ate of Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton. At the age of sixteen he
entered the writing chambers of a legal gentleman in Glasgow, but the
confinement of the office proving uncongenial, he took a hasty
departure, throwing himself on the protection of some relatives at
Roslin, near Edinburgh. His father's family soon after removed to
Roslin, and through the kindly interest of Mr Thomas Thomson,
Deputy-Clerk Register, he procured a clerkship in the General Register
House, Edinburgh. For some months he acted as amanuensis to Professor
Dugald Stewart, in transcribing his last work for the press.
Having entered into the married state, and finding the salary of his
office in the Register House unequal to the comfortable maintenance of
his family, he resolved to emigrate to the United States, in the hope of
bettering his circumstances. Arriving at New York in July 1822, he made
purchase of a farm in that State, and there resided the three following
years. He next made a trial of the Social System of Robert Owen, at New
Harmony, but abandoned the project at the close of a year. In 1827 he
entered into partnership with Messrs Price & Wood, brewers, in
Cincinnati, and set up a branch of the establishment at Louisville.
Removing to New Albany, Indiana, he there built a large brewery for a
joint-stock company, and in 1832 erected in that place similar premises
on his own account. The former was ruined by the great Ohio flood of
1832, and the latter perished by fire in 1834. He has since followed the
occupation of superintending the erection of mills and factories; and
has latterly fixed his abode in Jersey, a suburb of New York.
Early imbued with the love of song, Mr Ainslie composed verses when a
youth on the mountains of Carrick. A visit to his native country in 1820
revived the ardour of his muse; and shortly before his departure to
America, he published the whole of his rhyming effusions in a duodecimo
volume, with the title, "Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns." A second
volume from his pen, entitled, "Scottish Songs, Ballads, and Poems," was
in 1855 published at New York.
THE HAMEWARD SANG.
Each whirl of the wheel,
Each step brings me nearer
The hame of my youth--
Every object grows dearer.
Thae hills and thae huts,
And thae trees on that green,
Losh! they glower in my face
Like some kindly auld frien'.
E'en the brutes they look social,
As gif they would crack;
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