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a small portion projecting into Muirkirk parish as a boundary on the east, and corresponding so far with the sinuous division made by "winding Lugar," which divides the west point of Auchinleck from Ochiltree, and most of the south from Cumnock. Poor, cold, and thin, even as pasture land, the Lugar in modern days may be looked upon as another Pison compassing treasures beneath the surface more precious than the gold of Havilah. Nor is the parish quite without antiquarian remains of interest, as within its bounds stand the ruined Castle of Kyle, a few miles south-east of the village; and within Auchinleck policies there is what remains of the Boswell's ancient family "keep," along the mouldering walls of which Dr. Johnson himself clambered. Auchinleck (the "Affleck" of natives and neighbours) may claim even a slight additional literary distinction, in so far as it is the birth-place of that keen controversial Protestant, William M'Gavin, and of the smooth-flowing, if somewhat colourless, essayist and divine, “A. K. H. B." Cameron fell on its dark heath, and Peden, after innumerable escapes, was laid in the churchyard, but not before visiting his young friend's lonely grave in the moss, where he knelt and prayed fervently, while "Oh ! to be wi' Ritchie" was "still his bitter cry." To the shame of any Government, except the shameless Government of Charles, the remains of the brave old Covenanter, whom Providence had permitted to breathe his last, concealed in the house of "one of his own people," were disinterred, removed to Old Cumnock, and flung with ignominy into a pit beneath the public gallows.

In the first years of the sixteenth century the lands of Auchinleck, corresponding, it may be presumed, with something like the present parish boundaries, as two-thirds of its rental still remain in the Boswell family, was granted by James IV. to Thomas Boswell, of the Balmuto line, who had married a daughter and coheiress of Sir John Auchinleck of that ilk. The early history of the land or family is not necessary to be set forth here. Exactly 200 years after Auchinleck had passed to the Boswells, or in 1704, the James Boswell of the day, a lawyer of some eminence, married Lady Elizabeth Bruce, daughter of Alexander, second Earl of Kincardine, by whom, besides other children, he had an heir and

successor, Alexander, who was trained for the bar, and admitted advocate 29th December, 1729. He acted for two years as Sheriff-Depute of the county of Wigtown, but resigned in 1750; and on the resignation of David Erskine, of Duns, in 1754, was elevated to the bench as Lord Auchinleck. On the death of Hew Dalrymple of Drummore, a few months later, he was nominated a Lord of Justiciary. He resigned the latter appointment in 1780, but retained the former till his death, which took place on 25th August, 1782, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. This old gentleman seems to have experienced no greater grief in the world than that his son should have become the companion of Dr. Johnson. "There's nae hope for Jamie, mon," the Judge said to a friend, "Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli-he's aff wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has pinned himsel' to now, mon?" Here old Auchinleck summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. "A dominie, mon-an auld dominie; he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an academy." When Johnson was at Auchinleck the conversation one evening became more than usually animated between the Covenanting Judge and his Tory guest. "And pray," the latter asked, "what good did Cromwell ever do to his country ?" "God, doctor! he gart Kings ken they had a lith (joint) in their neck." The Judge and his son appear to have been two very different men, the one being solid, composed, and slow; the other vain, frivolous, and volatile. Riding together one day James appeared impatient to get on a little faster, "for," said he, "it is not the exercise that fatigues me, but the hinging upon a beast." "What's the matter, mon," his father replied, "What's the matter, mon, how a chield hings, if he dinna hing upon a gallows?" Lord Auchinleck died 25th August, 1782, aged 76. Towards the later years of his life (or about 1771), he pulled down the old family mansion, and built a new, elegant, and comfortable residence.

James Boswell, son and heir of Lord Auchinleck, and author of one of the most esteemed biographies in the English language, was born in 1740, studied at Glasgow and Utrecht for the bar, and passed advocate 1766. Visiting London in

1763, he made the acquaintance of Johnson at the hospitable table of Mr. Dilly, and though they were never together so long nor so frequently as might be inferred from the "Life," Boswell, in spite of his many frailties, and probably in a great measure because of these frailties, was able to make such good use of his opportunities as to cause all readers to be thankful that one so prone to talk as Johnson, and who talked so well, should have been brought into close contact with one so zealous and able to record. But Boswell did more than record. He suggested and planned for Johnson schemes which Johnson himself would never have thought of, or, if thought of, would have been cast aside through his habitual or rather constitutional indolence. But for Boswell, who suggested the whole project, and accompanied his friend from first to last, there would have been no "Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland," where as a denizen of Fleet Street the sage saw so much that was "surprising in modes of life and appearances of nature." In Boswell he admits to have found "a companion whose acuteness would help his inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners were sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel in countries less hospitable than those through which they passed." To have earned such praise, Boswell must have been something more than a mere fussy, obsequious gossip, the meanest and the feeblest of mankind—" a fellow," the Doctor said, in one of his cross moods, "who missed his only chance of immortality by not being alive when the 'Dunciad' was written." That he was indolent there is other evidence besides his own excessively frank and frequent confessions. Through various causes not necessary to explain here, the casual introduction at Dilly's table began to ripen so soon into close friendship that Johnson that very season insisted on accompanying Boswell as far as Harwich, from which he was to proceed to Utrecht for the purpose of continuing his law studies. A lady passenger with them spoke of never permitting her children to be idle. Johnson replied--"I wish, madam, you would educate me, too, for I have been an idle fellow all my life." On her rejoining that she was sure he had not been idle, he resumed, "Nay, madam, it is very true; and that gentleman there (pointing to Boswell) has been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh; his father sent

him to Glasgow, where he continued to be idle. He then went to London, where he has been very idle; and now he is going to Utrecht, where he will be as idle as ever." Besides passing as advocate in Edinburgh, James Boswell was called at the English Bar, and went the Northern Circuit, where many droll stories were circulated regarding him, particularly one invented at Lancaster Assizes, where, at the instigation of a waggish brother, he is said to have moved the Court for a writ "Quare adhærit pavimento." "I never heard (said the Judge) of such a writ; what can it be that adheres pavimento? Are any of you gentlemen at the Bar able to explain this?" The Bar laughed. At last one of them said, “My Lord, Mr. Boswell last night adhærit pavimento. There was no moving him for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming about himself and the pavement." With the exception of the "Douglas Cause," in which he was mixed up as a kind of volunteer on the winning side, Boswell had little call to appear often in Court, although he had all his life the esteem and friendship of the Scottish Bench and Bar. Of a festive, convivial turn of mind, he was simple and unconstrained to an almost reprehensible degree, and occasionally, it would appear, he found those as high in social station as himself willing to minister to his vanity. His great work (for his books of travel have been forgotten), the "Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson," appeared in two volumes 4to, 1790-nearly six years after the death of his hero. Boswell himself died June 19, 1795, aged 55, leaving Alexander, his heir, with James, a barrister, and friend of Malone, Shakespearian commentator.

Alexander Boswell (shortly before his melancholy death, Sir Alexander, Bart.), was one of the most popular Scottish gentlemen of his day, and in the course of his too brief life there came to gather round him an interest as varying in kind as it was unique in character. Efficient as a magistrate, he was also foremost in all that related to the public business of his native county of Ayr, while his accessibility to the humblest neighbour, joined to an unaffected appreciation for good-humoured social enjoyment, made him one of the most delightful of companions in the hunting-field or the race-course. His favourite riding colours,

blue and white stripes, were often landed first at the post, and none ever received warmer or more sincere congratulations on victory. He was not only the writer of two or three Scottish songs of far above average merit, but he sang them socially with a polished humour and fiery earnestness all his own. A sound scholar, not either public or private business-not even the exacting demands of the Muses, lessened his appreciation of these family treasures of old Scottish lore which he had inherited in the family library at Auchinleck, and which the luxury of a private printing-press he indulged in made familiar to more readers than would otherwise have been the case. There Scott picked up the romance of "Sir Tristram," and there Sir Alexander himself re-issued his interesting reprint of the discussion at Crossraguel between John Knox and Quentin Kennedy, 1562. Sir Alexander, born October 9th, 1775, was educated at Westminster and Oxford, and created a baronet for his patriotic zeal during the threatening Radical disturbances of 1821. He was not spared to enjoy the honour for any long season. The political atmosphere was charged with influences unusually exciting. Men given far less than Boswell to either light-heartedness or humour were led to think, and say, and write things not to be defended. One or two "squibs" from his pen, printed in the "Glasgow Sentinel," bore somewhat ungraciously on a leading Whig of the day, James Stuart, W.S., younger, of Dunearn. The most offensive was in the form of a Whig song, "supposed to be written by one of the Jameses, certainly not by King James I. or King James V., but probably by one of the house of Stuart." A few of the lines appear to have been studiously calculated to give offence:—

"There's stot-feeder Stuart,

Kent for that fat cow-art,

How glegly he kicks ony ba', man,

And Gibson, lang chiel, man,
Whose height might serve weel, man,

To read his ain name on a wa', man.

Your knights o' the pen, man,

Are a' gentlemen, man,

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