John Robertson, author of "The Toom Meal Pock," a humorous song which
has long been popular in the west of Scotland, was the son of an
extensive grocer in Paisley, where he was born about the year 1770. He
received the most ample education which his native town could afford,
and early cultivated a taste for the elegant arts of music and drawing.
Destined for one of the liberal professions, the unfortunate bankruptcy
of his father put an effectual check on his original aspirations. For a
period he was engaged as a salesman, till habits of insobriety rendered
his services unavailable to his employer. As a last resort, he enlisted
in the regiment of local militia; and his qualifications becoming known
to the officers, he was employed as a regimental clerk and schoolmaster.
He had written spirited verses in his youth; and though his muse had
become mournful, she continued to sing. His end was melancholy: the
unfortunate circumstances of his life preyed upon his mind, and in a
paroxysm of phrensy he committed suicide. He died in the vicinity of
Portsmouth, in the beginning of April 1810, about six weeks before the
similar death of his friend, Robert Tannahill. A person of much
ingenuity and scholarship, Robertson, with ordinary steadiness, would
have attained a good position in life.