Share page | Visit Us On FB |
STORIES OF
set to music by his friend Robert Archibald Smith, in 1807 he published his " Songs and Poems." Some of these became popular, but brought him little fame and less money. He met with many disappointments. James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, undertook a journey to Paisley on purpose to make his acquaintance. "The two poets spent an evening together, and the next day," says Sir George Douglas, " Tannahill conveyed his new friend half way back to Glasgow. But at the moment of part-ing—as if with the knowledge of impending evil, or perhaps having already formed his fatal design—he exclaimed ' Farewell! I shall never see you more 1'"
He intimated to his friends wild plans which he had formed for leaving Paisley, to take up his abode in " some sequestered locality," or for can-vassing the country in person for subscribers to a new issue of his poems. At last, during a visit to a friend at Glasgow, he complained of the " insupportable misery of life," and is said at that time to have exhibited unequivocal symp-toms of mental derangement. At all events his friend returned with him to Paisley. On reach-ing home he retired to bed, where he was visited by three of his brothers, who left him at about ten o'clock, when he appeared to them suffi-100 |
||