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

JAMIE TAMSON.
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died ; and his brothers and sisters secured to themselves all that re-
\ mained of the family property, and poor Thomson was left to struggle
\
through the world as he best could for subsistence. While thus cir-
< cumstanced, he married Widow Lewis, whose care and affection for
I
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him in his hours of trouble served, in some measure, to render more
cheerful and comfoi-table the few remaining years of his unfortunate
life.
] From his boyish days, Thomson was an occasional wooer of the
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muses ; and, during his wanderings in Ireland, he composed several
little poems, which, along with others, he now submitted to the public
in a small 18mo volume ; and, on the 8th of August of the same year
(1817), he issued the first number of a periodical work, entitled the
<
" Ayrshire Miscellany ; or Kilmarnock Literary Expositor," which
{ continued to appear weekly till the beginning of May 1822. The
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price of each number was twopence, and the circulation, we believe,
< extended to almost every town and village in the county of Ayr, and
; to other places throughout the country. Kilmarnock at that time had
< no newspaper or magazine, and the Ayrshire Miscellany was there-
\ fore the only local medium through which the litei'ary aspirants in
\ the town and its neighbourhood could find publicity for their juvenile
aspirations.* But, besides being instrumental in fostering the
rising genius of the place, the Miscellany must have tended, in no
small degree, to cherish a taste for literary information among the
youth of Ayrshire, especially in those days when periodical literature
was less accessible to the bulk of the people than it is at the present
time. After a protracted illness, Thomson died on the 23d
July 1832.
John Kennedy, the author of " Jamie Tamson," was also a native
of Kilmarnock, and a contributor to the Miscellany. He was born in
1789, and became a weaver to trade. Naturally enthusiastic, he took
rather an active part in the political commotions of 1819, and involved
himself in considerable trouble. Latterly he qualified himself as a
teacher, and obtained the parish school of Kilsyth, where he died on
* Soon after the appearance of Thomson's Miscellany, the " Kilmarnock Mirror,
or Literary Gleaner," was started ; but though it was conducted with considerable
taste and ability, it lived only about sixteen months. Other magazines
followed, but their existence was still more ephemeral.