| ADAMSON, HENRY, a poet of the seventeenth
century, was the son of James Adamson, who was dean of guild in Perth,
anno 1600, when the Gowrie conspiracy took place in that city. The poet
was educated for the pulpit, and appears to have made considerable
progress in classical studies, as he wrote Latin poetry above mediocrity.
He enjoyed the friendship and esteem of a large circle of the eminent men
of that age, particularly Drummon of Hawthornden, who induced him, in
1638, to publish a poem entitled, "Mirthful Musings for the death of
Mr Gall;" being in fact a versified history of his native town, full
of quaint allegorical allusions suitable to the taste of that age. A new
edition of this curious poem, which had become exceedingly rare, was
published in 1774, with illustrative notes by Mr James Cant. The ingenious
author died in 1639, the year after the publication of his poem.
We know golf was played on the
South Inch at the beginning of the 17th century from Henry Adamson, a Perth
poet whose Muses' Threnodie of 1620 contains the lines...
'And ye, my clubs must no more
prepare
To make your balls flee whistling through the air' |
