Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/59

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RICHARD GALL.—FRANCIS GARDEN.
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virtuous habits. Having realized a considerable fortune by teaching, he resigned his school to his nephew, Mr Andrew Knight, and for the last twenty years of his life, enjoyed otium cum dignitate, at a pleasant villa called Summerfield (near Newhaven), which he purchased in 1806. In the year 1820, Mr Fulton married, for the second wife, Miss Eliza Stalker, but had no children by either connection. He died, September 1, 1831, in the 80th year of his age.

G

GALL, Richard, a poet of considerable merit, was the son of a notary in the neighbourhood of Dunbar, where he was born in December, 1776. He received a limited education at Haddington, and at the age of eleven was apprenticed to his maternal uncle, who was a house-carpenter and builder. A decided repugnance to this mechanical art induced him soon after to abandon it, and enter the business of a printer, which was only a degree more suitable to his inclinations, from its connection with literature, to which he was already much attached. In the course of an apprenticeship to Mr David Ramsay, the liberal and enlightened printer of the Edinburgh Evening Courant, he made great advances in knowledge, and began at length to attempt the composition of poetry in the manner of Burns. At the expiry of his time, he had resolved to abandon even this more agreeable profession, as affording him too slight opportunities of cultivating his mind, when fortunately he obtained the appointment of travelling clerk to Mr Ramsay, an employment which promised him much of that leisure for literary recreation, of which he was so desirous. He continued to act in this capacity till his death by abscess in his breast, May 10, 1801, when he wanted still some months to complete his twenty-fifth year.

In the course of his brief career, Mr Gall had secured, by his genius and modest manners, the friendship of various literary characters of considerable eminence, in particular Mr Alexander Murray, afterwards Professor of Oriental Languages, Mr Thomas Campbell, author of the Pleasures of Hope, and Mr Hector Macneill, author of many admired poems in the Scottish dialect. His poetical remains were published in 1819, in one small volume, and include some pieces which have retained their place in the body of our popular poetry, though in general they are characterised by a tameness of thought and language, which "will for ever prevent their author from ranking in the same class with Fergusson, Ramsay, and' Burns.

GARDEN, Francis, a distinguished judge under the designation of lord Gardenstone, was born at Edinburgh on the 24th of June, 1721. He was the second son of Alexander Garden of Troup, in Banffshire, and of Jane, daughter of Sir Francis Grant, lord Cullen, one of the judges of the court of session. He followed the usual course of education at the grammar school and university, and being destined for the bar, entered as a member of the faculty of advocates on the 14th of July, 1744. During the earlier stages of his professional career, Mr Garden was distinguished for his conviviality, at a period when, especially in Scotland, it must be admitted that real proficiency was requisite to procure fame in that qualification. A strong hale body and an easy benevolent mind gave him a particular taste for social hilarity; had he lived at a different age, he might have turned these qualities into a different channel, but they suited with the period, and he accordingly became the prince of jolly livers. Nor, when he reached that period of life when certain bodily feelings generally