though he entertained very different political notions from Burns, loved, admired, and befriended him to the last.

"There was a Lady—it is needless to outrage her ashes by recording her name-whose intimacy with B. did him essential injury-their connection was notorious-and she made him quarrel for some time with a connexion of her own, a worthy man, to whom her deluded lover lay under many obligations.

"She was an affected-painted-crooked postiche-with a mouth from ear to ear-and a turned up nose-bandy legs-which she however thought fit to display-and a flat bosom, rubbed over with pearl powder, a cornelian cross hung artfully as a contrast, which was bared in the evening to her petticoat tyings-this pickled frog (for such she looked, amid her own collection of natural curiosities) Burns admired and loved-they quarrelled once, however, on account of a strolling player-and Burns wrote a copy satirical

of verses on the Lady—which she afterwards kindly forgave, for a very obvious reason-amid all his bitterness he spared her in the principal point, which made her shunned by her own sex, and despised by the rest of the community.

"He was a Jacobite and a Democrat-strange conjunction! His intemperance was venial-when one considers that the gentry with whom caroused with he associated generally drank brandy and water whenever they met in the morning—and never dined together without getting drunk.”

Allowing the first part of this remarkable production to pass without remark, as best befits its Anglo-Saxon vigour and directness, the question is-Who was this "pickled frog" who did Burns such "essential injury." Clarinda, as we have seen, was alive at the time, and so was Chloris. The references to "ashes," the "strolling player," and the "satirical verses on the Lady," along with others almost equally suggestive, leave little room for doubt as to the identity of the person meant. The date which the memorandum bears is 8th January, 1808, but it must be noted that that date refers only to the receipt, on the blank reverse of which Sharpe, certainly at a subsequent date, and probably soon after the announcement of the death of a certain lady, wrote this caustic description of her. That he knew most of Burns's female celebrities is clear from a MS. note of his which Scott Douglas prints in his Edinburgh edition (vi., 159), and which runs as follows:

"This song ('O wat ye wha's in yon toun') celebrates an early friend of mine, Mrs. Oswald, born Lucy Johnstone. One of the stanzas is nothing but Were I laid on Greenland's coast,' in the Beggars' Opera. At the same time Burns wrote these verses the fair Lucinda was well

turned of thirty, and ten years older than her husband, but still a charming creature. In truth, however, she looked like the mother of her husband, who had a remarkably youthful appearance. Venus and Cupid! I have seen and been acquainted with all Burns's ladies whom he has celebrated, saving Miss Alexander and Mrs. M'Lehose, and I could describe their dresses as well as their features."

The "strolling player" referred to may be Williamson, the actor, who figures as the Esopus of a certain satirical "Epistle." The Poet's lampoons consequent on the Riddell quarrel are now seldom read, but it may be interesting to compare Burns in anger with Kirkpatrick Sharpe on the judgmentseat. In the "Monody" he says:—

"How cold is that bosom which folly once fired,

How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glistened,

Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect,

What once was a butterfly, gay in life's beam."

In the "Epistle from Esopus," the language is even less flattering :

Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale

Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;

Will make thy hair, tho' erst from gipsy poll'd,

By barber woven, and by barber sold,

Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care,
Like hoary bristles to erect and stare.

*

Still she undaunted reels and rattles on,
And dares the public like a noontide sun.
What scandal called Maria's jaunty stagger
The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?

Who calls thee pert, affected, vain coquette,
A wit in folly, and a fool in wit!
Who says that fool alone is not thy due,

And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true!"

The immediate cause of the estrangement between Burns and the Riddells of Woodley Park has been so often rehearsed that we need not here reproduce the details. That Robert Riddell, of Glenriddel, took the side of his relatives in the quarrel was nothing more than might have been expected, though it seems to have roused the "stubborn something" in Burns which so unfortunately found expression. Burns's remorseful letter from "the nether world," which he penned

the day after his offence was committed, might have ultimately been received as atonement sufficient, had not meddling busybodies fanned the flame and widened the breach. That letter and those which followed it, along with the generous tribute which Maria Riddell paid to the memory of Burns ere almost his clay was cold, form a curious commentary on Kirkpatrick Sharpe's suggested reason for the forgiving spirit of the lady he refers to, the inspiring motive of which he, strange to say, makes out to be "that which made her shunned by her own sex, and despised by the rest of the community." This new reading of an old text cannot, of course, be received as gospel on the ipse dixit of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and our chief reasons for chronicling it are the forestalling of the Henleyan discoverer and the eliciting of whatever further light on the subject may yet be available.

EDITOR.

In Memoriam.

DR. PETER ROSS OF NEW YORK.

R. W. PETER Ross, Treasurer of Scotia Lodge, No. 634, and Grand Historian of the Grand Lodge, died at his home, No. 62 West Sixty-sixth Street, on Monday morning, June 2, 1902, of nervous prostration brought on by overwork. The death of Bro. Ross is a loss to the Masonic fraternity that will be sorely felt.

THE LITERARY WORK OF DR. PETER ROSS.

[The following sketch appeared a few years ago in 7he Home Journal.]

In that interesting and well-written work Scotland and the Scots: Essays Illustrative of Scottish Life, History, and Character, we read: "In journalism we find the Scot in the foremost ranks. The New York Herald was founded by James Gordon Bennett, a native of Aberdeen. Whitelaw Reid, the editor of the New York Tribune, is of immediate Scotch descent. William Swinton has had a stirring and changeful career as a newspaper correspondent, editor, and man or letters. Thomas C. Latto, of the Brooklyn Times, a native of Fifeshire, is perhaps better known as a song writer than a journalist, but his long connection with the press warrants his being mentioned here. Col. M'Clure, the best known jour nalist in Philadelphia, claims Scottish descent. George Brown, of the Toronto Globe, was a native of Edinburgh; and the founder of the Montreal Witness, Mr. John Dougall, was a native of Paisley. The Guelph Mercury was owned and

edited for nearly a quarter of a century by George Pirie, a native of Aberdeen, and a lyrical poet of much ability. Daniel Morrison, a native of Inverness, did much good service as a journalist on such papers as the Toronto Leader and the New York Tribune."

Many other notable names might appropriately be added to this list of distinguished Scottish-American littérateurs, and perhaps none more deservedly than that of the author of the book from which we have just made the quotation—Dr. Peter Ross, who for over twenty-five years has successfully laboured in the literary field as journalist and author. To-day he is what is known as a special contributor on several of our great daily and weekly newspapers, besides being a writer for the Westminster Review and one or two other British publications. Dr. Ross is a native of Inverness, Scotland, having been born there on the 11th of January, 1847. A few years later his parents removed to Edinburgh, and here in due time the boy began his educational studies.

As soon as his school days were over, or at the age of fourteen, he became apprenticed to Miles Macphail, the once famous Established Church publisher in Edinburgh. After leaving Macphail's establishment, Dr. Ross was employed in various stores in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and had already accomplished some excellent literary work. He contributed a history of Edinburgh to the Midlothian Advertiser, and several clever articles from his pen appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant, the Caledonian Mercury, the Glasgow Mail, &c.

In 1870 he edited the Poetical Works of Sir William Alexander, in three large volumes, and in 1871 he compiled and published The Songs of Scotland, Chronologically Arranged, with Memoirs and Notes. This work had a very extensive sale from the first, and a number of editions were rapidly disposed of. A new edition with preface, &c., has just been issued by the enterprising Scottish publisher, Mr. Alexander Gardner, of Paisley, and the press in general has accorded it a very hearty welcome in its new form. It has long since been classed as a standard on the subject, and it is to be found in every public and prominent library in the British Empire. Besides brief memoirs of the authors, it contains a great amount of historical and antiquarian information,