Loading details…
Artist
William Forbes
2+ albums
18th centuryScottish
about
William Forbes of Disblair (1661 - 1740) was a Scottish composer and poet. He was noted for his anti-Union political poetry, notably The True Scots Genius, Reviving (1704), and A Pil for Pork-Eaters (1705), and his later dialogue on marriage, Xantippe: or the Scolding Wife (1724), an original development from a Latin dialogue by Erasmus. The name “Disblair” is not infrequently found in important manuscript collections of the period, and his arrangements of classic Scots airs like “John Anderson, my jo,” “My Dearie an thou die,” and “Willie was a Wanton Wag” have remained in circulation, and in print, down to the present day. From the family circle of William Forbes also came one of the most powerful strands of oral tradition to be recorded during the period. His daughters Lilias and Anne, the “Ladies of Disblair,” were the chief informants of his granddaughter, Anna Gordon (Mrs. Brown of Falkland), easily pre- eminent amongst the named ballad-sources of eighteenth century Britain. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
