(1813-1865)
Aytoun the second, balladist, humorist, and Tory, in proportions of
about equal importance,--one of the group of wits and devotees of the
_status quo_ who made Blackwood's Magazine so famous in its early
days,--was born in Edinburgh, June 21st, 1813. He was the son of Roger
Aytoun, "writer to the Signet"; and a descendant of Sir Robert Aytoun
(1570-1638), the poet and friend of Ben Jonson, who followed James VI.
from Scotland and who is buried in Westminster Abbey. Both Aytoun's
parents were literary. His mother, who knew Sir Walter Scott, and who
gave Lockhart many details for his biography, helped the lad in his
poems. She seemed to him to know all the ballads ever sung. His earliest
verses were praised by Professor John Wilson ("Christopher North"), the
first editor of Blackwood's, whose daughter he married in 1849. At the
age of nineteen he published his 'Poland, Homer, and Other Poems'
(Edinburgh, 1832). After leaving the University of Edinburgh, he studied
law in London, visited Germany, and returning to Scotland, was called to
the bar in 1840. He disliked the profession, and used to say that though
he followed the law he never could overtake it.
While in Germany he translated the first part of 'Faust' in blank verse,
which was never published. Many of his translations from Uhland and
Homer appeared in Blackwood's from 1836 to 1840, and many of his early
writings were signed "Augustus Dunshunner." In 1844 he joined the
editorial staff of Blackwood's, to which for many years he contributed
political articles, verse, translations of Goethe, and humorous
sketches. In 1845 he became Professor of Rhetoric and Literature in the
University of Edinburgh, a place which he held until 1864. About 1841 he
became acquainted with Theodore Martin, and in association with him
wrote a series of light papers interspersed with burlesque verses,
which, reprinted from Blackwood's, became popular as the 'Bon Gaultier
Ballads.' Published in London in 1855, they reached their thirteenth
edition in 1877.
"Some papers of a humorous kind, which I had published under
the _nom de plume_ of Bon Gaultier," says Theodore Martin in
his 'Memoir of Aytoun,' "had hit Aytoun's fancy; and when I
proposed to go on with others in a similar vein, he fell
readily into the plan, and agreed to assist in it. In this
way a kind of a Beaumont-and-Fletcher partnership commenced
in a series of humorous papers, which appeared in Tait's and
Fraser's magazines from 1842 to 1844. In these papers, in
which we ran a-tilt, with all the recklessness of youthful
spirits, against such of the tastes or follies of the day as
presented an opening for ridicule or mirth,--at the same time
that we did not altogether lose sight of a purpose higher
than mere amusement,--appeared the verses, with a few
exceptions, which subsequently became popular, and to a
degree we then little contemplated, as the 'Bon Gaultier
Ballads.' Some of the best of these were exclusively
Aytoun's, such as 'The Massacre of the McPherson,' 'The Rhyme
of Sir Launcelot Bogle,' 'The Broken Pitcher,' 'The Red Friar
and Little John,' 'The Lay of Mr. Colt,' and that best of all
imitations of the Scottish ballad, 'The Queen in France.'
Some were wholly mine, and the rest were produced by us
jointly. Fortunately for our purpose, there were then living
not a few poets whose style and manner of thought were
sufficiently marked to make imitation easy, and sufficiently
popular for a parody of their characteristics to be readily
recognized. Macaulay's 'Lays of Rome' and his two other fine
ballads were still in the freshness of their fame. Lockhart's
'Spanish Ballads' were as familiar in the drawing-room as in
the study. Tennyson and Mrs. Browning were opening up new
veins of poetry. These, with Wordsworth, Moore, Uhland, and
others of minor note, lay ready to our hands,--as Scott,
Byron, Crabbe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey had done to
James and Horace Smith in 1812, when writing the 'Rejected
Addresses.' Never, probably, were verses thrown off with a
keener sense of enjoyment."
With Theodore Martin he published also 'Poems and Ballads of Goethe'
(London, 1858). Mr. Aytoun's fame as a poet rests on his 'Lays of the
Cavaliers,' the themes of which are selected from stirring incidents of
Scottish history, ranging from Flodden Field to the Battle of Culloden.
The favorites in popular memory are 'The Execution of Montrose' and 'The
Burial March of Dundee.' This book, published in London and Edinburgh in
1849, has gone through twenty-nine editions.
His dramatic poem, 'Firmilian: a Spasmodic Tragedy,' written to ridicule
the style of Bailey, Dobell, and Alexander Smith, and published in 1854,
had so many excellent qualities that it was received as a serious
production instead of a caricature. Aytoun introduced this in
Blackwood's Magazine as a pretended review of an unpublished tragedy (as
with the 'Rolliad,' and as Lockhart had done in the case of "Peter's
Letters," so successfully that he had to write the book itself as a
"second edition" to answer the demand for it). This review was so
cleverly done that "most of the newspaper critics took the part of the
poet against the reviewer, never suspecting the identity of both, and
maintained the poetry to be fine poetry and the critic a dunce." The
sarcasm of 'Firmilian' is so delicate that only those familiar with the
school it is intended to satirize can fairly appreciate its qualities.
The drama opens showing Firmilian in his study, planning the composition
of 'Cain: a Tragedy'; and being infused with the spirit of the hero, he
starts on a career of crime. Among his deeds is the destruction of the
cathedral of Badajoz, which first appears in his mental vision thus:--
"Methought I saw the solid vaults give way,
And the entire cathedral rise in air,
As if it leaped from Pandemonium's jaws."