Steuart, merchant, and Provost of Edinburgh, 1649-50, and who, although a strait and rather intolerant Presbyterian, protested against the execution of Charles I. but presided officially at that of Montrose. He is said by the family genealogist to have treated the illustrious victim with personal courtesy and decorum, rebuking even "the grim Geneva ministers" for their savage rudeness on the scaffold. All this, however, did not save him at the Restoration from being fined and imprisoned as "stiff and pragmatic." The family genealogist, indeed, admits with a kind of stern satisfaction that it was lucky for the Provost he was confined in Edinburgh Castle when the rash insurrection of Pentland Hill took place. His domestic chaplain, the youthful Hugh M'Kail, was prominent among the leaders of the outbreak, and being seized armed on his way to Libberton, was subjected to the form of trial then gone through, put to the torture of the "boot," condemned and executed, two grandsons of Provost Steuart attending him to the place of execution at the Cross of Edinburgh, and receiving his Bible from the youthful martyr (he was only 26), a memorial long treasured at Coltness.

When Sir James turned his attention to the Coltness property, within two miles of his elder brother's hereditary lairdship of Allanton, the lands were described as having "a convenient little tower-house, freehold of the Crown and giving a vote at elections." Obtaining his liberty by paying a fine so heavy as almost to ruin his estate, the old knight paid a brief visit to Coltness during his last illness, when well advanced in years. At Muiryet, a rising ground about two miles east from Allanton, where he had often halted, he is recorded to have turned his horse, looked around, and remarked, "Westsheild, Carnewath Church, and Lanrick, my early home and haunts, farewell! Alertoun, Coltness, and Cambusnethan Church, my later abodes, farewell! ye witnesses of my best spent time, and of my devotions! 'Tis long since I bid to the vanities of the world adieu." Sir James died soon after, and was interred with honour as one of the Fathers of the City in Greyfriars' Churchyard.

The eldest son, Sir Thomas, or "Gospel Coltness," as he came to be called, made great additions to the old tower, and otherwise added to the beauty of the

grounds; but his zeal as a Covenanter so far imperilled the family estate as to make him flee to Holland, from which country he was permitted to return in poverty (1696) through the good offices of William Penn, who had made his acquaintance at the Hague. A younger brother, James Steuart, more compliant, rose to eminence at the bar, filling, as he did, the post of an Under Secretary of State and of Lord-Advocate from 1693 till his death in 1713. The "Gospel" laird's line failing in the person of Sir Archibald, family genealogist, the honours fell on the lawyer's descendant, James Denham Steuart, of Goodtrees, already referred to as involved in the Jacobite rising of 1745, influenced a good deal, it is believed, by his wife, Lady Frances, a daughter of the Earl of Wemyss, and sister of the attainted Lord Elcho. Sir James was well known in his day as a lawyer and political economist-thought, indeed, by many to have anticipated principles laid down by Adam Smith in the latter department of knowledge. His reputation as one of the founders of the modern science of political economy, symptons of regret for rashness in 1745, as also for his subsequent scheming at the French Court, and the general appreciation of the amiable qualities of Lady Frances and himself in private life, procured for him a free pardon from George III., in 1763, when he returned to Coltness, to live in retirement, after an exile of 18 years. Sir James's works, complete in six vols., were published in 1805 by his son, General Steuart, who also published in 1818, at Greenock, the correspondence between his father and Lady Mary Wortley Montague, whom he had met at Venice in 1758.

A DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE OF COLTNESS. LEARNED as Sir James Stewart was in his day, his books, on the whole, now interest readers less than that "Diary" of home and foreign travel left by his sister, wife of Mr. Calderwood of Polton, a gentleman of moderate estate in Mid-Lothian. Her mother was a daughter of Lord-President Dalrymple, created Viscount Stair, so that she was niece of that other daughter of the Lord

President, famous in history and romance as the "Bride of Lammermoor." Mrs. Calderwood's own sister, Agnes Stewart, was married in 1739 to Henry David, tenth Earl of Buchan, and mother, therefore, of the eccentric Earl David, and his two celebrated brothers, Henry and Lord Erskine. Earl David, the story goes, enlarging on one occassion to the Duchess of Gordon regarding the abilities of his family "Yes (sharply remarked her Grace), yes, my Lord, I have always heard that the wit came by the mother's side, and was settled on the younger branches." Mrs. Calderwood was also grandmother of Admiral Sir Philip Calderwood Durham, G.C.B., a naval officer who saw much service in his day, and at his death full of years, in April, 1845, was thought to be the last surviving officer, if not the last of all the crew, of the "Royal George," sunk at Spithead in 1782, the year he joined the great but unfortunate ship as one of the four lieutenants saved. But to the "Diary" of Mrs Calderwood, the record of a carriage journey to London, undertaken with her husband in 1756, for the purpose of visiting her brother, the political economist, then taking the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle. Mrs. Calderwood, who appeared to have managed all the business of the road, although never on the Continent, most likely never out of Scotland before, had, as her father's daughter, been brought up in the best of Edinburgh Society, and was in addition naturally of a quick, lively, observing disposition. It is her quaint audacity, her narrow prejudices, national as well as personal, her lofty preference for everything Scottish as against England or the Continent, and her shrewd, sarcastic, self-complacent readiness, which makes her "Diary" one of the most delightful records known of travel or criticism by a lady who had strong "views" about all her experiences and all persons she saw or conversed with.

The route was the familiar east road from Edinburgh to London, by way of Dunbar, Berwick, Durham, York, and Stamford. The couple travelled in their own post-chaise, attended by John Rattray, a steady serving-man, on horseback, with pistols in his holsters and a good broad-sword at his belt. There was also a case of pistols in the carriage, which it has been shrewdly fancied the lady, notwithstanding the mild and elegant countenance hanging on Polton walls, would

have been more likely to make fit use, had there been any occasion for it, than the worthy laird with his pocket Horace. The party does not appear to have been encumbered by any Abigail or lady-attendant. From 12 to 14 hours were occupied with each day's travel. At Durham, Mrs. Calderwood gives indisputable evidence that she had never passed the threshold of any place of worship where Christian people kneel when they pray, or think it more decent to stand than to sit when they sing psalms.

June 6, it is recorded-"We dined at Durham, and I went to see the Cathedral; it is a prodigious bulky building. It was on Sunday, betwixt sermons, and in the piazzas (cloisters) there were several boys playing at ball. I asked the girl that attended me if it was the custom for the boys to play at ball on Sunday? She said, 'They play on other days as well as on Sundays.' She called her mother to show me the church, and I suppose, by my questions, the woman took me for a heathen, as I found she did not know of any other mode of worship but her own; so, that she might not think the bishop's chair defiled by my sitting down in it, I told her I was a Christian, though the way of worship in my country differed from hers. In particular, she stared when I asked what the things were that they kneeled upon, as they appeared to me to be so many Cheshire cheeses. I asked the rents of the lands about Durham, and was told by the landlord they were so dear he had no farm, for they let at 30s. or 40s. per aiker near that toun; that a cow was from £4 to £6 sterling, and they gave (at the best) about eight Scots pints per day. That night we lay at Northallertoun. I could have little conversation with the people I saw, for though they could have understood me, I did not them, and never heard a more barbarous language, and unlike English as any other lingo. I suppose it is the custom in a publick-house for strangers to roar and bully, for I found when I spoke softly they had all the appearance of being deaf. I think the Cathedral of Durham is the most ridiculous piece of expense I ever saw-to keep up such a pageantry of idle fellows in a country place, where there is nobody either to see or join with them, for there was not place for above 50 folks besides the performers."

Again-"Any of the English folks I got acquainted with I liked very well. They seem to be good-natured and humane; but still there is a sort of ignorance about them with regard to the rest of the world, and their conversation runs in a very narrow channell. They speak with a great relish of their publick places, and say, with a sort of flutter, that they shall to Vauxhall and Ranelagh, but do not seem to enjoy it when there. As for Vauxhall and Ranelagh, I wrote you my oppinion of them before. The first, I think, but a vulgar sort of entertainment, and could not judge myself in genteel company, whiles I heard a man calling, Take care of your watches and pockets.' I saw the Countess of Coventry at Ranelagh. I think she is a pert, stinking-like hussy, going about with her face up to the sky, that she might see from under her hat, which she had pulled quite over her nose that nobody might see her face. She was in dishabile, and very shabby drest, but was painted over her very jaw-bones." [The editor of Mrs. Calderwood's "Journal," the late James Dennistoun of Dennistoun, makes no particular mention of this "pert hussy," but it may be well for the reader to keep in mind that the Countess of Coventry, whom the good lady encountered, was none other than Maria, one of the three "beautiful Miss Gunnings," married four years previously to George William, sixth Earl. These ladies will come across us again in connection with the Hamilton and Argyll Families.] "I saw only three English Peers, and I think you could not make a tolerable one out of them. very few, either men or women, tolerably handsome. repass each other with very little appearance of being acquainted, and no company separates or goes from those they come in with, or joins another, and, indeed, they all seem to think there is no great entertainment; but, however, they are there, and that is enough. I went one morning to the park in hopes to see the Duke-'Culloden' Cumberland, son of George II.-review a troop of the Horse Guards, but he was not there. The Guards were very pretty. Sall Blackwood and Miss Buller were with me; they were afraid to push near for the crowd, but I was resolved to get forward, so pushed in. They were very surly; and one of them asked me where I would be; would I have my toes trode off?

I saw

The ladies pass and