Gray Days and Gold in England and ScotlandWinter, William
General
Gray Days and Gold in England and Scotland
Winter, William
Great Britain -- Description and travel; Literary landmarks -- Great Britain
poet George Buchanan ["the elegant Buchanan," Dr. Johnson calls him],
is not distant from this spot; and in the old church may be seen a
beautiful window, a triple lancet, in the south aisle, placed there to
commemorate that illustrious author.
Hugh Miller and Dr. Chalmers were laid in the Grange cemetery, which
is in the southern part of the city, near Morningside. Adam Smith is
commemorated by a heavy piece of masonry, over his dust, at the south
end of the Canongate churchyard, and Dugald Stewart by a ponderous tomb
at the north end of it, where he was buried, as also by the monument on
the Calton Hill. It is to see Ferguson's gravestone, however, that the
pilgrim explores the Canongate churchyard,--and a dreary place it is
for the last rest of a poet. Robert Burns placed the stone, and on the
back of it is inscribed: "By special grant of the managers to Robert
Burns, who erected this stone, this burial-place is to remain for ever
sacred to Robert Ferguson." That poet was born September 5, 1751,
and died October 16, 1774. These lines, written by Burns, with an
intentional reminiscence of Gray, whose _Elegy_ he fervently admired,
are his epitaph:
"No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,
No storied urn nor animated bust--
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
To pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust."
One of the greatest minds of Scotland, and indeed of the world, was
David Hume, who could think more clearly and express his thoughts
more precisely and cogently upon great subjects than almost any
metaphysician of our English-speaking race. His tomb is in the old
Calton cemetery, close by the prison, a grim Roman tower, predominant
over the Waverley Vale and visible from every part of it. This
structure is open to the sky, and within it and close around its
interior edge, nine melancholy bushes are making a forlorn effort to
grow, in the stony soil that covers the great historian's dust. There
is an urn above the door of this mausoleum and surmounting the urn
is this inscription: "David Hume. Born April 26th, 1711. Died August
25th, 1776. Erected in memory of him in 1778." In another part of this
ground you may find the sepulchre of Sir Walter Scott's friend and
publisher, Archibald Constable, "born 24th February 1774, died 21st
July 1827." Several priests were roaming over the cemetery when I saw
it, making its dismal aspect still more dismal by that rook-like,
unctuous, furtive aspect which oftens marks the ecclesiastic of the
Roman Catholic church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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