,” Knox published “The Lonely Hearth, and other Poems,” 1818; “The Songs of Israel,” 1824; and “The Harp of Zion,” 1825. His lyrics are graceful and thoughtful. Scott thought Knox in “The Lonely Hearth” superior to Michael Bruce, and “Mortality,” in “Songs of Israel,” was a favourite with President Lincoln. A complete edition of Knox’s poems appeared in 1847.

Personal

  Talking of the vixisse, it may not be impertinent to notice that Knox, a young poet of considerable talent, died here a week or two since. His father was a respectable yeoman, and he himself, succeeding to good farms under the Duke of Buccleuch, became too soon his own master, and plunged into dissipation and ruin…. I had him, Knox, at Abbotsford, about ten years ago, but found him unfit for that sort of society. I tried to help him, but there were temptations he could never resist. He scrambled on writing for the book-sellers and magazines, and living like the Otways, and Savages, and Chattertons, of former days, though I do not know that he was in extreme want. His connexion with me terminated in begging a subscription or a guinea, now and then.

  Knox was short in stature, but handsomely formed; his complexion was fair, and his hair of a light colour. Subject to a variation of spirits in private, he was generally cheerful in society. He sang or repeated his own songs with much enthusiasm, and was keenly alive to his literary reputation. Possessing a fund of humour, he excelled in relating curious anecdotes.

General

  His talent then showed itself in a fine strain of pensive poetry, called, I think, “The Lonely Hearth,” far superior to that of Michael Bruce, whose consumption, by the way, has been the life of his verses…. His last works were spiritual hymns, and which he wrote very well. In his own line of society he was said to exhibit infinite humour; but all his works are grave and pensive—a style, perhaps, like Master Stephen’s melancholy, affected for the nonce.

  Knox’s poetry is largely pervaded with pathetic and religious sentiment. In the preface to his “Songs of Israel” he says—“It is my sincere wish that, while I may have provided a slight gratification for the admirer of poetry, I may also have done something to raise the devotional feelings of the pious Christian.”… As a prose writer his works are of little account, but the same cannot be said of his poetry, which possesses a richness and originality that insure for it a more lasting popularity…. He was keenly alive to his literary reputation, and could not but have been greatly gratified had he known that a poem of his would one day go the rounds of the American press and that of the Canadas as the production of a president of the United States.

  His “Lonely Hearth,” “Songs of Israel,” and “Harp of Zion,” displayed a talent which years afterward attracted the attention of Abraham Lincoln to what is now, through his commendation, a poem of classic excellence. In 1864, during the month of March, the artist Carpenter and the sculptor Swayne were both in Washington. The sculptor was working on a bust of Mr. Lincoln in a temporary studio in the Treasury Building. The President asked Mr. Carpenter to accompany him thither, and there, referring again to this poem by Knox, he was delighted to find that Mr. Swayne possessed a copy of the verses in print, which he had cut, several years before, from a Philadelphia paper. They had been originally given to Mr. Lincoln by a young man named Jason Duncan, and the President had recently written them from memory for the wife of Secretary Stanton, saying that he had often tried to discover the author, but in vain. Subsequently the republication of the stanzas in the New York “Evening Post” secured the identification of the poem with the name of William Knox.