The lives of Anna Maria and Jane Porter resemble in a few particulars that of Elizabeth Hamilton. Like her they belonged, at least on the father's side, to Ireland, and like her they lived in Scotland, and their names will always be associated with that country. But Elizabeth Hamilton wrote the first novel of Scotland's poor, the ancestor of _The Window in Thrums_ and _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_; Jane Porter wrote the first novel of Scotland's kings, the immediate forerunner of _Waverley_, _The Abbot_, and _The Monastery_. Upon the death of Major Porter, who had been stationed for some years with his regiment at Durham, Mrs. Porter removed to Edinburgh, where her children were educated. Their quick lively imaginations found food for growth on Scottish soil. At that time Caledonia was a land of cliff and crag, inhabited by a quarrelsome people, whom the English still regarded with something the same aversion which Dr. Johnson had so often expressed to Boswell. But every castle had its story of brave knights and fair ladies, and every brae had been the scene of renowned deeds of arms. In every cottage the memory of the past was kept alive, and fathers and mothers related to their children stories of Wallace and of Bruce, until the romantic past became more real than the living present. Mrs. Porter's servants delighted to relate to her eager children stories of Scotland's glory. The maids would sing to them the songs of "Wallace wight," and the serving-man would tell them tales of Bannockburn and Cambus-Kenneth. Rarely have stories fallen on such fertile soil. In a short time, three of these children became famous. Sir Robert Ker Porter, the brother of Anna and Jane, followed closely in the footsteps of Scotland's heroes, and became distinguished as a soldier and diplomat, as well as a famous painter of battles. He painted the enormous canvas of _The Storming of Seringapatam_, a sensational panorama, one hundred and twenty feet in length, the first of its kind, but in a style that has often been followed in recent years. The idol of his family, it would seem that he was endowed with many of those qualities which his sisters gave to the heroes of their romances.