an elementary education at Peebles he assisted his father for a time. James Hogg [q. v.], the Ettrick Shepherd, whose mother was his distant cousin, was employed at Blackhouse for ten years, and formed a lasting friendship with Laidlaw. According to Hogg's ‘Autobiography’ Laidlaw was one of his first appreciative critics. In 1801 Hogg and Laidlaw helped Scott with materials for the ‘Border Minstrelsy.’ After two unsuccessful attempts at farming, in Peeblesshire and Midlothian respectively, Laidlaw in 1817 became steward to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. Master and man suited each other exactly, Laidlaw proving himself not only an exemplary servant but a worthy counsellor and a devoted friend. He was valued in the field, on the stream, and in the study. In 1819, when Scott was recovering from an illness, Laidlaw and Ballantyne wrote to his dictation most of the ‘Bride of Lammermoor,’ and subsequently ‘The Legend of Montrose,’ and nearly all ‘Ivanhoe.’ ‘St. Ronan's Well’ may have been due to Laidlaw's suggestion that Scott should devote a novel to ‘Melrose in July 1823’ (Lockhart, Life, v. 285, ed. 1837). When ruin fell upon Scott, he wrote to Laidlaw that it was ‘not the least painful consideration’ amid his troubles that he could no longer be useful to him (Journal, i. 97). After an interval, however, Laidlaw became his amanuensis, retaining the post till Scott's death in 1832. Subsequently he was factor to Sir Charles Lockhart Ross, Balnagowan, Ross-shire. Retiring in feeble health, he died in the house of his brother at Contin, near Dingwall, Ross-shire, 18 May 1845.
Laidlaw wrote several lyrics, but he is remembered only for his tender song, ‘Lucy's Flittin',’ published in Hogg's ‘Forest Minstrel,’ 1810. After 1817 he compiled, under Scott's management and direction, part of the ‘Edinburgh Annual Register,’ and contributed articles to the ‘Edinburgh Monthly Magazine’ (afterwards ‘Blackwood's’). He is also said to have written on the geology of Selkirkshire.
[Lockhart's Life of Scott, passim, and Scott's Journal; Rogers's Scottish Minstrel, vol. ii.; Borland's Yarrow, its Poets and Poetry; Gent. Mag. 1845, pt. ii. p. 213.]
LAING, ALEXANDER (1778–1838), antiquary, the illegitimate son of an Aberdeen advocate named Michie, was born at Coull, Aberdeenshire, in 1778. He was tolerably well educated and possessed good natural abilities, but his erratic temperament precluded his advancement. For some years previous to his death he was employed as a book canvasser and flying stationer, in allusion to which he was commonly known in the country as ‘Stashie Laing.’ The first of Laing's antiquarian writings, ‘The Caledonian Itinerary, or a Tour on the Banks of the Dee, with Historical Notes from the best Authorities,’ appeared at Aberdeen in 1819. During the three subsequent years Laing edited an annual, the first two issues of which were entitled ‘The Eccentric Magazine,’ and the third ‘The Lounger's Commonplace Book,’ being a collection of anecdotes, apophthegms, and literary and historical curiosities. In 1822 he published ‘Scarce Ancient Ballads never before published, with Notes,’ Aberdeen, 12mo, and in the following year a similar collection under the title ‘The Thistle of Scotland’ (Advocates' Library Cat.) In 1828 appeared his chief work, ‘The Donean Tourist, interspersed with Anecdotes and Ancient National Ballads,’ Aberdeen, 1828, 8vo, a volume on the history and traditions of the river Don, which, though somewhat loosely compiled, constitutes a rich mine of Scottish historical lore, and ‘exhibits,’ says Jervise, ‘an incredible amount of patience’ and labour (Epitaphs and Inscriptions, i. 284). This is the only work by Laing in the British Museum Library. His last work was ‘An Cluaran Albannach, a Repository of Ballads, many never before published, to which are appended copious Notes, Historical, Biographical, Illustrative, and Critical,’ Aberdeen, 1834, 12mo. Laing died in 1838 at Boltingstone, a roadside inn between Tarland and Strathdon, and was buried in the churchyard of Coldstone, Aberdeenshire.
All his works are now scarce and coveted by Scottish bibliophiles. ‘Not a ruin or a battlefield by Dee or Don, which history or tradition gave name to, but Laing visited and viewed with a devotion almost sacred in its intensity. Ballads, family histories and genealogies, in all the unmethodical delightfulness of a tinker's wallet, lay jumbled up in his capacious brain, to be reproduced in various books with a confusing prolixity’ (Walker, Bards of Bonaccord, p. 650).
[Notes kindly supplied by John Bullock, esq., editor, Scottish Notes and Queries; Irving's Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen, p. 260; Men of the Reign, p. 507; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
LAING, ALEXANDER (1787–1857), the Brechin poet, was born at Brechin, Forfarshire, 14 May 1787. His father was an agricultural labourer. Laing spent only two winters at school, and when eight years old became a herd, but devoted much of his leisure to reading and writing. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a flax-dresser, and followed this occupation for fourteen years, when an accident permanently
