probably in itself a vanity, and, the boundary passed, there appears
to have been no limit to its excesses. There are a great many
instances of this at Inverness, Aberdeen, Keith, Dunblane, and
elsewhere, and the stone which appears in the sketch from Braemar is
only one of several in that very limited space. Such exceptional
cases seem to indicate some local relaxation from the austerity of
the period, which was apparently most intense in the centres of
population. Humility at the grave extended even to the material of
the gravestone. At Aberdeen, the Granite City, few of the last-century
gravestones are of any better material than the soft sandstones which
must have been imported from Elgin or the south. The rule of initials
was almost universal. In like manner, when it became the custom to
purchase grave-spaces, the simplest possible words were employed to
denote the ownership. I noticed one stone in Aberdeen bearing on its
face the medallion portrait of a lady, and only the words of Isaiah,
chapter xl. verse 6: "The voice said, All flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." At the back of the
stone is written: "This burying ground, containing two graves, belongs
to William Rait, Merchant. Aberdeen, 1800." The practice of carving on
both faces of the headstone is very common in Scotland, and, so far
as I have observed, in Scotland alone; but, strange as it may seem,
Scotland and Ireland when they write gravestone inscriptions have one
habit in common, that of beginning their epitaphs, not with the name
of the deceased person, but with the name of the person who provides
the stone. Thus:--

Erected by William Brown
to his Father John Brown,
etc., etc.