TENNANT, William, a poet and oriental scholar of Scotland, was born in Easter Anstruther, a small fishing village in the county of Fife, in 1785. He was educated at a school in his native place, where he had Thomas Chalmers for his play-fellow. Early disabled for active life, by being deprived of the use of his limbs in early youth, he took kindly to books, and entered the University of St Andrews in 1799. After remaining here two sessions, he afterwards became a clerk to his brother, who was a corn-factor in Glasgow. Whilst in this situation he applied himself assiduously to the study of the great European poets, and succeeded in mastering the difficulties of Ariosto, Camoens, and Wieland in their own original tongues. Tennant, after transporting himself back to his native place, published his humorous poem of Auster Fair in 1812. It was written in the ottava rima of the Italians, which was then but little known in English poetry, but which has since been popularised by the pen of
Lord Byron. The poem was lively, picturesque, and agreeable; frequently landing in burlesque where mere drollery was aimed at, and descending more than once from high tragical situations to the merest farcical jokes. The fun of the poem, although often strained, has nevertheless many of the essentials of true humour, and it abounds in instances of the most apt and sometimes even striking language. The scene is laid in the reign of James V., and the heroine of the entertainment is Maggie Lauder. Jeffrey did what he could to give it a name in the Edinburgh Review in 1814, and it has since gone through many editions. Tennant was successively teacher of the parish schools of Denino, to which he was advanced in 1813, and of Lasswade in 1816. In 1819 he went to Dollar Academy, where he taught the classical and oriental languages until 1835, when he was appointed professor of oriental languages in St Mary's College, St Andrews. Here he employed his leisure in compiling grammars of the Syriac and Chaldee tongues, which were published in 1840. He likewise wrote various poems, dramas, and translations of very considerable merit, but except his Anster Fair, his poetical productions are now well-nigh forgotten. He died near Dollar on the 15th of February 1848.