Alison Cockburn Quotes

Alison Cockburn also Alison Rutherford, or Alicia Cockburn was a Scottish poet, wit and socialite who collected a circle of eminent friends in 18th century enlightenment Edinburgh including Walter Scott, Robert Burns and David Hume. Born at Fairnilee House, in the Scottish Borders, between Galashiels and Selkirk, she was the daughter of Robert Rutherfurd of Fairnalee. She married an impoverished advocate, Patrick Cockburn of Ormiston in 1731. In 1765 she published her lyrics to the traditional Border Ballad the Flowers of the Forest beginning "I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling". She was an indefatigable letter-writer and a composer of parodies, squibs, toasts and "character sketches", then a favourite form of composition. The "Flowers of the Forest" however is considered the only thing she wrote that possesses lasting literary merit.