[2] His study of Italian verse bore fruit in the mock-heroic poem of Anster Fair (1812), which gave an amusing account of the marriage of "Maggie Lauder," the heroine of the popular Scottish ballad.
It was written in the ottava rima adopted a few years later by "the ingenious brothers Whistlecraft" (John Hookham Frere), and turned to such brilliant account by Byron in Don Juan.
The poem, unhackneyed in form, full of fantastic classical allusions applied to the simple story, and brimming over with humour, had an immediate success.
From this he was promoted (1816) to the school at Lasswade, near Edinburgh; from that (1819) to a mastership in Dollar Academy; from that (1834), by Lord Jeffrey, to the professorship of oriental languages (having mastered Hebrew, Arabic and Persian by this stage) at the University of St Andrews.
The Thane of Fife (1822), shows the same humorous imagination as Anster Fair, but the subject was more remote from general interest, and the poem fell flat.