GALT, Jon's', a distinguished Scottish novelist, was b. in Irvine, on May 2, 1770. His father, who was a captain of a ship in the West Indian trade, left Ayrshire in 1780, and fixed his residence in Greenock. In that town, G. received his education, and was then placed in the custom-house. He remained there till 1804, when, panting after literary distinction, he proceeded to London with an epic poem on the battle of Largs in his portmanteau. On reaching the metropolis, lie printed his epic, but becoming dis satisfied with Its merits, he ultimately withdrew it from the market. After a few years, his health began to licwas'obliged.to:seelt relief a more genial climate. At Gibraltar, lie made the acquaintance of lord Byron—fiushed with his'thtt success in the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers—and his friend Mr. Hobhouse, and the three travelers became fellow-voyagers. Separating from his new friends, G. visited Sicily. then Malta, and finally repaired to Greece. where he again renewed his acquaintance with Byron, and had an interview with All Pasha. He then proceeded to Constantinople, and afterwards to the shores of the Black sea. On one occasion, when detained by quarantine, he sketched six dramas, which were afterwards given to the world. On his return, he published Letters from the. Lerant with considerable success, but first dis played the possession of distinct and individual power in The Ayrshire Legatees, which was published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1820. The Annals of the Parish. a far superior work, appeared the year after, and met with unquestionable success. Having hit on the true vein, he worked it assiduously, and produced Sir Andrew Wylie; The Entail; The Steam-boat; and The Provost, with great rapidity. He then diverged into the walk of historical romance, and published itingan (Si/baize, a tale of the Covenanters; The Spaewife; Rothelan; and The Omen. These works, although full of striking scenes,
and abounding in powerful writing, were not so successful as his earlier and less ambi tious performances. G., whose hands were always equally full of literary and com mercial undertakings, was now busily engaged in the formation of the Canada com pany, but before he left England for his 'distant scene of labor, he gave to the world The Last of the Lairds.
He departed for Canada in 1826, but, disappointed in his expectations, he returned to England in the course of a year or two, and recommenced his literary labors with his usual rapidity. In a short time, he published a novel, Lawrie Todd, which was fol lowed by Sonthennan, a romance of the days of queen Mary; and this by a Life of Lco d Byron, which ran' through several editions, but which was roughly handled by the critics. In 1834, he published Literary Miscellanies in three volumes. He now returned to Scotland, utterly broken in health and spirits; and after suffering several attacks of paralysis, he expired at Greenock on April 11, 1839.
G. was a voluminous and unequal writer; but while several of his productions are already forgotten, others of them will perish only with the language. In depicting pro vincialism, in representing life as it flows on in small towns and villages—communities in which the successful shopkeeper may aspire to be the chief magistrate, and in. which the minister is the most important, personage—he is without a rival. He has founded a school of writers in Scotland, but as yet his followers have produced DO equal to The Provost or The Annals of the Parish.