A Scorrisy [pyt. 87 
familiar to the admirers of Hogarth’s famous march to Finchley, 
playing on his fife, to the vast delectation of two or three bare- 
footed Highland lasses, to whose unsophisticated ears the shrill 
squeaking of the wrynecked instrument doubtless sounded sweeter, 
so prompt is the female ear to novelty, especially where the eye 
is also allured by comely lineaments and smart clothes—than the 
deepest drone and sprightliest chanter of their native pipes. The 
letters from which I have made a selection exhibit, I fancy, a 
parallel sentiment in the mind of the writer, and gain additional 
interest as throwing a sidelight on the social amenities which tem- 
pered, it would seem, a dolorous period of Scottish history. They 
emanate from the pen of Miss Jean Erskine, daughter of Charles 
Erskine, Lord Alva, Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, afterwards 
wife of William Kirkpatrick of Allisland, one of the Clerks of 
Session, son of Thomas Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, and at one time 
member for the Dumfries Burghs. 
b) 
“ She was,” wrote her grandson, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 
‘‘a woman of infinite jest, yet possessed of a most sweet and 
amiable temper ; she died young and heart-broken by the untimely 
death of a darling son and other domestic misfortunes.” 
Her portrait by Ramsay, painted at his best period (after his 
return from Rome), represents a fair woman with somewhat 
irregular features, yet of a very sweet and arch expression, which, 
added to her clear skin, and plentiful fair hair, gives her a 
very engaging look. Her husband, limned by the same pencil, 
appears a fine dignified looking man, calculated, as we know him 
from other sources to have been, to attract admiration and com- 
mand respect. 
The first letter is dated from Moffat, then a fashionable spa, 
and bears date the autumn of 1746, six months after Culloden, and 
is addressed to Miss Alicia Johnstone of [ilton—who afterwards 
married Mr Baird, and became mother of Sir David Baird, the 
captor of Seringapatam. 
SWEETEST OF ALSIES,—We had the pleasure of yours after 
long Expectation, I can only repeat your own words write on my 
dear Johnston without leasing. We got your letter at four 
o’clock, and was obliged to deny ourselves the pleasure of reading 
it till ten o’clock at night, but when we did read it, we was (dr. 
