Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Falconer, William

​FALCONER, William, a British poet, was born in the Netherbow, Edinburgh, in the year 1730. The lowliness and obscurity of his origin, and the occupation in which his life was spent, have conspired to render the memorials of him but scanty for the biographer. The son of a poor barber who had several other children to maintain, two of whom were deaf and dumb, William, left early an orphan, had little of regular education. He stated himself in after life, that his education had been confined merely to English reading, writing, and a little arithmetic. The neighbouring port of Leith was often visited by him, and chance, or necessity, or it may be a natural taste, directed him to a sea-life. There is no reason to suppose that he had any strong indisposition to seafaring, as has been alleged, except the lines ​in the "Shipwreck" may be applied to himself and taken to be more than a poetic colouring; and we think no one "condemned reluctant to the faithless sea," would ever have turned out so thorough a sailor, and have spent nearly his whole life afloat. Be this as it may, while yet a boy he was apprenticed on board a merchantman at Leith. Subsequently he went into a ship in which Campbell, the author of Lexiphanes, was purser, who observing his quickness took him as his servant, encouraged and assisted him in studying, and used to boast of having been his teacher. Before Falconer had reached the age of eighteen he obtained the post of second mate in the Britannia, a merchant vessel engaged in the Levantine trade. This vessel was shipwrecked on her voyage from Alexandria to Venice, off Cape Colonna; he and two others of the crew only being saved. The terrible incidents of that scene were deeply impressed on the mind and imagination of the young man, and his marvellous and vivid descriptions of them have conferred on him an enduring fame. Returning to his native city, he made his first essays in authorship. In 1751 he published an elegy on the death of the prince of Wales, and some small pieces, in the Gentleman's Magazine. Other pieces are attributed to him, but without any sufficient warrant. It is stated that Falconer again went to sea in the interval between this and 1760, in the spring of which year he published his poem, the "Shipwreck," and dedicated it to the duke of York, then rear-admiral of the blue. Such a poem from such a man turned the eyes of the literary world upon the author, and the Monthly Review, then the leading exponent of literary criticism, spoke of it in terms of high eulogy. The duke became his patron, and obtained for him in the ensuing summer the post of midshipman in the royal navy, on board the Royal George commanded by Sir Edward George Hawke. Even here the muse found a place. Withdrawing himself at times from the ruder scenes around him, he would sit between the cable-trees and the ship's side and indulge in poetic composition. Thus it was he wrote his "Ode on the Duke of York's second departure from England." In 1763 peace was proclaimed, and Falconer's ship was paid off; but he quickly obtained the post of purser to the Glory, and about the same time married a young lady of the name of Hicks, the daughter of a surgeon at Sheerness. The marriage was a happy one. She was a woman of good sense and strong affection; she soothed and sustained her husband during many a struggle with the trials that beset a poor author, and had the reward in her widowed old age, of deriving a competency from one of her husband's publications. After a time the Glory was laid up in Chatham, but Falconer did not even then leave her. By the kindness of Commissioner Hanway, the captain's cabin was fitted up for the poet, and here he lived and studied, working assiduously at his "Marine Dictionary," a book of great merit and value, which he published in 1769. In the interval, Falconer wrote the "Demagogue," published in 1765, and went to try his fortune in London. He does not appear to have been successful, though in 1768 he received a proposal from Mr. Murray, who was then about to establish the business which in his son's day became so eminent, to join him as a partner. Why this offer was declined is unknown—possibly his appointment to the pursership of the Aurora may account for it. At all events on the 20th September, 1769, he sailed from England—never more to return. The Aurora was never heard of afterwards; whether she foundered in the Mozambique channel, was burned, or cast away on a reef of rocks near Macao—for all these fatalities were conjectured—none can say. No one escaped to tell in verse or prose the horrors of that shipwreck. The fame of Falconer rests on the "Shipwreck," and rests on it securely. While we dissent from the extravagant praise lavished upon it in his own day, we think that it is undervalued in ours. As the production of a half-taught sailor, its diction is surprisingly good, inflated no doubt occasionally, and disfigured with the conventional vice of mythology then prevalent, but now happily extinct; but the wonderful adaptation of naval phraseology to poetic uses, the harmony of its rhythm, and above all, the terrible and minute fidelity of its vivid pictures, entitle the "Shipwreck" to a high place as a poetic composition. A singular commendation is given of it by Clarke. "It is," he says, "of inestimable value to this country, since it contains within itself the rudiments of navigation; if not sufficient to form a complete seaman, it may certainly be considered as the grammar of his professional science. I have heard many experienced officers declare, that the rules and maxims delivered in this poem for the conduct of a ship in the most perilous emergency, form the best, indeed the only opinions which a skilful mariner should adopt." In appearance, Falconer was hard-featured, awkward, and blunt in manners, but his speech was singularly fluent, simple, and impressive; and though educated only in English, he was never at a loss to understand French, Spanish, Italian, or German.—J. F. W.