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
