bility; the dialogue and sentiments are natural, and the language delightfully idiomatic.

His "Fables," on which Ramsay himself justly set great store, are little, if at all, inferior to his comedy. They evince great skill in story-telling, and abound in point and humour. The "Three Bonnets" and the "Twa Cats and the Cheese" are among the best. The "Monk and the Miller's Wife" would perhaps deserve the first place, were it not so close a paraphrase of Dunbar's Freirs of Berwik.

As a song writer, Ramsay does not rank high. A want of soul-stirring energy is the great defect in all his productions of this class. Many of them, however, still retain their popularity; and this they could not have done, without possessing very considerable merit. The Lass of Patie's Mill,* the Yellow Haired Laddie, Farewell to Lochaber, Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, are among those which appear to stand the fairest chance of lengthened renown.

As a poet, generally, Ramsay had the great merit

The parish of Keith Hall, in Aberdeenshire, disputes with that of Galston Ayrshire the honour of giving birth to this song. In the Statistical Account of Keith Hall, "The Lass's" father is said to have been proprietor of Patie's Mill in that parish. One Sangster, laird of Boddom, in New Machar parish, made an attempt to carry her off, but was interrupted by a dog, and very roughly handled by her father, who was called Black John Anderson.

Burns, on the other hand, in one of his letters to Mr. Thomson, gives the following as the genuine history of the song. He says, he had it from Sir WilPART 1.]

L

of being the first to restore the Scottish Muse to her native garb, after a lapse of nearly a century, during which she had been wasting her strength in a dead language. Ever since the accession of James VI. to the English throne, Scotsmen of talents had ceased to write in their native tongue, because it had ceased to be acceptable to the ear of their pedantic prince; and, as national prejudices made them averse to studying the niceties of the English, they had recourse to the Latin, which James affected to speak and write with great purity. Hence the quantity of exquisite poetic talent, which may be said to have been lost to its native country, in the Delicia Poetarum Scotorum, or collection of the beauties of the Scottish Latin writers of this period. Ramsay, obliged by necessity to rely on the powers of his native tongue, shewed, by his signal success in it, how unwisely it had been abandoned; and drawing away all the popularity after him, was naturally the means of bringing back into the same course all who made the meed of fame the object of their ambition.

T. T.

liam Cunningham, of Robertland, who had it of John Earl of Loudoun.

"Allan Ramsay was residing at Loudoun Castle with the then Earl, father to Earl John; and one forenoon riding or walking out together, his lordship and Allan passed a sweet romantic spot on Irvine water, still called "Patie's Mill," where a bonie lass was "tedding hay bareheaded on the green." "My Lord observed to Allan, that it would be a fine theme for a song. Ramsay took the hint, and lingering behind, he composed the first sketch of it, which he produced at dinner."

A. S.

WILLIAM MESTON.

AMONG the more remarkable adventurers in the rebellion of 1715 was William Meston, Professor of Philosophy in the Marischal College of Aberdeen. He was born in the parish of Midmar about the year 1688, and was the son of a blacksmith, much respected among his neighbours for his information and sagacity. Young Meston having evinced, in his early years, great quickness of parts, his father, notwithstanding his narrow means, resolved that the boy should want no advantage which a liberal education could supply, to give him a fair chance of rising to that eminence in the world, which, in his parental partiality, he saw dawning upon him. After he had acquired all that was to be learned at the village school, he was sent to the Marischal College, Aberdeen. Among his fellow students, he became speedily distinguished for his diligence and attainments, and when he had completed his academic studies, was looked upon as a young man to whom the road to fame and fortune was open. To the father, to whose liberality he was so much indebted for arriving at this point, he afterwards testified his gratitude by a monument erected in the parish church of Midmar, on which an epitaph is inscribed, which is praised by Dr. Ogilvie, in the Statistical Account, for its "pure and classical style."

The first appointment which Meston obtained was one of the masterships of the Grammar School of New Aberdeen, the duties of which he continued to discharge for several years. He was then invited into the Marischal family, the founders of Marischal College, to be tutor to the young earl of that name, and his brother, afterwards so celebrated as Marshal Keith. In this capacity, he gave so much satisfaction, that on a vacancy occurring in 1714, in the chair of philosophy in the Marischal College, the Countess Dowager made a successful use of the family interest, to obtain the election of Mr. Meston to that dignified situation.

In the following year, the rebellion, in favor of the Stuart family, broke out, and Mr. Meston, as much, it is believed, from principle as from grateful attachment to the Marischal family, who had embarked their fortunes in the cause, was induced to join the rebel standard. The young Earl Marischal, his late pupil, immediately confided to him the governorship of the family Castle of Dunnotar, a remarkably strong fort on the coast of Kincardineshire, which had been celebrated, in former civil contests, for the obstinate sieges which it had sustained. The signal

* In the year 1661, the regalia of Scotland were deposited here to preserve them from the English army which over-ran this country during the civil wars of that period. Being lodged in this place by order of the privy council, Earl Marischal obtained from the public a garrison, with an order for suitable ammunition and provisions. The Earl having joined the king's

defeat at Sheriffmuir, however, soon put an end, for a time, to the hopes of the Stuart party; and there being no object to be gained by the Castle of Dunnotar holding out, Governor Meston, with some adherents, withdrew from it to the hills, among which they contrived to secrete themselves, till an Act of Amnesty came out, and enabled them to return in safety to their homes. It was during this period of perilous adversity; while wandering among the hills, afraid of the haunts of men, with the waving fern for their curtain by night, and some recess of the rocks for their concealment by day; that Meston, with the

forces in England, appointed George Ogilvy, of Barras, a neighbouring proprietor, who had been an officer for several years in the king's service, to be lieutenant-governor of the castle. This trust, Mr. Ogilvy maintained with the greatest resolution; for, after all the other forts and places of strength in Scotland were reduced by the English army, a body of troops, under the command of Lambert, sat down before Dunnotar. It was first summoned to surrender in November, 1651, and repeatedly thereafter during the course of the winter. About the beginning of May following, the siege was converted into a blockade. Mr. Ogilvy did not surrender till he was reduced by famine, and a consequent mutiny in the garrison. He had previously, by a stratagem, on account of which he was long imprisoned in England, removed the regalia. Mrs. Granger, wife of the minister of Kinneff, requested permission of Major General Morgan, who then commanded the besieging