208 Lag's Elegy and Other Chap Books. 



one or two hints for ' Wandering Willie's Tale ' — the gem of 

 ' Redgauntlet,' and one of the finest efforts of his genius. Prob- 

 ably one of the most effective touches in his description of Sir 

 Robert Redgauntlet was suggested by this line in the ' Elegy " : 

 ' He bore my image on his brow.' 



And it is not unlikely that he had a vivid recollection of the 

 rhymster's picture of Lag sitting ' in the great chair ' in hell 

 when he represented the cavalier as pre-eminent among lost souls. 

 For a deeper and sterner spirit than that of Scott the ' Lament of 

 the Prince of Darkness ' had attractions. As a youth Carlyle pored 

 over the yellow pages of some copy of the pasquil, and possibly 

 in fhe grim humour characteristic of so many passages in his 

 writings the influence of the bit of rough covenanting verse may 

 be detected. 



" The ' Elegy ' has been attributed to different authors. 

 Carlyle told Mr John Carlyle Aitken that it was written by John 

 Orr, the old schoolmaster so graphically sketched in the ' Remini- 

 scences ' as a man ' religious and enthusiastic, though in practice, 

 irregular with drink.' (6). But there is nothing to shew that 

 Carlyle had documentary evidence in favour of his theory, which 

 contradicts the tradition of his own parish and receives no support 

 from anything known as to Orr's tastes and studies. 



" Mr Macmath informs me that a copy of the 11th edition 

 of ' Lag,' sold by Mr Richard Cameron, Edinburgh, a few years 

 ago, bore below the date (1777) the following jotting in a hand- 

 writing evidently ^belonging to the eighteenth century : ' This 

 Elegy wrote by Will. Wilson, scoolmaster at Douglass, about the 

 year 1735.' (7). 



" Wilson, who is remembered as the author of some pamphlets 

 on the Non-Hearer question, was actively engaged in literary 

 work about the date of Sir Robert Grierson's death. I haA-e 

 before me a beautiful sermon by Adam Kae, minister of Borgue, 

 ' in the time of Scotland's purest Reformation, which was in the 



6. Fergusson's 'Laird of Lag,' 158-9. Remces. by Thomas Carlyle, 

 Vol. L,p. 38. 



7. Mr Cameron's Catalogue, No. 154, 189C. 



