THE DEATH OF WILLIAM AYTOUN.

It will not be expected that a new Number of this Magazine should appear without our attempting to express, however inadequately, our deep grief and infinite regret for the loss we have sustained by the death of William Edmondstoune Aytoun. Carried off in the prime of life, in the midst of a brilliant, useful, and prosperous career, and in the enjoyment of the utmost domestic happiness, he leaves a blank which will not soon be supplied in the hearts of those who possessed his friendship, and in the number-now, alas! too limited-of the men of genius and literary power of which his country could boast. For ourselves, we have to lament his loss upon a double ground; as a most faithful and valued literary auxiliary, and as a friend bound to us by the strongest ties of dear and familiar intimacy. It is with difficulty that we can command our feelings so as to record with any regularity of method the few facts in his life which it seems proper here to notice.

He was born in June 1813, and had thus at his death in August 1865 completed his fifty-second year. On both sides of his house he was well descended and well connected. His father, who was a writer to the signet, and the partner of an eminent firm in that profession, died when Aytoun was comparatively young. His mother lived to a great age, and died only a few years ago. She was an excellent example of an old Scottish lady, and from her tendencies and traditions her son derived much of his early and enduring predilection for the Cavalier cause. He was a most attached son and brother, and his mother and sisters repaid his affection by the strongest feelings which an only son and brother could inspire.

He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and went through the usual curriculum at the University, of which he was destined to become so distinguished an ornament. He afterwards studied for some time in Germany, where he acquired that love and knowledge of German literature of which his writings contain so many proofs.

He passed as a writer to the signet, but soon saw that this was not his appropriate sphere, and in 1840 he was called to the Scottish Bar. He practised for a time with some success, particularly in criminal causes, and regularly attended the Western Circuit. His literary propensities, however, were too strong to be repressed. He became well known among his companions for various successful jeux d'esprit, as well as for compositions of a more serious kind, both in verse and prose. He furnished at this time several contributions to "Tait's Magazine,' where, in conjunction with a congenial collaborateur, his early friend, Theodore Martin, he began the Bon Gaultier Ballads' which now form the best and most popular collection that exists of that kind of composition.

In 1839 his connection with this Magazine commenced, and we venture to say, with a feeling of pride which we trust will not be thought unbecoming, that he found here a peculiarly fit and favourable field for the exercise of his great and varied powers. These soon began to be appreciated; but The Burial-March of Dundee,' and 'Charles Edward at Versailles,' which were published in the Magazine in 1843, were the first things that made him known as a true poet, and from that time his

reputation, and, it may be added, his powers of literary execution, continued steadily to increase.

Shortly after this, the railway mania attained the alarming height which caused so serious a crisis in that form of speculation. Aytoun had seen in the circle of his own acquaintance a good deal of the ruinous effects which fell upon those "who," as he used to express it, "were out in the Forty-five of the present century ;" and his reflections on this disastrous madness led him to attempt an antidote. In October 1845, there appeared in the Magazine his celebrated paper, 'How we got up the Glenmutchkin.' The picture there presented was not only a most amusing piece of comic writing, but a true representation of the existing evils, and a powerful and most useful satire upon the parties concerned in them. We have reason to believe, from good authority, that the article had a marked effect at the time in moderating the frantic speculations of the period, and "The Glenmutchkin" has ever since been a byword for denouncing those desperate enterprises that are undertaken upon no solid ground, and promoted by an atrocious system of exaggeration and falsehood.

'The Glenmutchkin' was followed by many sketches of social life conceived and executed in the same happy vein of combined humour and good sense; but it was not easy to find another subject so fortunate or so popular.

In the beginning of 1848 the Magazine contained the poem of 'Edinburgh after Flodden,' an admirable composition, and the best, perhaps, of that collection of Lays on which Mr Aytoun's permanent reputation is most likely to stand. We cannot help thinking that, with the single exception of Sir Walter Scott's ballads, this volume exhibits by far the best and truest specimens of this peculiar and difficult form of poetry that have ever appeared from the pen of an individual writer.

We have now before us a list of the various papers he contributed to our pages from the year 1839 to the time of his death. They amount in number to more than a hundred and twenty, and we cannot look over For the catalogue without admiration of the diversity of subjects which they embrace, and the persevering assiduity which produced them. we have no hesitation in saying that none of his papers were carelessly thrown off, but that in all of them he put his heart conscientiously into his work, and laboured to give it as much completeness and efficiency as it was in his power to bestow.

It would be endless to notice the various departments of writing in We which he excelled, though we may take an opportunity hereafter to attempt a review and estimate of the best things that he wrote. cannot, however, refrain from looking back with peculiar satisfaction to the political papers which he contributed in the year 1850, with reference in particular to the matters then agitated in connection with agricultural interests. They seemed to us, at the time, to state with singular power and ability the case which the farmers brought forward; and we know that some of the best judges of the subject, who had no leanings in favour of "protection," considered them to be unanswered and unanswerable. If the cause there advocated was to have been won, we are certain that those articles would have contributed largely to the victory. The questions then at issue are now set at rest; but we continue to think that the grounds which the Protectionists thus took were rested on fairness and equity, and such as they had no reason to be ashamed of occupying, whether as claimants for justice or as lovers of their country.

In 1845, Mr Aytoun had been appointed Professor of Rhetoric and Belles

Lettres in the University of Edinburgh. This Chair had been occupied by very distinguished men before him; but it was his peculiar merit to make it more practically instructive than it had ever previously been. He began with a class of about thirty students, and ended with having upwards of a hundred and fifty-a result which we think is to be ascribed, not perhaps to any superiority of his lectures over those of his predecessors, but to his great popularity with his students, arising from two different causes: the one, his strong sympathy with their youthful tastes and aspirations; and the other, the unwearied industry with which he laboured to train them to the art of composition, by his strict examination and diligent correction of the papers and essays given in by them. This must have been an irksome as well as an inglorious task, but he considered it to be a duty imposed on him by his position, and he reaped the appropriate fruits of it by his great success and eminence as a literary teacher.

In 1849 he married Jane, the youngest daughter of Professor Wilson, a most amiable lady, with whom he enjoyed ten years of great domestic happiness, checkered only by her languid state of health, and clouded at last by her death in 1859.

In 1852 he was made Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland, and devoted himself with his habitual earnestness and assiduity to the duties of his office. He usually passed a considerable portion of the summer months in the islands that composed his Sheriffdom, and his death is deeply lamented by all those over whom he was thus placed.

The death of his gentle and affectionate wife was a severe affliction to him, and for a long while his health and spirits were seriously affected by it. Time, however, brought consolation; and it was a great pleasure to his friends when, in December 1863, he married Miss Kinnear, with whose near relatives, the Balfours of Trennabie, in Orkney, he had long been intimate. This also was a most happy union, and his health seemed for a time to be regaining its original vigour. During last winter, however, bad symptoms appeared, and fears began to be entertained that some serious constitutional malady was undermining his frame. He complained of great weakness and languor, and felt labour of any kind to be irksome. Still he was in good spirits, particularly when he met with any friend; and in the beginning of June he went with Mrs Aytoun to Blackhills, a pleasant retreat near Elgin, of which he had taken a lease for summer quarters. The accounts received of him after he went to Morayshire were not satisfactory, but no immediate danger was apprehended.

We think it may be interesting to our readers to see the way in which he speaks of himself and his state of health in the last letter which we received from him, dated at Blackhills, on the 14th of July 1865:

"Dr Ross, from whose treatment I have received great benefit during the fortnight he has attended me, is peremptory against my working my brain until I am physically stronger; and I am quite sure he is right, for a few days ago the mere effort of finding rhymes for some macaronic verses I had commenced, wearied me in a way I previously would have deemed incredible. However, I am, thank God, much better than I was; and having, as far as discoverable, no organic complaint, I may hope, with care and perseverance in a generous diet, to get back my strength. As regards the stores of the druggist I am parcus cultor et infrequens,' taking nothing beyond a solution of iron; but, en revanche, I am put upon a most liberal allowance of animal food, brandy, and claret.

"I have abandoned the idea of going down to the islands in the mean time, and shall put off my visit until a much later period of the season. I shall hope to be able to take the hill on the 12th of August, and would be seriously grieved if prevented, for my keeper, who was over part of the ground on Monday, gives an excellent account of the young broods; and I have purveyed me a steady white pony-nomine Missy, which name I have elevated into that of 'the Muse '-well adapted for trotting through the heather. Do you think you could come down here for that sport? I need not say how joyfully you will be welcomed; and I can assure you that there are few prettier or more enjoyable places to be found in the north of Scotland than this same residence of Blackhills. The range of grouse-ground is very fair, but the extent of the low-country shooting is immense; and though partridges have not been very plentiful in the district for some years, there are hares enough to excite to frenzy the scalping instincts of a Choctaw. Think of this; for I certainly shall not migrate southwards this year until summoned by the approaching exigencies of the session."

These cheerful anticipations were not to be realised. His disease latterly made rapid progress, and he gradually sank under it, and tranquilly expired on the 4th of August, retaining the full possession of his faculties to the last, and calmly contemplating with the most pious resignation his approaching end.

His life altogether was a successful and happy one. Its success he owed to an unusual combination of genius, industry, and prudence; and its happiness to his bright and genial temperament and equable temper. It was always a pleasure to be with him, as will be acknowledged by every one who remembers him as a travelling or a social companion. The little tours that he made from time to time on the Continent formed often the subject of pleasant articles in the Magazine, but they were not so pleasant on paper as they were in reality to those who had the good fortune to be his fellow-travellers.

His domestic affections were of the warmest and most engaging kind, and the friendships that he formed were equally cordial and lasting. It is to ourselves a source of great though melancholy pleasure to look back on our long intercourse with him, which was never interrupted by any difference of opinion or estrangement of feeling. It is rare, indeed, that the relations of business become a source of so much heartfelt pleasure and familiar intimacy; and we cannot think without painful emotion that all this happiness is at an end.

It was erroneously supposed in some quarters that Mr Aytoun occupied the position of Editor of this Magazine. Indeed, it seems difficult to persuade our friends at a distance of what is well known to those nearer at hand, that the proprietors of this Magazine have never since its commencement, now nearly half a century ago, devolved upon others the powers or responsibilities of an editor. To this system, perhaps, they owe it that the Magazine has preserved a uniform consistency of aim and purpose; and that, while warm in its advocacy of great views and principles, it has avoided those petty partisanships and predilections from which it is so difficult for an ordinary editor to keep free.

We cannot close this short and imperfect notice without adding a statement which we think due alike to the memory of the deceased and to the cause of true religion, at a time when so much laxity and false liberality prevail upon serious subjects. Mr Aytoun was a sincere and humble Christian. At no time in his most joyous moments of jocularity did anything fall from his lips or from his pen that was irreverent, or in any way at variance with religious views; and his last moments were soothed