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no fewer than seven or eight such parties have been reckoned in a day. A gentleman, who resides in the neighbourhood, one day observed an old webster lounging on the bridge, whom he believed he had seen at least twice before during that summer at the same place. He had the curiosity to inquire if he was correct, when he found that the case was as he had supposed. The weaver, being asked how he should think of coming three times over a distance of fourteen miles to visit Burns's Monument, startled the inquirer with the laconic declaration, "Man, it pays weel." It turned out that the honest man always came accompanied by a squad of sons and daughters, who were all of them employed in some departments of his business. As an inducement to industry and application, he held up before them a visit to "the Monument," which was to be at their command when they had wrought a certain quantity of work in a given time. And the old man said that "he never saw the lads and lasses, puir things, work wi' sic downright gude will, as when they had that ploy to look forward to." In all these circumstances, homely as they are in one point of view, who can fail to discern just another symptom of the influence which it is the right and privilege of genius to exercise over the human heart.

AYR-MARKET-CROSS.

THIS scene has been selected for representation as that of the opening of "Tam o' Shanter"

"When chapman billies leave the street,

And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearin' late,

And folk begin to tak the gate," &c.

There is not now any
The opening of the

It is a portion of the High Street of Ayr, of more than usual width, where much marketing of various kinds is carried on, particularly the traffic in fish. part of the burgh which bears a more antique or picturesque air. narrow street leading to the old bridge is seen in the centre of the picture. A little to the right, is a tall narrow building, originally the mansion of Chalmers of Gadgirth, chief of the name, and latterly of Mr John Mair, schoolmaster of Ayr, distinguished as author of various school books which have long been held in esteem. The foreground of the picture is the opening of an alley called the Isle Lane, on the corner of which the artist has, without injury to the general truth of the picture, presented an object which gives both spirit and character to the scene, though in reality placed a little farther up the street a statue of Sir William Wallace, erected in the year 1810 by a citizen of Ayr, as commemorative of the connection of that illustrious person with the town. Tradition represents the house on which the statue is in reality placed, as occupying the site of one which, in the days of Scotia's ill-requited chief, was the court-house. It is said

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that, when Wallace was taken in Ayr, after killing Lord Percy's steward, he was here imprisoned in a dungeon, where low diet and a severe malady soon reduced him to such a condition, that, when the gaoler went down to bring him up for judgment, he was supposed to be dead. According to Blind Harry's narrative

"They gart servands withouten langer feid,
With short advice, on to the wall him bare,
They cast him ower out of that baleful stead,
Of him they trowit should be nae mair remeid,
In a draff middin, where he remainit there-

His first nourice of the Newton of Ayr

Till him she come, whilk was full well of reid,

And thiggit leave away with him to fare.

Into great ire they granted her to go.
She took him up withouten wordis mo,
And on a car unlikely they him cast
Attour the water led him with great wo
Till her awn house,"

where he was revived by the milk of her daughter, and thus enabled to proceed in that remarkable course by which he "rescewit Scotland thryss."

We are informed in Livingstone's Memoirs, that at the end of the sixteenth century, when the celebrated Welsh, the son-in-law of Knox, went to officiate as minister in Ayr, these streets were frequently the scene of bloody tumults, similar to those which disgraced the streets of Edinburgh about the same time. All had their quarrels to avenge, and carried weapons wherewith to avenge them, so that a casual rencontre of hostile parties on the street was sure to lead to a conflict, in which other parties were apt to join, taking sides according to their inclinations. When Welsh heard any When Welsh heard any such broil commence, he used to put on a head-piece, and rush down into the thickest of the fight, and exert his utmost eloquence to restore peace. When he succeeded in quelling the tumult, he would call for a table, cause it to be spread on the street, and there invite the combatants to eat and drink together, and promise amity for the future. He then sung a psalm, and pronounced an exhortation, after which he allowed the crowd to disperse. By these exertions, joined to his ordinary ministrations in the pulpit, this singularly devout man is said to have effected a great improvement in the moral aspect of the town of Ayr in a very few

years.

ALLOWAY KIR K.

SEVERAL centuries ago, Alloway was a separate barony and parish, had a moat* for the dispensation of justice, and a church for the services of religion: connected with the latter, there were also a manse and glebe, though the stipend of the minister was no more

A pyramidal mount, with a level space on the summit, whereon the barons of old sat in the exercise of judgment. There are numerous specimens of these remains of antiquity in Galloway and Ayrshire.

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