BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 401
and having taken lodgings at Rosslyn, for change of air, she died there in 1792.
A stone in the churchyard, where her remains were interred, records her name
and the date of her death.
No. CCCVII.
A POLITICAL SET-TO;
‘( FREEDOM OF ELECTION ” ILLUSTRATED.
KINGHORNth, e scene of the affray represented in the Print, is the ferry-town
opposite Edinburgh, on the north side of the Forth. Though small it is a
royal burgh, and can boast an antiquity nearly as remote as any in the extensive
peninsula ycleped the Kingdom of Fife-
“ The most unhallowed mid the Scotian plains !”-
at least so wrote poor Fergusson, some sixty or seventy years ago ; although
few, we daresay, who visit the ‘( Fifan coast ” in our own day will acquiesce in
the inhospitable character ascribed to it by the poet. Along with Dysart,
Kirkaldy, and Burntisland, Kinghorn continues to send .a representative to
Parliament; and, if common fame report truly, in no other Scottish burgh
could a more curious or entertaining chronicle of electioneering manceuvres be
gleaned. From the union of the kingdoms down to the passing of the Reform
Bill, a series of political contentions agitated the otherwise peaceful community:;
and, amid the alternate scenes of strife and jollity which prevailed, there were
no lack of spirits-daring enough ; nor yet of joyous fellows-fond of merriment
and good cheer-who
“ Wisely thought it better far,
To fall in banquet than in war.” I ,
The annual return of councillors-always an interesting evenkserved to
keep alive the political excitement, and to whet the appetite for the more
engrossing occasion of a Parliamentary election. Some idea may be formed of
the consequence attached to the office of Chief Magistrate of the burgh, when
it is known that the civic chair has been frequently filled by an Earl of Rothes,
or an Earl of Leven, and that the Right Hon. Charles Hope, Lord President of
the Court of Session, was at one period the Provost of Kinghorn for nearly
twenty years. Not the least attractive circumstance attendant on the yearly
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