INTRODUCTION xxxvii 



(1732) has ' Ormistoun, a perfect English plantation, curiously 

 hedged and ditched, a fine old seat of the Cockburn family/ 

 This is taken exactly, word for word, from Macky''s Journey 

 through Scotland (1723). Defoe's third edition (1742) speaks 

 of the ' thriving little toon and handsome estate, so well planted 

 and improved. I do not remember to have seen a more beautiful 

 spot. A pretty good Seat here; but when I saw it, it was 

 very much out of Repair,' a remark which explains the build- 

 ing of the new house about this time. As Defoe died in 1731 

 this is not to be taken as his own observation, but the Tmir 

 was kept up to date through the century in successive editions. 

 These extracts, however, are all contemporary with the Letters, 

 which they illustrate. The stranger enters the village now 

 with pleased surprise at its well-built main street, the fine old 

 manse garden, the stretch of green sward in the centre with its 

 quaint worn cross, and the ring of noble trees in which the 

 whole is set. How it looked near the close of the century 

 (1792) is shown in the Statistical Account : ' Country enclosed 

 with hedges of white thorn, mixed with sweet-briar and honey- 

 suckle and hedge-row trees. Flax-dressing never succeeded.' 



As representing John Cockburn's industries there were sur- 

 viving, in 1792, two distilleries and a starch-work. His garden- 

 ing, for which the valley is admirably adapted, was represented, 

 when the New Statistical Account appeared (1841), by two 

 vegetable gardens, which sent from two to three hundred 

 Scots pints of strawberries in the season to Edinburgh. 

 This fruit he never mentions. In our own day fruit culture 

 and market gardening have enormously developed here since 

 the railway came near the village. Cockburn was sage enough 

 to see that the producer without a customer was nought, but 

 he lived long before the age of Industrialism. His mill is now 

 a dwelling-house and the lade dry. The bleachfield survived 

 longest. Though we have been led to understand that, in the 

 June days, ' lint was in the bell ' all over old-time Scotland, 

 Cockburn never mentions it. In a Wight letter he observes, 



