Verses

by Alexander Nicolson

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

146 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

Alexander Nicolson was a Scottish lawyer and Gaelic scholar. He was sheriff-substitute of Kirkcudbright and Greenock, and pioneer of mountain climbing in Scotland.

Giving up theology while at the Free Church College, Nicholson for some time worked as one of the sub-editors of the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. He moved on, to the staff of the Edinburgh Guardian, a short-lived literary paper of high literary quality. For a year he edited an advanced Liberal paper, the Daily Express, which later was merged into the Caledonian Mercury.

Nicolson was called in 1860 to the Scottish bar. For ten years he reported law cases for the Scottish Jurist, of which he became editor. He acted as examiner in philosophy in the university, and examiner of births, etc., in Edinburgh and the neighbouring counties.

In 1883 Nicolson was appointed to the Napier Commission on the condition of the crofters because of his expertise on Gaelic culture. He was reponsible for the Commission's recommendation that Gaelic should be made a "specific subject" in schools and eligible for grants.