Agnes Lyon

Agnes Lyon (1762–1840) was a Scottish poet of the 18th and 19th century.

Biography

Lyon was the eldest daughter of John Ramsay L'Amy of Dunkenny, Forfarshire, was born at Dundee early in 1762. In 1786 she became the wife of the Rev. Dr. James Lyon of Glamis, Forfarshire, and died 14 September 1840.^[1]

She was a woman of some talent and fancy, and wrote poetry, filling four manuscript volumes, which she directed at her death to remain unprinted, unless the family needed pecuniary assistance.^[1] The poetry was frequently humorous,^[2] for instance, her 1821 verse Glammis Castle tells of a drunken episode involving Sir Walter Scott.^[3]

The song beginning "You've surely heard of famous Niel", by which she is remembered, was written at the request of Niel Gow for his air, "Farewell to whisky". In some collections it is very incorrectly printed; in Charles Rogers's Scottish Minstrel it is given from the original manuscript. It is, according to Hadden, of no great merit, and only survives because of its subject and the air to which it is set.^[1]

References

1. Hadden 1893.
2. J. C. Hadden, ‘Lyon , Agnes (1762–1840)’, rev. Sarah Couper, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 31 Jan 2015
3. Longfellow 1876-79.

Works cited

•  Hadden, James Cuthbert (1893). "Lyon, Agnes". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 34. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Longfellow, ed, Henry Wadsworth. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII, 1876-79. Retrieved 31 January 2015.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Hadden, James Cuthbert (1893). "Lyon, Agnes". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 34. London: Smith, Elder & Co.