became one of the leading members of a remarkable literary and artistic circle. Besides Morris and Swinburne, he was the friend of D. G. Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and others of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. In 1874 Watts-Dunton was chief critic on Leigh Hunt's old weekly, The Examiner, and from 1895 to 1898 he was leading critic on The Athenæum, to whose columns he also contributed some sonnets and other poems. He also wrote for the The Fortnightly Review, The Nineteenth Century, Harper's, and other magazines. To the Encyclopædia Britannica, Chambers's Encyclopædia, and Ward's English Poets, he contributed some of his most valuable literary articles. It has often been regretted that these important studies and criticisms should not have been collected and published, but Watts-Dunton held the view that all literature was more or less fugitive, and destined for "Oblivion," as he once observed to Tennyson. It was 1897 before he published one of his longer poems, The Coming of Love, which was an instantaneous success. This induced him to publish, in 1898, his famous gipsy story, Aylwin, which he had lying past him for nearly forty years, and always refused to publish. The novel met with an enthusiastic welcome, and has since gone through many editions. George Borrow, it should be mentioned, was one of Watts-Dunton's early friends. On Swinburne's death, six years ago, he left his fortune to his house-comrade. When Watts-Dunton married, in November, 1905, a lady who had been their friend and housekeeper for many years, it is characteristic of him that the wedding did not become known to the public till a fortnight had elapsed.

AN AYRSHIRE COVENANTER.

At the close of January, 1915, Scotland had to bemoan the loss of a characteristic son in Andrew B. Todd, an Ayrshire journelist, author, and poet, who was at once an ardent Covenanter and an enthusiastic Burnsian. The late Mr Todd was born at Backhill Farm, near Mauchline, in 1822, being the seventh son and fourteenth child of a family of fifteen. His eldest brother was born two months before the death of Burns. His father was a farmer, a descendant of the Covenanters, and, like his son, a lover of all that concerned their history and their honour. Born in 1768, the elder Todd was a neighbour of the Poet Burns, whom he met occasionally at local markets. In his Autobiography, published with his poetical works in 1906, the younger Todd tells us what his father and the other farmers round about thought about Burns :—

"I am old enough to have known, when a led, several other farmers who were born even before Burns, and who knew him

well.... With all of them I served when a boy, either as a herd among the wilds or as a lad on the farms. They had all known Burns, and had occasionally met him, and had been in his company frequently on market days at Kilmarnock, and with my father, who survived till the end of the year 1850. None of them-I have often heard them say-ever heard him utter an oath, saw him angry, or saw him intoxicated."

Todd adds that he once had a conversation with Thomas Aird regarding the moral reputation of Burns, when the poet-editor told him that the people of Dumfries, having neglected the living Burns, had thought to excuse themselves by maligning the Poet after death. Todd's father once sold a horse to the Poet. Referring again to the Autobiography, we find this interesting maternal reminiscence of the Poet :

She had a distinct

"My mother .. was born in 1780. recollection of having seen Burns with his two horses and carts at the lime works of Auchmillan, and of his wonderful kindliness and gentleness to his horses, and how, though standing at a distance, they would come up to him at his call, when he would gently rub their eyes, of which all horses are exceedingly fond.... A grandson of the ‘rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine ' of Burns told me that he had heard his grandfather say that Burns was the kindest-hearted and the best-natured man he ever knew." Todd's father was one of the party of searchers who found the body of "Holy Willie" entangled in the thorns of a ditch into which the worthy Fisher had fallen and been drowned when on the way home from Mauchline fair.

After the usual experience of herding, the younger Todd became a tile-burner, and in time rose to be himself proprietor of a tile-work. For a time this undertaking proved successful, but the tide afterwards turned against him, and he sought to make a living by his pen and journalism. At an early age he began contributing poetical effusions to the pages of the Ayr Advertiser and the Kilmarnock Journal. He also wrote stories for the Ayrshire Post, and in 1872 he was called to occupy the editorial chair of the Cumnock Express, a position which he held till his death. In 1846 he published his first volume of poems, The Hermit of Westmoreland, The Covenanter's Revenge, and other Poems, which met with a favourable reception. His principal works, however, were concerned with the Scottish Martyrs and Covenanters, whose haunts he loved to visit, and whose memory he has done much to perpetuate. He was mainly instrumental in getting a handsome granite monument erected at Cumnock to the memory of "Peden the Prophet," and another et Lochgoin to John Howie, author of The Scots Worthies. In 1886 Todd pub

lished his first volume on The Homes, Haunts, and Battlefields of the Covenanters, a work completed in a third volume issued in 1906. In 1911 he published an additional volume on the same subject, entitled Covenanting Pilgrimages and Studies.

As a life-long admirer of Burns and his genius, Todd was present on every possible occasion to do honour to the Poet's memory. In 1859 he presided at the Centenary celebration in Cumnock and proposed "The Immortal Memory " in an eloquent speech. In July, 1896, at the Poet's death-centenary, he again was found in the chair and doing honour to the occasion by a notable oration. Again, at the Poet's Ter-Jubliee, in 1909, he was chairman and orator at the Cumnock celebrations. Few Burns enthusiasts have had such a remarkable record.

A. C. WHITE.

DESCENDANTS OF ROBERT BURNS IN

POLLOKSHAWS AND DISTRICT.

S1

EVERAL descendants of Robert Burns have been intimately associated with Pollokshaws and its immediate neighbourhood. The connection began with Mrs John Thomson, better known as Betty Burns, who spent the greater part of her long life in the district. Betty was the daughter of Anne Park, niece of Mrs Hyslop, Globe Tavern, Dumfries, where the Poet passed many social hours. She was born at Leith, where her mother had gone to reside with some friends for a time, and when about two years old was taken to the house of her father in the southern town. From that time Jean Armour discharged all the duties of a mother towards her, seeing to her health and education as if she were her own child. In early womanhood Betty made the acquaintance of Pte. John Thomson, of the Stirlingshire Militia, then located in Dumfries, and after a courtship which, though brief, enabled them to thoroughly understand each other, the young couple were married. The following is a copy of the

marriage certificate :

"Dumfries, 2nd June, 1808.

That John Thomson, private in the Stirlingshire Militia, and Elizabeth Burns, were this day married, and that the latter has lived in this place for several years, and supported a good character, is certified by

ALEXANDER SCOTT, Minr."

On the following day the regiment removed to Berwickon-Tweed, and thither Mrs Thomson also travelled, her husband, who had resolved that his wife should never

lie on a barracks bed, providing suitable lodging for her with a Mrs Dawson in another part of the town. The regiment remained in Berwick-on-Tweed for nearly a year, and during that time Mrs Thomson, who had received a fairly good education, was regularly called upon to act as letter-writer to the fisher folk and many others,

an employment which proved very profitable as well as congenial. When the Militia was ordered to another part of the country, Thomson arranged for his wife going to reside with his father and mother in Pollokshaws, where, with an occasional allowance from her husband, and money earned by doing needle-flowering for a Glasgow warehouse, she was able to support herself and her first-born child without being a burden on her relatives. About this time she received half of a sum of £400 raised by Alderman