{{More citations needed|date=March 2024}}{{Short description|Scottish poet (1734–1788)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}} {{Infobox person | image = Mickle.jpg | birth_date = 29 September 1734 | birth_place = Langholm | death_date = {{Death date and age|1788|10|28|1734|09|29|df=y}} | death_place = Forest Hill, London | occupation = Poet | family = William Julius Mickle (great-grandson) }} thumb|200px|The <nowiki>''Lusiad''</nowiki>, translated into English by William Julius Mickle
'''William Julius Mickle''' (29 September 1734 – 28 October 1788)<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-07-16 |title=Scottish Poets |url=http://scotspoets.cath.vt.edu/select.php?select=Mickle._William_Julius |access-date=2024-03-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230716234741/http://scotspoets.cath.vt.edu/select.php?select=Mickle._William_Julius |archive-date=16 July 2023 }}</ref> was a Scottish poet.
== Biography == Born in Langholm on 29 September 1738 to a minister, and educated at the Edinburgh high school.<ref name=EB1911>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Mickle, William Julius |volume=18 |page=380}}</ref> Mickle was for some time a brewer in Edinburgh, but failed. He moved to England where he worked as a corrector for the Clarendon Press at Oxford. In 1771–75 Mickle lodged at the manor house in Forest Hill, Oxfordshire. Mickle had various literary failures and minor successes until, while at Forest Hill, he produced his translation of the ''Lusiad'', from the Portuguese of Luís de Camões. This was a success that brought him both fame and money.
In 1777, he went to Portugal, where he king gave him a public reception.<ref name=EB1911/> In 1784, he published the ballad of ''Cumnor Hall'', which suggested to Walter Scott the writing of ''Kenilworth''. He is perhaps best remembered, however, by the beautiful lyric, "There's nae luck aboot the Hoose", which, although claimed by others, is almost certainly his.
In 1781 Mickle married Mary Tomkins, the daughter of his former landlord in Forest Hill, and settled in Wheatley.<ref>Lobel, 1957, pages 122–134</ref> He died in 1788 while on a visit to his in-laws in Forest Hill, London, and is buried in Forest Hill churchyard.<ref>Lobel, 1957, pages 122–134</ref>
His namesake and great-grandson, William Julius Mickle, became a distinguished medical doctor.
==References== {{reflist}} *{{A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature|wstitle=Mickle, William Julius}}
==Sources== * {{cite book |title=A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 5: Bullingdon Hundred |year=1957 |pages=122–134}}
==External links== *{{commonscat-inline}} *{{wikiquote-inline}} *{{wikisource author-inline}} * [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00237.shtml William Julius Mickle] at the [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/ Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)] * {{Gutenberg author | id=35901}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Julius Mickle |sopt=t}} * William Julius Mickle Papers. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mickle, William Julius}} Category:Scottish poets Category:1734 births Category:1788 deaths Category:People from Langholm Category:Portuguese–English translators Category:18th-century Scottish translators Category:18th-century Scottish male writers
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