herd. Meanwhile he was disappointed and harassed in his relations with publishers; he became wayward and melancholy; and at length, in a fit of mental aberration, he drowned himself in a conduit under the canal at Paisley on 17 May 1810. He was interred in the West Relief burying-ground, and in 1866 an obelisk monument was placed at his grave. The centenary of his birth was celebrated with elaborate ceremony on 3 June 1874. In 1876 annual Tannahill concerts were begun on Gleniffer Braes—famous through one of the poet's best lyrics—and from the profits thence accruing a bronze statue of Tannahill, placed on a granite pedestal, was erected in Paisley Abbey burying-ground in 1883.
Tannahill never married, but in his sweet and tender song, ‘Jessie the Flower o' Dunblane,’ and its fervent sequel, ‘The Fareweel,’ he enshrines his love and renunciation of Janet Tennant (1770–1833), a native of Dunblane, Perthshire, most of whose life was spent in Paisley (Semple, Poems and Songs of Robert Tannahill, p. 208).
Tannahill versified early, and some poetical epistles to his friends—e.g. ‘Epistle to James Barr,’ written in 1804—are not without vigour and occasional epigrammatic points, though they are too discursive and diffuse to be generally effective. ‘The Soldier's Return, an Interlude,’ contains several good songs—some of which helped to win Tannahill his fame—but it has no dramatic quality. Between 1805 and 1810 he wrote lyrics for Glasgow periodicals—the ‘Selector,’ the ‘Gleaner,’ and the ‘Nightingale or Songsters' Magazine’—to Miller's ‘Paisley Repository,’ and to the ‘Scots Magazine.’ In 1808 he proposed to contribute to George Thomson's ‘Collection of Original Scottish Airs’ songs written for certain Irish melodies of which he was enamoured, but the editor declined the proposal. While some of these songs are meritorious, the best of them do not reach Tannahill's highest level. Certain descriptive poems, bacchanalian ditties, epitaphs, &c., attest the writer's observation, rhetorical vigour, and ingenuity. His reputation, however, rests mainly on his Scottish songs. In sentimental song Tannahill ranks almost with the greatest of Scottish song-writers, approaching Lady Nairne and Burns himself in such dainty and winning lyrics as ‘Bonnie Wood o' Craigielee,’ ‘Sleepin' Maggie,’ ‘Braes o' Gleniffer,’ ‘Gloomy Winter's noo awa',’ ‘The Lass o' Arranteenie,’ ‘Cruikston Castle's lonely wa's,’ and ‘Jessie the Flower o' Dunblane.’
Tannahill's poems were first published in 1807. Shortly before his death he burnt his manuscripts, but, as friends had copies, his editors were able to increase the matter of the original publication. Two editions issued in 1815 and one in 1817 have a prefatory biographical sketch by James Muir. Tannahill is largely represented in Motherwell's ‘Harp of Renfrewshire,’ 1819. A reprint in 1822 of the 1807 volume has an anonymous memoir. An edition of the songs, with biography by Alexander Laing [q. v.], ‘the Brechin poet,’ appeared in 1833. Philip A. Ramsay issued in 1838 ‘The Works of Robert Tannahill, with Life of the Author and a Memoir of R. A. Smith.’ This remained the standard version of Tannahill's writings for many years. The fullest edition is that of 1873, edited by David Semple [q. v.] Besides the poems and songs, it gives all available letters of the poet and his friends. It is preceded by an exhaustive though prolix biography.
A portrait was engraved by Samuel Freeman from a painting by Alexander Blair in the possession of the publishers Blackie & Son. John Morton, also a Paisley artist, sketched in pencil a profile likeness of Tannahill the day after his death, and from this subsequent engravings and busts have been taken.
[Life of Tannahill by William McLaren; Harp of Renfrewshire; biographies prefixed to various editions; Brown's Paisley Poets; Chambers's Biogr. Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen; Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrel; Veitch's Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry, ii. 315.]
TANNER, JOHN SIGISMUND (d. 1775), medallist, was a native of Saxe-Gotha, and in early life practised carving and engraving for snuff-boxes, gun-locks, &c. He came to England about 1728, and in that year obtained, through John Conduit, employment as an engraver at the Royal Mint. He engraved dies for the gold coins of 1739, for the copper coinage of 1740, and for the silver coins, with the ‘old head,’ from 1743. He also engraved for Richard Arundell, master of the mint, dies in imitation of Thomas Simon's pattern-coins made for Oliver Cromwell (Henfrey, Numismata Cromwelliana, pp. 137 sq.), partly utilising the old punches. He retained his post at the mint for nearly forty years, and died in David Street, London, on 14 March 1775 (Gent. Mag. 1775, p. 151).
Among Tanner's medals may be mentioned: 1732, George II and the royal family (obverse by Croker); 1736, Jernegan's lottery medal, from Gravelot's design; 1736? Copley medal of the Royal Society; 1737, John Conduit, master of the mint (designed by Gravelot); 1737, Milton's monument medal, for William Benson. His signature
