She then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bed-chamber over the parlor.  Connecting with it, there is a very small room, or windowed closet, which Burns used as a study; and the bedchamber itself was the one where he slept in his latter life-time, and in which he died at last.  Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,—­even more unsatisfactory than Shakspeare’s house, which has a certain homely picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness of the abode before us.  The narrow lane, the paving-stones, and the contiguity of wretched hovels are depressing to remember; and the steam of them (such is our human weakness) might almost make the poet’s memory less fragrant.

As already observed, it was an intolerably hot day.  After leaving the house, we found our way into the principal street of the town, which, it may be fair to say, is of very different aspect from the wretched outskirt above described.  Entering a hotel, (in which, as a Dumfries guide-book assured us, Prince Charles Edward had once spent a night,) we rested and refreshed ourselves, and then set forth in quest of the mausoleum of Burns.

Coming to St. Michael’s Church, we saw a man digging a grave; and, scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was crowded full of monuments.  Their general shape and construction are peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other stone, within a frame-work of the same material, somewhat resembling the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, these sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed with names of small general significance.  It was easy, indeed, to ascertain the rank of those who slept below; for in Scotland it is the custom to put the occupation of the buried personage (as “Skinner,” “Shoemaker,” “Flesher”) on his tombstone.  As another peculiarity, wives are buried under their maiden names, instead of their husbands; thus giving a disagreeable impression that the married pair have bidden each other an eternal farewell on the edge of the grave.

There was a footpath through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently well-worn to guide us to the grave of Burns; but a woman followed behind us, who, it appeared, kept the key of the mausoleum, and was privileged to show it to strangers.  The monument is a sort of Grecian temple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty feet square.  It was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the Scotch atmosphere, but is now protected and shut in by large squares of rough glass, each pane being of the size of one whole side of the structure.  The woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the interior.  Inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the gravestone of Burns,—­the very same that was laid over his grave by Jean Armour, before this monument was