author
schoolmaster Alexander Hume
Remembered as a Scottish writer, minister, and schoolmaster, he is best known today for vivid religious verse and for an early, thoughtful defense of Scots spelling. His surviving work offers a lively glimpse of language, faith, and learning in late sixteenth-century Scotland.
1 Audiobook
Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles
by schoolmaster Alexander Hume
About the author
Born around 1560, probably at Polwarth in Berwickshire, Alexander Hume was a Scottish poet and churchman from the Hume family of Polwarth. Sources including Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia describe him as having likely studied at St Andrews, then law in Paris, before turning away from legal and court life toward the ministry.
He was ordained in 1590 and later served as minister of Logie in Stirlingshire. He is especially remembered for Hymnes, or Sacred Songs (1599), which includes "The Day Estival," a poem often noted for its fresh observation of the natural world alongside religious feeling.
The "schoolmaster" Alexander Hume attached to some older book records is also linked with Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue, an early work about spelling and the Scots language. Because historical catalogs can compress or blur identities, that label is best treated with a little caution, but it reflects why Hume still interests readers of poetry, language history, and Scottish literature.