Dumfries
It is a proud little city, more than a bit self-satisfied. It realizes that its possession of the mortal remains of Burns gives it large claim in his immortality, and the Burns monument is quite the center of the town.
Yet Dumfries is well satisfied from other argument. Historically, it goes back to Bruce and Comyn, and even to a Roman beyond. But there is nothing left of old Greyfriars where the killing of Comyn took place. Dumfries had its moment in the Forty Five, for the Bonnie Prince was here as he went down to the invasion of England, and his room in what is now the Commercial Hotel may be looked into but not lodged in; Dumfries, in spite of Covenant, has its modicum of Jacobitism.
It is in "Humphrey Clinker" that Smollett compels some one to say "If I was confined to Scotland I would choose Dumfries as my place of residence." Confined to Scotland, forsooth!
CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE.
Dumfries is larger than it was in the days of Burns, and very busy withal, in factories and railroads. But it is still a country town, still hints at something of dales and woods and streams, even on High Street. The land about is true Burnsland; low, gentle hills closing in the horizon in a golden sea of warmth and sunlight, and the Nith a pleasant stream. It makes a great bend about Dumfries, with Maxwelltown across the water, and still
"Maxwellton's braes are bonny
Where early fa's the dew."
Farther a-field there lies Sweetheart Abbey, built by the Lady Devorgilla, widow of John Balliol, and founder of Balliol at Oxford; one of the most beautiful ruins not only in Scotland but in the Kingdom. Caerlaverock castle, the Ellangowan of "Guy Mannering," stands on the Solway, which still, like love, ebbs and flows. Ecclefechan lies east. "O, wat ye wha's in yon toun," Burns sang from here, but later it was made a place of pilgrimage, with its immortal dust come back from London for Scottish rest.
And in St. Michael's Burns was laid to rest in 1796, and twenty years later was placed in this mausoleum in the corner of the churchyard. A sumptuous monument for so simple a man.