OLD AYRSHIRE DAYS.
Old Ayrshire Days. By William Rcibertson. (Stephen and Pollock, Ayr. 5s.)—Ayrshire, and particularly its capital, the "wicked toon " of Ayr, are associated with some of the leading incidents and the most strenuous movements in the history of Scotland. Ayrshire is identified with the War of Independence, with the early ardours of the Reformation, with the agonies of Covenanterism ; it is the land not only of Burns, but of Boswell, Galt, and George Douglas Brown. That a native like Mr. Robertson, with literary instincts and habits, and obviously with as much pride in Ayrshire as Mr. Hardy has in Wessex, should make it the subject of a volume of essays combining graphic description, historical narrative, and personal reminis- cence is very natural. On the whole, he has accomplished his task well. He has a tendency to be long-winded and vaguely rhetorical ; certain of his chapters, such as those in which he meditates among the tombs of Ayr, and tells of the beginning of the Volunteer movement in his county, have an almost exclusively local interest. But others on the dawn of the Reformation, the rise of sects, the associations of Ayr with Burns, "The De'il and his Bairns in Ayrshire," are of great interest beyond the county, and should be carefully read by students of Scottish sociology. Then it contains many "good stories," especially of lawyers long dead, but whose humours survive them, of the kind that have always proved acceptable on
the northern side of the Border. In short, this volume is one that has been written with great enthusiasm, and will be read in a kindred spirit, as, indeed, it deserves to be.
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