At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed in the office of the sheriff-clerk at Paisley, and appointed sheriff-clerk depute there in 1819. He spent his leisure in collecting materials for a volume of local ballads which he published in 1819 under the title of The Harp of Renfrewshire. In 1827 he published a further instalment in Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, prefaced by an excellent historical introduction. He contributed verses to newspapers and magazines, "Jeanie Morrison", "My Heid is like to rend, Willie", and "Wearies Cauld Well" being his best-known poems. He became editor of the Paisley Advertiser in 1828, and of the Glasgow Courier in 1830.
A small volume of his poems was published in 1832, and a larger volume with a memoir in 1846, reissued, with additions, in 1848.
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