The writer of spirited and elegant poetry, Mrs Margaret Maxwell Inglis
was the youngest daughter of Alexander Murray, a medical practitioner,
who latterly accepted a small government situation in the town of
Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire. She was born at Sanquhar on the 27th October
1774, and at an early age became the wife of a Mr Finlay, who held a
subordinate post in the navy. On the death of her husband, which took
place in the West Indies, she resided with the other members of her
family in Dumfries; and in 1803, she married Mr John Inglis, only son of
John Inglis, D.D., minister of Kirkmabreck, in Galloway. By the death of
Mr Inglis in 1826, she became dependent, with three children by her
second marriage, on a small annuity arising from an appointment which
her late husband had held in the Excise. She relieved the sadness of her
widowhood by a course of extensive reading, and of composition both in
prose and verse. In 1838 she published, at the solicitation of friends,
a duodecimo volume, entitled "Miscellaneous Collection of Poems, chiefly
Scriptural Pieces." Of the compositions in this volume, there are
several of very superior merit, while the whole are marked by a vein of
elegant fancy.
Mrs Inglis died in Edinburgh on the 21st December 1843. Eminently gifted
as a musician, she could boast of having been complimented by the poet
Burns on the grace with which she had, in his presence, sung his own
songs. Of retiring and unobtrusive habits, she mixed sparingly in
general society; but among her intimate friends, she was held in
estimation for the extent of her information and the unclouded
cheerfulness of her disposition. She has left some MSS. of poems and
songs, from which we have been privileged to make selections for the
present work.