pute."--CHAMBERS'S TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH.

Note 4.--COUNTESS OF EGLINTON.

Susannah Kennedy, daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy of Cullean, Bart.,
by Elizabeth Lesly, daughter of David Lord Newark, third wife of
Alexander 9th Earl of Eglinton, and mother of the 10th and 11th Earls.
She survived her husband, who died 1729, no less than fifty-seven years,
and died March 1780, in her ninety-first year. Allan Ramsay's Gentle
Shepherd, published 1726, is dedicated to her, in verse, by Hamilton of
Bangour.

The following account of this distinguished lady is taken from Boswell's
Life of Johnson by Mr. Croker:--

"Lady Margaret Dalrymple, only daughter of John, Earl of Stair, married
in 1700, to Hugh, third Earl of Loudoun. She died in 1777, aged ONE
HUNDRED. Of this venerable lady, and of the Countess of Eglintoune, whom
Johnson visited next day, he thus speaks in his JOURNEY:--'Length of
life is distributed impartially to very different modes of life, in very
different climates; and the mountains have no greater examples of age
than the Lowlands, where I was introduced to two ladies of high quality,
one of whom (Lady Loudoun) in her ninety-fourth year, presided at her
table with the full exercise of all her powers, and the other (Lady
Eglintoun) had attained her eighty-fourth year, without any diminution
of her vivacity, and little reason to accuse time of depredations on her
beauty.'"

*****

"Lady Eglintoune, though she was now in her eighty-fifth year, and had
lived in the retirement of the country for almost half a century, was
still a very agreeable woman. She was of the noble house of Kennedy, and
had all the elevation which the consciousness of such birth inspires.
Her figure was majestic, her manners high-bred, her reading extensive,
and her conversation elegant. She had been the admiration of the gay
circles of life, and the patroness of poets. Dr. Johnson was delighted
with his reception here. Her principles in church and state were
congenial with his. She knew all his merit, and had heard much of him
from her son, Earl Alexander, who loved to cultivate the acquaintance of
men of talents in every department."

*****

"In the course of our conversation this day, it came out that Lady
Eglintoune was married the year before Dr. Johnson was born; upon which
she graciously said to him, that she might have been his mother, and
that she now adopted him, and when we were going away, she embraced him,
saying,