Every variety of scenery diversifies the banks of those streams, and there is a great mass of legendary lore as to the famous men who dwelt by their waters; but one name swallows up all the rest. How to follow the windings of the Nith, or tread the High Street of Dumfries, without thinking of Robert Burns? He sang of the streams of Nith in his choicest verse. "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes" is linked with one tributary, and the song he fitted to "Ca' the yowes to the knowes"--most musical fragment of old Scots poetry--reminds of another. Among the beautiful ruins of Lincluden Abbey, surrounded by the defaced monuments of the great house of Douglas, he saw that "Vision" which he has commemorated in so remarkable a poem. Not far off is Friars' Carse, where the bacchanalian contest related in "The Whistle" took place. In Dumfries, as an exciseman, he spent the last five years of his life. Let us find place for one incident of his closing days. He had gone to the little village of Brow, on the Solway, to try the effect of the seaside. During a visit to the manse, one of the family remarked the sun shining in his eyes and made some effort to adjust the blind. Burns noted it; "Thank you, my dear, for your kind attention--but ah, let him shine! He will not shine long for me." This was the end of June, 1796; on the twenty-first of July he was dead. "Who will be our poet now?" was the quaint inquiry of an honest Dumfries burgher. Who, indeed! His remains were buried in the churchyard of St. Michael's. "They were originally interred in the north corner, upon which spot a simple table-stone was raised to his memory; but in 1815 his ashes were removed to a vault beneath an elegant mausoleum, which was erected by subscription, as a tribute to his genius, at a cost of £1,450. This monument contains a handsome piece of marble sculpture, executed by Turnerelli, representing the genius of Scotland finding the poet at the plough, and throwing 'her inspiring mantle' over him." Well meant, and yet--! We remember standing in the cemetery at Montmartre by the plain stone that bears the name, and nothing but the name, of Heine. It had a simple, a pathetic, dignity beyond the reach of the most cunningly carved monument. One thought of the "elegant mausoleum" at Dumfries, and sighed for the "simple table-stone" which humble but pious hands had placed as the first and, still after a century the best, monument to Robert Burns. Do you doubt which himself had chosen?