Ye Life and Troubles of ane Artist in the Highlands of Scotland: a scarce book by J Smart, published in Leith by J Davidson.
I have in my collection a small book by J. Smart: Ye Life and Troubles of ane Artist in the Highlands of Scotland. It is a typical caricature of what the Highlands offers the visitor from the south. Magazines like The Graphic devoted space in some issues depicting the triumphs and disasters of tourists in Scotland.
This book by J Smart appears to be very scarce: I can find only one copy anywhere online - at Aberdeen University. They date it 189? I have been unable to trace any information on the publisher John Davidson, Bernard Street, Leith, but John Smart, the artist, does merit a Wikipedia entry which gives his dates as 1838 - 1899. He was apparently a pupil of Horatio MacCulloch, and was an active member of the Edinburgh artistic community. His work includes landscapes from both the Lowlands and the Highlands.
I thought it worth posting a page with the entire contents of this little book. It is good to have the observations of a real artist, however frivolous they might be - his experience with rain and midges is spoken from the heart, I suspect!
