publication so popular might contain, she
despatched her footman to purchase a copy. It proved to be a
collection of songs and ballads, many of which were ill suited for the
hands of youth." But she also composed a large number of original
songs of great excellence, two of which are of exquisite beauty and
tenderness--"The Land o' the Leal" and "The Auld House." In early life
Miss C. Oliphant had an intimate friend and companion in Miss Erskine,
daughter of the Episcopal minister at Muthill. Miss Erskine was
afterwards married to Campbell Colquhoun of Killermont. Their first
child died when scarcely a year old. This led Carolina Oliphant to
write "The Land o' the Leal," which she sent with a letter of
condolence to Mrs Colquhoun in her sad bereavement. But the strictest
secrecy was enjoined as to the writer of it, and for many years
thereafter only a very few knew that this beautiful and touching song
was written by Carolina Oliphant. At one time it was supposed to have
been written by Burns on his death-bed, and the first line then
was--"I'm wearin' awa', Jean"; but it never appeared in any collection
of his poems. The songs of Lady Nairne have now become so well known
and so highly appreciated, that it is scarcely necessary to refer to
them at fuller detail here. She was married to Major Nairne in 1806 in
an upper room of Gask House. As Major Nairne then held an official
appointment in Edinburgh, they took up their abode in that city, in a
cottage built for them by the old Chief of Strowan, called Carolina
Cottage. She there employed her pen in composing songs for the
_Scotish Minstrel_, while she enjoyed the intellectual society into
which she had been introduced, and in which she was so well fitted to
shine. One of her songs, "The Attainted Scottish Nobles," had a great
influence in restoring them to their former titles. When George IV.
visited Edinburgh in 1822, Major Nairne and other attainted Scottish
Peers were introduced to the King at Holyrood. And when it came to the
knowledge of the King that Mrs Nairne had written that song it made him
favourable to the introduction of a measure which passed through both
Houses of Parliament, and received the Royal sanction in June, 1824,
for the reversal of the attainders. Major Nairne was then restored to
his rank in the Peerage as Lord Nairne, and Mrs Nairne became Baroness
Nairne, by which she has ever since been known.

Lord Nairne died in 1830, and was