and numerous hymns, are amongst the minor compositions which have made his
name familiar wherever there is piety to feel their force and taste to appreciate
their beauty. His collected poetical works were published by Longman and Co.,
London, in four 12mo volumes, in 1841, and an edition in one volume appeared
in 1851. This was followed in 1853, by " Original Hymns, for Public, Private,
and Social Devotion." Montgomery also produced several prose writings, lectured on poetry, and edited "The Christian Poets," published by Collins in
Glasgow. The religious character of his larger poems has, no doubt, limited
the range of his readers, but both in this country and in America, his works enjoy a high reputation; and in the United States, have run through numerous
editions. The purity of his language, the fluency of his numbers, and above
all the evangelical spirit of his religious compositions, have exerted a considerable influence upon public taste and feeling. The tendency of all he wrote was
to purify and elevate. The catholicity of his religious poems reflects the spirit of
their author, who was singularly free from sectarian narrowness. His latter
years were devoted to active usefulness and works of beneficence in Sheffield,
where he was universally known and beloved. He died at his residence, the
Mount, in that town, April 30, 1854, in his eighty- third year, and was honoured with a public funeral. The venerable poet had enjoyed, for some years,
a well-deserved literary pension from government, of .150 a-year.
The ostensible object of Mr. Montgomery's visit to Scotland, in 1841, when he was accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Latrobe, was the promotion of the missions of the United Brethren; but he also avowed a strong desire to see the place of his nativity before he died. His reception by the magistrates and inhabitants of Irvine was most enthusiastic. In Edinburgh and Glasgow, also, he was received with the utmost respect. In Irvine he visited, at her own request, Mrs. Thomson, an aged lady, who had been intimate with his parents, and had often carried him in her arms when a child. His interview with this venerable person, and his visit to the house where he was born, excited profound feeling in the heart of the poet. In the old chapel, where the weavers were at work, he was gratified to find a copy of the verses quoted above, glazed, framed, and hung up in a conspicuous place, where it had often previously been seen by visitors. One of the gentlemen present commenced to read the verses, but his reading not pleasing the poet, he repeated them himself with peculiar grace and tenderness. Whilst these pages are passing through the press (1855), a proposal is being favourably entertained by the townsmen of the poet to purchase the house in which he was born, and preserve it as a monument to his memory.
MOTHERWELL, William—This poet, antiquary, and journalist, was born at Glasgow, on the 13th of October, 1797, and was the third son of William Motherwell, an ironmonger in that city. His education, owing to family movements, was received partly in Edinburgh, and afterwards in Paisley, but was brought to a close at the age of fifteen, when he was placed as clerk in the office of the sheriff-clerk of Paisley. During so brief a training in literature, he was distinguished merely as an active, clever boy; but independently of school lessons, he had already prepared himself for his future career by his aptitude in copying and imitating old MSS., and by writing verses. The object of his early poetical inspiration was Jeanie Morrison, a beautiful young girl, who attended with him the same school in Edinburgh, and sat with him on the same form, according to the fashion of teaching at that period, even in our
