Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Bayne, Peter
BAYNE, Peter, M.A., LL.D. born in the manse of Fodderty Ross-shire, Scotland, Oct. 19, 1830, took the degree of M.A. at Marischal College, Aberdeen. He was the winner of a prize for a poem, open to competition by the whole university, and after taking his degree he won the Blackwell prize (£40) for a prose essay. He was appointed successively editor of the Glasgow Commonwealth, the Edinburgh Witness, the Dial, and the Weekly Review, the two last published in London. His biographical sketches in an Edinburgh magazine attracted attention, and led to the publication, in 1855, of "The Christian Life in the present Time," a treatise intended to prove, in a series of illustrative biographies, that belief in Christianity is compatible with high intellectual gifts, and the noblest moral character. The book was popular, especially in America, where two volumes of Essays by Mr. Bayne, were published in 1857. A volume of Biographical and Critical Essays, a treatise on "The Testimony of Christ to Christianity," and an historical drama on "The Days of Jezebel," have been published by him in this country. He has been a contributor to the Contemporary, Fortnightly, Bntish Quarterly, and London Quarterly Reviews and to Fraser, and other magazines. He edited the letters, and sketched the life of Hugh Miller in two volumes, in the course of which it appeared that his own views of geological evolution are more in accordance with those of Darwin and Huxley than with those of Miller. An essay on the Puritans published by him in 1862 was well spoken of, and he has since engaged in extensive studies of the Puritan period. A volume on "The Chief Actors in the Puritan Revolution," was published by him in 1878. He has since published "Lessons from my Masters," being his matured views on Carlyle, Tennyson, and Ruskin; and "Two Great Englishwomen, with an Essay on Poetry," being his final estimate of Mrs. Browning, and Charlotte Brontë, and a reply to Mr. M. Arnold's theory of poetical criticism. In 1879 the University of Aberdeen presented him with the degree of LL.D.