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THE OLD TOWN. 23 ‘blithe-hearted Bums,’ in the form of an epitaph resting like unsetting sunshine on his grave; and Hamilton of Bangor, who there joined the ranks of Prince Charlie, and became volunteer laureate to the Jacobite cause. Nor PERCUSSOX‘S GRAVH. let David Mallett (or MalIoch) be quite forgot, who, having been born in Crieff, and having studied in Aberdeen, acted as a tutor in Edinburgh ere he went to London, to make and lose a tiny and dubious fame; while with greater respect we name Armstrong, author of the Arf of Praemhg HeaZth, who studied Medicine in Edinburgh, although it was in Liddesdale that he received the boons of birth and genius. Further on we light on a glorious cluster of celebrities, among the finest Edinburgh has yet seen :-David Hume, Hugh Blair, William Robertson, Adam Smith, author of the WeaZfh of Natibns (whose grave is near to Fergbsson’s, in the Canongate churchyard), John Home, John Erskine, John Logan, Dr. Webster, and others almost as renowned; with Robert Bums shooting across like a comet, Henry Mackenzie appearing like a young star, Jupiter Carlyle hovering on the skirt of the horizon, not to speak of the transit at one time of Samuel Johnson, the most celebrated, and at another, of the greatest man then living, Edmund Burke. To this period- too beIong Lord Kames, Lord Hailes, Lord Auchinleck, and the immortal Baszy in the upper stratum of Edinburgh society, and Gilbert Stuart and William Smellie the lower. About this time too some ladies of undying repute as authors
Volume 11 Page 39
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