ALEXANDER GORDON, THE ANTIQUARY. 27 



Arthur's Oon was' constructed. "Winding up a compreliensive argu- 

 ment in liis Itinerarium, lie adds this final I'esult of his own observa- 

 tions : " Indeed, for my own part, I never observed, in Italy or else- 

 where, any real Eoman temple whatsoever which was not at least 

 four times as large as Arthur's Oon." 



But, as already hinted, the antiquarian traveller had tastes and 

 acquirements of a varied range, and in some respects of a more mar- 

 ketable character. He was able to state, in closing his Itinerary, 

 that " all the monuments in this work are truly and faithfully ex- 

 hibited from tlie originals, drawn on the spot by my own handj" and 

 as he refers to the inadequate encouragement extended to him having 

 compelled him to curtail the expenditure on engi-aving, it is only 

 just to assume that he had a greater command of his pencil than the 

 coarsely executed plates of his folio would suggest. In reality, as 

 now appears, he worked in oil, practised the art of portrait painting, 

 and, as will be seen, made some of his paintings, including his own 

 portrait, subjects of special bequest in his will. 



In music his skill was considerable, nor is it wholly improbable 

 that we may owe to him one or other of the unclaimed airs associated 

 with Scottish song. Aberdeenshire has contributed its full share 

 both to the l^aics and music of our national minstrelsy. The Rev. 

 John Skinner, one of its own native poets, in his vigorous words to 

 the old reel of Tullochgorum, appeals to the national sympathies 

 against new-fangled foreign tastes : — 



What need there be sae great a fraise 

 Wi' dringing dul Italian lays, 

 I wadna gie our aio strathspeys 

 For }ialf a hunder score o' them 



William Marshall, butler to the Duke of Gordon, composed and 

 adapted some of th.e fine airs to which. Burns wedded more than one of 

 his most beautiful songs, such as " Of a' the airts the wind can blaw;" 

 and we owe to the M.S. lute-book of Sir Robert Gordon of Straloch, 

 dated 1627, several fine song tunes of an earlier century. It 

 would be a pleasant discovery if we were enabled to associate a 

 familiar national or Jacobite air with the name of the old Scottish 

 antiqiiary. According to the traditions of Pennycuik House, his 

 musical skill had been turned to account in his continental wander- 

 ings, somewhat after the fashion of Goldsmith's flute, though doubt- 

 less in more dignified professional ways than those which the author 

 of "The Traveller" thus artlessly records : — • 



