AYRSHIRE : ITS HISTORY AND HISTORIC FAMILIES.
Ayrshire: its History and Historic Families. By William Robertson. 2 vole. (Dunlop and Drennan, Kilmarnock. 10s.)— Mr. Robertson gives the first volume to the county, the second to its great families. Both parts of the history seem to have been put together with care, and contain much interesting reading. Mr. Robertson does his best to picture the life of the people, but, as he says, "the chroniclers were so busy telling their tales of battle and bloodshed that they had little time or. inclination" for anything else. Still, we do get something from. them, and more perhaps from the archaeologist and his spade. This source our author does not neglect. The external history' he relates in sufficient detail. Part of it is, of course, common to Lowland Scotland; but Ayrshire has chronicles of its own. There is the "Ayrshire Vendetta," for instance, the great feud between the Cunningliames and the Montgomeries. In the. Reformation the county, as a whole, stood for the party of change ; it was hostile to prelacy in the Reformation days; it showed no liking for the Stuarts when that family made their bids for power in "the Fifteen" and "the Forty-five." It had. much to do with the Secession of the eighteenth century. In 1640 the United Secession—the word "United" implies the Burgher and anti-Burgher strife—had a heretic of their own to deal with, James Morison, founder of the Evangelical Union, Church. Vol. II. makes a fine show with its histories of noble. houses. Two have been mentioned already in connexion with the "Vendetta." Besides these we have the Kennedys, the Boyles. of Kelburne (Earl of Glasgow), the Boyds of Kilmarnock, the Dalrymplos of Stair, and the Cochranes of Dundonald, to pick out a few names. One or two misprints might bo corrected ; on p. 11,„ line 22, " Deca,ma.n" should be " Demean."
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