|
GALL, RICHARD, a poet of considerable merit,
was the son of a notary in the neighbourhood of Dunbar, where he was born
in December, 1776. He received a limited education at Haddington, and at
the age of eleven was apprenticed to his maternal uncle, who was a
house-carpenter and builder. A decided repugnance to this mechanical art
induced him soon after to abandon it, and enter the business of a printer,
which was only a degree more suitable to his inclinations, from its
connection with literature, to which he was already much attached. In the
course of an apprenticeship to Mr David Ramsay, the liberal and
enlightened printer of the Edinburgh Evening Courant, he made great
advances in knowledge, and began at length to attempt the composition of
poetry in the manner of Burns. At the expiry of his time, he had resolved
to abandon even this more agreeable profession, as affording him too
slight opportunities of cultivating his mind, when fortunately he obtained
the appointment of traveling clerk to Mr Ramsay, an employment which
promised him much of that leisure for literary recreation, of which he was
so desirous. He continued to act in this capacity till his death by
abscess in his breast, May 10, 1801, when he wanted still some months to
complete his twenty-fifth year.
In the course of his brief career, Mr Gall
had secured, by his genius and modest manners, the friendship of various
literary characters of considerable eminence, in particular Mr Alexander
Murray, afterwards Professor of Oriental Languages, Mr Thomas Campbell,
author of the Pleasures of Hope, and Mr Hector Macneill, author of many
admired poems in the Scottish dialect. His poetical remains were published
in 1819, in one small volume, and include some pieces which have retained
their place in the body of our popular poetry, though in general they are
characterized by a tameness of thought and language, which will for ever
prevent their author from ranking in nearly the same form with Fergusson,
Ramsay, and Burns. |
