Works
Waddell was an orator of very exceptional power. His skill as a dialectician was displayed in a series of lectures on Ronan's ‘Life of Jesus,’ delivered in Glasgow City Hall before large audiences in 1863, and afterwards published. His profound admiration for Burns led to his issuing a new edition of the powers with an elaborate criticism (Glasgow, 1867–9, 4to). He presided at the meeting held in Burn’s cottage on 25 January 1859 in celebration of the poet’s birth, and then delivered an impassioned eulogy on Burns.
His chief historical work was a volume entitled Ossian and the Clyde, in which he sought to confirm the authenticity of the Ossianic poems by the identification of topographical references that could not be know to Macpherson. He also contributed a remarkable series of letters to a Glasgow journal on Ptolemy’s map of Egypt, showing that the discoveries of Speke and Grant had been foreshadowed by the old geographer. He took a keen interest in educational matters, and was a member of the first two school boards in Glasgow. His most original contribution to literature was a translation of the Psalms of David from Hebrew into the Scottish language, under the title The Psalms: frae Hebrew intil Scottis, in which he showed his profound linguistic knowledge. This work was followed in 1870 by a similar translation of Isaiah. In the early part of his career he attracted much notice by lectures which he delivered in London and the principal Scottish towns. Between 1882 and 1885 he edited the Waverley novels with notes and an introduction.
Read more about this topic: Peter Hately Waddell
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
“I look on trade and every mechanical craft as education also. But let me discriminate what is precious herein. There is in each of these works an act of invention, an intellectual step, or short series of steps taken; that act or step is the spiritual act; all the rest is mere repetition of the same a thousand times.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Most young black females learn to be suspicious and critical of feminist thinking long before they have any clear understanding of its theory and politics.... Without rigorously engaging feminist thought, they insist that racial separatism works best. This attitude is dangerous. It not only erases the reality of common female experience as a basis for academic study; it also constructs a framework in which differences cannot be examined comparatively.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)