A TRIAD OF WORTHIES. 5 



Norweyan banner flout the sky," also its legends, its 

 faiths, and its martyrdoms to be discursive upon ; but 

 all these burgh boasts and local glories might have 

 passed away with Fife mortalities had not Thomas 

 Chalmers, D.D., the man of massive head and mighty 

 work, orator, preacher, and political economist, and 

 William Tennant, the poet and professor, been born 

 within its little world. In the year (1814) that Scotland 

 became cognisant, through Jeffrey's pen in the Edin- 

 burgh Revieiv, of a youthful poet singing right cheerily, 

 in the ottava rima measures of Boccaccio and Tasso, 

 fancies based on the customs and characters of Fife, a 

 third candidate for historical honours was born at An- 

 ster, named John Goodsir, who, along with Chalmers 

 and Tennant, constitutes a triad of Anster worthies. 



The Goodsirs of Fife have a family history of at 

 least two centuries, and a credibly traditional life ex- 

 tending considerably beyond. Their progenitors are 

 said to have come from Germany, and the old Scotch 

 mode of pronouncing Goodsir as "Gutchcr" would 

 seem to favour the notion. The family had armorial 

 bearings and a capital motto — Virtute et Fidelitatc — 

 than which no words could be found more applicable 

 to the subject of this narrative. The big frames, the 

 energy and steadfastness of purpose of the Goodsirs, a 

 race trained to labour, ingenuity, and forethought, could 

 hardly be reconciled with the 'physique and vivacious 

 nature of the Celt, but seem to point to a strong 

 Teutonic or direct Scandinavian origin— a supposition 

 strengthened by the intereourse <A' the Norsemen with 



