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biographies have appeared before. I have lived for the last 

 twenty-three years in the very same district in which Gibson lived 

 and laboured, and whence he has drawn most of the materials 

 for his writings. His associations have therefore in a great measure 

 been my associations, and I have thus had greater facility in dealing 

 with his Hfe and writings than any mere stranger could have had. 

 I have however had an advantage even greater than this — I have 

 had the most kind and cordial co-operation of Mr. Roger Bownass. 

 Dr. Gibson has himself borne willing testimony to the help he 

 derived from Mr. Bownass in his writings, and I have certainly felt 

 in the information which I have received from him on this subject, 

 that no one could have a more accurate or a more trustworthy 

 guide. 



Alexander Craig Gibson was born at Harrington on March 

 17th, 181 3. His father was a ship-captain, and owned the vessels 

 which he commanded, the last of which was driven on shore and 

 wrecked during a storm while endeavouring to enter Workington 

 harbour. He lived many years after this, but never commanded 

 another vessel, or looked up, as it were, afterwards, being 

 supported, I believe, in a great measure by his son, the subject 

 of this sketch. His mother, from whom he obtained the name 

 of Craig, came originally from Dumfriesshire, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Lockerbie. He appears to have been in some 

 measure brought up, and to have obtained part of liis early 

 education, when staying with his mother's friends in this district. 

 It is a district with which I am myself very familiar, having lived 

 in Annandale when a boy; and I remember that once when 

 talking with him I remarked upon his intimacy with the persons 

 and places there whom I had myself known there, he said that this 

 was where some of his earliest associations and most lasting friend- 

 ships had been formed. This will account for the aptitude and 

 ease with which in some of his compositions he uses the dialect of 

 Dumfriesshire; and his intimate knowledge of persons, places, 

 and traditions in that neighbourhood is all brought out in his 

 poetical sketch, "The Lockerbie Lyke," which, commencing with 

 an ordinary public-house brawl, leads on to a very fatal result. 



