4 EAELY YEAES. 



that he's a Paisley man. And seest 'ou that kirk wi' 

 the doom on 't ? That 's St George's, where a' the gentry 

 attend for the sake of the singing ; and Fse warrant ye 11 

 no hear the like o' the precentor in a' England. They 

 ca' him R A. Smith, and he 's a Paisley man. And seest 

 'ou where a' thae coaches are waiting to start ? That 's 

 the Eegister Office. Ye may say it 's the key-stane o' the 

 kingdom ; for lairds and lands a' hing by it. But though 

 it 's the place where dukes and earls keep their titles, and 

 the King himself keeps his papers, every day, when the 

 clerks gae hame, and the door is steekit, the entire place 

 is left in charge of an auld wife, and she 's a Paisley 

 woman." 



Without vouching for the accuracy of this last par- 

 ticular, and whilst begging a little indulgence for the 

 vanity of our fellow-townsman, we must claim for Paisley 

 the rights which its neighbour cities are not sufficiently 

 ready to recognise. But the town which has numbered 

 amongst its ministers Boyd of Troehrig and Arch- 

 bishop Adamson, Principal Smeton and President Wither- 

 spoon ; which introduced to professional life "Watt, the 

 laborious compiler of the " Bibliotheca Britannica ;" and 

 which from amongst her sons contributed to natural 

 science Wilson, the American ornithologist ; to sculpture, 

 John Henning ; and to poetry, Robert Tannahill and the 

 author of " The Isle of Palms," — need not be ashamed, but 



