Mayne, John

(1759-1836)

   Scottish poet, born at Dumfries, he was partly educated in the local grammar school, though he was largely self-educated. He was a printer on the Dumfries Journal, then in Glasgow, then in 1787 he settled in London, first as a printer, and then as proprietor and joint editor of the Star. From 1807-1817, he contributed poems to the Gentleman's Magazine, as well as to his own newspaper (he wrote in the Scots dialect). He died in London and was buried in his family vault at Paddington churchyard. The poem The Siller Gun was first published in Ruddiman's Magazine in 1780, and in its final form in 1836 Sir Walter Scott praised it, likening it to the poems of Robert Burns. Some of his other publications: English, Scots and Irishmen, 1803. Glasgow, 1803. The Modern Scottish Minstrel, 1855. Some of his other poems: "Apostrophe to the River Nith," "Bonaparte, o'er the sea," "Hallowe'en," "Helen of Kirkconnel," "Logan Braes," "My Johnnie" (air, Johnnie's Gray Breeks), "The King's Welcome to Scotland, Thursday, August 15, 1822," "The Winter Sat Lang," "The Troops Were Embarked."

   Sources: Biography of John Mayne, Significant Scots (http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/mayne_john.htm). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Burns Encyclopedia: John Mayne (http://robertburns.org/encyclopedia/MayneJohn 17591511836.597.shtml). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Home Book of Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953. The Oxford Book of Scottish Verse. John MacQueen and Tom Scott, eds. Oxford University Press, 1966. The Scottish Collection of Verse to 1800. Eileen Dunlop and Kamm Antony, eds. Richard Drew, 1985.