that graphic scene in _the Antiquary_, the funeral group of _Steenie
Mucklebacket_, where "the creak of the screw nails announced that the
lid of the last mansion of mortality was in the act of being secured
above its tenant. The last act which separates us for ever from the
mortal relicks of the person we assemble to mourn has usually its
effect upon the most indifferent, selfish, and hard-hearted:" and he
adds in condemnation, "With a spirit of contradiction which we may be
pardoned for esteeming narrow-minded, the fathers of the Scottish Kirk
rejected even on this most solemn occasion the form of an address to
the Divinity, lest they should be thought to give countenance to the
ritual of Rome or of England." And he seizes the opportunity to
applaud the liberal judgment of the present Scottish clergymen who
avail themselves of the advantage of offering a prayer, suitable to
make an impression on the living.

The scenery around his burial-place is fraught with melancholy
associations--enshrined as have been its beauties by him that now
sought a bourn amidst them. It had been the land of his poetical
pilgrimage: through its "bosomed vales" and alongside its "valley
streams" his genius had journeyed with untiring energy, then to spread
abroad its stores for the gratification of hundreds of thousands, who
may about his grave

Make dust their paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

--Only let us glance at a few of the storied sites that are to be seen
around this hallowed spot: at Melrose, with antique pillar and ruins
grey--