William Wilkie

William Wilkie (1721-1772), the "Scottish Homer," was the author of an epic in the style of the Iliad, entitled the "Epigoniad, a poem in nine books". He was the Professor of Natural Philosophy at St Andrew's University in Scotland, where his pupils included the poet Robert Fergusson.

According to Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), in his biography of John Home, Wilkie’s friends are said to have spoken of him as "superior in genius to any man of his time, but rough and unpolished in his manners, and still less accommodating to the decorum of society in the ordinary habits of his life."

"Like many other men of genius be appears to have been not more distinguished by his abilities than by his oddities of manner, and the peculiarity of his general habits. His successful practice of agriculture, and perhaps his excessive devotion to it, procured him the name of " the potatoc minister." It is mentioned among his many peculiarities, that he slept with an immoderate quantity of bed-clothes. Being one day on a visit to a farmer, a relation of his own, he consented, at his request, to stay all night, but begged to have plenty of blankets. His female friends in the family collected twenty-four pairs, and put them on his bed. When asked in the morning if he had had abundance of bed-clothes, he answered that he had just enough, and had slept well."

The son of a farmer, William Wilkie was born on the 5th October 1721 at Ecklin, a farm in the parish of Dalmeny in West Lothian, Scotland. He was educated at Edinburgh University, and during his time in Edinburgh he forged lasting friendships with, amongst others, David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Fergusson and John Home. While at University his father died, leaving him the stock and tenancy of a farm at the Fisher's Tryste, and the responsibility for the care of his three sisters. Wilkie energetically set out to combine agriculture with philosophy, literature and theology: in 1756 he entered the Church, becoming a minister at Ratho, Midlothian; in 1757 he published the Epigoniad, an epic tale of the sons of the seven heroes who fought against Thebes; and in 1761 he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrew's. There he taught mathematics to the young Robert Fergusson and encouraged him in his poetry.

...

Then rising furious, to the ocean's streams

He rush'd, in hope to quench his raging flames;

But burning still the unextinguish'd pain,

The shore he left, and stretch'd into the main.

A galley, on the Coenian beach we found;

Her furled canvass to the breeze unbound;

And trac'd his desp'rate course, till far before

We saw him land on Oeta's desart shore.

Towards the skies his furious hands he rear'd,

And thus, across the deep, his voice we heard:

SOV'REIGN of heav'n and earth ! whose boundless sway

The fates of men and mortal things obey!

If e'er delighted from the courts above,

In human form, you fought Alcmena's love;

If fame's unchanging voice to all the earth,

With truth, proclaims you author of my birth;

Whence, from a course of spotless glory run,

Successful toils and wreaths of triumph won,

Am I thus wretched ? better, that before

Some monster fierce had drunk my streaming gore;...

(extract from Epigoniad: a Poem in Nine Parts by William Wilkie, Edinburgh, Hamilton, Balfour & Neill. 1757)