Grayfriars Churchyard.
The oldest and the most venerable and mysterious of the cemeteries of Edinburgh is that of the Grayfriars. Irregular in shape and uneven in surface, it encircles its famous old church, in the haunted neighbourhood of the West Bow, and is itself hemmed in with many buildings. More than four centuries ago this was the garden of the Monastery of the Grayfriars, founded by James the First, of Scotland, and thus it gets its name. The monastery disappeared long ago: the garden was turned into a graveyard in the time of Queen Mary Stuart, and by her order. The building, called the Old Church, dates back to 1612, but it was burnt in 1845 and subsequently[292] restored. Here the National Covenant was subscribed, 1638, by the lords and by the people, and in this doubly consecrated ground are laid the remains of many of those heroic Covenanters who subsequently suffered death for conscience and their creed. There is a large book of The Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions in Grayfriars Churchyard, made by James Brown, keeper of the grounds, and published in 1867. That record does not pretend to be complete, and yet it mentions no less than two thousand two hundred and seventy-one persons who are sepulchred in this place. Among those sleepers are Duncan Forbes, of Culloden; Robert Mylne, who built a part of Holyrood Palace; Sir George Mackenzie, the persecutor of the Covenanters; Carstairs, the adviser of King William the Third; Sir Adam Ferguson; Henry Mackenzie; Robertson and Tytler, the historians; Sir Walter Scott's father; and several of the relatives of Mrs. Siddons. Captain John Porteous, who was hanged in the Grass-market, by riotous citizens of Edinburgh, on the night of September 7, 1736, and whose story is so vividly told in The Heart of Midlothian, was buried in the Grayfriars churchyard, "three dble. pace from the S. corner Chalmers' tomb"—1736. James Brown's record of the churchyard contains various particulars, quoted from the old church register. Of William Robertson, minister of the parish, who died in 1745, we read that he "lies near the tree next Blackwood's ground." "Mr. Allan Ramsay," says the same quaint chronicle, "lies 5 dble. paces southwest the blew stone: A poet: old age: Buried 9th January 1758." Christian Ross, his wife, who preceded the aged bard by fifteen years, lies in the same grave. Sir Walter Scott's father was laid there on April 18, 1799, and his daughter Anne was placed beside him in 1801. In a letter addressed to his brother Thomas, in 1819, Sir Walter wrote: "When poor Jack was buried in the Grayfriars churchyard, where my father and Anne lie, I thought their graves more encroached upon than I liked to witness." The remains of the Regent Morton were, it is said, wrapped in a cloak and secretly buried there, at night,—June 2, 1581, immediately after his execution, on that day,—low down toward the northern wall. The supposed grave of the scholar, historian, teacher, and superb Latin poet George Buchanan ["the elegant Buchanan," Dr. Johnson calls him], is not distant from this spot; and in the old church may be seen a beautiful window, a triple lancet, in the south aisle, placed there to commemorate that illustrious author.
Hugh Miller and Dr. Chalmers were laid in the Grange cemetery, which is in the southern part of the city, near Morningside. Adam Smith is commemorated by a heavy piece of masonry, over his dust, at the south end of the Canongate churchyard, and Dugald Stewart by a ponderous tomb at the north end of it, where he was buried, as also by the monument on the Calton Hill. It is to see Ferguson's gravestone, however, that the pilgrim explores the Canongate churchyard,—and a dreary place it is for the last rest of a poet. Robert Burns placed the stone, and on the back of it is inscribed: "By special grant of the managers to Robert Burns, who erected this stone, this burial-place is to remain for ever sacred to Robert Ferguson." That poet was born September 5, 1751, and died October 16, 1774. These lines, written by Burns, with an intentional reminiscence of Gray, whose Elegy he fervently admired, are his epitaph:
"No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,
No storied urn nor animated bust—
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
To pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust."
One of the greatest minds of Scotland, and indeed of the world, was David Hume, who could think more clearly and express his thoughts more precisely and cogently upon great subjects than almost any metaphysician of our English-speaking race. His tomb is in the old Calton cemetery, close by the prison, a grim Roman tower, predominant over the Waverley Vale and visible from every part of it. This structure is open to the sky, and within it and close around its interior edge, nine melancholy bushes are making a forlorn effort to grow, in the stony soil that covers the great historian's dust. There is an urn above the door of this mausoleum and surmounting the urn is this inscription: "David Hume. Born April 26th, 1711. Died August 25th, 1776. Erected in memory of him in 1778." In another part of this ground you may find the sepulchre of Sir Walter Scott's friend and publisher, Archibald Constable, "born 24th February 1774, died 21st July 1827." Several priests were roaming over the cemetery when I saw it, making its dismal aspect still more dismal by that rook-like, unctuous, furtive aspect which oftens marks the ecclesiastic of the Roman Catholic church.
Another great writer, Thomas de Quincey, is buried in the old churchyard of the West church, that lies in the valley just beneath the west front of the crag of Edinburgh Castle. I went to that spot on a bright and lovely autumn evening. The place was deserted, except for the presence of a gardener, to whom I made my request that he would guide me to the grave of De Quincey. It is an inconspicuous place, marked by a simple slab of dark stone, set against the wall, in an angle of the enclosure, on a slight acclivity. As you look upward from this spot you see the grim, magnificent castle, frowning on its precipitous height. The grave was covered thick with grass, and in a narrow trench of earth, cut in the sod around it, many pansies and marigolds were in bloom. Upon the gravestone is written: "Sacred to the memory of Thomas de Quincey, who was born at Greenhay, near Manchester, August 15th, 1785, and died in Edinburgh, December 8th, 1859. And of Margaret, his wife, who died August 7, 1837." Just over the honoured head of the illustrious sleeper were two white daisies peeping through the green; one of which I thought it not a sin to take away, for it is the symbol at once of peace and hope, and therefore a sufficient embodiment of the best that death can teach.