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to Elackwood’s Magazine, and from that time to his death they 
amounted to more than a hundred and twenty. In 1843 he contri- 
buted to that Journal the two beautiful poems entitled the “ Eurial 
March of Dundee,” and “ Charles Edward at Versailles,” and in 
1845, his celebrated satire on railway speculation, entitled “ How 
we got up the Grlenmutchkin.” His ‘‘ Life and Times of Eichard 
III.” appeared in 1840, and in 1849 his most popular work, “ The 
Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers,” the most interesting of which, 
“ Edinburgh after Elodden,” had appeared in Elackwood’s Maga- 
zine for the preceding year. 
In 1845 he succeeded Professor Spalding as Professor of Ehetoric 
and English Literature in the University. To the duties of this 
office he devoted himself with great energy and success, raising his 
class from thirty to upwards of one hundred and fifty students. 
In 1849, Professor Aytoun married the youngest daughter of 
Professor Wilson, in the society of whom ten years of domestic 
happiness passed rapidly away. 
In 1852 he was appointed Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland, spend- 
ing in these islands several months in the year, and discharging the 
duties of his office with much assiduity and success. 
In 1854 he published “ Eirmilian — a Spasmodic Tragedy;” in 
1856, “ Eothwell — a Poem;” in 1858, ‘‘the Eallads of Scotland;” 
and in 1861, a novel, entitled “ Norman Sinclair.” The last of 
his separate works was the “ Nuptial Ode on the Marriage of 
H. K. H. the Prince of Wales.” 
In 1863 Professor Aytoun married Miss Kinnear — a happy union 
which he was destined not long to enjoy. His health had, in the 
following winter, begun to fail, and unfitness for intellectual pursuits 
began to indicate the commencement of some serious malady. In 
the beginning of last June he went to Elackhills, near Elgin, in the 
hope of recovering his strength while enjoying the hill and field 
sports of that delightful neighbourhood. This hope, however, w'as 
fallacious. Neither the salubrity of the climate, nor the bracing 
exercise of the fields, nor the skill of his physician, could arrest 
the progress of that fatal disease which was rapidly invading the 
seat of life. He sank gradually under its influence, and in the full 
possession of his faculties, and he died, as a Christian should die, 
on the 4th August 1865, in the 53d year of his age. 
