AND 9 MONTHS;

FRANCIS WALLACE BURNS,
WHO DIED THE 9TH JULY, 1803,
AGED 14 YEARS--HIS SONS.

THE REMAINS OF BURNS,
REMOVED INTO THE VAULT BELOW
19TH SEPTEMBER, 1815--AND HIS TWO SONS.

ALSO THE REMAINS OF
JEAN ARMOUR,
RELICT OF THE POET,
BORN 6TH FEBRUARY, 1765,
DIED 26TH MARCH, 1834;

AND ROBERT, HIS ELDEST SON,
DIED MAY 14, 1857,
AGED 70 YEARS.

Visitors are allowed to enter the cheerful, if not elegant mausoleum,
though all it contains can be seen through the windows. All the
memorials of Burns, by the way, seem to be of the same tasteless
style--the same wearisome imitation of the antique. The monument at Ayr,
and that on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, are but additional examples.

Before leaving Dumfries, let me allude to a very curious custom,
observed only in St. Michael's church, and even there beginning to fall
into desuetude. The Scotch, who are alike noted for snuff and religious
austerity, are equally devoted to footstools. In many families, where
economy is the rule, one footstool--they are mere little wooden
benches--serves both for the fireside and the kirk. To facilitate
transportation, these benches are provided with little holes perforating
the centre of the seat, large enough to admit the ferule of an umbrella
or cane; and thus, borne aloft on these articles, the little benches are
carried proudly above the shoulders of the bearers, like triumphant
banners. In order to avoid the noise arising from the clatter of these
benches as they are lowered into the pews, the congregation are
accustomed to assemble some time before divine service begins.

A similar custom once prevailed in the cathedral at Glasgow. In 1588 the
kirk session decided that seats in the church would be a great luxury,
and certain ash trees in the churchyard were cut down, and devoted to
the then novel purpose; but ungallantly enough, the women of the
congregation were forbidden to sit on the new seats, and were ordered to
bring stools along with them. Tradition, however, fails to record
whether the Glasgow ladies carried their stools on the tops of
umbrellas, like their sisters of Dumfries.

The grave of Burns owes to its uncouth monument the unsatisfactory
feeling which it inspires in visitors. Alloway kirk is the place where
the remains of the favorite Scottish poet should lie. Instead of
artificial temples, badly copied from a clime and nation with which he
had no sympathy or affinity, the youn