Robert, a song writer of considerable merit, was born in Paisley on the 3rd of June 1774. His parents were poor, and he was brought up to the trade of a handloom weaver. With the exception of a visit to Lancashire of some two years, he spent his whole life in the town where he first saw the light, steadily plying the shuttle, and weaving what of feeling and passion stirred within him into the impressive language of lyrical verse. "Jessie, the Flower o' Dunblane;" "The Braes o' Gleniffer;" "Yon Burn Side;" "The Braes of Balquhither;" "O are ye sleeping, Maggie;" "Thou bonnie Wood o' Craigie-lea," present, with considerable variation, nearly all that Tannahill can claim as pledges of our remembrance. He wrote poems and dramas certainly which possess some merit, but these are the pieces which are most popular, down to the present day, of all that he has left to us. Greater power of song, and a much fuller tide of passion, more, in short, of the fervour of genius, runs through the lyrics of Burns, but Tannahill, while occupying a considerably lower pedestal, must nevertheless stand pretty far forward when the god of lyrical verse descends to crown with an immortal diadem all those who have distinguished themselves as the song writers of their country. In truth, simplicity, tenderness, and genuine pathos, it would be difficult to find a writer to excel Tannahill. Nevertheless there are occasional marks of defective taste in his poems, such as turgidity, sometimes rising into bombast, and a straining after effect which always defeats itself. He is generally characterised by great ease and sweetness of versification. Some of the verses in the "Braes o' Balquhither" literally glide through one's mouth like honey. The language of his poems is eminently simple, sometimes even homely, yet he now and then displays a fondness for old-fashioned or obsolete words. Tannahill returned from Preston in 1802 to lay his father in the grave; and from this period, until the date of his own lamented end, he resided constantly with his mother. He was a very retiring man, and was considerably annoyed by the vulgar curiosity of visitors. The arrival of James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who had made a pilgrimage all the way to Paisley to see the weaver bard, was very welcome to Tannahill. Consumption was in the poet's family, and a depressing melancholy kept him almost constantly under its dark shadow. Slight symptoms of mental aberration began to manifest themselves, and, on the morning of the 17th May 1810, his body was found in a pool in the vicinity of Paisley. He had just reached his thirty-sixth year when this melancholy event took place. Many of the songs and poems of Tannahill were published in newspapers and magazines, and shortly before he committed the rash act which put an end to his life, he gave all of his unpublished pieces to the flames on which he could lay his hands. His Poems and Songs were first published in 1809, and the last regular edition of them is dated 1851.