Born, at Houston, Linlithgowshire, 30 July 1819. Early education at Houston. At Edinburgh Academy, Oct. 1829 to 1834. At Glasgow Univ., autumn of 1836 to 1839; Snell Exhibitioner, April 1840. Matric., Balliol Coll., Oxford, 3 June 1840; Newdigate Prize Poem, 1842; B.A., 1844; M.A., 1877. Assistant Master at Rugby, 1846–57. Married Eliza Douglas, 23 June 1853. Assistant to Prof. of Latin at St. Andrews Univ., Oct. 1857; Professor, 1868–72. Contrib. to “Good Words,” and “North British Review.” Principal of United Coll. of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, 1868–85. Pres. of Educational Institute of Scotland, Prof. of Poetry, Oxford, June 1877 to 1885. Died at Oronsay, Argyll, 18 Sept. 1885. Buried in Houston Church. Works: “Charles the Twelfth,” 1842; “The Wants of the Scottish Universities,” 1856; “The Uses of the Study of Latin Literature,” 1858; “Kilmahoe,” 1864; “John Keble,” 1866; “Studies in Poetry and Philosophy,” 1868; “Culture and Religion,” 1870; “Life and Letters of J. D. Forbes” (with P. G. Tait and A. A. Reilly), 1873; “Address” [on Missions], 1874; “On Poetic Interpretation of Nature,” 1877 (2nd edn. same year); “Robert Burns,” 1879; “Aspects of Poetry,” 1881. Posthumous: “Sketches in History and Poetry,” ed. by G. J. Veitch, 1887; “Glen Desseray, and other Poems,” ed. by F. T. Palgrave, 1888; “Portraits of Friends,” 1889. He edited: Dorthy Wordsworth’s “Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland,” 1874. Life: by Prof. W. Knight, 1888.

Personal

  I can recall the room in which I first saw him, and his appearance as he stood on the hearth-rug in front of the fire. He was a little older than most undergraduates are, and he looked perhaps a little older than he was,—I mean more manly-looking and more fully developed. He received me, as a new-comer from Scotland and Glasgow, with that frank, kindly greeting—“the smile in the eye as well as on the lip,” as in the young shepherd in “Theocritus”—which was never absent in our meetings after longer or shorter separation in later years. I retain the impression rather of the high spirit and animation, and of a kind of generous pride characteristic of him, than of the milder, far-away, contemplative look which became familiar to one in later years. Except that he became bald and somewhat gray, he never seemed to change much in other ways during all the subsequent years that I knew him; and if he looked a little older than he was in youth, he retained much of fresh youthfulness in his appearance when he was nearly an old man…. He received from Nature a combination of the courage and independent spirit of a man, with the refinement and ready spirit of a woman. And this natural endowment was tempered into a consistent character by constant watchfulness against any assertion of self, in the way either of indulgence, or interest, or vanity…. As he had a quick sense of personal dignity, and a generous impetuosity of spirit, it was possible that he might sometimes take, and sometimes, though rarely, give offense; but if this happened, he was always prompt to receive or to make acknowledgment, and the matter was never afterwards remembered. At no time of his life would any one have said in his presence anything essentially coarse or irreverent; or if he had done so once, he would not have repeated the experiment.

  It was not his erudition as a scholar which gained for him the high place he occupied among his contemporaries, for although a fair classic, he was not distinguished as such, the art of writing Greek and Latin verse never having received the attention in the “grounding” of boys in Scotch schools which it does in England. It was Shairp’s personality, his enthusiasm, his appreciativeness, and his general vigour of thought and varied accomplishments, which won the hearts of the best men of his time…. His influence as a teacher was more intense in the case of a few than general. Many a man now doing noble work can trace the first stirrings of those higher thoughts and aims that have dominated his life to the tender, penetrating power which Shairp exercised. But there was one kind of student whom he failed to reach, and who was repelled rather than attracted by him. The boisterous lads, coarse in manners and in nature, however clever they might be, who were untouched and apparently untouchable by the finer aspects of religion and poetry, had little appreciation of the man who sometimes stung them with an appropriate epithet or restrained them by a discipline more commonly experienced at a public school than a Scottish university, where the freedom resembles the German rather than English type…. The impression which one chiefly cherishes of him is an exquisite combination of the highest culture with the most devout religious spirit…. Of splendid physique, he knew no fatigue, and would breast a corrie or face a summit with the elastic step and sound “wind” of a ghillie. There was scarce a solitude from Eskdale to Minchmoorhe had not visited. He knew each “water” from Liddesdale to Manor. Yarrow and Ettrick were a part of himself. He had gazed from every chief range from Broadlaw to the Criffel, and from Tinto to the Cheviots, and had dwelt with loving eye on each historic scene from Enterkine to Otterbourne. The shepherds of Tala and Teviot knew him well.

  Principal Shairp had a genius for friendship, was a lover of his fellow-men, not in any vague philanthropic fashion, but with an alert interest and sympathy for individuals. His heart, always open to a true man, found not a few worthy of entering it. It was said to a certain clever contemporary, by one who knew him in his youth, that he could not go down to the front gate without meeting a lion, so happy and adventurous were his chance encounters. It would seem true of Principal Shairp that he could not enter any company without finding a friend. He had a remarkable discernment of what it was in each new comrade that won his attachment. As he survived a good many of his famous friends, he recorded his impressions of them; and when he departed, a fitting hand was found to do the same kind office, sympathetically and discerningly, for him.

  As a professor he was earnest and stimulating, never overlooking the importance of sound scholarship, but grappling also with the thought of his author, and expounding comparative literature. He advocated a higher standard for entrants to the universities, and warmly encouraged a residential college hall at St. Andrews, which, however, had only a brief existence. In 1868 Shairp succeeded James David Forbes as principal of the United College, St. Andrews, occupying the Latin chair at the same time till 1872. He was a vigorous head, and interested himself in university extension, specially favouring a union of interests between St. Andrews and Dundee.

General

  The volume [“Culture and Religion”] is a valuable contribution to the discussion of a question which has not yet received from the religious point of view the exhaustive treatment it deserves. The aim and spirit of Mr. Shairp’s book are excellent and his lectures cannot fail to be both interesting and serviceable to young men. I shall take great pleasure in directing the attention of my students to it.

  His past writings are not voluminous; but in all of them there is the clear tone of a man who seeks the best truth he can find, and does not spend thought upon trifles…. In 1864 Mr. Shairp published “Kilmahoe, a Highland Pastoral, with other Poems,” and if he did not in that book prove himself a master-poet, he proved the fellowship of feeling that entitles him to tell students at Oxford what a master-poet is…. If this book on the poetic interpretation of Nature has a few weaknesses, it has essential strength. It comes of an earnest mind. It deals justly with an important movement in the literature of our century as something more than a slight question of taste. Professor Shairp works with a high aim, looks to the heart of his subject, and what he has written must win for him the respect of all his readers.

  His essays make no pretensions to be elaborate works of art in themselves. They are the simple overflowings of a full and refined mind, saturated with poetical feeling and lucid thought on the various topics which such a Professorship as his suggests. What he has to say he says in pure and delightful English, and often with very great point and effect, though without the almost sculpturesque unity of impression which Mr. Arnold’s lectures on translating Homer, on Heine, and on the Celtic genius, produced upon their readers. Mr. Shairp talks to us as an accomplished man, with a great store of central heat in him, and a passionate love for poetry, would talk of the various aspects of his favourite study.

  As he strode across the heather or bent he was for ever crooning to himself old songs that kept time to his steps, or went pondering lines he was composing, selecting the aptest words to utter what his eye beheld. This is the charm of his poetry. It is the direct expression of nature as he beheld her, the sincere and pure utterance of a spirit that loved her every aspect.

  Than whom, of Scotland’s many faithful sons, none was more devoted to her,—nay, perhaps, almost too exclusively. No one, if we put aside Ossian, known to me, has felt or rendered so deeply the gloom, the sublime desolation of the Highland region. That overpowering sense of weight and grandeur which calls forth the inward cry to the mountains to cover us, as we pass beneath some vast precipice, in truth, was always with Shairp. He has not his beloved Wordsworth’s mastery, his brightness of soul, his large philosophy of Nature; nor, in the region of art, Wordsworth’s fine finish, his happiness of phrase: the minor key dominates.—But, united with great delicacy of sentiment and touch, he had the never-failing charm of perfect high-hearted sincerity; and if we reflect on the long-lasting hatred or indifference which mountain lands have met from poetry, Shairp, so far as his skill served, merits a high place in characteristically modern verse.