John Home was a
ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and dramatist.
Biography
He was born at
Leith-South Leith v. North Leith:Up until the late 16th century Leith , comprised two separate towns on either side of the river....
, near
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, where his father, Alexander Home, a distant relation of the earls of Home, was town clerk. John was educated at the Leith Grammar School, and at the
University of EdinburghThe University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
, where he graduated MA, in 1742. Though interested in being a soldier, he studied divinity, and was licensed by the presbytery of Edinburgh in 1745. In the same year he joined as a volunteer against Bonnie Prince Charlie, and was taken prisoner at the
Battle of Falkirk (1746)During the Second Jacobite Rising, the Battle of Falkirk Muir was the last noteworthy Jacobite success.-Background:...
. With many others he was carried to
Doune castleDoune Castle is a medieval stronghold near the village of Doune, in the Stirling district of central Scotland. The castle is sited on a wooded bend where the Ardoch Burn flows into the River Teith. It lies north-west of Stirling, where the Teith flows into the River Forth...
in
PerthshirePerthshire, officially the County of Perth , is a registration county in central Scotland. It extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south...
, but soon escaped.
In July 1746 Home was presented to the parish of
AthelstanefordAthelstaneford is a village in East Lothian, Scotland. It is close to the town of Haddington and lies approximately 20 miles east of Edinburgh. The village is also known locally as Elshingford....
,
East LothianEast Lothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy Area. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Scottish Borders and Midlothian. Its administrative centre is Haddington, although its largest town is Musselburgh....
, left vacant by the death of
Robert BlairRobert Blair was a Scottish poet.-Biography:He was the eldest son of the Rev. Robert Blair, one of the king's chaplains, and was born at Edinburgh. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and in the Netherlands, and in 1731 was appointed to the living of Athelstaneford in East Lothian...
. He had leisure to visit his friends and became especially intimate with
David HumeDavid Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
who belonged to the same family as himself. His first play,
Agis: a tragedy, founded on
PlutarchPlutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
's narrative, was finished in 1747. He took it to
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England, and submitted it to
David GarrickDavid Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
for representation at
Drury LaneDrury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....
, but it was rejected as unsuitable for the stage. The tragedy of
DouglasDouglas is a blank verse tragedy by John Home. It was first performed in 1756 in EdinburghThe play was a big success in both Scotland and England for decades, attacting many notable actors of the period, such as Edmund Kean who made his debut in it. Peg Woffington played Lady Randolph, a part which...
was suggested to him by hearing a lady sing the
balladA ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
of
Gil Morrice or
Child Maurice-Synopsis:The hero sends tokens to his lady and asks her to see him in the woods. Her lord learns of it and comes to where he will meet her, and kills him uder the impression that he is her paramour. He brings back the head, and the lady confesses that he was her illegitimate son...
(
FJ ChildFrancis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of folk songs known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry...
,
Popular Ballads, ii. 263). The ballad supplied him with the outline of a simple and striking plot.
After five years, he completed his play and took it to London for Garrick's opinion. It was rejected, but on his return to Edinburgh his friends resolved that it should be produced there. It was performed on 14 December 1756 with overwhelming success, in spite of the opposition of the presbytery, who summoned
Alexander CarlyleVery Rev Alexander Carlyle was a Scottish church leader, and autobiographer.He was born in Cummertrees, Dumfriesshire, the son of the local minister and brought up in Prestonpans, East Lothian. He was a witness to the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745 where he was part of the government Edinburgh...
to answer for having attended its representation. Home wisely resigned his charge in 1757, after a visit to London, where
Douglas was brought out at
Covent GardenCovent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
on March 14.
Peg WoffingtonMargaret "Peg" Woffington was a well-known Irish actress in Georgian London.- Early life :Woffington was born of humble origins in Dublin. Her father is thought to have been a bricklayer, and after his death, the family became impoverished...
played Lady Randolph, a part which found a later exponent in
Sarah SiddonsSarah Siddons was a Welsh actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. She was the elder sister of John Philip Kemble, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton and Elizabeth Whitlock, and the aunt of Fanny Kemble. She was most famous for her portrayal of the Shakespearean character,...
.
David HumeDavid Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
summed up his admiration for
Douglas by saying that his friend possessed "the true theatric genius of Shakespeare and
OtwayThomas Otway was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd .-Life:...
, refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one and licentiousness of the other." Gray, writing to Horace Walpole (August, 1757), said that the author "seemed to have retrieved the true language of the stage, which has been lost for these hundred years," but
Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
held aloof from the general enthusiasm, and averred that there were not ten good lines in the whole play (Boswell,
Life, ed. Croker, 1348, p. 300).
In 1758 Home became private secretary to Lord Bute, then secretary of state, and was appointed tutor to the prince of Wales; and in 1760 his patron's influence procured him a pension of £300 per annum and in 1763 a sinecure worth another £500. Garrick produced
Agis at Drury Lane on 21 February 1758. By dint of good acting and powerful support, according to Genest, the play lasted for eleven days, but it was lamentably inferior to
Douglas. In 1760 his tragedy,
The Siege of Aquileia, was put on the stage, Garrick taking the part of Aemilius. In 1769 another tragedy,
The Fatal Discovery ran for nine nights;
Alonzo also (1773) had fair success; but his last tragedy,
Alfred (1778), was so coolly received that he gave up writing for the stage.
In 1778 he joined a regiment formed by the
Duke of BuccleuchThe title Duke of Buccleuch , formerly also spelt Duke of Buccleugh, was created in the Peerage of Scotland on 20 April 1663 for the Duke of Monmouth, who was the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II of Scotland, England, and Ireland and who had married Anne Scott, 4th Countess of Buccleuch.Anne...
. He sustained severe injuries in a fall from horseback which permanently affected his brain, and was persuaded by his friends to retire. From 1767 he resided either at Edinburgh or at a villa which he built at Kilduff near his former parish. It was at this time that he wrote his
History of the Rebellion of 1745, which appeared in 1802. Home died at Merchiston Bank, near Edinburgh, in his eighty-sixth year. He is buried in
South Leith Parish ChurchSouth Leith Parish Church or Kirk is a congregation of the Church of Scotland. It is the principal church and congregation in Leith, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its kirkyard is the burial place for John Home, author of Douglas, and John Pew, the man from whom the author Robert Louis Stevenson reputedly...
.
The
Works of John Home were collected and published by
Henry MackenzieHenry Mackenzie was a Scottish novelist and miscellaneous writer. He was also known by the sobriquet "Addison of the North."-Biography:Mackenzie was born in Edinburgh....
in 1822 with "An Account of the Life and Writings of Mr John House," which also appeared separately in the same year, but several of his smaller poems seem to have escaped the editor's observation. These are--"The Fate of Caesar," "Verses upon Inveraray," "Epistle to the Earl of Eglintoun," "Prologue on the Birthday of the Prince of Wales, 1759" and several "Epigrams," which are printed in vol. ii. of
Original Poems by Scottish Gentlemen (1762). See also Sir W Scott, "The Life and Works of John Home" in the
Quarterly Review (June, 1827).
Douglas is included in numerous collections of British drama.
VoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
published his
Le Gaffe, ou l'Ecossaise (1760),
Londres (really Geneva), as a translation from the work of Hume, described as
pasteur de l'église d'Edimbourg, but Home seems to have taken no notice of the mystification.
Home was also an active participant in the social life of Edinburgh, and joined the Poker Club in 1762.
External links
See also
- Scottish literature
Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Brythonic, French, Latin and any other language in which a piece of literature was ever written within the boundaries of modern Scotland.The earliest...