His prose works extended over three volumes when they were collected by his son, the Bishop of Aberdeen, but we have no concern with them.

His poetical pieces, by which his name will never die in Scotland, are the "Reel of Tullochgorum" and the "Ewie with the Crooked Horn," charming Scottish songs,--one the perfection of the lively, the other of the pathetic.

It is quite enough to say of "Tullochgorum" (by which the old man is now always designated), what was said of it by Robert Burns, as "the first of songs," and as the best Scotch song Scotland ever saw.
I have brought in the following anecdote, exactly as it appeared in the _Scotsman_ of October 4, 1859, because it introduces his name.
"The late Rev.John Skinner, author of 'Annals of Scottish Episcopacy,' was his grandson.

He was first appointed to a charge in Montrose, from whence he was removed to Banff, and ultimately to Forfar.

After he had left Montrose, it reached his ears that an ill-natured insinuation was circulating there that he had been induced to leave this town by the temptation of a better income and of fat pork, which, it would appear, was plentiful in the locality of his new incumbency.