ELEGIAC 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 the new 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 of _The 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, are buried 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
of _Blackwood's Magazine_ for 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,--erected to 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.' 1 Cor. 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 the _Life Drama_, the _City Poems_, _Edwin of
Deira_, _Alfred Hagart's Household_, and _A 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.
[Illustration: _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 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 of _The 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 in _The 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 the same
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, 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.
Another great writer, Thomas de Quincey, is buried in the old
churchyard of the West church, that lies in the 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.