He also shared the intimacy of Thomas Campbell, and
of Dr Alexander Murray, the distinguished philologist.
His promising career was brief; an abscess broke out in his breast,
which medical skill could not subdue. After a lingering illness, he died
on the 10th of May 1801, in his twenty-fifth year. He had joined a
Highland volunteer regiment; and his remains were accompanied by his
companions-in-arms to the Calton burial-ground, and there interred with
military honours.
Possessed of a lively and vigorous fancy, a generous warmth of
temperament, and feelings of extreme sensibility, Richard Gall gave
promise of adorning the poetical literature of his country. Patriotism
and the beauties of external nature were the favourite subjects of his
muse, which, as if premonished of his early fate, loved to sing in
plaintive strains. Gall occasionally lacks power, but is always
pleasing; in his songs (two of which have frequently been assigned to
Burns) he is uniformly graceful. He loved poetry with the ardour of an
enthusiast; during his last illness he inscribed verses with a pencil,
when no longer able to wield the pen. He was thoroughly devoid of
personal vanity, and sought to advance the poetical reputation of his
country rather than his own. In his lifetime, his pieces were printed
separately; a selection of his poems and songs, with a memoir by
Alexander Balfour, was published in 1819.
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