acquitting myself of the debt." So saying, he placed a bank-note upon the table and hastily quitted the place. We have already given an epitaph supplied by Garrick -that of Hogarth, to be found in the churchyard of Chiswick. Here is another specimen of his skill in that description of composition, which we copy from the tomb of him who at one time was deemed his rival : “That tongue which set the table in a roar, And charm'd the public ear, is heard no more. Which spoke before the tongue what Shakspeare writ. To this complexion must thou come at last." True! And thereby assured that the great Falstaff no longer feigns-as in the mimic world-the sleep of death, we quit his grave with the respect due to his generous nature. Genius is irrespective of country. We therefore, prior to closing our visits, seek the graves of those whom the sister kingdom delights to honour-Allan Ramsay, Burns, Hogg, and Scott. The tomb of the first-named we find in the churchyard of the GREYFRIARS, EDINBURGH. This ancient burial-place was originally the garden belonging to the monastery of Greyfriars, which was situated in the Grass Market at Edinburgh. Here are interred numbers of the martyrs of the Covenant. Here, also, rests S GEORGE BUCHANAN, the accomplished Latin poet and preceptor of James VI. Buchanan was born in Dumbartonshire in 1506, studied at Paris and St. Andrew's, and afterwards acted as tutor to the Earl of Murray; but, through offence given by him to the clergy by a satirical poem, he was obliged to take refuge on the Continent, and did not return to Scotland till 1560. Though he had embraced the Protestant doctrines, he was favourably received at court by Queen Mary, assisted her in her studies, and was employed to regulate the universities, and became principal of St. Leonard's College in the University of St. Andrew's. He joined, however, the Earl of Murray's party against the queen, and was appointed tutor to James VI., whom he is said to have occasionally whipped. He subsequently offended James by publishing his treatise, De Jure Regni, in 1579. Murray spent in retirement the last few years of his life, writing his well-known" History of Scotland," published in 1582. He died in the same year, so poor that his funeral took place at the public expense. As an historian his style is held to unite the excellences of Livy and Sallust. Buchanan has been styled the Scottish Virgil. His great work is his "Paraphrase of the Psalms;" and it has been usual in Scotland to maintain Buchanan for his elegant Latin verse against all the world. Yet this boasted prince of Scottish literature died in his native country penniless! In the same ground, not far from the ivy-covered tablet of the Christian martyrs, lies ALLAN RAMSAY-ROBERT FERGUSSON. ALLAN RAMSAY, 259 who has been styled the Scottish Theocritus. He was born of humble parents, on the high mountains that divide Clydesdale and Annandale: he received but a limited education, and was placed, when about fourteen years of age, with a peruke-maker resident in Edinburgh. Destined, however, to assist in the revival of the rural poetry of his country, he succeeded in obtaining notice, first by his social disposition, and next from the ability displayed by him in the composition of verses in the idiom of his country. Exchanging the shop of the hair-dresser for that of a bookseller, he himself published, in 1721, a volume of poems from his own pen, and subsequently issued collections of Scottish poems and songs, which became familiar to the peasantry of his country. In CANONGATE, EDINBURGH, in the churchyard, lies the poet of Scottish city life, or rather the laureate of Edinburgh, ROBERT FERGUSSON, who stood prominent among the many who began to "try a song" after the example set by Allan Ramsay. In his education he was more fortunate than his predecessor, having had the advantage of instruction at the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrew's. Fergusson died in 1774, before he had reached his twenty-fourth year. He was the more immediate precursor of Burns, by whom his poetry would seem to have been preferred to that of Allan Ramsay. Meeting with Fergusson's poems, the bard of Ayr strung his lyre anew with emulating vigour," and sub 66 sequently placed a stone over the young poet's grave, with the following inscription : "Here lies Robert Fergusson, Poet. Born September 5, 1751. Died October 15, 1774. No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust." Quitting the depository of the sacred dust of the faithful Covenanters, and the grave of Fergusson, our thoughts incline to the greatest of Scotland's minstrels, whose monumental vault we find at DUMFRIES. The churchyard of St. Michael's, in this parish, received, on the 26th of July, 1796, the remains of a great but ill-fated genius,— ROBERT BURNS, the possessor of one of the largest hearts that ever beat in Scotland. In his grave lie with him innumerable errors; yet has the spot been sought by thousands, attesting the worth of mind, and its power over adverse circumstances: "Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot, Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour, A poet's pride and power. "Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines Shrines to no code or creed confined The Delphian vales, the Palestines, The Meccas of the mind." |