For that silence, and the thoughts that live in it, who would not have lived, and suffered, and been despised? It is the triumph of genius and the soul of greatness over the freaks of fortune, and even over its own sins and failings. It is something to have walked over the farm of Ellisland; it is still more to have stood on the spot in his farm-yard where the heart of Burns rose up in a flame of hallowed affection to Mary in Heaven—a more glorious shrine than the mausoleum of Dumfries.
The neighborhood of Dumfries, to which the last scene of our subject leads us, is very charming. The town is just a quiet country town, but the Nith is a fine river, and runs through it, and makes both town and country very agreeable. The scenery is not wild and rocky, but the vale of the Nith is rich, and beautiful in its richness. The river runs in the finest sweeps imaginable; it seems to disdain to go straight, but makes a circle for a mile, perhaps, at a time, as clean and perfect as if struck with compasses, and then away in another direction; while on its lofty banks alders and oaks hang richly over the water, and fine herds of cattle are grouped in those deep meadows, and salmon-fishers spread their nets and are busy mending them on the broad expanse of gravel that covers here and there the bends of the river; while high above the lapsing waters, your eye wanders over abroad extent of fresh, rich meadow country, with scattered masses of trees, and goodly farms, and far around are high and airy hills cultivated to the top. A more lovely pastoral country, more retired and poetical, you can not well find. This is the scenery to which Burns, during his abode in Dumfries, loved to resort. "When he lived in Dumfries," says Allan Cunningham, "he had three favorite walks: on the dock-green by the river side, among the ruins of Lincluden College, and toward the Martingam Ford, on the north side of the river. The latter place was secluded, commanded a view of the distant hills and the romantic towers of Lincluden, and afforded soft greensward banks to rest upon, and the sight and sound of the stream. As soon as he was heard to hum to himself, his wife saw that he had something in his mind, and was quite prepared to see him snatch up his hat and set off silently for his musing ground."
About three miles up the river we came upon the beautiful ruins of the abbey of Lincluden, standing on an elevated mound overlooking the junction of the Cluden and the Nith, and overlooked by a sort of large tumulus covered with larches, where the monks are said to have sat to contemplate the country, and where the country people still resort to loiter or read on Sundays. A profound tranquillity reigns over all the scene—a charm indescribable, which Burns, of all men, must have felt. For myself, I knew not where to stop. I advanced up the left bank of the river, opposite to the ruins, now treading the soft turf of the Nith's margin, now pent in a narrow track close on the brink of the stream among the alders, now emerging into a lofty fir clump, and now into a solemn grove of beech overhanging the stream. Further on lay the broad old meadows again, the fisher watching in his wooden hut the ascent of the salmon, the little herdboy tending his black cattle in the solitary field, old woods casting a deep gloom on the hurrying water, gray old halls standing on fine slopes above the Nith, amid trees of magnificent size and altitude. The mood of mind which comes over you here is that of unwritten poetry.
When one thinks of Burns wandering amid this congenial nature, where the young now wander and sing his songs, one is apt to forget that he bore with him a sad heart and a sinking frame. When we see his house in Dumfries, we are reminded pretty forcibly of these things. We have to dive at once into a back street in the lower part of the town, and turn and wind from one such hidden and poor street to another, till, having passed through a sufficient stench of tan-yards, which seem to abound in that neighborhood, you come to a little street with all the character of the abode of the poor, which is honored with the name of Burns-street. The house is the first you come to on the left hand. There is the thatched one on the opposite side, and I set it down at once to be the poet's; but no; at a regularly formal poor man's house, of a dingy white-wash, with its stone door and window frames painted of a dingy blue, a bare-legged girl, very dirty, was washing the floors, and went from the bucket and showed me the house. On the right hand of the door was the kitchen, in which the girl informed me that there was nothing left belonging to the Burnses except two bells, which she pointed out, and a gas-pipe which Mr. Burns had put in. On the left hand was the sitting-room, furnished very well for a poor man, with a carpet on the floor. The girl said her father was an undertaker, but when I asked where was his shop, she said he was an undertaker of jobs on railroads and embankments. Up stairs there was a good, large chamber unfurnished, which she said was the one occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Burns, and where both of them died. Out of the other chamber a little closet was taken, including one front window, and here, she said, Burns wrote, or it was always said so. There were two garrets; and that was the poet's, or, rather, the exciseman's house. It was just about suited to the income of an ordinary exciseman, and had no attribute of the poet's home about it. Mr. Robert Chambers, in his Picture of Scotland, calls it a neat little house. Unfortunately, at my visit it was any thing but neat or clean, and its situation in this miserable quarter, and amid the odor of tan-yards, must give to any foreigner who visits it an odd idea of the abodes of British poets. I wonder that in some improvement the Dumfriesians don't contrive to pull it down.
From this abode of the living poet I adjourned to that of the dead one. This is situated in St. Michael's church-yard, not far from the house, but on an eminence, and on the outside of the town. The lane in which the house is, is just one of the worst. It looks as though it were only inhabited by keepers of lodging-houses for tramps, and, I believe, mainly is so. It is a sort of Tinker's Lane. The church-yard, though not more than two hundred yards off, is one of the most respectable, and the poet's house there is the very grandest. One naturally thinks how much easier it is to maintain a dead poet than a living one.
A church-yard in this part of the country has a singular aspect to an English eye. As you approach the Scottish border you see the headstones getting taller and taller, and the altar-tombs more and more massive. At Carlisle, the headstones had attained the height of six or seven feet at least, and were deeply carved with coats of arms, &c., near the top, but here the whole church-yard is a wilderness of huge and ponderous monuments. Pediments and entablature, Grecian, Gothic, and nondescript; pillars and obelisks, some of them at least twenty feet high—I use no exaggeration in this account—stand thick and on all sides. To our eyes, accustomed to such a different size and character of church-yard tombs, they are perfectly astonishing. I imagine there is stone enough in the funeral monuments of this church-yard to build a tolerable street of houses. You would think that all the giants, and, indeed, all the great people of all sorts that Scotland had ever produced, had here chosen their sepulture. Such ambitious and gigantic structures of freestone, some red, some white, for dyers, iron-mongers, gardeners, slaters, glaziers, and the like, are, I imagine, nowhere else to be seen. There are vintners who have tombs and obelisks fit for genuine Egyptian Pharaohs; and slaters and carpenters, who were accustomed to climb high when alive, have left monuments significant of their soaring character. These far outvie and overlook those of generals, writers to the signet, esquires, and bailiffs of the city.
Your first view of the church-yard strikes you by the strange aspect of these ponderous monuments. A row of very ancient ones, in fact, stands on the wall next to the street. Two of them most dilapidated, and of deep red stone, have a very singular look. They have Latin inscriptions, which are equally dilapidated. Another one to Francis Irving fairly exhausts the Latin tongue with his host of virtues, and then takes to English thus:
"King James the First me balive named;
Dumfries oft since me provost claimed;
God has for me a crown reserved,
For king and country have I served."
Burns's mausoleum occupies as nearly as possible the center of the farther end of the church-yard opposite to the entrance, and a broad walk leads up to it. It stands, as it should do, overlooking the pleasant fields in the outskirts of the town, and seems, like the poet himself, to belong half to man and half to nature. It is a sort of little temple, which at a distance catches the eye as you approach that side of the town, and reminds you of that of Garrick at Hampton. It is open on three sides, except for iron gates, the upper border of which consists of alternating Scottish thistles and spear-heads. A couple of Ionic pillars at each corner support a projecting cornice, and above this rises an octagon superstructure, with arches, across the bottom of which again run thistle-heads, one over each gateway, and is surmounted by a dome. The basement of the mausoleum is of granite. The building is inclosed by an iron railing, and that little gate in front of the area is left unlocked, so that you may approach and view the monument through the iron gates. The area is planted appropriately with various kinds of evergreens, and on each side of the gate stand conspicuously the Scottish thistle.
In the center of the mausoleum floor, a large flag, with four iron rings in it, marks the entrance to the vault below. At the back stands Turnarelli's monument of the poet. It consists of a figure of Burns, of the size of life, in white marble, at the plow, and Coila, his muse, appearing to him. This is a female figure in alto-relievo on the wall, somewhat above and in front of him. She is in the act of throwing her mantle, embroidered with Scotch thistles, over him, according to his own words: "The poetic genius of my country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha, at the plow, and threw her inspiring mantle over me." Burns stands with his left hand on one of the plow stilts, and with the other holds his bonnet to his breast, while, with an air of surprise and devotion, he gazes on the muse or genius of his poetry. He appears in a short coat, knee breeches, and short gaiters. The execution is so-so. The likeness of the poet is by no means conformable to the best portraits of him; and Nature, as if resenting the wretched caricature of her favorite son, has already begun to deface and corrode it. The left hand on the plow is much decayed, and the right hand holding the bonnet is somewhat so too. At his feet lies what I suppose was the slab of his former tomb, with this inscription: "In memory of Robert Burns, who died the 21st of July, 1796, in the 37th year of his age. And Maxwell Burns, who died the 25th of April, 1799, aged 2 years and 9 months. Francis Wallace Burns, who died the 9th of June, 1808, aged 14 years. His sons. The remains of Burns received into the vault below, 19th of September, 1815. And his two sons. Also, the remains of Jean Armour, relict of the Poet, born Feb., 1765, died 26th of March, 1834."