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at Flushing, and through most of the Peninsular war, till Waterloo, where he was present and took part in the action. Soon after succeeding to the Earldom, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Canada, and Colonel of the 3rd Dragoon Guards. Dying in July, 1859, Earl Charles was succeeded by his son, Alan Frederick, Lord Greenock, the present Earl of Cathcart, born 1828, and married, 1850, Elizabeth Mary, eldest daughter and co-heiress of the late Sir Samuel Crompton, Bart., with issue five sons and five daughters. Frederick, third son of the first Earl, served in the Scots Greys, was present with his father at the surrender of Copenhagen, and brought home the despatches relating thereto. He married Jane, daughter of Quentin Macadam of Craigengillan, Ayrshire, taking thereafter the additional surname of Macadam. The fourth and youngest son of Earl Charles was the well-known Sir George Cathcart, who served with his father in Germany and France, being also present at Quatre-Bras as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington. Sir George commanded at the Cape in 1851, but on the breaking out of the Crimean War became Lieut.-General of Fourth Division of the British army, and, to the regret of all who knew him, fell fighting at Inkermann on a hill which has since borne the name of the brave soldier.

About the lands of Cathcart, it may be thought proper to say a word or two. The parish itself, as arranged in modern times, makes up portions of two counties, Renfrewshire east, Lanarkshire west, and includes the pleasant districts, suburban to Glasgow, of Langside, already referred to, Mount Florida, Crossmyloof, New Cathcart, and Prospect Hill. The territory originally formed part of the extensive estates conferred by David I. on Walter, founder of the house of Stewart, before the middle of the twelfth century. The church with all its pertinents passed to the Monastery of Paisley, and remained under the control of that richly-endowed religious house till the Reformation, when the monastic possessions were broken up, with the exception of that portion sold about 1546 by Alan, third Lord Cathcart, to his wife's kinsman, Gabriel Sempill of Ladymuir. In this branch of the Sempills, the lands then known as Cathcart, although shorn of their original extent, continued till about 1720, when they were sold to John Maxwell of

Williamwood. Towards the close of the century the old family possessions were still further broken up, the castle and principal messuage being acquired by James Hill, from whom in 1801 they appropriately passed by purchase to the first Earl Charles, who afterwards added the property of Symshill, another portion of the original Cathcart estate. Regarding the date when the old castle was reared on the steep height above the Cart nothing is known, and conjecture therefore useless. For probably 500 years at least, we may repeat, the original square tower frowned over the valley below, and afforded protection not only to its inmates, but to the fruitful gardens round about, of which mention is made by various writers. So strong and thick were the walls, that the systematic attempt made to demolish it about the middle of last century had to be abandoned in despair. Not far from the castle stands Cathcart Cottage, the modern residence of the family, and where some sixty years since there was built into the front wall a sculptured stone, removed from Sundrum, showing the arms of Cathcart quartered with those of Stair, indicating the marriage connection already referred to between Alan, seventh Lord, and Elizabeth Dalrymple, daughter of Viscount Stair. Dull and polluted as the White Cart now is in many of its reaches, it flows through Cathcart parish amid scenes of natural beauty, well fitted to suggest pleasant memories to poets like Grahame, of "The Sabbath," and Thomas Campbell, who had each played on its banks. The poet of "Hope" almost becomes the poet of "Memory" when he recalled those

"Scenes of my childhood, so dear to my heart,

Ye green waving woods by the margin of Cart;
How blest in the morning of life have I strayed,
By the stream of the vale, and the grass-covered glade.

But hush'd be the sigh that untimely complains,

While Friendship and all its enchantment remains,

While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime,
Untainted by chance, unabated by time."

THE STEUARTS OF COLTNESS AND

ALLANTON.

Few properties in the upper Ward of Lanarkshire, or, indeed, few properties in any part of the county, have continued to present in our own time so much of their early sylvan amenity as Coltness, and this, although surrounded in every direction with coal and iron works, sending out continuously suggestive if not attractive evidence of the mineral wealth being wrought beneath the surface. Within Cam'nethan parish, but on its extreme northern limit, where the winding South Calder divides it from Shotts, Coltness passed through the Somervilles to the Logans of Restalrig, and from them to the Steuarts, at a time when coal and iron were in but little use, and not dreamt of in the way of a national industry, as the term is now understood. The Jacobite Laird of the family, too gracious with the Prince at Holyrood, returned from an eighteen years' exile in 1763 to cultivate his favourite science of political economy in the pleasant shades of Coltness-a harmless pursuit varied frequently by a personal superintendence of improvements made in his time on the paternal acres and the pleasant mansion they still surround. His son, General Sir James, educated for the most part abroad during the period of exile, was guilty of two serious errors during his long life- an expensive intimacy with George IV. and the Duke of York, and a zeal surpassing even the zeal of his father for agricultural improvements. Between the constant hospitality of a great countryhouse and the usual results of gentleman-farming on a wide scale, Sir James contrived to dissipate the whole of the goodly inheritance that had devolved on him. He died a landless man at Cheltenham; but it is recorded he appeared unconscious of what had occurred as to his worldly fortunes, and might be seen now and then marking trees in the Long Walk of the Old Spa, as if he were still at Coltness.-("Qr. Rev.," vol. 70, p. 372.) This Sir James, the last in the

direct line of Coltness, was born so far back as 1744, the year preceding that which wrought his father so much trouble, and when he died in 1839, at the great age of 95, was, as colonel of the Scots Greys, the senior general officer in Her Majesty's service. He is not yet quite forgotten as the inventor of certain improved tactics in cavalry warfare. His cousin, Sir Henry B. Steuart, of Collairnie, Fifeshire, succeeded as fifth Baronet of Coltness, the property itself passing, by purchase, in 1842 to Thomas Houldsworth then M.P. for Nottingham. Mr. Houldsworth died in 1852, when Coltness went first to his eldest brother, William, then to Henry, father of another Henry, at whose death, in 1868, the property passed to its present owner, James Houldsworth, Esq., born 1825. (See W. Promphrey's "Old Lairds of Coltness." Wishaw, 1879.)

The adjoining property of Allanton (or Allerton), another possession of a still more ancient branch of the house of Steuart, was long the seat of Sir Henry, of the name, celebrated for his skill as an arboriculturist, and as the first who practised on any considerable scale the art of transplanting trees, with a success which even to an experienced planter like Sir Walter Scott appeared almost marvellous. Sir Henry was enabled to cover a whole park at once with groups and single trees, combined with copse and underwood of various sizes, all disposed in exquisite taste. Independent in circumstances, as has been mentioned, and attached by taste and habits to rural pursuits, Sir Henry resided for the most part at Allanton, to which, little distinguished by nature, his wonderful exertions gave within a comparatively short period of time all the beauty that could, according to the usual modes of improvement, have been conferred in the course of forty tedious years. The soil naturally is described as moorish, and the view from the front of the house must, before it was clothed with wood, have consisted of irregular swells and slopes, presenting certainly no striking features either of grandeur or beauty-probably "just not ugly."

Allanton was visited by many intelligent judges disposed to inquire with sufficient minuteness into the reality of the changes effected there, and so far as an opportunity was afforded for knowing, the uniform testimony of those visitors

corresponded with the account given by Sir Henry Steuart himself. Rather over sixty years since, or in September, 1823, a committee of gentlemen, supposed to be well acquainted with country matters, was appointed by the Highland Society to inquire into the management of Allanton plantations, particularly with reference to (1) single trees and open groups on lawn which might appear to have suffered from the operation of transplanting; (2) inclosed groups or masses of wood planted together; and (3) the cost of transplanting. From the facts which they witnessed the committee reported it as their unanimous opinion that the art of transplantation, as practised by Sir Henry Steuart, was calculated to accelerate in an extraordinary degree the power of raising wood, whether for beauty or shelter. The committee consisted of Robert, eighth Lord Belhaven; Sir Archibald Campbell of Succoth, Sir Walter Scott, George Cranstoun (afterwards Lord Corehouse), and Alexander Young of Harburn. Five years later, or in 1828, Sir Henry published his "Planters' Guide," describing in detail the measures employed by the author to anticipate in such a wonderful manner the march of time, and "to force, as it were, his woodlands in somewhat the same manner as the domestic gardener forces his fruits, upsetting thereby the old saying, 'Heu! male transfertur senio cum indurnit arbor?"" Sir Henry, son of James, tenth baron of Allanton, was created a baronet of the United Kingdom, 1814, with remainder to his son-in-law, Reginald Macdonald of Staffa, who succeeded as second baronet on the death of Sir Henry in March, 1836, and whose son, the present Sir Henry James Seton Steuart, is now the third in descent of the new Allanton creation, and represents, besides the Setons of Touch, hereditary armour-bearers to the Sovereign and squire of the Royal body. The learned author of "The Planters' Guide" was an F.R.S., an LL.D., and well known among scholars for his edition of "Sallust." He died, as has been just mentioned, in 1836, aged 77. The area of Allanton is put down at 2,673 acres, and the rental at £4,076, fully one-half being for minerals.

But it is now necessary to say something of an earlier member or two of the house of Coltness than any yet noticed. The first of the line was Sir James

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