John Malcolm was the second son of the Rev. John Malcolm, minister of
the parish of Firth and Stennis, Orkney, where he was born about 1795.
Through a personal application to the Duke of Kent, he was enabled to
proceed as a volunteer to join the army in Spain. Arriving at the period
when the army under General Graham (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) was
besieging St Sebastian, he speedily obtained a lieutenancy in the 42d
Regiment, in which he served to the close of the Pyrenees' campaign.
Wounded at the battle of Toulouse, by a musket-ball penetrating his
right shoulder, and otherwise debilitated, he retired from active
service on half-pay, and with a pension for his wound. He now fixed his
abode in Edinburgh, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. He
contributed to _Constable's Magazine_, and other periodicals. For one of
the earlier volumes of "Constable's Miscellany," he wrote a narrative of
the Peninsular War. As a poet, he became known by some stanzas on the
death of Lord Byron, which appeared in the _Edinburgh Weekly Journal_.
In 1828, he published "Scenes of War, and other Poems;" and subsequently
contributed numerous poetical pieces to the pages of the _Edinburgh
Literary Journal_. A small volume of prose sketches also appeared from
his pen, under the title of "Tales of Field and Flood." In 1831 he
undertook the editorship of the _Edinburgh Observer_ newspaper, which he
held till the period of his death. He died at Edinburgh, of a pulmonary
complaint, in September 1835.
Fond of conversation, and abounding in humorous anecdote, Malcolm was
especially esteemed for his gentle and amiable deportment. His poetry,
which is often vigorous, is uniformly characterised by sweetness of
versification.