Aytoun

Aytoun, William Edmonstoune, was born at Edinburgh in 1813 and was educated for the bar. He preferred, however, the career of letters, and was in 1845 appointed to the chair of rhetoric and literature in the University of Edinburgh. Under The name of Augustus Dunshunner he wrote many lively sketches in Blackwood's Magazine, and married a daughter of the editor, Professor Wilson, whom he ultimately succeeded. His Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers are spirited productions in the ballad style, and among his serious poems Poland and Bothwell deserve praise. He wrote in conjunction with Sir Theodore Martin the Bon Gaultier Ballads, and in Firmilian satirised the dramatists of the Joanna Baillie School. His Ballads of Sootland contain some of the best lyrics of the north. Norman Sinclair was his only attempt to write a conventional novel. He died in 1865.