TENNANT, WiLmam, still to be remembered as the author of finder Fair, was born at Anstruther, in Fife, in the year 1785. A cripple almost.from his birth, and doomed to propel himself through life on crutches, he betook himself naturally to study, as requiring no exertion of the limbs. In 1799 he went to the neighboring university of St. Andrews where, however, he only remained two years, leaving it to join his brother, a eorn-agent, in business. In this his success was indifferent; and in 1813 he was fain to Accept the situation of parish school-master at Denino, a small hamlet about 4 m. from St. Andrews, with a salary of £40 a year. The year before, he had published his Anster Fair, a poem of much sprightliness and humor, notable as the first attempt to naturalize in our language the gay ottava rimy of the Italians; by Byron, soon after adopted with such splendid success in his Beppo and Don. Juan. The piece gradually made its way, and in 1814 a highly laudatory notice of it appeared in the Edinburgh Review, from the pen of the then omnipotent Jeffrey. In 1816 Mr. Tennant became teacher of a school at
Lasswade. near Edinburgh, whence three years afterward, he transferred his services to the academy of Dollar in Clackmannanshire. His attainments as a linguist were extra ordinary; and in 1835 he was appointed professor of oriental languages in the university of St. Andrews—a post for which, perhaps, not many men then living had similar quali fications. In connection with his new duties, he published, in 1840, grammars of the Syriac and Chaldee languages. He died Feb. 15, 1848, at his residence near Dollar, where his summers were usually spent. He was one of the most genial and amiable of men. Besides other miscellanies in verse, he gave to the world, in 1822, The Thane of Fife, a Poem; in 1823, Cardinal Beaton, a Tragedy; and John Baliol, a Drama. None of these later productions had much success, or did anything to increase the lit erary reputation which his first work had won for him.