9(; Trannnctions. 



These papei's are interesting iuasnuicli as they rehite to persons 



who were intimately associated with Burns, and, as we have seen, 



were themselves the subjects of his verse, and also the immediate 



relatives of one whose chequered life forms a romantic story, and 



whose beauty the Poet celebrated in song :— 



" lovely Polly Stewart 1 



charming Polly Stewart ! 

 There's not a flower that blooms in May 

 That's half so fair as thou art." 



Polly Stewart was the daughter of William Stewart, half-sister 

 of Hannah Lee, and niece of Mrs Catherine Stewart, the persons 

 whose wills are here. I do not know that the papers add almost 

 anything to the story of Polly Stewart, but they contain references 

 to herself, and to her family, who are the principal beneficiaries 

 under her father's will. Polly was first married to her cousin, 

 Ishmael Stewart, by whom she had three sons, and the will of 

 Mrs Catherine Stewart bears—" Item, I leave and bequeath to 

 each of William, Charles, and Alexander Stewart's children pro- 

 create of the marriage between the now deceased Ishmael Blow- 

 field Stewart, late residenter at Springfield, and my niece Mary 

 Stewart, the sum of five pounds sterling." Mrs Stewart also 

 remembers Polly herself in the matter of dress :— " Item, I leave 

 and bequeath to my niece Mary Stewart, daughter of the said 

 William Stewart, to purchase a suit of mournings, the sum of 

 ten pounds sterling ;" and after leaving another niece five of her 

 best gowns, and three of her best aprons, she leaves the remainder 

 of her clothes to a cousin, " my best silk cloak excepted, which I 

 leave and bequeath to my niece Mary Stewart." Ishmael 

 Stewart, Polly's first husband, had, according to Dr Ramage, to 

 leave the country under a cloud, and dared not return ; and it 

 was never known what became of him. Polly was married a 

 second time to George Welsh, farmer in Mortonmains, grand- 

 uncle of the late Mrs Thomas Carlyle, a man highly respected, 

 by whom she had two daughters, Hannah and Grace. The mar- 

 riage proved to be unhappy, and a separation took place, when 

 PoUy joined her father in Maxwelltown, where he had come to 

 reside. From his will we learn that William Stewart was resid- 

 ing in Maxwelltown, that he possessed the lands of Bilbow and 

 the houses built thereon, lying in the parish of Troqueer ; he was 

 tenant of three farms belonging to the Duke of Queensberry, and 

 joint-tenant of Kelhead Limeworks, and he held one-fourth 

 share of the woollen manufactory carried on at Cample under 



