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LADY NAIRNE AND HER SONGS. 113 |
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nominationalism, and her genius for poetry shriveled under it. During the visit of George the Fourth to Edinburgh he signalized his theatrical clemency by a restoration of the forfeited titles of the Jacobite nobility, and Major Nairne became Baron Nairne. Lord Nairne survived his restoration but a few years, and died in 1829, leaving his widow with an only son. To his education she devoted herself, residing for a time in Bath, afterward in Ireland, and traveling on the Continent for the health of the young lord, who was of feeble constitution, and who died at Brussels in 1887. It is painful to read of the narrow bigotry and theological gloom which enveloped the joyous and healthy spirit of Lady Nairne. She would not allow her son to be taught to dance, and regarded her poetry as the somewhat flagitious exercise of a worldly spirit, and spent her days in the doubt and self-affliction of a harsh creed and in the petty interests of a narrow church. She was deeply interested in the hopeless task of " converting " the Catholics of Ireland and the Jews to Scotch Presbyterianism, and was t] e mentor of her relatives after the fashion of Mrs. Hannah More, the patroness of bazaars, and at one time with her sister was expelled from an Italian town for distributing Protestant Bibles to the people. But her native nobleness of character shone through the theological clouds. She |
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