William Julius Mickle (1735-88)

Scottish poet, born at Langholm, Dumfriesshire. At the age of thirteen, when he had a chance to read Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596), he became fascinated by the great poet, and began to imitate his manner. While working as a copy editor for the Clarendon Press at Oxford, he commenced, in 1771, a translation of The Lusiad (1572), an epic by Luiz de Camoens (1524-80), the Portuguese poet, which he completed in 1775, gaining a reward of both fame and money.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) entertained a high opinion of Mickle’s poetical gifts, and found inspiration in Mickle’s “Cumnor Hall” (1784) for his novel, Kenilworth (1821). (M. Y.)