“O Henderson! the man—the brother!
And art thou gone, and gone for ever?
And hast thou crossed that unknown river,
Life’s dreary bound?
Like thee where shall I find another
The world around?
“Go to your sculptured tombs, ye great,
In a’ the tinsel trash o’ state!
But by thy honest turf I’ll wait,
Thou man o’ worth!
And weep the ae best fellow’s fate
E’er lay in earth.”
In transmitting the poem to Mr. McMurdo, Burns writes from Ellisland, 2nd August, 1790, “You knew Henderson? I have not flattered his memory.” In a tract by the Lord Chief Commissioner Adam, entitled “Two Short Essays on the Study of History—the gift of a grandfather,” and printed at the Blair-Adam press in 1836, the author concludes a list of eminent Scotsmen, his contemporaries, with the following note:—“Besides these here enumerated, there were many others who made a respectable figure in the society of Edinburgh during the period here referred to (between 1750 and 1766), and there were some who stand more prominently forward, whose rank, whose wit, and whose taste and talent for conversation adorned the society when they joined it, such as Thomas, Earl of Kelly; Thomas, Earl of Haddington; Nisbet, of Dirleton; Matthew Henderson, at a future period distinguished by Burns; Sir Robert Murray, of Hillhead; George Brown, of Elliestoun, and others.”
[198] The Hon. Alexander Gordon was third son of William, second Earl of Aberdeen. Born in 1739, he was admitted advocate in his twenty-first year. In 1764 he was appointed Steward Depute of Kirkcudbright, and in 1788 was raised to the bench as Lord Rockville. He died 13th March, 1792. He was much esteemed for his urbanity.