Charles K. Sharpe (?1781-1851)



Scottish poet, born at Hoddom, Dumfriesshire, in May 1781, and educated at Edinburgh and at Christ Church, Oxford. He was from his infancy nourished on Jacobite story and tradition, and this phase of Scottish sentiment occupied most of his interest, and mainly directed the bent of his artistic studies and his antiquarian research.

Sharpe was impressed by the first volume of Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (3 vols, 1802-3), and sent him a warm letter of congratulation, which led to a lifelong friendship. Sharpe contributed his own two literary ballads to the second volume of the Minstrelsy. Sharpe possessed an unrivalled collection of Scottish curios and antiques, and Scott was frequently and much indebted to his proficiency in this and kindred branches of antiquarian lore. (Y. Y.)

1.The Lord Herries His Complaint: a Fragment
2.The Murder of Caerlaveroc