Note 443 — MARCH.

Mary Campbell, Lady Ruthven, for whom the picture was painted, was not only the friend of Scott, but she held relations more or less close with nearly every one famous in Art and Literature during the greater part of the nineteenth century. No mean artist herself, and though, perhaps, not a clever letter-writer, she had among her correspondents some of the most brilliant men of her day. She survived all her early friends, but had the gift of being attractive to the young, and for three generations was the delight of their children and grandchildren. Those who were privileged to share in the refined hospitality of Winton, never forgot either the picturesque old house (the supposed Ravenswood Castle of the Bride of Lammermoor), or its venerable mistress as she sat of an evening in her unique drawing-room, the walls of which were adorned with pictures of Grecian temple and landscape, her own handiwork in days long gone by when she was styled by her friends Queen of Athens. Her conversation, after she was ninety, was fresh and vigorous; and, despite blindness and imperfect hearing, she kept herself well acquainted with the affairs of the day. The last great speech in Parliament, or the newest bon mot, were equally acceptable and equally relished. Her sense of humour and fun made her, at times, forget her own sufferings, and her splendid memory enabled her to while away many a sleepless hour by repeating long passages from the Bible or Milton. The former she had so much in her heart that it was scarcely possible to believe she was not reading from the Book. Above all was her truly divine gift of charity, the practical application of which, in her every-day life, was only bounded by her means.