born in Belfast. Her father, of Scottish family, was a merchant, and died early, leaving a widow and three children. The children were brought up by relatives, Elizabeth, the youngest, being sent to Mr Marshall, a farmer in Stirlingshire, married to her father's sister. Her brother obtained a cadetship in the East India Company's service, and an elder sister remained in Ireland. Elizabeth, adopted by the Marshalls, was educated with the utmost care. 'No child,' she says, 'ever spent so happy a life, nor have I ever met with anything at all resembling our way of living, except the description given by Rousseau of Wolmar's farm and vintage.' The child soon showed a taste for literature. Wallace was her first hero; but meeting with Ogilby's translation of the Iliad, she adored Achilles and dreamed of Hector. She visited Edinburgh and Glasgow, carried on a learned correspondence with a philosophical lecturer, and wrote many verses. Her first appearance in print was the record of a pleasure-party to the Highlands, surreptitiously sent by a friend to a provincial magazine. Her brother's letters and, when he returned on furlough, conversations on Indian affairs stored her mind with the materials for her Letters of a Hindoo Rajah (1796), a work remarkable for good sense and sprightliness. In 1800 she published Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, a novel in defence of virtue and religion against the dangerous elements in Godwin's Political Justice; and between that and 1806 she gave to the world Letters on Education, Memoirs of Agrippina, and Letters to the Daughter of a Nobleman. In 1808 appeared her most popular, original, and useful work, The Cottagers of Glenburnie; and she subsequently published Popular Essays on the Human Mind, and Hints to the Directors of Public Schools, based on Pestalozzi. From 1788 she lived mainly in London or elsewhere in England, till 1804, when 'Mrs Hamilton,' as she now liked to be called, settled in Edinburgh. She died at Harrogate. The Cottagers of Glenburnie is a tale of humble life in a poor Scottish hamlet, and the heroine, a retired English governess, middle-aged and lame, has come to stay as a lodger with her only surviving relative, a cousin married to a small farmer in Glenburnie. On her way she has called at Gowanbrae, the house of the factor or landsteward, who, with his daughter and boys, walks with Mrs Mason to Glenburnie. The house is dirty and uncomfortable; the farmer is a good easy man, but his wife is obstinate and prejudiced, and the children self-willed and rebellious. Mrs Mason finds the family quite incorrigible, but she effects a wonderful change among their neighbours. She gets a school established on her own plan, and boys and girls exert themselves to effect a reformation in the cottages of their parents. The most sturdy sticklers for the old ways at length see the good points of the new system, and the village undergoes a complete transformation. Sir Walter called the Cottagers a picture of the rural habits of Scotland, of striking and impressive fidelity.' Miss Hamilton was an accomplished kailyard novelist long before the word was invented, and was perhaps the first entitled to the name; her Cottagers appeared twelve years before Galt's Ayrshire Legatees was published by Blackwood. Glenburnie. They had not proceeded many paces until they were struck with admiration at the uncommon wildness of the scene which now opened to their view. The rocks which seemed to guard the entrance of the glen were abrupt and savage, and approached so near each other that one could suppose them to have been riven asunder to give a passage to the clear stream which flowed between them. As they advanced, the hills receded on either side, making room for meadows and corn-fields, through which the rapid burn pursued its way in many a fantastic maze. The road, which winded along the foot of the hills, on the north side of the glen, owed as little to art as any country road in the kingdom. It was very narrow, and much encumbered by loose stones, brought down from the hills above by the winter torrents. Mrs Mason and Mary were so enchanted by the change of scenery which was incessantly unfolding to their view that they made no complaints of the slowness of their progress, nor did they much regret being obliged to stop a few minutes at a time, where they found so much to amuse and to delight them. But Mr Stewart had no patience at meeting with obstructions which, with a little pains, could have been so easily obviated; and as he walked by the side of the car, expatiated upon the indolence of the people of the glen, who, though they had no other road to the market, could contentedly go on from year to year without making an effort to repair it. How little trouble would it cost,' said he, 'to throw the smaller of these loose stones into these holes and ruts, and to remove the larger ones to the side, where they would form a fence between the road and the hill! There are enough of idle boys in the glen to effect all this, by working at it for one hour a week during the summer. But then their fathers must unite in setting them to work; and there is not one in the glen who would not sooner have his horses lamed, and his carts torn to pieces, than have his son employed in a work that would benefit his neighbours as much as himself.' As he was speaking they passed the door of one of these small farmers, and immediately turning a sharp corner, began to descend a steep, which appeared so unsafe that Mr Stewart made his boys alight, which they could do without inconvenience, and going to the head of the horse, took his guidance upon himself. At the foot of this short precipice the road again made a sudden turn, and discovered to them a misfortune which threatened to put a stop to their proceeding any further for the present evening. It was no other than the overturn of a cart of hay, occasioned by the breaking down of the bridge along which it had been passing. Happily for the poor horse that drew this ill-fated load, the harness by which he was attached to it was of so frail a nature as to make little resistance; so that he and his rider escaped unhurt from the fall, notwithstanding its being one of considerable depth. At first, indeed, neither boy nor horse was seen; but as Mr Stewart advanced to examine whether, by removing the hay, which partly covered the bridge and partly hung suspended on the bushes, the road might still be passable, he heard a child's voice in the hollow exclaiming, 'Come on, ye muckle brute! ye had as weel come on! I'll gar ye! I'll gar ye! That's a gude beast now. Come awa'! That's it! Ay, ye're a gude beast now!' As the last words were uttered, a little fellow of about ten years of age was seen issuing from the hollow, and pulling after him, with all his might, a great long-backed clumsy animal of the horse species, though apparently of a very mulish temper. 'You have met with a sad accident,' said Mr Stewart; 'how did all this happen?' 'You may see how it happened plain enough,' returned the boy; the brig brak, and the cart coupet.' And did you and the horse coup likewise?' said Mr Stewart. O ay, we a' coupet thegither, for I was ridin' on his back.' 'And where is your father and all the rest of the folk?' 'Whaur sud they be but in the hay-field? Dinna ye ken that we're takin' in our hay? John Tamson's and Jamie Forster's was in a week syne, but we're aye ahint the lave.' All the party were greatly amused by the composure which the young peasant evinced under his misfortune, as well as by the shrewdness of his answers; and having learned from him that the hay-field was at no great distance, gave him some halfpence to hasten his speed, and promised to take care of his horse till he should return with assistance. He soon appeared, followed by his father and two other men, who came on stepping at their usual pace. Why, farmer,' said Mr Stewart, 'you have trusted rather too long to this rotten plank, I think' (pointing to where it had given way); 'if you remember the last time I passed this road, which was several months since, I then told you that the bridge was in danger, and shewed you how easily it might be repaired.' 'It is a' true,' said the farmer, moving his bonnet; but I thought it would do weel eneugh. I spoke to Jamie Forster and John Tamson about it; but they said they wadna fash themselves to mend a brig that was to serve a' the folk in the glen.' 'But you must now mend it for your own sake,' said Mr Stewart, 'even though a' the folk in the glen should be the better for it.' Ay, sir,' said one of the men, 'that's spoken like yoursel'! Would everybody follow your example, there would be nothing in the world but peace and good neighbourhood.' One somewhat didactic Scottish song, 'My ain Fireside,' by Miss Hamilton, attained great popularity, and is still often sung. The first verse is as follows: I hae seen great anes, and sat in great ha's, O cheery's the blink o' my ain fireside; My ain fireside, my ain fireside, O there's nought to compare wi' ane's ain fireside. Mrs Hamilton's Memoirs, with letters and papers, were published in 1815 by Miss Benger. are not Minor Scotch Song-Writers. Among the minor Scotch song-writers of the eighteenth century, many of whom thoroughly identified, the following deserve mention. George Halket (died 1756), a drunken Aberdeenshire schoolmaster, who published in 1727 a worthless volume of 'Occasional Poems,' is credited with the authorship of Logie o Buchan, and of the spirited Jacobite song, Whirry Whigs Awa'. Other Jacobite rhymesters were the Rev. Murdoch M'Lennan (1701 - 83), minister of Crathie, who described the Race of Sheriffmuir in the spirited ballad bearing the refrain 'We ran and they ran ;' and Adam Skirving (1719–1803), a gentlemanfarmer of Haddingtonshire, who witnessed the battle of Prestonpans and celebrated it in Tranent Muir and Hey Johnnie Cope. Isobel Pagan (died 1821), an eccentric spinster who sold unlicensed whisky near Muirkirk, is said to have been the authoress of the well-known pastoral song, Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes, which Burns polished up for George Thomson in 1794. A collection of her songs and poems appeared at Glasgow about 1805. -From the mouth of Jean Glover (1758-1801), an Ayrshire tramp, street-singer, and thief, Burns took down the words of her song, Ower the Muir amang the Heather. Another oddity was Dougal Graham (1724-79), the hunchback bellman of Glasgow, who in his earlier years had peddled in Stirlingshire, and accompanied the Jacobite army (as a campfollower, doubtless, rather than a combatant) to Derby and Culloden. His Account of the Rebellion (1746), though mere doggerel, has some worth as an historic document, and Sir Walter Scott thought of editing it for the Bannatyne Club. Graham was the author of many popular chapbooks, including John Cheap the Chapman and The History of Haverel Wives; and some of his verses-those notably on the Turnimspike, describing the Highlanders' notion of the roads of General Wadeare not lacking in rude vigour. His works were published in a limited edition in 1883. A very different figure from these was Dr Adam Austin, a fashionable Edinburgh physician, who solaced his grief by writing The Lack of Gold when Miss Jean Drummond of Megginch jilted him for the Duke of Athole in 1749. For Mrs Elizabeth Grant, author of Roy's Wife, see above at page 596; and for Jean Adam and There's nae Luck about the House, see page 523. John Mayne (1759-1836), born in Dumfries, died in London proprietor and joint-editor of The Star newspaper. He was brought up as a printer, and whilst apprentice in the Dumfries Journal office in 1777, in his eighteenth year, he published the germ of his Siller Gun in a quarto page of twelve stanzas; and this he continued to enlarge and improve up to the time of his death. The twelve stanzas expanded in two years to two cantos; in 1780, enlarged to three cantos, the poem was published in Ruddiman's Magazine; and in 1808 it was published in London in four cantos. Of this edition Sir Walter Scott said (in a note to the Lady of the Lake) 'that it surpassed the efforts of Fergusson and came near to those of Burns.' An edition in five cantos was published in 1836. Mayne was author of a short poem on Hallowe'en,' printed in Ruddiman's Magazine in 1780, which had a direct influence on Burns's treatment of the same subject; and in 1781 he published his fine ballad of Logan Braes, two lines of which Burns copied into his Logan Water. Many have thought Mayne's the better poem of the two. His version of Helen of Kirkconnel is often quoted. For five years (1782-87) he was employed in the office of the brothers Foulis in Glasgow. His poem on 'Glasgow,' published in the Glasgow Magazine in 1783, was separately issued in 1803, and is a description of Glasgow and its ways, in the verse specially favoured by Burns, and a laudation of the energy and accomplishments of its citizens. The Siller Gun is humorous and descriptive. The subject of the poem is an ancient custom in Dumfries, called 'Shooting for the Siller Gun,' the gun being a small silver tube presented by James VI. to the incorporated trades as a prize to the best marksman. It is after the manner of Peblis to the Play and cognate rhymes down to Fergusson and Burns. Logan Braes. By Logan's streams that rin sae deep, But wae's my heart, thae days are gane, The characteristic short line, Herded sheep and gathered slaes, is in some of the versions filled out as I've herded sheep or gathered slaes. I dander dowie and forlane; Helen of Kirkconnel. I wish I were where Helen lies, Still seems to beckon me! Took deadly aim at me : My love, to disappoint the foe, On fair Kirkconnel-Lee! Though Heaven forbids my wrath to swell, For if, where all the graces shrine- Ah, what avails it that, amain, I clove the assassin's head in twain ; I see her spirit in the air- On fair Kirkconnel-Lee! Oh! when I'm sleeping in my grave, And o'er my head the rank weeds wave, Unite my love and me! Then from this world of doubts and sighs, Forget Kirkconnel-Lee! The story of Helen Irving (or Bell), daughter of the Laird of Kirkconnel, in Annandale, slain by the bullet aimed by a rejected suitor at his favoured rival, her betrothed, seems to date from the sixteenth century, and is enshrined in a fine old ballad. There are modern versions by Pinkerton and Jamieson-not to speak of Wordsworth's Ellen Irwin-besides Mayne's. Many of the verses of the old ballad are incomparably more poetic, such as the last : I wish I were where Helen lies! Frae far and near the country lads jades-nags But, blest in pantry, barn, and barrel, Hech, sirs! what crowds cam into town, At first, forenent ilk Deacon's hallan high born and humbly born in front of-entry ringing mulled ale choppin, measure of ale supple shy Through crowds on crowds, collected round, The Corporations Trudge aff, while Echo's self is drowned In acclamations ! Alexander Wilson (1766-1813), a Scottish weaver-poet, became famous as the skilful delineator of American birds and the enthusiastic describer of American scenery and bird life. Born in Paisley, he was brought up a weaver, but became a pedlar, and in 1789 he added to his muslin goods and other commodities a prospectus of a volume of poems. But his hopes from the sale of his own verse proved vain, and he returned to the loom, at Lochwinnoch and at Paisley. In 1792 he issued anonymously his best poem, Watty and Meg, which was at first attributed to Burns. And Burns almost justified the implied criticism. His wife told Dr Robert Chambers that on hearing a hawker of chapbooks cry' Watty and Meg, a new ballad by Robert Burns,' Burns exclaimed, ‘I would make your plack a bawbee if it were mine.' A lampoon on the master-weavers during a trade dispute in Paisley, implying indiscreet sympathy with reformers and French revolutionists, drove him to America in 1794. He got work in Philadelphia, travelled as a pedlar in New Jersey, and was a school-teacher in Pennsylvania. His skill in drawing birds led him to make a collection of all the birds in America. In October 1804 he set out on his first excursion, and wrote The Foresters, a Poem. In 1806 he was employed on the American edition of Rees's Cyclopædia. He soon prevailed upon the publisher to undertake a new venturea work illustrating, by his own drawings and with full descriptions, all the birds of America, and in 1808-10 he brought out the first two volumes of the American Ornithology. In 1811 he made a canoe voyage down the Ohio, and travelled overland through the Mississippi Valley from Nashville to New Orleans. He continued 'collecting birds and subscribers,' writing and publishing, traversing swamps and forests in quest of rare birds, and undergoing the greatest privations and fatigues, till he had issued a seventh volume. At Philadelphia he sank under his severe labours, and there he was buried. In his Ornithology he showed he possessed descriptive powers, artistic |