Graham, and made the subject of endless merriment. Burns, whose mind was prepared for the humour by his recollection of the complaints of the gudewife of Shanter, was present on this occasion, and must doubtless have greatly enjoyed the joke. It was probably now that he learned the particulars given in his own prose version of the adventure, which he seems to have regarded as one which Graham actually supposed to have happened.* It is not unworthy of observation, that the poet, who was now studying Carrick life and character to such purpose, was regarded by the Grahams and Davidsons of the district as a heavy, sulky sort of fellow. No glimpse of the poet, either in his comic or pensive character, was revealed to them.

In the foreground of the print, the artist has introduced an assemblage of smugglers waiting with horses for the landing of goods from a lugger seen approaching the coast. Amongst these, Burns is represented on foot, in the act of conversing with a mounted figure, designed for Douglas Graham. The meeting takes place beside a tall, upright, unhewn stone, one of those monuments of early warriors so common in Scotland, and which is still to be seen upon the ground. Another memorial of aboriginal times and usages is seen in the middle ground near the site of Shanter farm. It is a moat hill, or artificial mount for the dispensation of justice, similar to one which has already been spoken of as existing near Alloway Kirk. The phrase, a moot point in law, still keeps in memory the cause of the appellation bestowed on these mounts. The chief of the district there sate, at particular times, to give judgment both in civil and criminal cases. It is said that the Moot of Shanter was used till a comparatively recent period, when the court of the bailliery of Carrick was transferred to Maybole.

MRS DUNLOP OF DUNLOP.

MR GILBERT BURNS, in a letter to Dr Currie, written near the close of the last century, has given an account of the acquaintance which subsisted for several years between this lady and the bard of Coila. "Of all the friendships," he says, "which Robert acquired in Ayrshire or elsewhere, none seemed more agreeable to him than that of Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop. ✶✶ He was on the point of setting out for Edinburgh, before Mrs Dunlop had heard of him. About the time of his publishing in Kilmarnock, she had been afflicted with a long and severe illness, which had reduced her mind to the most distressing state

* One other circumstance of an actual nature has been remembered by tradition as likely to have been in the mind of Burns while composing his poetical tale : Graham had, it seems, a good grey mare, which was very much identified with his own appearance. One day, being in Ayr, he tied the animal to a ring at the door of a public-house, where, contrary to his original intentions, he tarried so long, that the boys, in the meantime, plucked away the whole of the animal's tail, for the purpose of making fishing-lines. It was not till next morning, when he awoke from a protracted bouse, that the circumstance was discovered by his son, who came in, crying that the mare had lost her tail. Graham, when he comprehended the amount of the disaster, was, it seems, so much bewildered as to its cause, that he could only attribute it, after a round oath, to the agency of witches. This anecdote might be also drawn up against Graham at the quarterly meeting above-mentioned, and was probably what suggested the castustrophe of the affair of Alloway Kirk.

of depression. In this situation, a copy of the poems was laid on her table by a friend, and, happening to open on the Cotter's Saturday Night, she read it over with the greatest pleasure and surprise: the poet's description of the simple cottagers, operating on her mind like the charm of a powerful exorcist, expelling the demon ennui, and restoring her to her wonted inward harmony and satisfaction. Mrs Dunlop sent off an express to Mossgiel, distant fifteen or sixteen miles, with a very obliging letter to my brother, desiring him to send half a dozen copies of his poems, if he had them to spare, and begging he would do her the pleasure of calling at Dunlop House as soon as convenient. This was the beginning of a correspondence which ended only with the poet's life. The last use he made of his pen was writing a short letter to this lady a few days before his death." Dr Currie adds: "The friendship of Mrs Dunlop was of particular value to Burns. This lady, daughter and sole heiress to Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie, and lineal descendant of the illustrious Wallace, the first of Scottish warriors, possesses the qualities of mind suited to her high lineage. Preserving, in the decline of life, the generous affections of youth; her admiration of the poet was now converted into a sincere admiration of the man; which pursued him in after life through good and evil report; in poverty, in sickness, and in sorrow; and which is continued to his infant family, now deprived of their parent."

These paragraphs, together with the numerous letters of the poet to Mrs Dunlop, published by Dr Currie and Mr Cormek, place the relation which subsisted between them in a sufficiently clear light. Here, therefore, we might stop, if it were not likely that, on the presentation of Mrs Dunlop's portrait, some particulars more expressly referring to herself might be expected.

Frances Wallace, the only daughter and ultimately the heiress of Sir Thomas Wallace, Baronet, of Craigie, in Ayrshire, was born about the year 1731, and at the age of seventeen became the wife of John Dunlop, Esquire, of Dunlop, in the same county. The statement of Dr Currie respecting the descent of the family of Craigie from the immortal defender of Scottish independence is not, we believe, strictly correct, although no doubt is entertained that the race are descended from the father of the hero.* The family of Dunlop is traced back to the year 1260, as the possessors of the estate in Cunningham, from which they take their name. Although Mrs Dunlop brought into her husband's family a very large fortune, together with the mansion of Craigie, beautifully situated on the Ayr, she was content to spend the whole of her married and dowager life, with the exception of occasional visits, in retirement at Dunlop. She there became the mother of five sons and five daughters, all of whom, except one, survived her. Her eldest son succeeded, under the name of Sir Thomas Wallace, to her paternal estate of Craigie, which, however, is not now the property of the family. Mr Dunlop settled his own estate upon the second son, James Dunlop, a Lieutenant-General in the army, and at one time

* The writer of the present memoir once casually saw the late General Dunlop, son of Mrs Dunlop, without knowing who he was, and was struck by his resemblance to the common prints of Sir William Wallace. He was of course not a little surprised on learning that it was General Dunlop of Dunlop. In this circumstance, which he is convinced was attended with no delusion on his own part, he cannot help seeing both a curious illustration of a natural truth, and some support of the authenticity of the portrait of Wallace.

representative of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright in parliament, whose son, John Dunlop of Dunlop, is now (1838) member for Ayrshire. Mrs Dunlop died, May 24, 1815, at the ripe age of eighty-four.

Without the least tincture of the pretension and parade which too often distinguish literary ladies, Mrs Dunlop was a woman of highly cultivated understanding,-fond of books and extensively acquainted with them, and also disposed to be the kind and zealous friend of their authors. The fact that Burns's letters to her, are decidedly more natural and every way pleasing than those addressed to other correspondents, is strikingly indicative of something much above all that is common in Mrs Dunlop. While she treated him with uniform affability and kindness, there was an unaffected dignity in her whole character, which seems to have at once exercised a salutary restraint over him, and raised his mind, when in communication with hers, to the exercise of its best powers. At the same time, there can be no doubt that the basis of their friendship was laid in their common possession of the generous affections to which Dr Currie alludes. The mind of Mrs Dunlop, overflowing with benevolent feelings, delighted in those fine emotions of the Ayrshire poet which found expression in the verses to a Mouse, the stanzas on a Winter Night, and the noble poem which first attracted her attention to him. Burns, on the other hand, glowed at finding, in the heretrix of ancient family and historical honours, a heart as warm and philanthropic as his own.

The writer has been informed, by a lady to whom Mrs Dunlop herself mentioned the fact, that she never felt displeased with Burns but once. On a visit at Dunlop, he asked her advice respecting his going into the excise,—a step of which she decidedly disapproved. He argued the point with her very strenuously for some time; but at last, finding that he could not prevail upon her to look favourably on the scheme, he confessed that further discussion was vain, as he had his commission in his pocket. She could not help expressing some resentment; but soon forgave a mode of procedure only too characteristic of those who ask for advice.

After the death of Burns, Mrs Dunlop paid a visit to Dr Currie at Liverpool, in order to consult with him respecting the publication of the poet's works. Dr Currie had already perused a parcel of her letters to Burns, which he had found amongst the poet's papers; and he expressed an anxious wish that she would allow of their publication, in connection with those of Burns to herself. But Mrs Dunlop entertained an unsurmountable repugnance to all public appearances, and notwithstanding Dr Currie's assurances of the value of her compositions, both on their own account, and as rendering Burns's letters the more intelligible, she positively refused to allow them to see the light. She concluded her interview with the learned editor, by half jestingly purchasing back her letters from him one by one, laying down a letter of Burns for each of her own, till she had obtained the whole; and she then returned satisfied to Dunlop. It is believed that these letters still exist; but her family feel that they would not be fulfilling her wishes, if they were to allow them to come before the world.

I

TURNBERRY AND DUNURE CASTLES.

THESE relics of ancient times are not alluded to by name in the writings of Burns. They are introduced here upon a cumulative principle, as indirectly glanced at in several of his poems, and as characteristic features of that land identified with his genius. Turnberry, in the immediate neighbourhood of the scene of his nineteenth summer, was more especially the place

"Where Bruce once ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear;"

While Dunure and Turnberry, with Colzean Castle, may be held as perhaps the three most striking points of that terrible "Carrick shore," alluded to in "Tam o' Shanter" as the scene of frequent shipwrecks through the machinations, as was supposed, of a supernatural personage. We might further, without much license of interpretation, suppose these scenes to have been in the poet's mind when he depicted the mantle of Coila, albeit they are not in the district superintended by that fair genius—

"By stately tower and palace fair,

And ruins pendent in the air,

Bold stems of heroes here and there,
I could discern;

Some seemed to muse, some seemed to dare,
With feature stern."

TURNBERRY, spelled in old writings Turnbiri, Tornbery, and Turnbyrri, was, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the principal house in Carrick, and the seat of a powerful race of native chiefs, derived from Fergus lord of Galloway, and designated Earls of Carrick, who possessed the supreme influence in this mountainous region previous to the rise of the Kennedies. The castle was situated on a rock at the extremity of a low peninsula, within the parish of Kirkoswald. The sea raged in front at the base of the rock, and even found its way, by a creek, into the interior of the fortress. Behind, the low territory just mentioned formed a pleasant domain, on which rose a small town, long since obliterated from the soil. The castle itself occupied about three-fourths of a Scottish acre, and must have been originally an impressive structure, especially seen from the sea; but only a few feet of the walls now remain.

The family of Bruce became connected with this castle and the district of Carrick by an incident which forcibly recalls the days of chivalry. In the latter part of the thirteenth century, the earldom had descended to a female, whose name is variously given as Margaret and Martha, and who married a gentleman named Adam de Kinconath. In 1268, this gentleman went to the Holy Land under the banners of Louis IX. of France, and died at Acre in Palestine, in 1270. In the ensuing year, a young knight, who had also been in Palestine, by name Robert Bruce, the son of the Lord of Annandale, was riding through the domains of Turnberry Castle, the residence of the widowed countess, who had now