Artist. He was born in Dunfermline Scotland and after attending school he went onto Dunfermline Art Academy, where he improved the talents he had developed during his childhood. In 1843 he studied briefly at the Royal Academy, London where he met artist John Everett Millais, who asked him to join the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Although he painted in that style he turned down the invitation and became a painter of mythological and historical scenes and later gained great success with rather portentous and sentimental religious pictures such as ‘The Man of Sorrows’. He was also a poet and an expert in folklore and Celtic legends, with Scottish folklore being reflected in his paintings. During his short spell in London he became acquainted with Samuel Carter Hall, editor of The Art Journal, and he was commissioned to design some of the illustrations for his 1842 book ‘The Book of British Ballads’. Other commissions to design book illustrations included the 1844 edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley's lyrical drama ‘Prometheus Unbound’, an 1845 publication of Shakespeare's ‘The Tempest’ and an 1863 version of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. In 1844 his first painting, ‘Ruth Gleaning’, was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy. He won a number of prizes for his work including for two of his most famous works ‘The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania’ (an imaginative interpretation of an incident in William Shakespeare's play 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, quarrel over the possession of a changeling) and ‘The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania’ (Oberon and Titania stand reunited and are about to resolve the magically induced confusion between the two human lovers shown sleeping apart) both of which are on view at the National Gallery of Scotland. Other notable works include ‘The Pursuit of Pleasure’ (1855), ‘Mors Janua Vitae’ (1866), ‘Oskold’ and the ‘Elle-maids’ (1874) and ‘In Die Malo’ (1882). He was elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1847 and Member in 1850. Queen Victoria appointed him Her Majesty's Linmer for Scotland and knighted him in 1866. She also commissioned his pictures for the prayer room at Osborne House, Isle of Wight.