John Campbell Shairp

Shairp, John Campbell, LL.D., s. of Major Norman Shairp, was b. at Houstoun, West Lothian, July 30, 1819; student at the Univ. of Glasgow 1836-9; Snell Exhib., Balliol College Ox., 1840, and Newdigate Prize 1842. For a time he was assistant master at Rugby, then Professor of Latin at St. Andrews 1861; Principal of the United Coll., St Andrews, 1868, and Prof, of Poetry, Oxford, 1877. He died at Ormsary, Argyllshire, Sept. 18, 1885. The LL.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Edinburgh in 1884. His hymn:—
Twixt gleams of joy and clouds of doubt. [God the Unchangeable.] Appeared in his Glen Desseray and other Poems, 1888, p. 265, and marked as having been written in 1871. It is in several collections, especially in America (e.g. The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1904). Also in Horder's Worship Song, 1905. The cento, "Let me no more my comfort draw," in Sursum Corda, 1898, is from this hymn.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)