Lady GRISELL HOME, daughter of Sir Patrick Home, created Earl of Marchmont. She was born at Redbraes Castle, December 25, 1665; was married to George Baillie of Jerviswood in 1692, and died in London, December 6, 1746. The eldest daughter of Lady Grisell, namely, Lady Murray of Stanhope (whom Gay in his poem entitled 'Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece,' has celebrated as the sweettongued Murray'), wrote Memoirs of her parents, first published entire by Thomas Thomson, Deputy Clerk Register, Edinburgh, in 1822. This is a highly interesting and affecting biography, illustrating the profligacy and contempt of law and justice in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. We quote part of the narrative in which Lady Murray describes the sufferings of Lady Grisell and her father, Sir Patrick Home. Her father thought it necessary to keep concealed; and soon found he had too good reason for so doing, parties being continually sent out in search of him, and often to his own house to the terror of all in it; though not from any fear for his safety, whom they imagined at a great distance from home; for no soul knew where he was, but my grandfather and my mother, except one man, a carpenter, named Jamie Winter, who used to work in the house. The frequent examinations and oaths put to servants, in order to make discoveries, were so strict they durst not run the risk of trusting any of them. By the assistance of this man, they got a bed and bed-clothes carried in the night to the burying-place-a vault under ground at Polwarth church, a mile from the house, where he was concealed a month, and had only for light an open shit at one end. She went every night by herself at midnight to carry him victuals and drink, and stayed with him as long as she could to get home before day. Often did they laugh heartily, in that doleful habitation, at different accidents that happened. She at that time had a terror for a churchyard. especially in the dark, as is not uncommon at her age, by idle nursery stories; but when engaged by concern for her father, she stumbled every night alone over the graves without, fear of any kind entering her thoughts, but for soldiers and parties in search of him. The minister's house was near the church; the first night she went, his dogs kept such a barking as put her to the utmost fear of a discovery: my grandmother sent for the minister next day, and upon pretence of a mad dog, got him to hang all his dogs. There was also difficulty of getting victuals to carry to him, without the servants suspecting; the only way it was done was by stealing it off her plate at dinner into her lap. Her father liked sheep's head; and while the children were eating their broth, she had conveyed most of one into her lap; when her brother Sandy (the late Lord Marchmont) had done, he looked up with astonishment, and said: 'Mother, will you look at Grisell? while we have been eating our broth, she has ate up the whole sheep's head!' This occasioned so much mirth amongst them, that her father at night was greatly entertained by it, and desired Sandy might have a share of the next. His great comfort and constant entertainment-for he had no light to read by -was repeating Buchanan's Psalms, which he had by heart from beginning to end, and retained them to his dying day. As the gloomy habitation my grandfather was in, was not to be long endured but from necessity, they were contriving other places of safety for him; amongst others, particularly one under a bed which drew out in a ground floor, in a room of which my mother kept the key. She and the same man worked in the night, making a hole in the earth. after lifting the boards; which they did by scratching it up with their hands, not to make any noise, till she left not a nail upon her fingers; she helping the man to carry the earth, as they dug it. in a sheet on his back, out at the window into the garden. He then made a box at his own house, large enough for her father to lie in, with bed and bed-clothes, and bored holes in the boards for air. When all this was finished, she thought herself the most secure, happy creature alive. When it had stood the trial for a month of no water coming into it, her father ventured home, having that to trust to. After being at home a week or two, one day the bed bounced to the top, the box being tull of water. In her life she was never so struck, and had near dropped down, it being at that time their only refuge. Her father, with great composure, said to his wife and her, he saw they must tempt Providence no longer, and that it was fit and necessary for him to go off and leave them. Accordingly, Sir Patrick left Scotland disguised, travelling on horseback, and passing for a surgeon. He reached London in safety, and from thence proceeded to France and Holland; he had been joined by his wife and family, and they remained three years and a half in Holland; their estate was forfeited; but on the abdication of James II. and the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne of England, the exiles were restored to their country, their honours, and their patrimony. The faithful Grisell Home was married to her early love, George Baillie of Jerviswood, of whom she wrote in a book: 'The best of husbands, and delight of my life for fortyight years, without one jar betwixt us.' Were na my Heart licht. There was ance a May, (1) and she lo'ed na men; Come down the green gait, and come here away. When bonny young Johnny cam ower the sea, He hecht (2) me baith rings and mony braw things; He had a wee titty (3) that lo'ed na me, She raised such a pother 'twixt him and his mother, The day it was set, and the bridal to be: The wife took a dwam, (4) and lay down to dec: His kin was for ane of a higher degree, They said I had neither cow nor calf, Nor dribbles o' drink rins through the draff, (5) And werena my heart licht I wad dee. His titty she was baith wily and slee, His bonnet stood aye fu' round on his brow ;* 1 A maid. 2Offered or proffered. 3 Sister. 4 Took an ill turn. a sickness. 5 Grains. This stanza and the concluding one, somewhat altered, were applied by Burns to himself in his latter days, when the Dumfries gentry held aloof from the poet. See Lockhart's Life of Burns. 6 A heap of grain inclosed, or boarded off. And now he gaes daunerin about the dykes, Were I young for thee as I hae been We should hae been gallopin' down on yon green, And wow! gin I were but young for thee. SIR GILBERT ELLIOT. SIR GILBERT ELLIOT (1722-1777), author of what Sir Walter Scott calls the beautiful pastoral song,' beginning My sheep I neglected, I broke my sheep-hook, was third baronet of Minto, and brother of Miss Jane Elliot. Sir Gilbert was educated for the Scottish bar; he was twenty years in parliament as member successively for the counties of Selkirk and Roxburgh, and was distinguished as a speaker. He was in 1763 appointed treasurer of the navy, and afterwards keeper of the Signet in Scotland. He died at Marseille, whither he had gone for the recovery of his health, in 1777. Mr. Tytler of Woodhouselee says, that Sir Gilbert Elliott, who had been taught the German flute in France, was the first who introduced that instrument into Scotland, about the year 1725. Amynta. My sheep I neglected. I broke my sheep-hook, Through regions remote in vain do I rove, Alas! 'tis too late at thy fate to repine; ALEXANDER ROSS. ALEXANDER Ross, a schoolmaster in Lochlee, in Angus, when nearly seventy years of age, in 1768, published at Aberdeen, by the advice of Dr. Beattie, a volume entitled 'Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess, a Pastoral Tale in the Scottish Dialect, to which are added a few Songs by the Author.' Ross was a good descriptive poet, and some of his songs-as Woo'd, and Married, and a', The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow '-are still popular in Scotland. Being chiefly written in the Kincardineshire dialect-which differs in many expressions, and in pronunciation, from the Lowland Scotch of Burns-Ross is less known out of his native district than he ought to be. Beattie took a warm interest in the 'good-humoured, social, happy old man'-who was independent on £20 a year-and to promote the sale of his volume, he addressed a letter and a poetical cpistle in praise of it to the Aberdeen Journal.' The epistle is remarkable as Beattie's only attempt in Aberdeenshire Scotch; one verse of it is equal to Burns: O bonny are our greensward hows, Where through the birks the burnie rows, And shepherd lads on sunny knowes Ross died in 1784, at the age of eighty-six. Woo'd, and Married, and a'. The bride came out o' the byre, And have neither blankets nor sheets; Nor scarce a coverlet too; The bride that has a' thing to borrow, Woo'd, and married. and a', Out spake the bride's father, As he cam in frae the pleugh: And our braw bawsint yaud, Out spake the bride's mither: JOHN LOWE. JOHN LOWE (1750-1798), a student of divinity, son of the gardener at Kenmore in Galloway, was author of the fine pathetic lyric, Mary's Dream,' which he wrote on the death of a gentleman named Miller, a surgeon at sea, who was attached to a Miss M'Ghie, Airds. The poet was tutor in the family of the lady's father, and was betrothed to her sister. He emigrated to America, however, where he made an unhappy marriage, became dissipated, and died in great misery near Fredericksburgh. Mary's Dream. The moon had climbed the highest hill Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea, She from her pillow gently raised Her head, to ask who there might be, 'Three stormy nights and stormy days So, Mary, weep no more for me! 'O maiden dear, thyself prepare; We soon shall meet upon that shore, 'Sweet Mary, weep no more for me!' LADY ANNE BARNARD. LADY ANNE BARNARD was authoress of 'Auld Robin Gray,' one of the most perfect, tender, and affecting of all our ballads or tales of humble life. About the year 1771, Lady Anne composed the ballad to an ancient air. It instantly became popular, but the lady kept the secret of its authorship for the long period of fifty years, when, in 1823, she acknowledged it in a letter to Sir Walter Scott, accompanying the disclosure with a full account of the circumstances under which it was written. A the same time, Lady Anne sent two continuations to the ballad, which, like all other continuations-Don Quixote,' perhaps, excepted-are greatly inferior to the original. Indeed, the tale of sorrow is so complete in all its parts, that no additions could be made without marring its simplicity or its pathos. Lady Anne was daughter of James Lindsay, fifth Earl of Balcarres; she was born 8th December 1750, married in 1793 to Mr. Andrew Barnard, son of the bishop of Limerick, and afterwards secretary under Lord Macartney, to the Colony at the Cape of Good Hope. She died without issue, on the 6th of May 1825. Auld Robin Gray When the sheep are in the fanld, when the kye 's come hame, The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my ee, Unkent by my guidman, wha sleeps sound by me. Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride, But saving ae crown-piece he had naething beside; To make the crown a pound my Jamie gaed to sea, And the crown and the pound-they were baith for me. He hadna been gane a twelvemonth and a day, When my father brake his arm and the cow was stown away; And auld Robin Gray came a-courting me. |