118
The shooting, as he describes it, was by no means
the most efficient kind of practice for the contingency
of a French invasion:—
"By this time, now, wi' mony a dunder,
Auld guns were brattling aff like thunder;
Three parts o' whilk, in ilka hunder,
Did sae recoil,
That collar-banes gat mony a lunder
In this turmoil.
"Wide o' the mark, as if to scar us,
The bullets ripp'd the swaird like harrows;
And fright'ning a' the craws and sparrows
About the place,
Ramrods were fleeing thick as arrows
At Chevy Chace."
After the first publication of the Siller Gun, Mr.
Mayne continued to write poetry, but with that
careful fastidiousness, in which quality rather than
quantity was the chief object of solicitude. These
productions generally appeared in Ruddiman's Maga-
zine, a weekly miscellany, and it was there that his
Halloween, which was to be honoured by such an
illustrious successor, first saw the light. He also
exchanged verses in print with his fellow-townsman,
Telford, afterwards so distinguished among our
Scottish engineers. Among Mayne's few and short
poetical productions of this period, may be men-
tioned his beautiful song of Logan Water, which first
appeared about the year 1783. The tune of Logan
Water, one of our most simple and touching old na-
tional melodies, for which the verses were composed,
and especially the intrinsic merits of the verses them-
selves, made the song such a universal favourite, that
after taking complete hold of Scotland, it was pub-
lished with the music in England, and established as
one of the choice performances of Vauxhall. Burns,
also, who mistook it for one of our old Scottish
songs, as it was published anonymously, produced
an imitation, under the same title, which scarcely
equals the original. In simplicity, in tenderness,
and classic elegance, we would match the Logan
Water of Mayne even with the Fountain of Bandusia
of Horace.
The other chief poetical production of Mr. Mayne,
next to the Siller Gun in point of extent, was Glas-
gow, a descriptive poem, which was published with
illustrative notes in 1803. It is a work of consider-
able merit, and all the more worthy of attention that
it describes a state of men and things that has utterly
passed away. Who would recognize in the Glasgow
of that day the gorgeous Tyre of the west, whose
merchants are princes, and whose population is
numbered by myriads? In the same year that his
Glasgow appeared he also published English, Scots,
and Irishmen, a patriotic address to the inhabitants
of the three kingdoms.
Although John Mayne loved his country with all
the patriotic ardour of a Scotchman, and celebrated
its people and its scenery as few Scotchmen could
do, yet, like many of his countrymen, he was doomed,
during the greater part of his life, to contemplate it
at a distance, and to speak of it to strangers. As a
printer his occupation was chiefly with the Messrs.
Foulis, of the university press, Glasgow, under
whom he entered into an engagement that continued
from 1782 to 1787. He visited London, probably
for the first time, in 1785; and having been attracted
by the facilities that presented themselves there of
permanent and profitable occupation, he moved
thither in 1787, when his engagement in Glasgow
had expired, and, during the rest of his long life,
never happened to revisit the land of his nativity.
It is well that Scottish patriotism, instead of being
impaired, is so often enhanced by the enchantment
of distance. In London he was singularly fortunate;
for after the usual amount of enterprise and perse-
verance in literature, to which all his hopes and
energies were devoted, he became printer, editor, and
joint-proprietor of the Star evening paper. Under
his excellent management the journal was a thriving
one; and from year to year he continued to indulge
his poetical likings not only in its columns, but also
in the Gentlemen's Magazine, to which he occasionally
contributed from 1807 to 1817. After a long life of
usefulness and comfort, which extended to seventy-
eight years, he died in his residence, No. 2 Lysson
Grove, South, on the 14th of March, 1836, and was
buried in his family vault, Paddington Church-yard.
As a poet, John Mayne must be allowed a much
higher standing than is usually given to the Scottish
bards of the present century; and in comparing him,
it must be with Ramsay, Fergusson, and Hogg, to
whom he approached the nearest, rather than with
inferior standards. The moral character of his
writings, also, cannot be too highly commended.
"He never wrote a line," says a popular author,
"the tendency of which was not to afford innocent
amusement, or to improve and increase the happi-
ness of mankind." Of his private character Allan
Cunningham also testifies that "a better or warmer-
hearted man never existed."
MELVILLE, ANDREW, one of the most illus-
trious of the Scottish reformers, whose name stands
next to that of Knox in the history of the Reforma-
tion, and is second to none in the erudition of the
time, was born on the 1st of August, 1545, at Bal-
dovy or Baldowy, an estate on the banks of the
South Esk, near Montrose, of which his father was
proprietor. The form in which the family name
was generally known at that time in Scotland and in
foreign countries was Melvyne or Melvin. Through-
out the interesting correspondence, written in Latin,
between the subject of this memoir and his amiable
and accomplished nephew, whose life is recorded in
the next article, the name is uniformly written Mel-
vinus. In Fifeshire, at the present day, the name
is commonly pronounced Melvin, and at an earlier
period it was frequently both pronounced and written
Melin, Mellin, and Melling. The Melvilles of Bal-
dowy were a family of some note in the middle of
the sixteenth century, and near cadets of Melville
of Raith, who was considered to be the chief of an
influential name in the county of Fife. Melville of
Dysart, however, was acknowledged by Andrew
Melville to have been the chief of the Baldowy
branch of the family. Andrew was the youngest
of nine sons, and had the misfortune to lose his
father, who fell in the battle of Pinkie, while he
was yet only two years of age. The death of his
mother, also, soon afterwards took place, and he
was thus left an orphan. The loss of his parents,
however, was in a great measure compensated by
the kindness and tenderness of his eldest brother and
the wife of that individual, both of whom watched
over his infant years with the most anxious affection
and assiduity. The long-tried and unwearied kind-
ness of the latter, in particular, made a strong im-
pression upon Melville, which lasted during the
whole of his life.
His brother, perceiving his early propensity to
learning, resolved to encourage it, and with this view
gave him the best education which the country af-
forded. He was besides of a weakly habit of body,
a consideration which had its weight in determining
the line of life he should pursue. Young Melville
was accordingly put to the grammar-school of Mon-
trose, where he acquired the elements of the Latin
language, and, among other accomplishments, a