Volume 2 > Half-Volume 4

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appeared; but the same cannot be said of his poetry,
which possesses a richness and originality that places
it on a higher intellectual scale, and insures it a more
lasting popularity. It is pleasing also to record,
that it is not only undefaced by a single line which
a dying author would wish to blot, but elevated
throughout into the highest tone of pure devotional
feeling and religious instruction. In these cases,
Sir Walter Scott seems to think that poor Knox
was assuming a part�that he was speaking " accord-
ing to the trick," and nothing more. We would fain
charitably believe, however, that the pensiveness of
the erring bard was something else than affectation,
and his religious feeling than hypocrisy. Had he
not cause to write sadly when he yielded to his
better feelings, and sat down to give vent to them in
the language which he had learned in happier and
purer days ? Or was he singular under that
-----"video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor"-----
which converts so many an unfortunate genius into
a sign-post between time and eternity, where he can
do nothing more than direct others upon their
heavenward journey? In the following stanzas, by
which his Songs of Zion are prefaced, we can both
recognize and understand his sincerity, notwithstand-
ing all those unhappy inconsistencies with which it
was contradicted:�
" Harp of Zion ! pure and holy!
Pride of Judah's eastern land!
May a child of guilt and folly
Strike thee with a feeble hand?
May I to my bosom take thee,
Trembling from the prophet's touch,
And, with throbbing heart, awake thee
To the songs I love so much?
" I have loved thy thrilling numbers
Since the dawn of childhood's day,
When a mother sooth'd my slumbers
With the cadence. of thy lay�
Since a little blooming sister
Clung with transport round my knee,
And my glowing spirit blessed her
With a blessing caught from thee.
" Mother�sister�both are sleeping
Where no heaving hearts respire,
While the eve of age is creeping
Round the widowed spouse and sire.
He and his, amid their sorrow,
Find enjoyment in thy strain�
Harp of Zion ! let me borrow
Comfort from thy chords again."
It is only necessary to add, that this life of literary
adventure to which William Knox committed him-
self, and in which he unwisely squandered his re-
sources of health and strength, was a brief one, for
he died at Edinburgh on the 12th of November,
1825, in his thirty-sixth year. The cause of his
death was a stroke of paralysis, which he survived
only three or four days.
L.
LAING, ALEXANDER GORDON, whose name is
so mournfully connected with the history of African
discovery, was born in Edinburgh on the 27th of
December, 1793. His father, William Laing, A.M.,
was the first who opened an academy for classical
education in the new town of the Scottish capital;
where he laboured for thirty-two years, and was one
of the most popular teachers of his day. His mater-
nal grandfather, William Gordon, was also a teacher
of very considerable note, and is known as the author
of a system of geography, a treatise on arithmetic,
a translation of the first six books of Livy, &c.
With such a parentage it might naturally have
been supposed that the subject of this memoir was
more likely to have spent his days amid the quiet
pursuits of literature than in the bustle of the camp
and amid the din of arms: the aspect of his early
years seemed to favour the supposition. Under the
tuition of his father young Laing received the ele-
mentary education that was necessary to prepare him
for the university, and he was enrolled in the human-
ity class at the early age of thirteen years. Previous
to this he had acquired a very considerable knowledge
of the Latin language, of which he was passionately
fond; and the appearances he made in the class then
taught by Professor Christison were of so marked a
kind as to secure him the very flattering notice of
his preceptor; he was held up as a model for the
imitation of his fellow-students, and there were but
few who could entertain any hope of excelling him,
At the age of fifteen Mr. Laing entered on the
business of active life, having engaged himself as
assistant to Mr. Bruce, a teacher in Newcastle. Here
he remained only six months, when he returned to
Edinburgh and entered into company with his father,
taking charge of the commercial department of the
academy, for which his beautiful penmanship and
other acquirements singularly qualified him.
But the time was fast approaching when the sub-
ject of our memoir was to exchange the ferula for
the sword. In 1809 volunteering was very general
in Edinburgh, and young Laing attached himself
to a corps then forming. In 1810 he was made
an ensign in the Prince of Wales' volunteers, and
from that period the academy had no more charms
for him. In his eighteenth year he abandoned the
irksome duties of teaching, and set off for Bar-
badoes to his maternal uncle, Colonel (afterwards
Lieutenant-general) Gordon, through whose kind
offices he looked forward to an introduction into
the army. At that time Colonel Gordon held the
office of deputy quartermaster-general in Barbadoes,
and on his nephew's arrival he gave him a situation
as clerk in his counting-house. In this situation
Mr. Laing repeatedly came in contact with Sir
George Beckwith, then at the head of the com-
mand of the military on the station, who was so
much pleased with the young clerk, and took so
deep an interest in his fortunes, as to secure for him
unsolicited an ensign's commission in the York
light infantry.
But we must hurry over the first years of Laing's
service in the anny, to detail the more important
passages in his history. Having obtained the en-
signcy in the York light infantry, he immediately
joined his regiment in Antigua; in two years he was
made a lieutenant, and shortly after, on the reduc-
tion of the regiment, he was put on half-pay. Dis-
satisfied with the inactivity consequent on such a
measure, as soon as the necessary arrangements could
be made, he exchanged into the 2d West India re-
giment, and proceeded to Jamaica. Here over-
exertion in consequence of his discharging the duties
of quartermaster-general caused him to suffer much
from disease of the liver. He retired to Honduras
for the recovery of his health, where Colonel Arthur,