Various works purporting to deal with Scottish minor poets and poetry have within recent years been placed before the public—some of them excellent so far as they went, others little better than mere catchpennies, crude and unreliable—all of them defective, because the field was too wide for any one man to master or one work contain. I have long felt certain that an adequate presentation of such a subject was only possible through each shire or district receiving separate treatment—hence " The Bards of Bon-Accord."

Though the plan proposed in this work was to deal with those writers only, who, connected by birth or residence with our north-eastern district, have published up to I860, yet its subject is brought down to a much more recent date—living writers, however, with one exception, being excluded from the body ot‘ the work. In the Appendix of Fugitive Poetry this latter restriction has been discarded, and notices of living writers whose effusions engaged public attention prior to 1860 are there given. In the bibliography forming part II. of the Appendix, biographical notes have frequently been added, in order to render the work as fairly complete as the limits of one volume would allow. The treatment of the whole subject is chronological, and dates, more or less approximative, have been given at the top of each page, so that a reader may know at once the period to which any author belongs. The work docs not pretend to include every writer of verses connected with the locality, but it is believed that 110 one of appreciable local repute will be found mi-noted in its pages.

The Index has been arranged to serve a three-fold purpose —biographical items being printed in small capitals—poems quoted, in italics—other matters, in ordinary type.

My brother, Mr. James D. Walker, Glasgow, has not only contributed a number of the articles in their entirety, but along with Mr. J. P. Edmond has rendered great assistance throughout the preparation of the work. To them, as well as to those friends—they are too numerous to mention by name— who, by the use of books, manuscripts, family papers, letters, &e., have materially aided me throughout my work, I tender my warmest thanks.

WILL. WALKER.

Contents

John Barbour
Intermediate Links between Barbour and Arbuthnot
Alexander Arbuthnot
Ballad Times—The Godly Ballad
The Latin Poets, &c.
Lesser Local Versifiers of the 17th Century - Ballads, &c.
Alexander Ross
Rise of Quakerism—Lillias Skene, the Quaker Poetess
Barclay of Cruden
The Jacobite Movement and the Poetry or the 1715
William Meston
Albania: a Poem, 1737
Don: a Poem, 1655 - 1742
Jacobite and other Poetry of the ’45
"Mussel-Mou’d Charlie"
George Halket
Robert and William Forbes
Ross or Lochlee
James Beattie
James Hay Beattie
John Ogilvie
"The Ogilviad"
John Skinner
Francis Douglas
George Knowles
William Cameron
Andrew Shirrefs and his Contemporaries
  William Farquhar
  William Beattie
  William Brown
  Alexander Watson
  John Ewen
James Mercer
Ewen Maclauchlin
Bardlings for a Day. 1800-1820
William Ingram
Peter Buchan
  Some additional information on Peter Buchan
John Burness
George Smith
Dr. John Longmuir
John Imlah
Thomas Daniel
Harry Gauld
Joseph Grant
Adam Cruickshank
James Pennycook Brown
John Milne
William Scott
John Mitchell
William Thom
Peter Still
George Murray (James Bolivar Manson)
Thomas Denham
William Anderson
Alexander Robb
William Cadenhead
Peter Still, Junior
William Forsyth
William Knight
William Shelley
David Grant
Appendix—
  I, Fugitive Verses and Versos Writers (1800 - 1860)
  II. Bibliography
Index