Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-09
WHERE BURNS LIVED.
Spots in and About the Quaint Old
Town of Dumfries Enriched by
MEMORIES OF THE SCOTTISH BARD.
The Ancient Tavern and the Aud Brig
Renowned by His Songs.
TIE POETS TOMB NOW A SHOW PLACE
,coRRrspoNpENcE OF THE p1srArcH

|
DUMFRIEs, SCOTLAND, July 26-T
the visitor at old Dummies town, if he be |
lover of Burns, there await almost endless
pleasures within and near the ancien
burgh, in the constant, and, to the stranger
unexpected, Identification of place with per
sonality. Indeed do not know Of another
spot in the whole world, where the place it
self and the whole country roundabout seen
to have taken on such an individuality and
permanent coloring from the brief presence
OF one man. We place beloved, sanity
Whittier at Danvers town. But his work
and personality are intensest in our mind!
along in the dark days before the great con
tict, and in thought we see the man Whit
tier plainest, when and where his burning
words had their most aggressive power
Good old DIR. Holmes shines along in q
trundled for more than quarter of a cen.
tury between Cambridge and Beacon street
and on to the Atlantic Monthly Office.
Where shall we find locale for Lowell,
sweet and stately bard and man? Those
who in secret have wept and smiled over the
tender pages of Dream Life" and "Rever-
les of Bachelor" only know in dim way
that somewhere between the rugged Con.
necticut hills there is still a doughty old
farmer, elk Marvel" pothsring among his
stumps, stone walls and early vegetables.
Who can tell of one nesting place where
Willis was, save in the brief hours by 'The
Bridge" in the little backwoods cabin; and
his noble sister, Fanny Fern" died, Par
ton tells us, without being able to find the
house in Portlandplin which she was born.
and which she SO bitterly longed to know?
Where is most left the seal OF the personal
presence of Hawthorne-at Dingley's, at
Concord, or at Salem? There is but one
spot where we can put our loving hands on
Poe; at the Fordham cottage where the poet,
his dying wife, Virginia, and her devoted
mother starved in gloom and obscurity.
MEMORIALS OF THE GREAT.
Irving's personal presence remains fixed
at Just three places-Sunnyside, at the old
Dutch Church, Tarrytown, and among the
mist-crowned Cstskills. The two Alcotts,
great father and drudging, tender
hearted daughter, made Concord more
famous than did Emerson, whom we feel we
can only find behind the prim, white walls,
of the prim, white house on the Lexington
boulder upon the grave in Sleepy Hollow
Cemetery. The spirit of Thoreau, intangi-
BILE and feeting of communion and COM
panionship as his own wanderings, seems
but now and then to hover about and haunt
the reeds of sedgy Maiden pond, as if find
ing vanishing embodiment in the lonely
bittern's mournful cry. Even the master
singer, Longfellow, left but four songs by
which we may trace his Identification with
the first 20 years of his own life at old Port
land town: and for nearly all the remainder
of his time and work our mind-picture of
the man is with his calm face bent over his
library desk ;ISt in h., Craigie House, Cambridge
Craigenputtock or at Chelsea? Where is the
one shrine at which we shall find Byron?
The whole of old England and the tiny
brass plate sunk in the pave of Westminster
Abbey confuse the mind and heart concen-
tration upon Dickens.
Where are we finally to find Tennysonic
shrine-at dear old Somersby, in Lincoln
shire, at Aldworth, or at Farringford House,
Isle of Wight? Edwin Arnold fits between
a London editorial sanctum and an Oriental
pagoda. Ruskin, dimmed and yoiceless be-
hind the veil of mental sleep from which
the wakeless sleep must be entered, looks,
ghost-like, from the windows of Coniston
Hall, upon fair Coniston Water, and in all
he has done and written, how many have
discovered his Lancashire environment?
Even the shrine of Shakespeare is in a
meager church, beside pinched theater, in
an Insignificant town that knows only his
ashes and the gratuities they. bring. Burns
and Scott of all the luminous host of the
great and good in prose and verse; living
and dead had their actual everyday being
in, and gave the palpable and imperishable
life-throb of their personalities to, AMI envi-
or place and people, which thus be-
came mausoleum infinitely greater and
grander than the loftiest column or cenotaph
that ever pierced the clouds.
ANCIENT MAxwELToN.
But come with me in and out of old Dunn
fries, and up and down the songful NTH, or
if your legs are not "braw and weel eneuch,"
climb with me to the ancient Observatory.
over here in Maxweltown, the Maxwelton
whose "braes are bonnie, where early fa's
the dew" and we can from this one place
see and feel the tenderness of the identifca-
tion. From this point the eve may range,
to the east, over and beyond fair AMMAN
dale; across Kirkcudbrightshire, to the
west. to the noble hills skirt1ng AYR; to the
north, up the dreamland Nithsdaie to the |
far grim turrets of Drumlanrig Castle; and,
to the south, to the vast expanse of Solway |
Firth, where, to the right of Nithsmouth, |
looms gray-browed Crifel, and. to the left,
is caught gleam of the sands by Brow |
Well at whose waters Burns too laIe |
struggled to save his life. Thus at glance |
not only does the bewitching cvcIorama give |
the beholder the entire field of the everyday |
scenes of the poets life during his last eight |
memorable years, but at the same instant o
of the three most impressive
,pochs in his career of which we can have
nemory-the home-heaven of Ellisland |
arm life, the wretched fight against power
y in the gray old border town beneath us,
Ind that last unavailing struggle at Brow
Well, by Solway's shifting sands; all made
nexpressibly more impressive by the lofty
lone of the silent mausoleum, over there in
hat shadowy klrkyard, looming before us
wherever we may look for the recognition of
lis old-time presence within the fair region
oundabout.
In Dumfries itself one cannot look upon
single olden structure, or follow with the
We any close, wynd, vennel or street. with
ut knowing that at sometime it was more
amiliar to Burns, than any portion of the
Id city is to any one of its inhabitants to-
ay. In the ancient Bank street house
7here he first lived in Dumfrles in the three
my apartments, more than one-third Of the
nore than 100 poems he produced in Dum-
ries were composed. Then in the Mill,
ow Burns, street home, which was his last.
be remainder were given birth. Among
hese were. "Auld Langsyne," "My Wife's
Winsome Wee Thing" 1.-THE Soldiers
teturn." "Willie Wastle," "Contented
VII Little, and Cantie VII Mair. I" "Thou
last Left Me Ever, Jamie, ,"."Ye Banks
nd Braes O. Bonnie Doom" my Love is
ike Red, Red Rose, MY Heart is Sair,
Daurna Tell, so Vert Thou in the
auld Blast" Duncan Gray" "Flow
Iently, Sweet Alton" and that grand mar