William Knox

Who was William Knox?

William Knox was a Scottish poet. The son of a farmer in Roxburghshire, he wrote several books of poetry, The Lonely Hearth, Songs of Israel, Harp of Zion, etc., which gained him the friendship of Walter Scott. He fell into dissipated habits, was latterly a journalist in Edinburgh, and died at 36. He is known for writing Abraham Lincoln's favourite poem, Mortality, which Lincoln often recited by memory.