that the poet, or rather the genius of the new bridge, must be held to have used it rather unhandsomely in speaking of its poor narrow footpath of a street, Where two wheel-barrows tremble when they meet." It is accessible from the Ayr, or south side of the river, by a street of similar width, which contains to this day many houses of the fashion of the seventeenth century. At the north end, it descends rapidly to a street in the Newton, the first house in which, on the left hand, distinguishable in the print by its whiteness, is the "Simpson's" (namely Simpson's Tavern,) round which the poet wheeled the left about on his homeward way, on the night of his rencontre with the genii of the two bridges. History notes not accurately the date of the old bridge. It is said, but upon no good authority, to have been built in the reign of Alexander III., (1249–1285,) or less than a century after the town of Ayr had acquired burgal privileges. Tradition states, that before its erection, the Doocote stream, a ford about two hundred yards farther up, afforded the best passage which was to be had across the river for a long way. In the poem, it will be recollected, the new bridge insinuates that there are men of taste who would still prefer this passage to that by such an ugly Gothic hulk as its elder companion; but in truth, an erection which saved the necessity of fording such a river must have been much appreciated in its day. As Burns has spelled the name of the Doocote stream in a very mysterious manner, it may not be amiss to mention that it is so denominated from its neighbourhood to a pigeon-house which belonged to one of the monasteries of Ayr. Tradition affirms that the construction of the old bridge was materially aided by funds supplied by a lady named Isobel Lowe and her sister, whose effigies were consequently carved upon a stone in the east parapet facing to the carriage-way. The faded remains of two such figures are still to be seen, and, when we recollect the interest taken by Queen Maud in the rearing of London bridge, it does not appear improbable that two affluent gentlewomen of Ayrshire, in an early age, should have employed their fortune in a similar work. The erection of bridges was regarded, indeed, amongst our ancestors, as almost a work of piety, and it used to call forth the zeal of eminent churchmen and other persons of distinction. The rarity of such buildings was another reason for their being valued. The time is not yet far distant when the bridges in Scotland, equal in magnitude to the old bridge of Ayr, could be reckoned in a breath: in the reign of James VI. they certainly were not more than twelve in number. And down to the middle of the eighteenth century, besides the old bridge of Barskimming, there was no other edifice of the kind across the Ayr, for fifteen miles, than that which figures in the present view. At length the time came when this once esteemed structure was held to be no longer a safe or sufficient means of passage across the Ayr. It was at first proposed to repair it; but a committee of the town-council reported, that "Hugh Gemmill had, at their desire, narrowly inspected the bridge, and gave it as his opinion that the bridge might be repaired, but that it would cost much more expense than he at first thought, for the whole piers, except the one next the Newton, must be taken down to their bases, and also the three arches next the town; and, upon the whole, he thought it more advisable to let the old bridge stand and build a new one." By the intervention of William Campbell, Provost, and John Ballantine, Dean of Guild, who went to London for the purpose, an act of Parliament was obtained for building a new bridge, and placing a toll upon it for the re-payment of expenses; and the work was accordingly commenced in May, 1786, and finished in November, 1788, the town-council advancing the necessary funds. It seems to be allowed that, for any public advantages derived from this structure, the community was chiefly indebted to Mr Ballantine, who was Provost during the time of its erection. To this gentleman, a banker by profession, Burns had been introduced by Mr Robert Aiken, his earliest Ayr patron; and Mr Ballantyne proved his sense of the poet's personal and poetical merits by generously offering to advance the sum necessary for printing the second edition of his poems. It was therefore for more than one reason that Burns inscribed to him "the Twa Brigs." The new bridge was designed by Robert Adam. It has five arches. On the two central spandrils, on either side, are displayed the armorial bearings of the town. The two other spandrils, on either side, contain niches, in which are placed statues of heathen deities in lead, said to have been brought from the park of Duddingston House, in the county of Edinburgh, and to have cost the town the sum of three hundred pounds. Since the erection of this bridge, the Ayr has been, times without number, one lengthened tumbling sea; but as yet the building stands firm, and seems likely to do so for ages to come. In the meantime, the magistrates have made a sad commentary upon the manful boastings of the ancient edifice, by shutting it up as a means of passage for carriages, and condemning it to the restricted load imposed by occasional pedestrians. The Dungeon Clock, alluded to in the poem, was placed at the top of an old steeple which stood till the year 1825, in the Sandgate, the street which is seen in the print opening from the farther end of the new bridge. Its connection with an ancient Jail of the burgh, removed at an earlier period, was what conferred upon the clock this ominous appellation,— "The drowsy dungeon clock had numbered two, The Wallace tower was an anomalous piece of old masonry which stood in the eastern part of the High Street of Ayr, at the head of a lane named the Mill Vennel, which leads to the Doocote Stream. In the fanciful but not inappropriate language of a preceding writer on the land of Burns, "the bottom was pure barn-work, the middle dove-cote, and the top steeple, presenting, in toto, somewhat the appearance of a willow double grafted on a squat thorn." The lower part was in reality one of those towers or peels which formerly stood at the entrances of many Scottish towns, for defence; and the wooden steeple above, containing a clock, and surmounted by a vane, had been, as appeared from indubitable circumstances, the addition of a comparatively recent era. Tradition represented this tower as the place in * John Ballantyne, of Castlehill, Esq., died at Ayr, July 15, 1812.-Scots MAGAZINE OBITUARY. B which William Wallace was confined, as stated by Blind Harry; but it is possible that the name, derived from some other circumstance, may be the sole origin of this dubious statement. Another popular report, scarcely more deserving of credit, assigns the Wallace tower as the town mansion of the Wallaces of Craigie. Having become ruinous, an attempt was made in 1830, to repair it, which ended in the complete demolition of the ancient structure, and the erection of a new one on the same site, the top of which makes a figure in the print immediately over the end of the old bridge. The new Wallace tower is a gothic building, 113 feet high, containing at the top the clock and bells of the dungeon steeple, and ornamented in front with a statue of William Wallace, executed, in consequence of a subscription among the gentlemen of Ayr, by Mr Thom, the well-known self-taught sculptor. The poem of the Twa Brigs was one of those added in the second edition of the poet's works, published in Edinburgh. It seems to have been, like several others by the same author, suggested by a similar production of his predecessor Fergusson. KIRKOSWALD, AND TAM O'SHANTER'S GRAVE. THE parish-village of Kirkoswald, in Carrick, on the road from Portpatrick to Glasgow, becomes entitled to a place among these views, in consequence of Burns having attended school there, for some months, in the summer of 1778, and as the resting place of two of his characters-Tam O'Shanter, and Souter Johnny. It is the place alluded to in the following passage of his autobiographical letter to Dr Moore: "A circumstance which made some alteration on my mind and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c., in which I made good progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. The contraband trade was at this time. very successful, and it sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on. Scenes of smuggling, riot, and roaring dissipation were till this time new to me: but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I learned to fill my glass, and to run without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming filette, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and sent me off at a tangent from the sphere of my studies. I, however, struggled on with my sines and cosines for a few days more: but stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel, like |