book of prayer for the defeat of the Armada. The day of thanksgiving was a great day, and was welcomed with much ringing, the ringers being paid five shillings and tenpence, as compared with the usual one shilling and sixpence for the coronation.

This item shows how little ringers have changed in the three centuries that have passed since Elizabeth's day-the charge appears thus: "Drink for the ringers."

One special purchase deserves a passing notice. In 1575 the parish sells its old "parcell gilt challis" for thirty shillings, and buys a new "cup" for two pounds nine shillings and sixpence, silver being at the rate of nine shillings and sixpence the ounce.

For the poor the parish does nothing as a regular thing. Occasionally there appears an item to "two poor men" twopence ; once some money is laid out on a man whose house was burnt. Now and again a man appears with a brief or a license to gather money at the church, and the wardens send him on with a penny or so.

The only entries which even suggest offertories are two. The first comes quite early in this form: "money left of the plate," which is carried to receipts; the second, later on, is the purchase of a lock and key for the poor-box. The people seem to have disliked offertories. When an order comes to collect money for Bath Abbey, the wardens give out of their general fund and receive no special collection.

It is interesting to note that in those days the office of churchwarden evidently went round, and occasionally was held by poor as well as rich. Scarcely ever do the same wardens hold office in two successive years. On the other hand, women are frequently chosen, and generally act themselves, though once or twice they appoint a deputy. The offertories are evidently entirely given to the poor; for no entry appears except in two places, where there is money left of the plate. Occasionally the wardens make special grants in answer to briefs, once to Bath Abbey and once for Bideford Bridge.

Altogether the accounts are convincing proof that an active and intelligent interest was taken in the parish church, that the laity, long before the existence of church rates, took their due share in church affairs, and that the life of the Church of England was, and was felt to be, continuous and unbroken. If the changes had aroused great discontent it would have left its traces in these accounts, but not a trace of any kind is to be found. In this Devonshire parish, at any rate, the evils which Mr. Green so graphically describes did not exist.

ARTHUR E. T. NEWMAN.

THOMAS AIRD, JOURNALIST AND

POET.

N the Noctes Ambrosiana for November 1830, the representative

interchange of views they drift at one point into a discussion of fresh literature. One of the authors brought under consideration is Thomas Aird, whom North characterises as "a man of true genius." The youthful poet, as it happens, is personally known to both speakers, and while the one notes the strong passion of his new poem, and praises its descriptive passages and its versification, the other dwells upon the excellence the author exhibits in friendly intercourse. "I ken," says the Shepherd, "few men that impresses you in conversation wi' a higher opinion o' their powers than Mr. Aird. Sometimes I hae considerable diffeeculty in followin' him-for he taks awfu' loups frae premise to conclusion, clearin' chasms dizzy to look down on-and aften annunces as self-evident truths positions that appear to me unco problematical. But he does, at times, flash fine fancies, half out o' his lips and half out o' his een; and afore I kent he wrote verses I saw he was a poet."

Thomas Aird, who was thus estimated by his eminent contemporaries, was a notable Scottish journalist and man of letters in the first half of the nineteenth century. The centenary of his birth having now arrived, his appreciative fellow-countrymen, in accordance with an appropriate and graceful custom, have completed a movement intended emphatically to mark their recognition of his worth. It was the firm conviction of Burns that he would be better understood a hundred years after his death than he had been during the fitful fever of his life, and in making the assertion he practically defined true poetic greatness. If a reputation survives for a century it is pretty certain to have genuine quality, and whatever elements of permanence are in it will, at the end of that period, be recognised and fully acknowledged. Aird's literary work was considerable, and as he was thought "a man of true genius" while he lived, and his compatriots feel it expedient to do special honour to his memory on

his hundredth birthday, it may not be amiss to consider what manner of man he was and what he actually accomplished.

Thomas Aird was born on August 28, 1802, in the parish of Bowden, Roxburghshire. He was of a respectable peasant stock, and owed not a little to the upright example and the lyrical appreciation of his father and the intellectual vigour and the anxious moulding care of his mother. Like many other men of letters, Aird paid a special tribute to his mother's high character. She was not only an exemplary housewife, but she watched the intellectual development of her children, and guarded it in accordance with certain strict and well-defined principles. She liked to know, for example, the character of their reading before according her approval, and she was at first somewhat apprehensive regarding Aird's love of fiction. A perusal of "Thaddeus of Warsaw," however, is said to have enlarged her views on the subject, and to have reconciled her to her son's interest in this form of literature. Aird received his school education at Bowden and Melrose, where he displayed good scholarly abilities. and became an expert in outdoor exercises and amusements. Rabbit-shooting and angling were favourite pastimes, and he devoted much attention to the ways of birds and insects in the woods.

Entering Edinburgh University, Thomas Aird formed there a lasting friendship with Carlyle, the future Lord Deas, and other Scotsmen who afterwards reached distinction. While still an undergraduate he held for some time a tutorship near St. Mary's Loch, Selkirkshire, and this stimulated his interest in Yarrow and its romantic associations. He had intended to study for the Church, but abandoned the purpose and settled to literature in Edinburgh. One has only to read Lockhart's "Life of Scott," or Lord Cockburn's "Memorials" and "Journal" and "Life of Jeffrey," or the fascinating and tragical three volumes entitled "Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents," to know the full and energetic intellectual life of Edinburgh in those days. During the first thirty years of the century Scott was a towering and phenomenal figure, sufficient of himself to make any community famous. Several of his contemporaries also were notable for ability and achievement. The venerable Henry Mackenzie, the "Man of Feeling," represented the aims and methods of a bygone day, carrying forward into the new century the literary renown gained for Scotland by Hume, Robertson, John Home, and Blair. Scott had known Lady Anne Barnard, author of "Auld Robin Gray," and in 1825 he edited her famous ballad for the Bannatyne Club. He was confident, too, with an assurance that has not been fully ratified, that Joanna Baillie was steadily

securing for herself a high and permanent place in letters. Another of his friends was Miss Ferrier, author of "Marriage" and other Scottish novels, which appeared between 1818 and 1831, just when the Waverley series was alternately puzzling and delighting readers everywhere. Quietly and anonymously Lady Nairne, of whose genius Scott never seems to have become aware, produced at the same time her "Land of the Leal," "Caller Herrin'," and other winning lyrics. Sir David Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopædia, issued between 1808 and 1830, was a great work in its day, and had among its contributors Thomas Chalmers and Carlyle, the latter presently finding more congenial scope for his peculiar powers in the Edinburgh Review under Jeffrey. The founding of the Scotsman newspaper and Blackwood's Magazine in 1817 marks the beginning of a brilliant era' in Scottish journalism and a fresh development of literary energy and enterprise. "The young lions of Blackwood" were pre-eminently Wilson and Lockhart, associated with whom were men like Hogg, D. M. Moir ("Delta"), Maginn, Fraser Tytler Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, De Quincey, Sir William Hamilton, and his brother Captain Thomas Hamilton, author of "Cyril Thornton." Scott did a little for the magazine, and even Henry Mackenzie was an occasional contributor. To write for Blackwood, or to be favourably noticed in its pages, was of itself in those days a glorious experience for a youthful author of reasonable ambition.

Thomas Aird's young enthusiasm was naturally stirred and captivated by all these tokens of intellectual energy and productiveness. He was a University student when Blackwood's Magazine startled its readers into surprise and admiration, and he, no doubt, eagerly watched its unconventional and triumphant progress. He had given evidence of a distinct literary faculty in boyhood, and in 1826 he published his first poetical work, "Murtzoufle: a Tragedy in Three Acts, with other Poems." This has more promise than accomplishment, although some of the lyrics included are not destitute of merit. One entitled "My Mother's Grave," which has been somewhat overrated by partial critics, has a certain distinction as verse, and is charged with sincerity of sentiment and genuine pathos. In 1827 Aird reviewed Pollok's "Course of Time" in Blackwood, and was himself eulogised in the same number of the magazine for his prose "Religious Characteristics," which had just appeared. The strong common sense, the fresh outlook, the gravity, the felicitous illustration, the outspoken honesty of this series of essays, proclaimed a new and independent critical and moral force, and the work was appreciatively hailed by Christopher North. The

result was the formation of a deep and lasting friendship between the two men, who had much in common, although the untiring energy and spasmodic versatility of the one frequently led him far from the standpoint of the other. They were at one in their love of Nature and their appreciation of Burns, Scott, and Wordsworth, and the younger of the two poets-as may be seen in Mrs. Gordon's "Life of Wilson "—was sometimes able in later days to advise and help his more eminent friend. Aird, meanwhile, was earning his livelihood in Edinburgh by private tuition, supplementing the results with his experiments in authorship. In 1832 he became editor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, holding the post for a year, and in 1835. on the recommendation of Prof. Wilson, he was appointed editor of the Dumfries and Galloway Herald, a weekly Conservative journal, which he continued to guide for the rest of his working life.

The editor of a provincial newspaper has opportunities that do not present themselves to one who conducts a daily journal in a great city. He has time to reflect, and to express his opinion of affairs in a form that comes of a more or less deliberate survey. His main business, of course, just as is the case with the city editor, is to give news and to offer commentaries on the significance of passing events; but, as he has to do this only once a week, he is free to select and summarise, and is not harassed by the constant necessity to produce running criticism and momentary decisions. Thus he may become not only the purveyor of news, but the literary guide and the intellectual exemplar for the district in which he works. Aird took this position in Dumfries. His newspaper proved him not only an able editor, but an attractive essayist and a facile and graceful poet. It was read not merely for the primary purpose which it served-and served with unwearied zeal and consistent regard for principle-but also for its fresh and stimulating literary quality. Aird, in fact, like his friend Carruthers of Inverness, speedily gained more than the provincial importance natural to his position, and became one of the recognised intellectual forces of his time. Various able friends helped to enrich his columns; his contributors, as he said himself, ranged in local settlement "from the northern Tay to the classic Cam." The Rev. George Gilfillan, of Dundee, a noteworthy essayist and biographer in his day, was one of his specialists, and another was Mr. J. W. Ebsworth, then of Cambridge, who has so long survived his friend, and produced sound and substantial work in a field which he had thus early begun to cultivate. With its highly-gifted editor, supported as he was by exceptionally qualified assistants, the Dumfries Herald came to be known, not only as a thoroughly