infused with a certain awe the veneration which surrounded his memory after death. When King Dermot, sitting enthroned on Tara, gave judgment against him in the dispute concerning the O'Donnell Psalter, which had been transcribed with his own hand, Columba exclaimed in wrath, "I shall tell my brethren and my kinsfolk how the rights of the Church have been violated in my person, and the wrong shall be wiped out in blood. My humiliation shall be followed by yours in the day of battle. Cursed be he who does evil. The thing which he sees not comes upon him, and the thing which he sees vanishes from his grasp." Columba afterwards found a friend in St. Brandan, of Bute, who, having seen the column of fire which went before Columba and the angels walking by his side, besought his brethren at Teilte to revoke the sentence passed on one thus manifestly singled out for some high purpose. But Columba by that time was getting disquieted in conscience. He had, it is said, begun to doubt, not that victories had been won by his prayers, but whether he had been right in applying so potent an engine to the discomfiture of mortal adversaries. "I beseech you," he said to a holy monk named Abban, "to pray for the men who have been slain in the wars waged by me for the honour of the Church. I know that if you intercede they will obtain mercy, and the angel with whom you daily converse will reveal to you the will of God concerning them." The monk, prompted by a feeling of modesty, long refused his request. At length he prayed, and when his prayer was ended, the angel gave him the assurance that all should be admitted to the bliss of heaven. Dr. Reeves interprets the piece commencing "Causa quare voluit Deum laudare," as a prayer to be forgiven for three battles he had occasioned in Ireland. On the whole, the Marquis judges the intrinsic merits of the "Altus" to be very great, especially in these latter and more imaginative chapters, some of which he thinks would not suffer by comparison with even the famous "Dies Iræ." It is by these, indeed, he hopes the poem may commend itself to many who may not have been aware of its existence, or may not have had no opportunity of consulting it in a convenient form. As the editor has not judged it necessary to refer to the

different legends regarding the composition of the "Altus," or the supernatural advantages claimed for its recitation, it may interest readers who turn over its pages for the first time to be reminded of its connection with Pope Gregory the Great, an ancient tradition fixing its composition at Iona in acknowledgment of gifts sent to the monastery by his Holiness, who is further said to have listened to its recitation, standing, out of respect for the author, whom he knew not only as a great missionary, but as possessed also of rare gifts in poetry and oratory, with which he adorned his long, adventurous, and self-denying life.

CUNNINGHAM.

THE work done by the Maitland Club in its day was so thorough, varied, and scholarly that high expectations are naturally raised when a new volume is submitted as practically one of the series, and prepared by a member with a view to presentation when the club was in its palmiest days. Nor is it the least praise due Mr. Dobie's "Pont" to say that it is entitled to take its place beside some of the most useful volumes of the series. We miss indeed the old familiar titlepage, and also the roll of members so suggestive of the pleasant weaknesses incident to a taste for tall folios and scarce quartos. But in other respects-in its printing and binding, the compact yet clear page, a margin broad enough to be agreeable to the eye, yet avoiding the error of unseemly waste, and the timehonoured boarding-all tend to commend it to members as a fit addition to a series of works not more remarkable for good taste than solid learning. To readers composing a far wider circle it will be found an enticing addition to the library of the working student or the topographical collector. Mr. Dobie, sen., well known as a sound authority on certain West Country pedigrees, commenced his labours on "Pont" in 1825. It was afterwards repeatedly referred to in

"Maitland" Reports as a contribution in preparation, but the sudden death of the annotator in 1853 prevented the fulfilment of his design when on the eve of completion. Fullarton's "Account of Cunningham," issued nearly twenty years since, went over the same ground with, it is said, a rather free use of the result of Mr. Dobie's inquiries. The MS., however, was preserved with fair care; and on the return to this country of Mr. J. S. Dobie, jun., in 1870, the present publication was undertaken. While the notes and illustrations of the annotator remain intact the latest editor has endeavoured to supplement his notices of places and families where they appeared deficient, and, what was equally essential, has brought down the information to quite a recent date. Of Pont himself a word or two is necessary. A son of Robert, minister of Edinburgh West Church, Timothy matriculated in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, in 1579-80, and from 1601 to 1608 was minister of the parish of Dunnet, in Caithness. His taste, however, lay in mathematics and kindred studies, and he is said to have been the first projector of an atlas in Scotland. Having given up his parochial charge, Pont personally surveyed all the counties and isles of Scotland, and made drawings of such monuments of antiquity as tended to illustrate his descriptive notes. The year of his death has not been ascertained with certainty, but Pont's papers are known to have been placed under the charge of Gordon of Straloch, himself an eminent geographer and antiquary. At the instance of Charles I. these papers were afterwards of great service to the Blaeus of Amsterdam in the publication of that portion of their great work, "Geographia Blaviana," relating to Scotland. The preface mentions the fifth part as a child of which the parents were Pont and Gordon and the nurse Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet. The map of Cunningham given in Blaeu's work has been reproduced in the original size for Mr. Dobie's volume.

Cunningham, famous in rhyme for its corn and bere, would seem to have been the most complete of Pont's surveys. He appears to have gone over the district with leisure, as he enumerates about 350 places. He omits, indeed, sew of any importance, but is occasionally inaccurate in fixing the exact locality.

Making up, as readers are aware, with Carrick and Kyle, the more modern electoral division of North and South Ayrshire, Cunningham itself may be best realised under three geographical divisions. The first or north part bending westward to the Firth on one side, and marching with a large portion of South Renfrewshire on the other; the second lower to the south-east, comprehending the parishes of Stewarton and Dunlop; and the third to the lands on the banks of the Irvine, which separates the northern division from Kyle-lands described by Pont as "fertill and full of profitt," and so populous in his day that "at the ringing of a bell in the night a few houres ther has beine seen conveine 3000 men weill horsed and armed." Mr. Dobie's work has been so arranged as to do the utmost possible justice to this interesting tract of country. Following an editorial note by the editor, and a brief introduction by the annotator, Pont's notes are given in a continuous form precisely as they appear in the Balfour MS., transcribed by the late Professor Cosmo Innes. These notes are again repeated, followed in each separate instance by such additions, corrections, and explanations as the researches of Mr. James Dobie had brought to light in his day, this new matter making up by far the larger portion of the volume. Regarding many places curtly dismissed by Pont in a word or two new information is presented, at once curious, minute, and interesting. Beith, for example, mentioned by the old topographer simply as "a parochiall church situated neir the laick of Kilburny," is made to reveal quite a history of Scottish provincial life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. "Kilburny Castle, a fair bulding weill planted, the heritage of Johne Craufurd, laird thereof," introduces the reader to the Garnock family, and, as might be expected from Mr. Dobie, to the desperate claim of succession set up in 1810 by the so-called John Lindsay Craufurd. In connection with the Church of Kilbirnie a lengthy notice is given of that Captain Thomas Crawford concerned in the capture of Dumbarton Castle, 1571, whose monument is still conspicuous among the humbler memorials scattered round the churchyard. Cunninghamhead, "a stronge old dunion seatted on ye brinke of ye River Annock veill planted," is followed by a history of lairds,

eminent some of them in the cause of the Reformation, and others in the Revolution Settlement. Wodrow gives an anecdote of Sir William of the lastmentioned period. In 1695 he had occasion to obtain an audience of the King and Queen in presence of the favourite Portland:-"The King (writes the minister of Eastwood) cast his eye on Sir William, and said, soe as he heard him, to Portland, I know Sir William is a Scotsman, but, pray, from what part of Scotland is he? Portland answered, Sir, he is a West-country gentleman. The King, looking to him, touched his nose with his finger, and, smiling, said, Sir William, I warrant you, is a great Whig; and went out to his coach. Portland on going out said, Sir William, yon was as much as if the King had called you his sweetheart." Glengarnock has been identified by some as the residence of that Hardyknute referred to in Lady Wardlaw's famous ballad. Rowallan, "a stronge ancient dwelling belonging to ye surname of Moore, weill neir 400 yeirs. With them K. Rob. 2nd allayed," opens up the history of a family too proud to claim descent from kings, because kings had come from them, Elizabeth, wife of Robert II., being a daughter of Sir Adam Mure by Joanna, daughter of Sir Hugh Dennistoun of Dennistoun. Nor is Caldwell, with its classic associations, quite forgot, although it happens to be a little beyond the boundary of North Ayrshire. Giffen Castle, a heritage of the almost Royal house of Douglas of Liddisdale, naturally suggests many details concerning the resident branch of Montgomeries to whom the estate fell "in days when good King Robert rang." Francis, one of the representatives for Ayrshire in the Union Parliament, was sufficiently prominent to be obnoxious to the satirists of the day, and is described in certain coarse pasquils which the Jacobites were not ashamed to circulate as "ambling like any paced horse;" another shares with him the unhappy distinction, "For rebellion engrained you may each bear the bell." The Union was a sore subject in other places besides Cunningham. In his life of Peden, Patrick Walker, "packman of Bristo Port," mentions that one of the evil consequences of that backsliding step was the mingling of ourselves with a people who, among other