JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN. TUDENTS of Scottish history well know that in various State departments associated with that ancient realm successive holders of the Glencairn Earldom have essayed an important part. Nevertheless, though prominently and honourably known in a former day, yet, beyond the reminiscent recording page, and consonant with the common lot, their memory is gone. To this rule, however, there exists one outstanding exception along the belted line, and in all probability the name of the fourteenth Earl, and subject of our theme, will endure while the sunbeams continue to glint on Scottish braes. It is not that he excelled in any particular walk of life or public activity, for his pilgrimage was, alas, comparatively brief. The westland nobleman whose times we review owes his immortality to one circumstance alone--he befriended the Poet Burns. Such incidental allusion is, we think, amply sufficient reason for a few biographical particulars affecting one of so much concern to the Burns world-a synonymous term for those who hail the time when a fraternal economy will generally prevail. In order at the same time to associate comprehensiveness with our task, a beginning is made by inviting the reader's attention towards a certain worthy yet unpretentious brother and sister, James and Agnes Gairdner, indwellers in the latter half of the seventeenth century at the town of Ayr. James Gairdner died not very long after marriage. In course of time his daughter Isabella was wedded to a Mr Hugh M'Guire, and among others of her family there was one named Elizabeth. Agnes Gairdner, in 1674, was joined in wedlock with Adam MacRae, and to them was born a son, James MacRae, whose life is intermingled somewhat with fanciful romance. For this particular westland boy neither school nor home possessed any attractions. His heaven on earth was Ayr Harbour, and if it were possible for any From a Family Portrait in possession of R. B. Cunninghame Graham, was enjoyment to exceed seeing the ships come in, it watching them crowd sail and go. To this obsession only -Kilmaurs Parish and Burgh, *By courtesy of the publishers :-) by D. M'Naught. Alex. Gardner, Paisley: 1912. one result could naturally follow, and so, when he attained the age of twelve," young Jamie went to sea.' For thirty long years the tide ebbed and flowed, but no word of the young sailor was heard at the Western seaport. At length, however, rumour began to get busy concerning a certain Captain MacRae of the East India Company's Service, and such was none other than the mariner enthusiast of long ago. Amid an environment of washing waves and creaking cordage, his stout heart and iron will carried him far in the affairs of the Orient. Step by step, and hand over hand, he rose from toiling before the mast to be Governor of Madras Presidency. Ultimately, when the shadows of life were lengthening, he embarked for the homeland, bearing with him a colossal fortune. On wandering again among the scenes of boyhood he found that the hand of time was upon others as well as himself, and in all truth his was the status of a Rip Van Winkle. Both parents, besides the contemporary relatives of youth, were dead, and the weel ken'd face was gone. Advertising in the Press, he found that the grandchildren of his mother's brother were yet alive, and on one of these, the youthful Elizabeth M'Guire we have mentioned, he conferred the Barony of Ochiltree. This fortunate maiden subsequently became Countess of Glencairn, and mother to the worldwide known benefactor of Scotland's Bard. In early times, hereditaments in the Scottish southwest effeiring to the house of Glencairn attained considerable bounds. In the days, however, of our fourteenth Earl, these were somewhat curtailed. For long, too, the ancient family seat at Kilmaurs had become a ruin, giving place, as principal residence, to Finlayston House, on the Renfrewshire shore of the Clyde. William, the ninth Earl, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, began a pretentious family mansion near the old Castle in 1662, but it never was completed, and no remains of it now exist save a few sculptured stones built here and there into other buildings. At Finlayston, in 1749, was born the subject of this narrative, upon whom, on the early death of an elder brother, devolved the title of Lord Kilmaurs. In following along his way, we would now centre interest in the Burgh of Dalkeith, a few miles to the southeast of Edinburgh. At the period of which we write, Mrs. Creech, widow of the incumbent who had recently ministered in the neighbouring Newbattle Parish, took up abode in Dalkeith. In her bereavement she was greatly befriended by the Marchioness of Lothian, whose husband was an elder in Newbattle Church. It is extremely probable, therefore, that, through the influence of the Lothian family, Lord Kilmaurs and his younger brother, along with their tutor. Dr Robertson of Dalkeith Academy, all became members of Mrs Creech's household. Next in order of reference and prominent in consequence, as affecting biographical matters, the celebrated William Creech appears. The Dalkeith widow's only son, he, in the future days, published the Edinburgh Edition of Burns. At this point in our narrative, however, William was the attached playmate and friend of Kilmaurs. Books and bookdom were not yet, and both boys enjoyed that period of life when the sun never rose an hour too soon or brought too long a day." It so happened also, that while the lads were roaming by the banks of Esk, the sweet singer of Scotland, rescuer of both from oblivion to imperishable memory, was yet a juvenile in the Auld Clay Biggin, listening to Betty Davidson's dissertations on Fairies, Brownies, Kelpies," and other trumpery.” 66 Now, with all the many gifts and graces adorning his personal character, it was the misfortune of the youthful nobleman of whom we write to lack the all-important endowment of a robust constitution. When educational days were over and gone he travelled extensively abroad, not so much, it may be, to act in unison with the then prevailing custom among the younger branches of the Scottish nobility as in search of elusive health. To his native shores he stood, as a consequence, very much in the way of being a stranger, and it so happened that at a time he was exploring the regions of Norway, Lapland, and Sweden the call came for his succession to the Earldom of Glencairn. It must be chronicled too that, irrespective of all physical disadvantages, the Earl, so far as circumstances permitted, and in accordance with the resourceful spirit of his line, proved himself a man of enterprise. Choosing a military career for life's activity we find him, in 1778, attaining the rank of Captain in the West Fencible Regiment, and two years later he was selected a Scottish representative Peer to the House of Lords. Pursuing our commemorating path leads onward to the ever interesting period, in Edinburgh annals, of 1786. By then the Countess Dowager of Glencairn resided at Wester Coates, a rural retreat near by the Coltbridge approach, and, in the closing months, the Poet Burns came cantering along from Mossgiel to the city by the Biggar Road. Lady Glencairn had already heard of the Bard and his merits, through her Ochiltree overseer, Mr John Tennant, farmer, Glenconner. He was a near neighbour of the Burns family back in the Alloway days, as well as the Poet's " Guid Auld Glen, the wale and ace o' honest men." Coincidentally, too, the manager on the Finlayston Estate, Mr Alexander Dalzell of Bardrainy, an old acquaintance of the Bard, according to the true spirit of the well-wisher and with kindly reference, placed the Kilmarnock Edition in the hands of his lordship. With its perusal Glencairn was highly gratified, and so convinced thereby did he feel of the author being a coming force in the world of letters that he determined to further his interests in every possible way. . All the world now knows concerning the historic visit paid by the Poet in the forementioned year to the Scottish Capital, and perhaps the warmest of the welcomes he received emanated from the admiring Earl and his mother at Wester Coates. This mansion, once so pleasant a rural retreat, stood not far from the highway and near the last stage, at Haymarket, of the mail coach from the west country, ere reaching the terminus at the Grassmarket. The vandalism of |