Author: Tait, John
Biography:
TAIT, John (1748-1817: findmypast.com)
He was one of the eight children of Anne (Mundy) and George Tait of Redbog, Aberdeenshire. His publications in verse, starting with contributions to magazines, belong to the period of his youth, 1770-76. (He was even inclined to overstate how young he had been: in an Advertisement to The Land of Liberty [1775] he maintains that the poem had been written five years earlier, when he was "scarcely eighteen years old.") Only one song, "The Banks of the Dee," published in ballad collections and later as a broadside, achieved great popularity. His books were published in London, anonymously or as "by the author of." He became a Writer to the Signet (solicitor) in Edinburgh in 1781 and served as a police court judge from 1805 to 1812. In 1782 he married Margaret Edgar in Cramond; they had at least seven children. He is not the John Tait--also a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, John Tait of Harvieston--who played host to Robert Burns in 1787. He died at his home in Abercromby Place, Edinburgh, and is buried in St. Cuthbert's Churchyard. (findmypast.com 10 Nov. 2020; findagrave.com 10 Nov. 2020; Spenserians; Charles Rogers, The Scottish Minstrel [1876] 21) HJ