LORD ROSEHILL.
(Vol. ix., p. 422.)
Something more than a partiality for the novelist takes me now and then to the scene of the antiquary—Aberbrothock, or Arbroath. On one occasion, in company with a few friends, we made a day of it in a ramble along the romantic eastern coast of that burgh, and the scene of the perilous incident related of Sir Arthur Lekiss Wardour, when rescued from the incoming tide by being drawn up the face of the precipitous cliff by the doughty Mucklebacket, under the superintendence of Oldbuck and young Lovel. The fresh breeze from the German Ocean, and the excitement of the occasion, imparted a keen relish for the locality and its associations; and by the time we reached the hostelry of Mrs. Walker, at Auchmithie, a no less sharp appreciation of the piscatorial spread we had the foresight to bespeak the previous day. Ushered into Lucky Walker's best dining-room, our attention was immediately drawn to an aristocratic emblazonment of arms which occupied one entire side of the room, with a ribbon, artistically disposed over the same, upon which was inscribed Lord Rosehill, who was, we were informed, the eldest son of the Earl of Northesk (Carnegie), a great proprietor in that neighbourhood, and the special patron of our hostess and her establishment.
With respect to the particular Lord Rosehill, alluded to by your correspondent W. D. R., I beg to offer him the following brief notice from Douglas' Peerage, by Wood, Edin. 1813:
"David L. Rosehill (son of Geo. 6th E. of Northesk) was born at Edin., 5th April, 1749; had an Ensign's commission in the 26th Reg. Foot in 1765; quitted the army 1767, and went to America. He married in Maryland, in Aug. 1768, Miss Mary Cheer, and died without issue at Rouen, in Normandy, 19 Feb. 1788, æt. 39."
From a dear old lady, whom I always find a mine of Forfarshire anecdote of the last century, I obtain some corroborative proof that the said David
Lord Rosehill was the eccentric character we might infer from the above, in the assurance that he was "a ne'er do weel, and ran away with the tincklers (i. e. gypsies) in early life."
If I may farther travel out of the record, allow me here to recommend to such of your readers as meditate the northern tour this summer, to diverge a little from the beaten track, and visit the neighbourhood above alluded to; your antiquarian friends, especially, will be delighted with that fine old ruin, the Abbey of Aberbrothock, now that it is brushed up and fit to receive visitors. The worthy Mr. Peter, in charge, has some curious relics acquired at the last diggins, and possesses a fragment of a black-letter Chronicle to satisfy the incredulous that in identifying the objects exhibited, he has his warrant in Hector Boece. The man of progress, too, will find in Fairport, or Arbroath, a hive of industry; but, I regret to add, threatened with a check by this closing of the Baltic trade, which is, if I may say so, both woof and warp in the prosperity of this and other towns on the east coast of Scotland. And lastly, the lovers of ocean, rocks, and caves, will be not less interested with the environs, and I doubt not all would leave it exclaiming with Johnson, that if they had seen no more of old Scotia than Aberbrothock, they would not have regretted their journey.
J. O.