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The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
William Edmondstoune Aytoun (1813–1865)
Aytoun, William Edmonstoune (ā’ton). A Scottish humorist; born in Edinburgh, June 21, 1813; died at Blackhills, near Elgin, Aug. 4, 1865. He was a constant contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine and professor of literature in the University of Edinburgh, 1845–64. His most celebrated work is ‘Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers’ (1848). Noteworthy is his critical and annotated collection of the ‘Ballads of Scotland’ (1858). With Theodore Martin he wrote the famous ‘Bon Gaultier Ballads’ (1844), and translated ‘Poems and Ballads of Goethe’ (1858). (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).