Marmaduke having gone as tutor to Lord Lansdowne’s eldest son, Edward was more free to consider an offer from Edinburgh, and ultimately accepted the curacy of St. George’s in York Place, under Mr. Shannon.  He preached his two last sermons at Rodden and Buckland on Christmas day 1823.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Reminiscences (Second Series, 1861).  Introduction.

[2] May 10, 1810.

[3] Some account of his dealings among the Methodists may be found in the Sunday Magazine, January 1865, edited by the Rev. Dr. Guthrie.  The paper is titled “Reminiscences of a West of England Curacy.”

[4] This was a favourite quotation of Ramsay’s, who was amused with the remark of Withering’s or Woodward’s botany, repeated in his letters for long after:—­“The organ at St. John’s gives universal satisfaction—­a great ornament to our ponds and ditches.”

[5] Mrs. Forbes, the sister and aunt of so many Burnetts and Ramsays, lived the latter part of her life at Banchory Lodge, in the middle of that “Deeside” country, where the future Dean spent many of his happy holidays, and learned much of the peculiar ways of that peculiar people.  There were no two ladies in Scotland more esteemed and beloved than the Dean’s aunts on both sides—­Mrs. Russell, his aunt and mine, living in widowhood at Blackhall, and Mrs. Forbes at Banchory Lodge, three miles apart, on the opposite banks of Dee.  Mrs. Forbes died 1st February 1838.

[6] His dwelling near Frome.

II.

The Dean was passionately fond of Deeside.  Let me indulge myself in looking back upon that district such as he knew it, such as I remember it sixty years ago.

The natural features of Deeside are not changed.  The noble river pours down its brown flood as of old, hurrying from its wooded rocky highlands.  On the prettiest part of its bank stands Crathes, the finest of Aberdeenshire castles, the immemorial seat of the Burnetts, where Edward Ramsay, himself a Burnett, was received with all the love of kindred, as well as the hearty respect for his sacred profession.  I daresay Crathes was not to him quite what I remember it.  But we were of different professions and habits.  I will say nothing of the chief sport of Dee, its salmon-fishing.  However fascinating, the rod is a silent companion, and wants the jovial merriment, shout and halloo, that give life and cheerfulness to the sport of the hunter.  My recollection of Deeside is in its autumn decking, and shows me old Sir Robert and my lady, two gentle daughters and four tall stalwart sons—­they might have sat for a group of Osbaldistones to the great painter Walter Scott.  I will not describe the interior of the old house, partly because it was changing, and every change appeared to me for the worse; but no one would forget the old hall, where Kneller’s picture of Bishop Burnett still looks down on his modern cousins