CHAPTERXXIELEGIAC MEMORIALS IN EDINBURGH
One denotement, among many, of a genial change, a relaxation of the old ecclesiastical austerity long prevalent in Scotland, is perceptible in the lighter character of her modern sepulchral monuments. In the old churchyard of St. Michael, at Dumfries, the burial-place of Burns, there is a hideous, dismal mass of misshapen, weather-beaten masonry, the mere aspect of which, before any of its gruesome inscriptions are read, is a rebuke to hope and an alarm to despair. Thus the religionists of old tried to make death terrible. Much of this same order of abhorrent architecture, the ponderous exponent of immitigable woe, may be found in the old Grayfriars churchyard in Edinburgh, and in that of the Canongate. But the pilgrim to the Dean cemetery and the Warriston, both comparatively modern, and beautifully situated at different points on the north side of the Water of Leith, finds them adorned with every grace that can hallow the repose of the dead, or soothe the grief, or mitigate the fear, or soften the bitter resentment of the living. Hope, and not despair, is the spirit of thenew epoch in religion, and it is hope not merely for a sect but for all mankind.
The mere physical loveliness of those cemeteries may well tempt you to explore them, but no one will neglect them who cares for the storied associations of the past. Walking in the Dean, on an afternoon half-cloudy and half-bright, when the large trees that guard its western limit and all the masses of foliage in the dark ravine of the Leith were softly rustling in the balmy summer wind, while overhead and far around the solemn cawing of the rooks mingled sleepily with the twitter of the sparrows, I thought, as I paced the sunlit aisles, that Nature could nowhere show a scene of sweeter peace. In this gentle solitude has been laid to its everlasting rest all that could die of some of the greatest leaders of thought in modern Scotland. It was no common experience to muse beside the tomb of Francis Jeffrey, the once formidable Lord Jeffrey ofThe Edinburgh Review. He lies buried near the great wall on the west side of the Dean cemetery, with his wife beside him. A flat, oblong stone tomb, imposed upon a large stone pedestal and overshadowed with tall trees, marks the place, on one side of which is written that once-famous and dreaded name, now spoken with indifference or not spoken at all: "Francis Jeffrey. Born Oct. 23, 1773. Died Jan. 25, 1850." On the end of the tomb is a medallion portrait of Jeffrey, in bronze. It is a profile, and it shows a symmetrical head, a handsome face, severe, refined, frigid, and altogether it is the denotement of a personality remarkable for the faculty of taste and the instinct of decorum, though not for creative power. Close by Lord Jeffrey, a little to the south, areburied Sir Archibald Alison, the historian of Europe, and Henry Cockburn, the great jurist. Combe, the philosopher, rests near the south front of the wall that bisects this cemetery from east to west. Not far from the memorials of these famous persons is a shaft of honour to Lieutenant John Irving, who was one of the companions of Sir John Franklin, and who perished amid the Polar ice in King William's Land, in 1848-49.
In another part of the ground a tall cross commemorates David Scott, the painter [1806-1849], presenting a superb effigy of his head, in one of the most animated pieces of bronze that have copied human life. Against the eastern wall, on the terrace overlooking the ravine and the rapid Water of Leith, stands the tombstone of John Blackwood, "Editor ofBlackwood's Magazinefor thirty-three years: Died at Strathtyrum, 29th Oct. 1879. Age 60." This inscription, cut upon a broad white marble, with scroll-work at the base, and set against the wall, is surmounted with a coat of arms, in gray stone, bearing the motto, "Per vias rectas." Many other eminent names may be read in this garden of death; but most interesting of all, and those that most of all I sought, are the names of Wilson and Aytoun. Those worthies were buried close together, almost in the centre of the cemetery. The grave of the great "Christopher North" is marked by a simple shaft of Aberdeen granite, beneath a tree, and it bears only this inscription: "John Wilson, Professor of Moral Philosophy. Born 18th of May, 1785. Died 3d April, 1854." Far more elaborate is the white marble monument,—a square tomb, with carvings of recessed Gothic windows on its sides, supporting a tall cross,—erectedto the memory of Aytoun and of his wife, who was Wilson's daughter. The inscriptions tell their sufficient story: "Jane Emily Wilson, beloved wife of William Edmonstoune Aytoun. Obiit 15 April, 1859." "Here is laid to rest William Edmonstoune Aytoun, D.C.L., Oxon., Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Edinburgh. Sheriff of Orkney and Zetland. Born at Edinburgh, 21st June, 1813. Died at Blackhills, Elgin, 4th August, 1865. 'Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' 1Cor.i. 7." So they sleep, the poets, wits, and scholars that were once so bright in genius, so gay in spirit, so splendid in achievement, so vigorous in affluent and brilliant life! It is the old story, and it teaches the old moral.
Warriston, not more beautiful than Dean, is perhaps more beautiful in situation; certainly it commands a more beautiful prospect. The traveller will visit Warriston for the sake of Alexander Smith,—remembering theLife Drama, theCity Poems,Edwin of Deira,Alfred Hagart's Household, andA Summer in Skye. The poet lies in the northeast corner of the ground, at the foot of a large Iona cross, which is bowered by a chestnut-tree. Above him the green sod is like a carpet of satin. The cross is thickly carved with laurel, thistle, and holly, and it bears upon its front the face of the poet, in bronze, and the harp that betokens his art. It is a bearded face, having small, refined features, a slightly pouted, sensitive mouth, and being indicative more of nervous sensibility than of rugged strength. The inscription gives simply his name and dates: "Alexander Smith, Poet and Essayist. Born at Kilmarnock, 31st December, 1829. Died at Wardie, 5th January,1867. Erected by some of his personal Friends." Standing by his grave, at the foot of this cross, you can gaze straight away southward to Arthur's Seat, and behold the whole line of imperial Edinburgh at a glance, from the Calton Hill to the Castle. It is such a spot as he would have chosen for his sepulchre,—face to face with the city that he dearly loved. Near him on the east wall appears a large slab of Aberdeen granite, to mark the grave of still another Scottish worthy, "James Ballantine, Poet. Born 11th June, 1808. Died 18th Dec., 1877." And midway along the slope of the northern terrace, a little eastward of the chapel, under a freestone monument bearing the butterfly that is Nature's symbol of immortality, you will see the grave of "Sir James Young Simpson, Bart., M.D., D.C.L. Born 1811. Died 1870." And if you are weary of thinking about the evanescence of the poets, you can reflect that there was no exemption from the common lot even for one of the greatest physical benefactors of the human race.
Grayfriars Churchyard.
Grayfriars Churchyard.
The oldest and the most venerable and mysterious of the cemeteries of Edinburgh is that of the Grayfriars. Irregular in shape and uneven in surface, it encircles its famous old church, in the haunted neighbourhood of the West Bow, and is itself hemmed in with many buildings. More than four centuries ago this was the garden of the Monastery of the Grayfriars, founded by James the First, of Scotland, and thus it gets its name. The monastery disappeared long ago: the garden was turned into a graveyard in the time of Queen Mary Stuart, and by her order. The building, called the Old Church, dates back to 1612, but it was burnt in 1845 and subsequently[292]restored. Here the National Covenant was subscribed, 1638, by the lords and by the people, and in this doubly consecrated ground are laid the remains of many of those heroic Covenanters who subsequently suffered death for conscience and their creed. There is a large book ofThe Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions in Grayfriars Churchyard, made by James Brown, keeper of the grounds, and published in 1867. That record does not pretend to be complete, and yet it mentions no less than two thousand two hundred and seventy-one persons who are sepulchred in this place. Among those sleepers are Duncan Forbes, of Culloden; Robert Mylne, who built a part of Holyrood Palace; Sir George Mackenzie, the persecutor of the Covenanters; Carstairs, the adviser of King William the Third; Sir Adam Ferguson; Henry Mackenzie; Robertson and Tytler, the historians; Sir Walter Scott's father; and several of the relatives of Mrs. Siddons. Captain John Porteous, who was hanged in the Grass-market, by riotous citizens of Edinburgh, on the night of September 7, 1736, and whose story is so vividly told inThe Heart of Midlothian, was buried in the Grayfriars churchyard, "three dble. pace from the S. corner Chalmers' tomb"—1736. James Brown's record of the churchyard contains various particulars, quoted from the old church register. Of William Robertson, minister of the parish, who died in 1745, we read that he "lies near the tree next Blackwood's ground." "Mr. Allan Ramsay," says the same quaint chronicle, "lies 5 dble. paces southwest the blew stone: A poet: old age: Buried 9th January 1758." Christian Ross, his wife, who preceded the aged bard by fifteen years, lies in thesame grave. Sir Walter Scott's father was laid there on April 18, 1799, and his daughter Anne was placed beside him in 1801. In a letter addressed to his brother Thomas, in 1819, Sir Walter wrote: "When poor Jack was buried in the Grayfriars churchyard, where my father and Anne lie, I thought their graves more encroached upon than I liked to witness." The remains of the Regent Morton were, it is said, wrapped in a cloak and secretly buried there, at night,—June 2, 1581, immediately after his execution, on that day,—low down toward the northern wall. The supposed grave of the scholar, historian, teacher, and superb Latin 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, whoseElegyhe 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 wayTo pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust."
"No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,No storied urn nor animated bust—This simple stone directs pale Scotia's wayTo pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust."
"No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,No storied urn nor animated bust—This simple stone directs pale Scotia's wayTo pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust."
"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.
Another great writer, Thomas de Quincey, is buried in the old churchyard of the West church, that lies inthe valley just beneath the west front of the crag of Edinburgh Castle. I went to that spot on a bright and lovely autumn evening. The place was deserted, except for the presence of a gardener, to whom I made my request that he would guide me to the grave of De Quincey. It is an inconspicuous place, marked by a simple slab of dark stone, set against the wall, in an angle of the enclosure, on a slight acclivity. As you look upward from this spot you see the grim, magnificent castle, frowning on its precipitous height. The grave was covered thick with grass, and in a narrow trench of earth, cut in the sod around it, many pansies and marigolds were in bloom. Upon the gravestone is written: "Sacred to the memory of Thomas de Quincey, who was born at Greenhay, near Manchester, August 15th, 1785, and died in Edinburgh, December 8th, 1859. And of Margaret, his wife, who died August 7, 1837." Just over the honoured head of the illustrious sleeper were two white daisies peeping through the green; one of which I thought it not a sin to take away, for it is the symbol at once of peace and hope, and therefore a sufficient embodiment of the best that death can teach.