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AITKEN, JOHN,
for some time editor of Constable’s Miscellany, was born on 25th
March 1793, in the village of Camelon, Stirlingshire. His first situation
was in the East Lothian bank, and soon after he was sent to the banking
office of Mr. Park, Selkirk, brother of Mungo Park the traveller, where he
remained for several years. He was afterwards appointed teller in the East
Lothian bank, where he had formerly been. He subsequently removed to
Edinburgh, and became a bookseller. Having early displayed a predilection
for literature, he now resolved to follow the bent of his mind, and
commenced editing ‘The Cabinet,’ an elegant selection of pieces in prose
and verse, three volumes of which were published. The taste and judgment
evinced in this publication recommended him to Mr. Archibald Constable, as
the fittest person to undertake the editorship of his Miscellany; and
though for a time the failure of Messrs. Constable and Company postponed
the publication, when the work at last appeared, it was under Mr. Aitken’s
management.
On the death of
Mr. Constable, he, in conjunction with Mr. Henry Constable and Messrs.
Hurst, Chance, and Company, London, purchased the work, and continued
editor till 1831, when some new arrangements rendered his retirement
necessary. He afterwards became a printer on his own account, with some
prospect of success; but having caught cold, which produced erysipelas in
the head, he died on the 15th of February 1833, in the 39th year of his
age, leaving a widow and four children. Mr. Aitken wrote a few pieces of
poetry of uncommon beauty and sensibility ; of these, perhaps the most
touching is the address to his children, prefixed to the third series of
the Cabinet.—Obituary at the time.
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