with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

80
''At that time the opportunities of meeting betwixt
the sexes zvere more rare, consequently more sought
after than now; and the Scottish ladies y far Jrom
priding themselves on extensive literature, were
thought sufficiently book-learned if they could make
out the Scriptures in their mother tongue. Writing
was entirely out of the line of female education:
At that period the most of our young men offamily
sought a fortune, or found a grave, in France.
Cromlus, when he went abroad to the war, was
obliged to leave the management of his correspond-
ence zoith his mistress to a lay brother of the monas-
try of Dumblain, in the immediate neighbourhood
of Cromleck, and near Ardoch. This man, unfor-
tunately, was deeply sensible of Helenas charms^
He artfully prepossessed her zmth stories to the dis-
Perth to Stirling, 1617, sent a servant to tell the Lady Ardoch,
then a widow, to have all her children dressed, for he was coming
to see her and them. They were all drawn up on the green.
On the King's seeing them, he said, ' Madam, tell me how many
are of them.' * I only want your Majesty's help to make out
the two Chalders.' (i. e. SI were they.) The King afterwards
ate a coUop sitting on a stone in the close. I have been told
that the Tutor of Ardoch, who was alive in 1715, could, when
more than a hundred, drink a bottle of ale at a draught. Much
did Lord Tinwald, then a lad, take pleasure in the Tutor^s con-
verse, who knew much of the history of private life,"