‘What means this sudden unexpected change, This mourning Company? Sure, sure some strange And uncouth thing hath happen’d. _Phœbus’s_ Head Hath not been resting on the wat’ry bed Of _Sea-green Thetis_ fourty times, since I _In transitu_ did cast my tender Eye Upon this very place, and here did view A Troop of Gallants: _Iris_ never knew The various colours which they did employ To manifest and represent their Joy. Yea more; Methinks I saw this very wall Adorn’d with Emblems Hieroglyphicall. At first; The glorious _Sun_ in lustre shine: Next unto it, A young and tender _Vine_ Surround a stately _Elm_, whose tops were crown’d With wreaths of _Bay-tree_ reaching to the ground: And, to be short, methinks I did espy A pleasant, harmless, joyful Comedy. But now (sad change, I’m sure,) they all are clad In deepest Sable, and their Faces sad. The _Sun’s_ o’erclouded and the _Vine’s_ away, _The Elm_ is drooping, and the wreaths of Bay Are chang’d to Cypress, and the Comedie Is metamorphos’d to a Tragedie. I do desire you, Friend, for to unfold This matter to me.’ ‘Sir, ’tis truth you’ve told. We did enjoy great mirth, but now, ah me! Our joyful Song’s turned to an Elegie. A vertuous Lady, not long since a Bride, Was to a hopeful plant by marriage ty’d, And brought home hither. We did all rejoyce, Even for her sake. But presently our voice Was turned to mourning, for that little time That she’d enjoy: She wained in her prime For Atropus, with her impartial knife, Soon cut her Thread, and therewithall her Life. And for the time, we may it well remember, It being in unfortunate September, Just at the _Æquinox_: She was cut down In th’ harvest, and this day she’s to be sown, Where we must leave her till the Resurrection; ’Tis then the Saints enjoy their full perfection.’” One of these curious pieces is “A Funeral Elegie occasioned by the sad and much lamented Death of that worthily respected and very much accomplished Gentleman, David Dunbar, Younger of Baldone. He departed this life on March 21, 1682, having received a bruise by a fall, as he was ryding the day preceding betwixt Leith and Holyroodhouse; and was honourably interred, in the Abbey Church of Holyroodhouse, on April 4, 1682.” Symson, though a printer in 1705, had been an episcopal clergyman: and it is amusing to observe how much of the panegyric which he bestows upon Dunbar is to be traced to the circumstance of that gentleman having been almost his only hearer, when, in a Whiggish parish, his curacy had like to be a perfect sinecure, so far as regarded that important particular—a congregation. He thus speaks of him:—