6 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



in my book, I have discovered no further evidence of 

 Scott's having lived at Birseslees. Doubtless the strictness 

 of his literary incognito goes some way towards accounting 

 for this. None the less, in the case of a man of such 

 abounding vitality and so marked a personality, the 

 fact is a little difficult to explain. And here permit me to 

 add what is pleasing to remember — namely that, in the 

 author of " At School and at Sea," no unworthy follower 

 in Tom Cringle's steps is at present numbered with 

 ourselves. 



The Poet Campbell. 



Whilst on this topic of literary localities, there are 

 two or three more small items which I may venture 

 to recall to your memories. You may happen to remember, 

 for instance, that Minto House, in Roxburghshire, is 

 associated with the memory of the poet Campbell, and 

 the composition of one of his most celebrated poems. 

 In 1801, as a young man who had just made his name, 

 Campbell was on a visit to the first Earl of Minto. At 

 dead of night, he felt the pains of poetic parturition 

 come upon him. Regardless of alarming the house, he 

 rang the bell for tea, and then and there " completed 

 the first sketch " of Lochiel's Warniny, which contained 

 this oft quoted couplet :* 



"'Tie the snnaet of life gives me mystical lore, 

 And comiug events cast their shadows before." 



Thos. Hamilton. 



At the cottage of Chiefswood, near Melrose — which he 



rented as a summer tenant from J. G. Lockhart — about the 



year 1827, Captain Thomas Hamilton wrote the greater 



part of " The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton," — 



* Seattle's " Life of Campbell," Vol. i., pp. 394, 395. 



