The Clan Fraser in Canada: Souvenir of the First Annual GatheringFraser, Alexander
History
The Clan Fraser in Canada: Souvenir of the First Annual Gathering
Fraser, Alexander
Clans -- Canada; Fraser family
Robert Fraser, of Pathhead, Fifeshire, lived up till 1839. He was an
ironmonger, but of such remarkable literary and linguistic tastes that
in leisure moments he acquired Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian
and Spanish. His poetry, which I regret is not accessible to me, was, it
is said, characterized by fine feeling and nicety of touch. Truly a
remarkable man. His ruling passion was strong in death, for he passed
out of life dictating some translations of Norwegian and Danish poems.
There are other ways of making literature besides writing it yourself.
James Fraser, an Inverness man, was one of those who have made
literature by proxy. Who does not know Fraser's Magazine? that pioneer
publication in this field of literature, dating from 1830, with its
famous contributors like Thackeray, Carlyle, J. A. Froude and Father
Prout. This Fraser was also a famous publisher, a man of taste and
judgment, and did more to advance literature than almost any man of his
time, notwithstanding Carlyle's reference to him as "that infatuated
Fraser with his dog's-meat tart of a magazine."
Contemporary with Fraser of the magazine was James Baillie Fraser, also
an Inverness man and a famous traveller who explored the Himalaya
Mountains, and who was the first European to reach the sources of the
Jumna and Ganges. He came home, and wrote an account of his travels. A
little later he donned Persian costume, explored the larger part of
Persia, and wrote a two-volume account of his journey. Turning to
romance, he wrote "Kuggilbas," a tale of Khorasain; and this was the
first of a long list of Eastern tales, histories and travels, the mere
enumeration of which would take us on pretty far towards to-morrow
morning.
A beautiful and sympathetic literary figure is that of Lydia Falconer
Fraser, the wife of Hugh Miller. Here are some lines from a poem of
hers on the death of their first-born child:
"Thou'rt awa, awa, from thy mother's side,
And awa, awa, from thy father's knee;
Thou'rt awa from our blessing, our care, our caressing,
But awa from our hearts thou'lt never be.
* * * * *
Thou'rt awa, awa, from the bursting spring time,
Tho' o'er thy head its green boughs wave;
The lambs are leaving their little foot-prints
On the turf of thy new-made grave."
What gentleness and sweetness in these lines! One of her prose works,
"Cats and Dogs," still holds its own as one of the minor classics of
natural history.
Rev. Robert William Fraser, a Perthshire man, succeeded Rev. Dr. Guthrie
in St. John's Church, Edinburgh, in 1847, and was a learned and eloquent
divine and a diligent pastor. He found time to write all but one of a
dozen of important works on divinity, history, physical and natural
science. He was a solid man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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