Author: STOTT, Thomas
Biography:
STOTT, Thomas (1755-1829: DIB)
He was born on 21 Apr. 1755 at Hillsborough, County Down, to William Stott, linen merchant, and his wife Sarah Thompson. For no apparent reason, modern editors of Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), where Stott is repeatedly castigated, call him Robert when his real name was Thomas. His pen-name, Hafiz, was borrowed from the Persian poet (q.v.). A Quaker at birth, on his marriage to Mary Ann Gardner in 1777 he joined the Church of Ireland and worshipped at Bishop Thomas Percy’s (q.v.) cathedral in Dromore; he and Percy were close friends. He became a wealthy linen-bleacher in Dromore where he and Mary Ann had nine daughters and two sons; one son joined him in business and in about 1826 his company traded as “Thomas Stott & Son.” In his youth, Stott was a sympathizer of the Society of United Irishmen, a radical organization, and contributed poems to their newspaper, the Belfast Northern Star. Later in life he became a strong Conservative. Not a professional newspaperman, he did regularly contribute poems, mostly sonnets, to the Tory-sympathizer Morning Post, and always showed an interest in Spain. It is in the above-mentioned newspaper where all of his Spanish oeuvre can be found: four poems related to the Peninsular War, and another eight to the Liberal Revolution. He also devoted poems to the Greek struggle for independence and to his Irish homeland. But he also ranged far and wide: many of his sonnets are about nature and he published poems in the Gentleman’s Magazine, Chester Courant, Belfast News-Letter, and Walker’s Hibernian Magazine. At least one poem in the Morning Post is a translation from Irish, and so too are the Deardra poems. In this, he was helped by William Neilson, the Irish-language scholar. Many of his poems were collected by himself in the work listed, his only known published volume. He died on 22 Apr. 1829 and was buried at Dromore cathedral. (DIB 2 Feb. 2019; O'Donoghue; F. J. Bigger, “Thomas Stott – ‘Hafiz’ – the poet of Dromore (with portrait),” The Irish Book Lover 12 [1921] 123-26; John S. Crone, A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography [1928] 241; P. Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 [1980] 1: 28, 172, 179; R. Gamble, “Thomas Stott – Dromore's Forgotten Poet,” Dromore and District Local Historical Group Journal 1 [1991] 1-4; Spenserians 2 Feb. 2019; Belfast Commercial Chronicle 25 Oct. 1826; Belfast News Letter 1 May 1829; A. Coletes Blanco, “A ‘Romantic Land’ Twice Invaded, and Twice Supported: Byron, Hemans, Moore, and ‘Hafiz’ on Spain, 1808–14 and 1820–23,” Byron Journal 48.1 [2020] 33-44) ACB