INTRODUCTION xxvii 



is John's brother, Patrick Cockburn, advocate. On the parish 

 register of Ormistoun his marriage to Alison Rutherford of 

 Fairnielea is entered on 12th March 1731. She is known as 

 the authoress of the popular later version of the ' Flowers of 

 the Forest,' quite in the sentimental manner of her century, 

 and for an interesting association with Burns and Scott. On 

 the club, too, were Alison's father, Robert of Fairnielea, and 

 her brother. Dr. Rutherford. In her Letters and Autohio- 

 graphy (T. Craig-Brown), she says, ' We lived four years with 

 his' (Patrick's) « venerable father,' that is, till 1735, when 

 Adam Cockburn died. She nursed him in his Edinburgh 

 house, and speaks of him as 'a man of fourscore,' which 

 would make his birth soon after 1650. Cockburn-Hood 

 {House of Cockhurn) found him ' retoured heir to his brother 

 John in 1671.' Our author, who was the second son, says 

 elsewhere : ' I am now ' (Jan. 1740) ' in my 61 year,' so that 

 he was born in 1679. He is stated in the House of Cockburn 

 to have been baptized 1698 and married 1700. The parish 

 register at Ormistoun is unfortunately blank, 1649-1706. 



• Personalia 



Cockburn came of a good Whig stock, modified by Anglican 

 influence. Macky, the Hanoverian agent, drew up for the 

 Princess Sophia (1723) a report on the Scots public men of 

 the day, in which Adam Cockburn figures as keen for William 

 and Presbytery, ' bigot to a fault, hardly in common charity 

 with any out of the verge of Presbytery, otherwise very fine 

 in person and manners, just, of good sense, sanguine com- 

 plexion.' Singular that two such strong partisans and 

 political opponents as Adam Cockburn and Fletcher of 

 Saltoun were near neighbours and contemporaries. Both 

 too had their most pleasing and enduring tastes for the rural 

 amenities eagerly cultivated, in the one case by a son, our 

 John Cockburn, in the other by a nephew, Lord Milton. 



