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gulled to such an extent, by those who ought to have been my 

 best friends, that I resolved to go to the farthest corner of the 

 earth. I made a wreck of all ; left machinery, book-debts, etc., in 

 the hands of a friend to provide for my two daughters whom I left 

 behind; and landed at Hobart Town, in Tasmania, in 1833, with 

 my wife and four children, and with about ten pounds in my pocket." 



He afterwards had the anxious wandering life of many settlers. 

 He is now a very old man, and from what has been heard of him 

 lately, is in poor circumstances. 



He gives the following sketch of the origin of the popular 

 song: — "Nearly forty years have now wasted away since John 

 Pefel and I sat in a snug parlour at Caldbeck, among the Cumbrian 

 mountains. We were then both in the hey-day of manhood, and 

 hunters of the olden fashion ; meeting the night before to arrange 

 earth-stopping ; and in the morning to take the best part of the 

 hunt — the drag over the mountains in the mist — while fashionable 

 hunters still lay in the blankets. Large flakes of snow fell that 

 evening. We sat by the fireside hunting over again many a good 

 run, and recalling the feats of each particular hound, or narrow 

 neck-break 'scapes, when a flaxen-haired daughter of mine came 

 in saying, 'Father, what do they say to what granny sings?' Granny 

 was singing to sleep my eldest son — now a leading barrister in 

 Hobart Town — with an old rant called 'Bonnie Annie.' The 

 pen and ink for hunting appointments being on the table, the idea 

 of writing a song to this old air forced itself upon me, and thus 

 was produced impromptu, ' Dy'e ken John Peel, with his coat so 

 gray?' Immediately after I sung it to poor Peel, who smiled 

 through a stream of tears which fell down his manly cheeks ; and 

 I well remember saying to him in a joking style, 'By Jove, Peel ! 

 you'll be sung when we're both run to earth !' " 



John Rayson (1803 to 1859,) was during the best portion of 

 his life a village schoolmaster, living on the whittlegate system. 

 " Charlie M'Glen," a sketch from life, is his best piece. 



So far as I know, no sketch of the life of Dr. Gibson has hitherto 

 appeared. I have therefore devoted more space and attention to 

 it than I have done to the other Cumberland poets of whom 



