forin, those habits which we thus have it in our power to watch over, as they are displayed in the transactions of every day? We have as yet heard little, but of the vices engendered by the present lamentable state of distress. Are we so blind, are we so senseless, as not to see, that the descendants of those whom we now reckon among the most worthless of our community, must come in for a double portion of their guilt and their opprobrium, unless we take some pains in training them to better things? Many of the idle and vicious now, have not perhaps always been such. But those whose earliest days are passed in idleness, and surrounded by every thing that is degrading, we cannot reasonably expect will, of themselves, become respectable characters. The evil is a moral one;-it must be encountered by religious and moral means. We will not believe, that those beings whom we are endeavouring to save from vice, and in whose minds we are implanting, not the elements of knowledge only, but the desire and the means of being respectable, will, of themselves, for the most part, prefer dependancy and shame, to usefulness and honour; and shall we ascribe less powerful effects to our religion. "A man," says the Reviewer," in cultivated life, would recoil from the act of falsehood, not because he has been rebuked out of this vice by the lessons of an authoritative code, but because his whole habit, formed as it insensibly is by the circumstances around him, carries along with it a contempt and disinclination for so odious a transgression against all right and honourable principle. And thus it is with Christianity in reference to pauperism. Out of its code there may be gathered materials for raising a barrier against the progress of this malady among the people." "Christianity may," he adds, quoting from a fine writer, "elevate the general standard of morals among a people, even though a very small proportion of them shall, in the whole sense and significancy of the term, become Christians."

We come now to speak of the means by which education may be diffused throughout our towns and villages. In the country, I believe, it will generally be found that schools for boys have to struggle with many difficulties, and cannot often be productive of

as much good as might be desired. The children are very early removed, at least as soon as it is possible for them to earn something by agricultural employments. The chief object, therefore, is necessarily the education of girls, and of boys who are considered too young for such employments. I would not advocate the cause of country CHARITY schools, in the strictest sense of the term. The object should be to furnish good instruction at the least possible expense, not to do it gratuitously; and it is a fact, that in every case which has come under my observation, a greater readiness has been expressed by the parents to send their children where they have contributed something towards the defrayment of the school expenses, than when they have done it without payment. Of this I could give several striking instances; and it is worth while urging the point upon the consideration of those who would be startled at the proposal of plans involving expense. I am warranted in saying, that, taking the weekly contribution of 40 children at 2d. each, and the superintendent's salary at £14 per annum, the average annual expenses of such a school will seldom exceed £8, provided the school-room be rent-free. I have not, at the same time, adverted to the profits arising from the children's work (which in some cases, and with good management, are considerable), because these must necessarily be dependant on local circumstances, and have not always been worth consideration. It is obvious, that the ORIGINAL expenses of fitting up and furnishing school-rooms must also vary, according to necessity, and according to the pleasure of the managers. But the average annual expenses, when once established, I repeat, are small, and did they amount to a sum many times larger, it would surely be for the interest of the individuals of every parish in the kingdom to establish them; for, to say nothing of the happiness thereby conferred,--to make no appeal to their just and generous feelings, let us at once appeal to their sordid principles; let us ask them if they can possibly expect their burdens to be less, and the demands on their stores less frequent, when every day is bringing to maturity those weeds of vice which have sprung up from the productive soil of idleness,

MR EDITOR,

It is one of the miseries attending any attempts to illustrate ancient facts of Scottish history or manners, that such praise-worthy labours have a tendency to awaken the vexation of those whose forefathers happen thereby, incidentally, to be exhibited in less flattering colours than might have been every way pleasing to the vanity and self-love of their descendants. This national foible is less ordinarily associated with those of high as of obscure descent,-while its victims have an antipathy to every thing degrading, they are sometimes too easily deluded by every idle fiction, extravagantly exalting the rank and importance of, not unfrequently, supposititious ancestry. Though well apprised, by experience, of this propensity, I little imagined that in our days it was to betray itself in all its genuine eccentricity, or that the seemingly harmless and delectable article of the "Saltvat," by exciting the animosity of the family of Allanton, or of their allies, was to elicit the strange performance which their able apologist, with more zeal than wisdom, so necessarily obtrudes upon the public.

Has then Candidus, the devoted friend of the "learned and worthy Baronet," the admirer of his talents, and more especially of his style, so contemptuously slighted those weighty canons of his "respected friend," inculcated in a performance of which, at no very distant period, he was the author, facetiously entitled, "The Genealogical History of the Stewarts refuted."

"Of what importance to the public,-of what profit to the general reader, are exhibitions of pedigree, or specification of titles, or proofs of consanguinity ?"—(page 158.)

"Should controversy or competition at any time arise (upon such topics), it ought carefully to be confined to private discussion. -If these ideas be founded upon justice, what evidence of vanity what mark of weakness can be figured more indubitable, than to obtrude it (genealogy) on the world?"-(page 157-8.)

Again, addressing himself to a person afterwards to be more particularly attended to.

"The writer, who imagines that by genealogical histories of any name, he is to engage the notice of the world at large, will be speedily undeceived. A distant prospect of the wide gulf of oblivion will soon convince him that its yawning jaws are never shut, but are ready to swallow up all unprofitable labours."-(page 159.) "Jam Theba juxta et tenebrosa vorago."

Stat. Thebaid. L. vii. v. 382!

Owing to their unquestionable insignificance, an opinion, too, in which the "learned and worthy Baronet" is thus so ready to concur, I at first felt inclined to permit the lucubrations of Candidus to sleep in their unmolested oblivion. Perhaps, after all, this might have been the advisable course-the more especially as they are founded upon mere assertion-without a vestige of any thing in the shape of authority-no doubt a most easy, though not very convincing mode of managing an argument—and impeaching the ve racity of a respectable author.-But I have been drawn aside by curiosity, to inquire how far the high pretensions assumed by this family in a contest, which I believe most people will imagine they have stirred, could be borne out by any thing in the shape of real evidence whether they themselves might not form a good elucidation of the infatuation which, two centuries ago, had been satirized even by our own countryman, Barclay.*

A better excuse, however, for this investigation-the results of which I am about to state (and in doing so, I no doubt draw largely upon the pa

Of the Scotch, he observes, "Nulli tamen magis memores suæ stirpis-quibus per diversa terrarum quærentibus opes-et ad preconia suæ nobilitatis obstinatis, sæpius audientium risus, quam lacrymæ et fides accessit."-Satyr. p. 324.

tience of your readers), may be assigned to a desire of vindicating the veracity of the author of the "Memorie of the Somervilles," a quality altogether essential in a historian.-For the statement of this writer cannot be corrected, in a matter which must have come under his personal knowledge, without producing any other effect than a little gratification to the vanity of the family of Allanton. The charge of incorrectness will extend its influence to the character of his whole work, and leave a stain upon his reputation, both as a gentleman and as an author.

Somerville, laird of Drum (and, de facto, Lord Somerville), who wrote in the year 1679, has asserted in his account of his own family, that Sir Walter Stewart of Allanton, Knight, ancestor of the present Sir Henry Stewart of Allanton, Bart. who died not long before the year 1670, was, "from some antiquity, a fewar (that is to say, he and his progenitors) of the Earle of Tweddill's in Auchtermuire, whose predecessors, until this man (Sir Walter), never came to sit above the saltfoot when at the Laird of Cambusnethen's table-which for ordinary every Sabboth they dyned at, as did most of the honest men within the parish of any account."* An assertion which he also makes when talking of his brother, Sir James Stewart of Kirkfield and Coltness, whom he styles "a gentleman of very mean familie upon Clyde, being brother-german to the goodman of Allentone (a fewar of the Earle of Tweddill's in Auchtermuire, within Cambusnethen parish), whose predecessors, before this man, never came to sitt above the Laird of Cambusnethen's salt-foot."+

On the other hand, the Allantons stoutly maintain, that both Sir Walter's immediate, and more remote ancestry, were princely and baronial, forming "one of the most ancient branches of the HOUSE OF STEWART," that had existed as a separate family for no less than five centuries, directly asserting their claim to the following splendid descent:

1. Sir Robert Stewart, first baron

of Daldüe, born long before the year 1300, sixth son of Sir John Stuart of Bonkill-which last was lawful brother of James, high steward of Scotland, grandfather of Robert II. He obtained from his father, who died in the year 1298, in patrimony, the barony of Daldowie, upon Clyde, near Glasgow-accompanied Sir Alan Stuart of Darnley to Ireland in the year 1315was present at the battle of Dundalk and died in the year 1330. 2. Sir Alan Stuart of Daldüe. He married a daughter of Douglas of Douglas, and fell at "the battle of Morningside," in the year 1385.

3. Sir Alan Stuart of Daldüe, Knight Banneret first of Allanton, which property he obtained from the church in reward of his military services in the year 1420. He got the lion passant of England, from "commanding" at "the battle of Morningside ;"-accompanied Sir John Stuart of Darnley to France in the year 1419;-married at Paris a French lady of distinction. In remembrance of his exploits at a tournament, his representative bears a lance in his escutcheon. He died in the year 1444.

4. James Stuart of Allanton, which now became the principal title, though they still possessed Daldüe. A literary character-he compiled memoirs of his family, still extant, alluded to by Candidus under the name of the Stewart MSS. He married a daughter of Somerville of Cambusnethen, and died in the year 1489. He had two sisters, Margaret and Helen, but these both died unmarried.

5. James Stuart of Allanton. He married Janet, the daughter and heiress of Sir James Tait of Ernock. He died in the year 1547, aged 85.

He had a younger brother, Walter, who died without issue, also two sisters, Isabella, who died unmarried. and Marian, who married, but her issue are not mentioned.

6. James Stuart of Allanton. He married Marion, daughter of Sir James Lockhart of Lee, and died in the year 1549. He had two brothers, who died

p. 394.

+ Ibid. p. 380.

The descent bestowed upon the family by Candidus, virtually involves the pedi VOL. I.

Baronet," in his Genealogical History of the Stewarts refuted. Vide pages 29, 60, 136, 137;-the matriculation of his arms in the Lyon Office,-and elsewhere.

3 P

without issue, and a sister, whose progeny are not detailed.

7. James Stuart of Allanton. He married Helen, daughter of Somerville of Humbie. His brothers were, Walter and William, who died unmarried, and another, John, who died without issue, &c. By his wife, Helen Somerville, he had a son, James, which last predeceasing his father, left issue, Sir Walter Stuart of Allanton, the supposed calumniated person-and James, afterwards of Kirkfield and Coltness, Provost of Edinburgh.

The point thus turning upon mere matter of fact, I shall begin to explore, by examining into the authenticity of the more early parts of this imposing pedigree.

That the heroic Sir John Stewart of Bonkill, who died in the year 1298, had any son of the name of Robert, rests solely upon the misconception of a passage from Hollinshed's Chronicle of Ireland, by which a Sir Robert Stewart was most awkwardly substituted for a Sir Robert Lacy.

For the full exposure of this error, we are indebted to the intelligence of the acute Andrew Stewart, author of the well known Letters to Lord Mansfield in the Douglas cause, whom some, doubtless, will be surprised to find quoted upon such an occasion. In the year 1798, he published his elaborate History of the Family of Stewart. On this illustrious stem, however, in the total absence of any authority, he was so uncourteous as to omit ingrafting the stock of Allanton, "Hinc illæ lachrymæ ;"- -a procedure which called from the pen of "the learned and worthy Baronet," a feeble pamphlet, under the name of "The Genealogical History of the Stewarts refuted.” —The childish futility of the argument is only to be equalled by the shallow pedantry of the composition

"In his refutation of the Genealogical History of the Stewarts, he has called in to his assistance all his old classical friends from the Grecian and Roman territories. In the muster roll of the foreign auxiliaries, there are Pindar, Aristophanes, Virgil, Horace, Sallust, Julius Capitolinus, Statius, &c. &c. Under such circumstances, he ean be no other than a great and accomplished scholar." (Andrew Stewart's Supp. p. 99.)

But the same author also remarks, "There is hardly any part of the splenetic performance in question, and of the classical

the audacity of the attempt by the utter nothingness of the result. He there complains, among other very singular matter, of the cruel affront; and, as the convenient Candidus is attempting to do upon the present occasion, formally obtruded upon our ac quaintance the proud series of his imaginary ancestry.

In the Supplement to his History, afterwards published, Andrew Stewart incidentally unfolded the clearest evidence of the non-existence of Sir Robert Stewart, though without making any additional attack upon the remaining links,-accompanied with a calm, dignified, and annihilating refutation of the miserable cavils of " the learned and worthy Baronet" upon other topics;

a rejoinder that, down to this day, is unanswered, and, as far as regards the family of Allanton, is unanswerable. + This was indeed, as all the world saw, a most unequal combat. It is to be regretted that the scene of the contest was so obscure, and the object for which they fought so trifling. We there recognize the perspicuity and force of reasoning of the author of the celebrated Letters, though in the evening of life, which it has become fashionable among some to withhold from their genuine author, and to attribute to the pen of Junius. Perhaps "the learned and worthy Baronet" is alone ignorant of the signal overthrow he then sustained. If, however, he really be aware of his disaster, why, encouraged by the demise of this formidable antagonist, and the lapse of a few years, does he encourage or permit Candidus to mock our judgment, by endeavouring to smuggle in upon us such stale and refuted trumpery.

Before Symson, and those who retailed the fable, as far as I can discov

learning displayed in it, but what might have been equally applicable to any other person, or to any other occasion." (P. 105.) We are here almost reminded of the character hit off by Buchanan in the Franciscan. "Novi ego, qui tantum ter quinque Latina