[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

'(
'/
CAERICK FOR A MAN.
of English cattle. Are we to suppose that the " four Inglis ky" at
Bargany were a portion of them The conjecture is by no means
improbable. Lady Bargany was a favourite at court before her marriage—and
possibly enough she may have advanced cash to his ma-
1 jesty on his accession to the English throne.
Respecting the author of the verses, we copy the following account
of his death from one of the Ayr newspapers.
\
He died suddenly a few
years ago.
/ DEATH or MR CRAWFORD.
Here, at No. 29 High Street, on the evening of the 6th curt., very
I
suddenly, Mr Archibald Crawford, auctioneer, in the 58th year of his
age. In him Ayrshire has been deprived of one of the few story and
\
lyric writers of which she could boast. Possessed of a caustic, yet
withal pleasant vein of humour, his tales bear the impress of a mind
rich in fancy, and happy in expression. From a memoir of his life,
I
published some time ago,* it appears that no author could be less in-
debted
\
to education for the development of his genius, than Crawfoi'd.
His school-boy days passed over without his acquiring more
than the mere rudiments of English reading. At the age of thirteen
he proceeded to London, where he passed eight years of his life in the
baking establishment of a relative. During that period he sedulously
devoted every spare moment to reading. He then returned to his
native town, but soon afterwards removed to Edinburgh, where he
entered the employment of Cliarles Hay, Esq. After the lapse of a
few years, he proceeded from thence to Perth, and engaged in the service
of Leith Hay, Esq. ; and it is to a daughter of that gentleman,
I
who manifested great kindness to the author during a fever, that the
< public are indebted for the well known ballad of " Bonnie Mary Hay,"
5 which he composed in gratitude to the young lady. Settling at length
in Ayr, he pubUshed, in 1819, a satirical pamphlet, entitled " St James'
in an Uproar," which created great local excitement at the time. In
1825, the " Tales of my Grandmother," which, with some few exceptions,
had previously appeared in successive numbers of the Ayt' and
Wigtonshire Courier, were pubhshed by Constable & Co., Edin-
* See " Contemporaries of Burns."
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