Aytoun's remains are in Latin and English. In respect of the latter he is
one of the earliest Scots to use the southern standard as a literary
medium. The Latin poems include the panegyric already referred to, an
_Epicedium in obitum Thoma Rhodi_; _Basia, sive Strena ad Jacobum Hayum_;
_Lessus in funere Raphaelis Thorei_; _Carina Caro_; and minor pieces,
occasional and epitaphic. His first English poem was _Diophantus and
Charidora_ (to which he refers in his Latin panegyric to James). He has
left a number of pieces on amatory subjects, including songs and sonnets.

Aytoun's Latin poems are printed in _Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum_
(Amsterdam, 1637), i. pp. 40-75. His English poems are preserved in a MS.
in the British Museum (_Add. MSS._ 10,308), which was prepared by his
nephew, Sir John Aytoun. Both were collected by Charles Rogers in _The
Poems of Sir Robert Aytoun_ (London, privately printed, 1871). This edition
is unsatisfactory, though it is better than the first issue by the same
editor in 1844. Additional poems are included which cannot be ascribed to
Aytoun, and which in some cases have been identified as the work of others.
The poem "I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair" may be suspected, and the
old version of "Auld Lang Syne" and "Sweet Empress" are certainly not
Aytoun's. Some of the English poems are printed in Watson's _Collection_
(1706-1711) and in the _Bannatyne Miscellany_, i. p. 299 (1827). There is a
memoir of Aytoun in Rogers's edition, and another by Grosart in the _Dict.
of Nat. Biog._ Particulars of his public career will be found in the
printed _Calendars of State Papers_ and _Register of the Privy Council_ of
the period.

AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE (1813-1865), Scottish poet, humorist and
miscellaneous writer, was born at Edinburgh on the 21st of June 1813. He
was the only son of Roger Aytoun, a writer to the signet, and the family
was of the same stock as Sir Robert Aytoun noticed above. From his mother,
a woman of marked originality of character and considerable culture, he
derived his distinctive qualities, his early tastes in literature, and his
political sympathies, his love for ballad poetry, and his admiration for
the Stuarts. At the age of eleven he was sent to the Edinburgh Academy,
passing in due time to the university. In 1833 he spent a few months in
London for the purpose of studying law; but in September of that year he
went to study German at Aschaffenburg, where he remained till