His remains were placed in a coffin of lead, enclosed in another
coffin covered with black cloth, and gilt ornaments. The inscription
plate bore the words, "SIR WALTER SCOTT, of ABBOTSFORD, Bart. AN.
AETAT. 62." The funeral took place at Dryburgh, amidst the ruins of
the venerable abbey, at night-fall, on Sept. 25th; the body being
borne from the hearse to the grave by his domestics, and followed by
upwards of 300 mourners. A Correspondent has furnished us with the
subjoined note of the funeral.
It has been remarked that at the grave, the burial service of the
Episcopal Church was read by a clergyman of the Church of England (the
Rev. John Williams, of Baliol College, Oxford, Rector of the Edinburgh
Academy, and Vicar of Lampeter), although Sir Walter through life
adhered to the persuasion of the Presbyterian or Church of Scotland.
In Scotland no prayers are offered over the dead; when the mourners
assemble in the house of the deceased, refreshments are handed round,
previous to which a blessing is implored, (as at meals,) and _then_
only the minister alludes to the bereavement the family have suffered,
and strength and grace are implored to sustain them under it. This
gratuitous custom was adhered to, and previous to the funeral
_cortège_ setting out from Abbotsford, the Rev. Principal Baird,
offered up a prayer. But although a Presbyterian in practice, Sir
Walter in several parts of his works expressed his dissent from
several of the rigid canons of that Church, and an example occurs in
that graphic scene in _the Antiquary_, the funeral group of _Steenie
Mucklebacket_, where "the creak of the screw nails announced that the
lid of the last mansion of mortality was in the act of being secured
above its tenant. The last act which separates us for ever from the
mortal relicks of the person we assemble to mourn has usually its
effect upon the most indifferent, selfish, and hard-hearted:" and he
adds in condemnation, "With a spirit of contradiction which we may be
pardoned for esteeming narrow-minded, the fathers of the Scottish Kirk
rejected even on this most solemn occasion the form of an address to
the Divinity, lest they should be thought to give countenance to the
ritual of Rome or of England." And he seizes the opportunity to
applaud the liberal judgment of the present Scottish clergymen who
avail themselves of the advantage of offering a prayer, suitable to
make an impression on the living.
The scenery around his burial-place is fraught with melancholy
associations--enshrined as have been its beauties by him that now
sought a bourn amidst them. It had been the land of his poetical
pilgrimage: through its "bosomed vales" and alongside its "valley
streams" his genius had journeyed with untiring energy, then to spread
abroad its stores for the gratification of hundreds of thousands, who
may about his grave
Make dust their paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
--Only let us glance at a few of the storied sites that are to be seen
around this hallowed spot: at Melrose, with antique pillar and ruins
grey--
Was ever scene so sad and fair.
Eildon Hill, where Sir Walter said he could stand and point out
forty-three places famous in war and verse;[14] and above all, the
tower of Smailholm Castle, where once "his careless childhood
strayed,"--the _Alpha_ of his poetic fame.
[14] Cunningham.