or may not be correct, but its title deeds show that for forty-three years M'Kenzie had an interest in the ownership of the property. On the other side of the street, and opposite the M'Kenzie house, stands a building that was long known as "The Sma' Inn," whose landlady was Mrs. Robert Weir, better known in her own day and since by her maiden name of Nanse Tinnock.

THE SMA' INN.

In 1833 Robert Chambers recorded in print a visit to Mauchline, and wrote that "the date over the door of this house is 1744." That is generally regarded as the year in which the building was erected, but it is more probable that it is even older, that it was built about 1712, the year in which Robert Reid obtained a charter from the superior, the Earl of Loudoun. The property passed from the Reid family to Hugh Crawford, schoolmaster in Mauchline, and in 1749 was disponed by Crawford's daughter and her husband to Robert Weir, wright in the town. Thirty-three years later Weir, now described as innkeeper in Mauchline"being resolved while in health to settle my worldly affairs so as to prevent differences and disputes that might arise amongst my wife and children after my death "-disponed the property "to and in favours of Agnes Tunnock, my Spouse, in liferent during all the days of her lifetime after my death," and equally among his seven children thereafter. (The disposition was "witnessed" by William and James Tunnock, both shoemakers in Mauchline, and probably relatives of Mrs. Weir.) In 1800 Agnes Tunnock is referred to as widow of Robert Weir. She appears to have died about 1808, and to have been buried in the kirkyard adjoining her house; "Nanse Tannock, the decent Nanse," wrote Hew Ainslie, who visited Mauchline in 1820, "lodges a little to the south (of Daddie Auld's grave), with no hatchment but what summer has raised." Mauchline had

doubtless known her when a girl, had known her so well, indeed, that it could not think to drop the maiden name in favour of the married. The property subsequently passed through several hands, until in 1871 it came into possession of the laird of Netherplace, from whose successor it was purchased by the trustees of the late Mr. Cowie.

The Tinnock House has Burns associations of much interest. Its landlady was described by the Poet as “a worthy old Hostess of the Author's in Mauchline, where he sometimes studies Politics over a glass of guid auld Scotch Drink "; and, if only William Pitt would remove "that curst restriction on aqua-vitæ," Burns swore he'd "be his debt twa mashlum bonnocks,

An' drink his health in auld Nanse Tinnock's
Nine times a-week."

Here also, he himself records, he penned his "Epistle to John M'Adam of Craigengillan, in answer to an obliging letter he sent in the commencement of my poetic career." But it is in its connection with "The Nanse Tinnock's is best remembered, as one of the " change-houses" to which reference is made in the latter part of the satire

Holy Fair" that

"Now butt an' ben the change-house fills

Wi' yill-caup commentators;

Here's crying out for bakes an' gills,

An' there the pint-stoup clatters;

While thick an' thrang, an' loud an' lang,

Wi' Logic an' wi' Scripture,

They raise a din, that in the end

Is like to breed a rupture

O' wrath that day."

Standing between the former main street and the kirkyard, the back of its upper flat formed part of the boundary of the kirkyard. At the head of its wooden stairs was a door which opened into that portion of the kirkyard on which the preaching-tent was raised

on the occasions of Communion, and this door must have been convenient to such of the congregation as desired material refreshment. It was in the parlour of the Sma' Inn, too-if we are to accept the "reminiscences original" which Hately Waddell collected that the first reading of "The Holy Fair" took place, to some of Burns's friends and acquaintances, male and female.

A portrait of Nanse Tinnock appears in the frontispiece to a series of engraved Views in North Britain Illustrative of the Works of Robert Burns, published at London in 1805 by James Storer and John Greig; a statue in the grounds of the Burns Monument at Alloway probably represents nothing more than the fancy of James Thom, its sculptor.

In 1915, when the building was acquired, the room in which Burns and his wife had resided in 1788 was set apart as a shrine, to be furnished as it may have been during the tenancy of the Poet, and the adjoining apartment was arranged as a museum. Following the excellent example of Glasgow Mauchline Society in its Cottage Homes, the Glasgow and District Burns Association determined that the remaining rooms should be fitted up to accommodate deserving old people. In the M'Kenzie and the Tinnock Houses further accommodation is provided for that purpose, and ten apartments are now utilised-the whole forming one of the finest tributes to Burns that are in existence.

J. C. EWING.

AT NANSE TINNOCK'S HOUSE.

The President of the Association, Mr. Thomas Killin, J.P., called upon Mr. J. C. Ewing to present Mrs. Cowie with a key to open the house. He explained that it was a gift from the architect and the contractors, and was enclosed in a box made of wood from the rafters of Nanse Tinnock's House.

Mr. Ewing said he felt highly honoured in having been asked to present Mrs. Cowie with the key with which to perform the first of that afternoon's functions. She had been invited to open the door of a house which to them was a historic house. It had been immortalised by Robert Burns, and for nearly one hundred and fifty years it had been known as "Auld Nanse Tinnock's." To-day began a new chapter in its history. When the house was becoming ruinous her husband gave instructions that it be purchased and renovated. The association of the house with the names of Burns and Nanse Tinnock would persist, but from now there would be associated a third name, that of her husband, Charles Rennie Cowie.

Mrs. Cowie, in a few graceful sentences, expressed her thanks for the gift.

The President said that during her husband's lifetime Mrs. Cowie had taken part with him in many charitable and religious ceremonies, but never had she taken part in one more worthy than that which he now asked her to perform, and which crowned a charitable scheme dear to her husband. It was perhaps well that he should be the one to do so, for Mr. Cowie himself said it was after he had shown him the Burns Cottages at Mauchline that the idea of purchasing the Burns House and making it a home for old ladies came to him. He had great pleasure in asking Mrs. Cowie to open Nanse Tinnock's House.

Mrs. Cowie then turned the key in the door and declared the house open, expressing the hope that it would provide comfortable shelter for the aged people who occupied the apartments within.

Mr. J. Jeffrey Hunter, Hon. Secretary of the Association, afterwards unveiled a handsome slab of Peterhead granite, which has been built into the front wall of the Burns and M'Kenzie Houses, in memory of the late Mr. C. R. Cowie. The granite records, in leaded