’Tis then the Saints enjoy their full perfection.’”
One of these curious pieces is “A Funeral Elegie occasioned by the sad and much lamented Death of that worthily respected and very much accomplished Gentleman, David Dunbar, Younger of Baldone. He departed this life on March 21, 1682, having received a bruise by a fall, as he was ryding the day preceding betwixt Leith and Holyroodhouse; and was honourably interred, in the Abbey Church of Holyroodhouse, on April 4, 1682.” Symson, though a printer in 1705, had been an episcopal clergyman: and it is amusing to observe how much of the panegyric which he bestows upon Dunbar is to be traced to the circumstance of that gentleman having been almost his only hearer, when, in a Whiggish parish, his curacy had like to be a perfect sinecure, so far as regarded that important particular—a congregation. He thus speaks of him:—
“He was no Schismatick, he ne’er withdrew
Himself from th’ House of God; he with a few
(Some two or three) came constantly to pray
For such as had withdrawn themselves away,
Nor did he come by fits,—foul day or fair,
I, being in the church, was sure to see him there.
Had he withdrawn, ’tis like these two or three,
Being thus discouraged, had deserted me;