ON POETIC INTERPRETATION OF NATURE

"He was born at Houstoun House, Linlithgowshire, the third son of Major Norman Shairp of Houstoun, and was educated at Edinburgh Academy and the University of Glasgow.



Shairp gained a Shell exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford in 1840. In 1842 he won the Newdigate prize for a poem on Charles XII of Sweden, and took his degree in 1844. During these years the ""Oxford Movement"" was at its height. Shairp was stirred by John Henry Newman's sermons, and admired the poetry of John Keble, on whose character and work he wrote an essay; but he remained faithful to his Presbyterian upbringing. After leaving Oxford he took a mastership at Rugby School under Archibald Campbell Tait."