not aware how his moral nature could have been improved. A truer friend, a more upright judge, or a more affectionate man, could not be."
The family of Lord Moncreiff consists of five sons and three daughters. Of these, the eldest son, Sir Henry Wellwood Moncreiff, is minister of the Free West church of St. Cuthberts, Edinburgh; the second, who followed his father's profession, is now her majesty's Lord Advocate for Scotland.
MONTGOMERY, James, was the last of the brilliant galaxy of poets (excepting Samuel Rogers) which illuminated the hemisphere of British literature in the early part of the present century. He was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, November 4, 1771. His father was a Moravian minister stationed at that time in Irvine. The house where the poet was born still exists, and is an object of interest to strangers visiting the town. It was originally a detached building, situated in the centre of an open space, and consisted of a pretty large room, which was used as a chapel by the Moravian congregation, and a separate apartment in which the family lived, and where the poet was born. The house is now surrounded by other buildings, and what was once the chapel is occupied as a weaver's shop. The poet's father must have been in straitened circumstances, as he found it necessary to devote part of his time to a. manual occupation; and a townsman and friend of the poet's, who has furnished the writer with several other particulars of his early history, remembers being informed by an old friend, thirty years ago, that he recollected attending the chapel one evening in his youth, when the poet's father closed the service by addressing the congregation in substance as follows:— "I am a man of simple tastes and habits, but I cannot live upon air; and therefore, individuals present will have an opportunity, when they retire, of leaving behind them what they think proper towards ray support." The Moravian cause seems not to have found a genial soil in Irvine, as, on the removal of the poet's father to Ireland, in 1775, no preacher appears to have succeeded him. The town of Ayr now possesses the only Moravian congregation in Scotland. From the period when his father was ordered by the Moravian body to do duty at their establishment of Gracehill, near Ballymena, in Ireland, and whither he accordingly removed his family, till the year 1841, being a period of sixty-six years, James Montgomery had not once visited Scotland. He was between four and five years of age when he left Irvine, but his recollections of his early years were extremely vivid, and on the occasion of his visit to his native town, he related some of them with great delight to a meeting of the inhabitants assembled to do him honour. One of these anecdotes was connected with his removal from Ireland to the Moravian school at Fulneck, near Leeds, in Yorkshire. He had received the elements of his education from "Jemmy M'Caffery," the village schoolmaster at Gracehill, and being now between six and seven years of age, it was determined to send him to school in England. Taking a child's farewell of his mother, he and his father embarked in a vessel bound for Liverpool, and were overtaken by a violent storm. The poet remembered how his childish terror was soothed by the affection of his father, and his confidence restored by his expressions of trust in the providence of God and the love of his Redeemer. The effect produced upon the boy attracted the attention of the master of the vessel, who, himself evincing considerable solicitude in the trying circumstances, observed—"I would give a hundred guineas for the faith of that child." Mr. Montgomery took great pleasure in looking back upon the incidents of the voyage, as having called forth memorable evidence of the simple faith and piety
