William Edmondstoune "W. E." Aytoun FRSE (21 June 1813 – 4 August 1865) was a Scottish poet, lawyer by training, and professor of rhetoric and belles lettres at the University of Edinburgh.

He published poetry, translation, prose fiction, criticism and satire and was a lifelong contributor to the Edinburgh literary periodical Blackwood's Magazine.

[3] To his mother, a woman of culture, he owed his early fondness for literature (including ballad poetry), his political sympathies, and his admiration for the House of Stuart.

[4] His contributions to the periodical included humorous prose stories, such as The Glenmutchkin Railway, How I Became a Yeoman, and How I Stood for the Dreepdaily Burghs, a partly autobiographical novel, Norman Sinclair, and the work upon which his reputation as a poet is chiefly based, his Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (1848).

[4] In around 1841, Aytoun became acquainted with Theodore Martin, and in association with him wrote a series of humorous articles on the fashions and follies of the time, in which were interspersed the verses which afterwards became popular as the Bon Gaultier Ballads (1855).

It was intended to satirise a group of poets and critics, including George Gilfillan, Sydney Thompson Dobell, Philip James Bailey, and Alexander Smith.

His services in support of the Tory party, especially during the Anti-Corn-Law struggle, received official recognition with his appointment in 1852 as Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland,[4] a role he served for 13 years.