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objections with serious Scriptural and historical arguments. need not follow these. But, before concluding, he condescends to what generally proves the most telling appeal in all such matters, -the business argument. The prohibition, he points out, is bad for the staple trade of Aberdeen. This argument he clinches with an appeal to those who prefer the good wine of the Continent to the local barley-bree, since wine came chiefly in exchange for fish. This, of course, is flippancy again; but the point is worth referring to for a line that should delight the antiquary:

Quis bibat ingratos, quos praebet Scotia, fumos ?

Here, as Sir William Geddes suggests in a footnote to the text, is a suggestion that 'peat-reek' is of so old a date for whisky.

But that by the way. Throughout the poem we have constantly recurrent proof that Johnston, while willing and able to argue with Presbytery, viewed the whole agitation with a goodhumoured contempt he hardly cared to disguise.

These two poems, To Robert Baron and A Fisher's Apology, have an interest that is both personal and antiquarian. The Epistle to David Wedderburn, on the other hand, is almost purely personal; and it is probably the poem that, of all his works, has most charm. David Wedderburn, Rector of the Grammar School of Aberdeen, had been the poet's bosom friend in boyhood. The poem appeared first in Johnston's Parerga (1632), and, if it was written not long before that, the author would be a little over fifty at the time. In those days that was nearer the foot of the hill than it is now, and Johnston at the outset dwells on the changes time has wrought upon him in body and mind. Then follows, in the manner of the times, an array, which one would now call pedantic, of classical parallel instances of pupils who had grown greater than their tutors. In their own case, says Johnston, it did not weaken friendship. The next passage forms a delightful companion idyl to We twa hae run about the braes, and is enriched by memories of youthful enthusiasm, youthful pedantry, and youthful ambition.

But the idyllic days ran their course. The youthful dreamers were rudely awakened by the voice of worldly wisdom. They had quaffed the finest cup that life has to offer, that of highhearted visionary youth; they had drained it. 'Seas between us braid ha ́e roared since Auld Lang Syne.' Thus Burns, and thus Arthur Johnston before him.

The poet then proceeds to recite those details of his life abroad which have helped his biographers to fill out their meagre sketches.

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Finally, he reverts to the theme of the prelude, old age. By this time he seems to have written himself into a better humour; and, though still sighing over the thefts of Time, he seeks consolation in reflecting that Youth has not everything to boast of. Old age has its compensations. These he notes in a series of epigrams that are in his best light vein.

Such are a few of the poems in which Arthur Johnston reveals his personality. There is no need,' says Samuel Johnson, 'to criticise a book that nobody reads '; and, if there were any truth in the remark, it might be extended to men long since dead and forgotten. But it is occasionally the duty of criticism to dust old books and reveal their hidden worth: and it is equally incumbent upon us to revive the memories of men whose quiet virtues make no noise in the great babel of fame. Great warriors, master statesmen, angry dogmatists, and sowers of sedition print themselves with emphasis upon the pages of history, but the best life of a nation often flows in kindly and unobtrusive men. These make the finest humanity of the past, and it is bad history to ignore them. If only the men of Johnston's stamp were better known, the times in which they lived might not wear so gloomy and savage an aspect as they sometimes do. No period of Scottish history stands in greater need of such relief than those days of the conflict of Crown and Presbytery; and it is as a contribution to the pleasanter tones of the picture that these few hints of Arthur Johnston's genial and humane personality are offered.

T. D. ROBB.

The Castle Campbell Inventory :

AN INVENTORY OF ARCHIBALD, 7TH EARL OF ARGYLL'S CASTLE OF CAMPBELL (formerly called Castle Gloume), in the Shire of Clackmanan, taken on 21 February, 1595. Transcribed from the original, preserved in the Argyll Charter Chest.

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HE following inventory is one of a class of documents of considerable interest. It is here printed in full.

The writer of this article visited the fine old ruin a few years ago. It still stands in a spot of enormous natural strength above the town of Doller, and he has seldom seen even in foreign climes a more splendid situation. He was pleased to see that the present owner of the Castle had roofed and restored one or two rooms of the Keep, where the caretaker told him an artist or two occasionally came to live in the summer months. The vast extent of the Castle, which was constantly in use till it was besieged and burnt during the Montrose wars, is most impressive. Much of its strength is due to the fact that it is perched on a tongue of land, with precipitous sides sloping down to the two gorges, each carved out by a foaming burn, which unite immediately below it.

Enormous numbers of documents are dated at this Castle by the successive Earls of Argyll for many generations. They used it when they came to the Lowlands as their chief strength, which is such that, except by starvation or treachery, it must have been well nigh impregnable.

One of the chief attractions is the woods of natural growth, which cling to the steep sides of the gorge below. Behind it rise steeply the grasscovered slopes of the Ochils, so that on this side there is no view. In the Middle Ages these slopes were probably covered with copse woods, which supplied the Castle with fuel. The Earl's vassals dwelling in Doller and the plains below had most curious services in kind to pay, such as carrying wine, etc., from the 'Pow of Alloway,' and, as usual, serving him under his banner when he happened to be at the king's wars. At Flodden great numbers of these vassals followed the banner of Archibald, 2nd Earl of Argyll, to that fatal battle, where he himself with many of his kindred fell. During their residence at this Castle, the Argylls became benefactors to the neighbouring Abbey of Culross, with whose Abbots they frequently entered into transactions, and a few years ago, during the restoration of the Abbey Church (now used by the Established Church), the presence of certain tombs of Campbells of Argyll is naturally thus explained by the architect, Sir Rowand Anderson.

The lands of Campbell, alias Doller and Gloume, must not be confused with the neighbouring lands of Tillicoultrie, or the lands forming the Barony of Menstrie which for many generations had been held by the Campbell chiefs.

So far as the writer can as yet discover from the writs in the Argyll Charter Chest, Doller or Glum was part of the appanage of the three Stewart heiresses, Margaret, Isobel and Marioun, daughters of Iain Stewart, Lord of Lorne, who respectively married Colin Campbell, 1st of Glenurquhy; Colin 1st Earl of Argyll, great nephew to Glenurquhy; and Archibald alias Celestine alias Gillespick Campbell 1st of Otter, who was Glenurquhy's youngest brother.

On 2 April, 1465, sasine of the 10 lands of Doller and Gloum was granted in three separate thirds, viz. a third to Duncan Campbell, son and heir of the said Sir Colin Campbell of Glenurquhy; a third to Isobel Countess of Argyll; a third to her sister, Marioun Stewart. (Argyll Charters.)

Consolidation set in as on 4 Feb., 1481, Glenurchye resigned his third in favour of Colin 1st Earl of Argyll, whose son Archibald 2nd Earl, had sasine there on 24 May, 1493.

On 3 February, 1489-90, the Earl had obtained an Act of Parliament changing the name of his stronghold of Castle Gloom to Castle Campbell, which he appears to have thought a more pleasing designation. (Acts Parl. Scot. ii. 222.)

On 31 Jan., 1493-4, Sir Duncan Campbell 2nd of Glenurquhay, and Lady Isobel Stewart, Countess of Argyll, resigned their thirds of Campbell, alias Doller or Glume, into the hands of George, Bishop of Dunkeld, in favour of the said Archibald 2nd Earl of Argyll, done in the Chapter House of Dunkeld Cathedral.

The Bishops of Dunkeld were all this time the Superiors of the lands which continued to be for centuries called in all writs the ecclesiastical Lands of Doller or Glume.'

On 31 January, 1493-4, the Bishop gave the Earl a feu charter of the said lands, with a remainder to a number of the Earls heirs male in entail. To be held of the Bishops of Dunkeld for ever, and the Reddendo was 16 marks, and for failure to pay there was a penalty of half a merk per day for the repair of Dunkeld Cathedral. For which payment the Earl and Glenurquhay respectively pledged their lands of Menstre in Clackmannan, and Glenurquhay in the Barony of Lochow. There is also a curious stipulation by this Bishop that if heirs male should exclude nearer heirs female, that the latter should be recompensed either in lands or other goods, or that they should 'tocher' them on their marriage according to the modification (viz. calculation) of the Bishop. (Argyll Charters.)

Succeeding Bishops of Dunkeld in turn duly infefted all the succeeding Earls, till Disestablishment of the old order took place, and from the 10th Earl onwards the lands held direct of the Crown. It was not till about 1830 that these ancient possessions were sold by the spendthrift George 6th Duke of Argyll.

INVENTORY.

The Inventar of ye Inspreich and geir fand and sichtit In ye place of Campbell ye xxi day of Februar jm ve fourscoir feftein (1595) be gawin zeirs allexander in blairhill, Mr James Kirk notaries, William Menteth of powmawth miln, Jon patoun of hilfutt, William Cunninghame in ye. . . Jon patoun in middiltoun. Alexander Kirk in blairhill, William Nutoune in maines of dowlor, Jon Smyth in dowlor, Duncan drysdaill, Thomas Allexander. Imprimis sicktit in ye wardrup above ye hall fourtein feddir bedds and sextein feder boustares

Item ane coffer ther contenand ten hieland cadders (?)

Item sewin wowin scotts coverings auld and new.

Item aucht auld coverings of arras work.

Item ane grit scotts kist unlokit yrin sex pair of auld walkit blancatts and sex pair of new walkit blancatts.

Item yrin nyne pair of quhyt hieland plaidds.

Item ane coffer not lokit wae and keyis yrin.

Fywe pair auld linnen scheitts and tua pair auld scheitts of tuill. Item mair ane pair of holland lynnen scheitts. Item yrin thre bordclayts of lynnen qr of ane is auld.

Item yrin tua dairk bordclayts. Item fyve damas scheitts haill. Item ane handen buirdclayt.

Item ane coffer with ane lok wtout ane key.

Item ane bed of rasor work contenand thrie peice of courtenes, thrie paires with ruif and heid.

Item ane lynnein bed bandit with rasor work.

Item thrie peice of lynnein courteines bandit with rasor work. Item tua pares of arras work.

Item thrie peice of courteines of blew_m°caij (?)

Item thrie pares of grein damas. Item thrie piece of courteines of champit sey. Item thrie lang paire of lycht grein damas. Item tua peice of courteines of grein sey. Item ane lang paire of reid fleming broudent with blak and yellow.1 Item tua peice of courteines of worsett reid and quhyt chexit. Item ane lang paire of reid cryp. Item R . . reid grewgrane (?) cuirteinis and ane auld ruiff yrte.

Item ane lang paire of figuirt crip reid and quhytt.

Item tua peice of courteines chanxit reid and quhytt.

Item tua paire of blak taffatie funzeit (?) with blak silk. Item ane grein pladin cannabie

Item ane auld reid worsett cannabie. Item ane auld broun cannabie of plading. Item ane grein say cannabie till ane redill. Item tua auld ruiffes of bedds of reid worsett. Item ane fyne cramoisie velvett mess clayth brouderit wit gold.2 Item thrie auld grein counter claythes for chalmeris.

1 These were therefore of the family colours.

2A Mass vestment apparently, as the Castle certainly had formerly a Chapel attached to it, but as no mention is made of it, probably it had been profaned before this date.