TENNANT, WILLIAM (1784-1848)

This article appears in Volume V26, Page 618 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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TENNANT, WILLIAM (1784-1848) , Scottish scholar and poet, was born on the 15th of May 1784 at Anstruther Easter, Fife-shire. He was lame from childhood. His father sent him to the university of St Andrews, where he remained for two years, and on his return he became clerk to one of his brothers, a corn factor. In his leisure time he mastered Hebrew as well as German and Italian. His study of Italian verse bore fruit in the mock-heroic poem of Anster

Fair

FAIR

(1812), which gave an amusing account of the

marriage

MARRIAGE

of " Maggie Lauder," the heroine of the popular Scottish ballad. It was written in the ottava rime adopted a few years later by " the ingenious brothers Whistlecraft " (John Hookham Frere), and turned to such brilliant account by Byron in Don Juan. The poem, unhackneyed in form, full of fantastic classical allusions applied to the simple story, and brimming over with humour, had an immediate success. Tennant's brother, meanwhile, had failed in business, and the poet became in 1812 schoolmaster of the parish of Dunino, near St Andrews. From this he was pro-rated (1816) to the school of Lasswade, near Edinburgh; from that (1819) to a mastership in Dollar

academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

; from that (1834), by Lord Jeffrey, to the professorship of oriental languages in St Andrews. The Thane of Fife (1822), shows the same humorous imagination as Anster

Fair

FAIR

, but the subject was more remote from general

interest

INTEREST

, and the poem fell flat. He also wrote a poem in the Scottish dialect, Papistry Stormed (1827); two historical dramas, Cardinal Beaton (1823) and John

Baliol

BALIOL
BALIOL, JOHN DE (1249–1315)

(1825); and a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of Hebrew Dramas (1845), founded on incidents in Bible history. He died at Devon Grove, on the 14th of February 1848.
A Memoir of Tennant by M. F. Connolly was published in 1861. TENNEMANN, WILHELM GOTTLIEB (17611819), German historian of philosophy, was born at Erfurt. Educated at his native town, he became lecturer on the history of philosophy at Jena in 1788. Ten years later he became professor at the same university, where he remained till 1804. His

great

GREAT

work

WORK

is an eleven-volume history of philosophy, which he began at Jena and finished at Marburg, where he was professor of philosophy from 1804 till his death. He was one of the numerous German philosophers who accepted the Kantian theory as a

revelation

REVELATION, BOOK OF

.
In 1812 he published a shorter history of philosophy, which was translated into English in 1852 under the title

Manual

MANUAL

of the History of Philosophy.

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