Joseph Grant, a short-lived poet and prose writer, was born on the farm
of Affrusk, parish of Banchory-Ternan, Kincardineshire, on the 26th of
May 1805. He was instructed in the ordinary branches at the parish
school, and employed as a youth in desultory labour about his father's
farm. From boyhood he cherished a passionate love for reading, and was
no less ardent in his admiration of the picturesque and beautiful in
nature. So early as his fourteenth year he composed verses of some
merit. In 1828, he published "Juvenile Lays," a collection of poems and
songs; and in 1830, "Kincardineshire Traditions"--a small volume of
ballads--both of which obtained a favourable reception. Desirous of
emanating from the retirement of his native parish, he accepted, in
1831, the situation of assistant to a shop-keeper in Stonehaven, and
soon afterwards proceeded to Dundee, where he was employed in the office
of the _Dundee Guardian_ newspaper, and subsequently as clerk to a
respectable writer.
Grant furnished a series of tales and sketches for _Chambers's Edinburgh
Journal_. In 1834, he published a second small volume of "Poems and
Songs;" and subsequently, in the same year, committed to the press a
prose work, entitled "Tales of the Glens," which he did not, however,
survive to publish. After an illness of fifteen weeks, of a pulmonary
complaint, he died on the 14th April 1835, in his thirtieth year. His
remains were interred in the churchyard of Strachan, Kincardineshire,
where a tombstone, inscribed with some elegiac verses, has been erected
to his memory. The "Tales of the Glens" were published shortly after his
decease, under the editorial care of the late Mr James M'Cosh, of
Dundee, editor of the _Northern Warder_ newspaper; and, in 1836, an
edition of his collected works was published at Edinburgh, with a
biographical preface by the poet Nicol.
Of a fine genius, a gentle and amiable nature, and pure Christian
sentiments, Grant afforded eminent promise, with a prolonged career, of
becoming an ornament to literature. Cut down in the bloom of youth, his
elegy has been recorded by the Brechin poet, Alexander Laing--
"A kinder, warmer heart than his
Was ne'er to minstrel given;
And kinder, holier sympathies
Ne'er sought their native heaven."