To entire rectitude of principle, amiability of manners, and kindliness of heart, Anne Barnard added the more substantial, and, in females, the more uncommon quality of eminent devotedness to intellectual labour.  Literature had been her favourite pursuit from childhood, and even in advanced life, when her residence was the constant resort of her numerous relatives, she contrived to find leisure for occasional literary reunions, while her forenoons were universally occupied in mental improvement.  She maintained a correspondence with several of her brilliant contemporaries, and, in her more advanced years, composed an interesting narrative of family Memoirs.  She was skilled in the use of the pencil, and sketched scenery with effect.  In conversation she was acknowledged to excel; and her stories[8] and anecdotes were a source of delight to her friends.  She was devotedly pious, and singularly benevolent:  she was liberal in sentiment, charitable to the indigent, and sparing of the feelings of others.  Every circle was charmed by her presence; by her condescension she inspired the diffident; and she banished dulness by the brilliancy of her humour.  Her countenance, it should be added, wore a pleasant and animated expression, and her figure was modelled with the utmost elegance of symmetry and grace.  Her sister, Lady Margaret Fordyce, was eminently beautiful.

The popularity obtained by the ballad of “Auld Robin Gray” has seldom been exceeded in the history of any other metrical composition.  It was sung in every fashionable circle, as well as by the ballad-singers, from Land’s-end to John o’ Groat’s; was printed in every collection of national songs, and drew tears from our military countrymen both in America and India.  With the exception of Pinkerton, every writer on Scottish poetry and song has awarded it a tribute of commendation.  “The elegant and accomplished authoress,” says Ritson, “has, in this beautiful production, to all that tenderness and simplicity for which the Scottish song has been so much celebrated, united a delicacy of expression which it never before attained.” “‘Auld Robin Gray,’” says Sir Walter Scott, “is that real pastoral which is worth all the dialogues which Corydon and Phillis have had together, from the days of Theocritus downwards.”

During a long lifetime, till within two years of her death, Lady Anne Barnard resisted every temptation to declare herself the author of the popular ballad, thus evincing her determination not to have the secret wrested from her till she chose to divulge it.  Some of those inducements may be enumerated.  The extreme popularity of the ballad might have proved sufficient in itself to justify the disclosure; but, apart from this consideration, a very fine tune had been put to it by a doctor of music;[9] a romance had been founded upon it by a man of eminence; it was made the subject of a play, of an opera, and of a pantomime; it had been claimed by others; a sequel