foes, to the bonnie banks of Ayr, to all the charms of Bonnie Scotland, suddenly bounded to the other extreme, and the Poet evidently thought he had only to enter the promised land to possess it. It was on the way to Mossgiel, after what he thought was his last visit to Loudoun Manse, that the poet composed his farewell. When the tide of Burns's fortune flowed in upon him Dr Laurie sent him a letter of friendly counsel. Burns was in Edinburgh, flattered and lionized, and Dr Laurie naturally thought the young man might lose his head in such unwonted circumstances. In Burns's reply he says that he "had no great temptation to be intoxicated with the cup of prosperity." Then he goes on to say : "By far the most agreeable hours I spend in Edinburgh must be placed to the account of Miss M. Laurie and her pianoforte. I cannot help repeating to you and to Mrs Laurie a compliment that Mr Mackenzie, the celebrated Man of Feeling,' paid to Miss Laurie the other night at a concert. I had come in at the interlude and sat down by him, till I saw Miss Laurie in a seat not very far distant, and went up to pay my respects to her. On my return to Mr Mackenzie he asked me who she was? I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. He returned there was something very striking, to his idea, in her appearance. my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased to say: . She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a country girl.' My compliments to all the happy inmates of St. Margaret's Hill.” 66 On The young lady referred to was the eldest daughter of Dr Laurie-Christina, who afterwards became the wife of Mr Alexander Wilson, bookseller, Glasgow, son of the Professor of Astronomy in the University of Glasgow. The correspondence between Dr Laurie and Burns is not exhausted with the letter quoted, nor was the Prayer the only memento he left in the room which he occupied in Loudoun Manse. Burns had a diamond with which he scratched his sentiments on more than one window, and on the window of his bedroom in the Manse he wrote: Lovely Mrs Laurie, she is all charms." The writing on the pane of glass is still in existence-indeed, the sash enclosing the pane, with several others, was removed to 66 prevent accidental breakage. Twenty years ago or so it was on exhibition with other Burns relics in Glasgow. "Lovely Mrs Laurie did not scruple occasionally to rebuke the Poet for what she considered wrong in his ways, and on one occasion she did so, so effectually that the feelings of the Poet were considerably wounded. Enclosed in a book of old poems which he sent to a member of the family shortly afterwards, the following lines were found : Rusticity's ungainly form may cloud the highest mind; If Burns sometimes had reason to fear the criticism of "Lovely Mrs Laurie," there was one person in the household who had a like wholesome dread of the Poet. John Brooke, the minister's man, among his miscellaneous duties, was expected to wait at table. Once, during a visit of Burns to the Manse, the invaluable John did not make his appearance. An excuse was given which did not satisfy the mistress of the house. Seeking him out afterwards, Mrs Laurie asked John why he had not been in his usual place. "Deed, Mem," said the worthy, "I was just fleyed to come in, for fear Burns wad mak' a poem on me." Burns was not the only poet whom Dr Laurie helped to his place in public estimation. James Macpherson was also indebted to him for bringing the poems of Ossian before discriminating critics, a service which afterwards, when the world had prospered with him, Macpherson either forgot or pretended to forget. What brought out his apparent forgetfulness was the answer which Dr Laurie received when he wrote to Macpherson, as a member of the House of Commons, over some trouble his brother had fallen into as Governor of the Mosquito Shore. Dr Laurie received his degree from the University of Glasgow in 1791. His son Archibald succeeded him in Loudoun Kirk and Manse. Dr Laurie died in 1837 in his sixty-ninth year, and forty-fourth of his ministry. His His wife pre-deceased him fifteen years. One daughter was married in Glasgow as already stated and his younger daughter became the wife of the minister of Sorn. son, Archibald, married Anne Adair, sister of Major Adair, the friend of Robert Burns. The home of the minister's happy boyhood and youth soon resounded with the voices. and laughter of his own children-three sons and three daughters grew up to manhood and womanhood within the brown walls of the old Manse. His eldest son, George James, became the parish minister of Monkton. very happy in his sea-board parish, and is still affectionately remembered in the district. He was the author of various songs, but none of them ever earned the popularity of the celebrated lyric describing his boyhood in the old Manse of St. Margaret's Hill in Loudoun He was which was given in full in a former number of the Burns Chronicle. HELEN WALTERS CRAWFORD. BURNS AND UPPERMOST CLYDESDALE. N the last Burns Chronicle there appears an excellent to the above, from the pen of that well-known writer on Burns topics, Mr Andrew M'Callum. Unfortunately, Mr M'Callum comes no higher up the valley than Lamington, unaware apparently that the National Bard had associations with the parish of Crawford, which forms the uppermost part of the County of Lanark. This parish, it may be noted in passing, is one of the largest in the south of Scotland, and covers an area of over one hundred square miles. It is possible to walk twenty-one miles in a straight line without crossing the parish boundaries. Burns's visits here all took place after he had settled at Ellisland in 1788. His district as an excise officer "marched" with uppermost Clydesdale, and it is not to be wondered at that at times he went over the border. The Rev. W. C. Fraser, in his book on Crawford, relates that Burns visited the parish in his capacity as an Exciseman, and although, as I have said, the parish was outside his district, it is quite probable that he would do so, because part of the parish was—and indeed still is closely connected with Dumfriesshire. Indeed, the parish of Moffat is partly within the county of Lanark, and the inhabitants of that portion which extends over the boundaries of the northern shire enjoy the blessings of 'Lanark Law and Moffat Gospel." Glengeith Toll-house, which sits a little to the south of Elvanfoot Station, on the side of the Clyde, is said to have been a favourite haltingplace of the Poet's. In his days it was an inn, and it is said that he wrote some verses on one of its window panes. so, they have been lost, and all tradition of what they were has perished likewise. We have the consolation of knowing that the verses must have been good ones, for, as Mr If Fraser rather quaintly remarks, "Had they been worthless they certainly would have been preserved." Leaving now the realm of tradition, we are on firmer ground when we turn to the Poet's own works, and here we find references to at least two visits to an outlying corner of the parish. The villages of Wanlockhead and Leadhills are, as every one knows, the two highest villages in Scotland. They owe their existence to the lead mines which have been wrought there for centuries, having been discovered in the days when England and Scotland were still separate kingdoms. The villages sit quite close together, the one on the south and the other on the north side of the boundary line between Nithsdale and Clydesdale. In 1791 we find Burns at Leadhills (in the month of August, according to Scott Douglas, December, according to Wallace), probably on some duty connected with the excise. While on this visit he wrote Mrs M'Lehose (Clarinda). She had written him during the summer, without receiving any reply, and it was in answer to a second |