Bruce Michael

Bruce, Michael, poet, was born in 1746 at Kinneswood, in the parish of Portmoak, Kinrossshire. Though only a weaver's son and a herd boy, he yet in 1762 managed to go to Edinburgh University. In 1765, his ultimate aim being the ministry, he became schoolmaster, but died in two years. His poems, of which the chief was the Elegy on his own approaching death, were published in 1770 by the Rev. John Logan. Among the collection was an Ode to the Cuckoo, which Logan claimed as his own, and the real authorship of which, whether Bruce's or Logan's, is among the vexed questions of literary controversy.