William Edmondstoune Aytoun

Born in Edinburgh in 1813, he trained in law but became better known for literature and university life. He served as professor of rhetoric and belles lettres at the University of Edinburgh, and his work drew strongly on Scottish history, especially the Jacobite past.

He is remembered for both romantic narrative verse and comic satire. Among his best-known books are Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, which helped fix his reputation as a poet of Scottish legend and patriotism, and the Bon Gaultier Ballads, a collection of parodies written with Sir Theodore Martin.

Alongside poetry, he also worked as a reviewer and magazine writer, and his blend of patriotic feeling, humor, and literary mockery made him a distinctive figure in Victorian letters. He died in 1865, but his poems and parodies still offer a vivid sense of the literary culture of his time.