Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/451

 9*s.x.DBc.6,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Laws from the University of Edinburgh, and was entertained at a banquet in the Highland capital, when he was presented with his bust and portrait in oil. In the retrospect of his connexion with the Courier (for long recog- nized as the most influential weekly journal in Scotland), and of the writers he had enlisted in its service, which he gave in the speech replying to the toast of his health, Dr. Carruthers stated that when Hugh Miller sent him his letters on the Herring Fishery he at once perceived that a great prose writer had arisen, and that the land would soon be filled with his fame. Angus Bethune Reach who died in Camberwell, nearly fifty years ago, and over whose grave (a few yards from that of Douglas Jerrold in Norwood Cemetery) his literary and other friends placed a memorial stone with a befitting inscription, now almost erased by time, though it can still be read was one of the London correspondents of the Courier, as were Shirley Brooks and Dr. Charles Mackay. Certainly not the least distinguished of all the contributors to the Inverness Courier was the late Rev. Dr. Alexander Stewart, of Ballachulish, who for over forty years sent every fortnight, with- out intermission, from his remote parish, bis '' Nether- Lochaber " letters, displaying the writer's remarkable acquaintance with Highland folk-lore, and evincing a wide knowledge of natural history and archaeology, as well as a fine taste in classic and English literature, presented in an interesting and discursive manner, that admirably suited as well as instructed the leisurely readers of a weekly journal of the character of the Inverness Courier in times when the circula- tion of daily newspapers was mainly confined to the localities where they were published.

In a communication I had the other day from the Rev. Dr. Donald Masson, of Edin- burgh, an authority on Gaelic matters, the writer mentions that though he knew Dr. Carruthers but slightly, "I owe him much ; his 'redding the hair' of his corre- spondents was an education." Dr. Alexander Ramsay, of the Banffshire Journal, the doyen of Scottish editors, stated, in a letter he addressed to me some years ago, " that there was no man for whom I had a higher esteem. I considered him the model for all journalists." Dr. Carruthers was the friend of many literary men of his day in London, and was a popular lecturer at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. In facial appearance he bore some resemblance to Thackeray, and the story may be recalled how, when he one day called upon the great

novelist, the maid who responded to his knock at the door could not restrain her laughter at her master, as she fancied, in- quiring for himself.

Dr. Robert Carruthers was a courtly gentleman of the old school, in whom the best of Liberal and Conservative tendencies mingled. A vivid presentment of his tall figure, with the slight stoop of advanced age, is indelibly engraven on the tablets of my memory, though thirty years inter- vene since I was in his employ in the Highland capital ; and of his dignified, firm, yet deferential manner no one who ever served Dr. Carruthers can have other than pleasant recollections. He had a high ideal of literary excellence, and through his in- fluence and the character of the paper he so ably conducted many had a taste for literature enkindled or fostered. I was present at the last lecture, I believe, Dr. Carruthers gave in Inverness. It was delivered either in*1872 or 1873; the title, 'On the Modern Admiration of Mountain Scenery,' is, unfortunately, all I can re- member. Times have changed in the jour- nalistic world since Dr. Carruthers's day he died in 1878 but it is gratifying to be able to record that the best traditions of the Courier are ably maintained by Mr. James Barron, who has been editor for a number of years past, and whose connexion with the paper dates from the late sixties of last century, when as a draper's apprentice in Nairn he exchanged the yard -stick for the pencil of reporter in the Inverness Courier under the able tutelage in literary journalism of Robert Carruthers. JOHN GRIGOR.

105, Chouniect Road, Peckham.

ANCIENT DEMESNE OK CORNWALL FEE.

I SHOULD like, if not unduly trespassing on your space, to follow up my questions con- cerning the Earls of Cornwall (ante, p. 410) by an inquiry into the pre-Conquest status of the manor of South Tawton, Devon, whose his- tory is to a considerable extent interwoven with that of the duchy, especially as regards the forest of Dartmoor, "to whose north- eastern corner it lies contiguous.

In documents ranging from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth I find South Tawton referred to as an "honour," a "hundred," a " royal manor," and frequently as an "ancient demesne." The Rev. O. J. Reichel, however, warns me that the last description is not strictly accurate, inasmuch as " it was not retained for the use of the Crown and the royal estate, but was one of those estates