rubbing the thresholds of their
wretched dwellings. I never saw an outskirt of a town less fit for a
poet's residence, or in which it would be more miserable for any man
of cleanly predilections to spend his days.

We asked for Burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across the street
to a two-story house, built of stone, and white-washed, like its
neighbors, but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most
of them, though I hesitate in saying so. It was not a separate
structure, but under the same continuous roof with the next. There was
an inscription on the door, bearing no reference to Burns, but
indicating that the house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial
school. On knocking, we were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who
smiled intelligently when we told our errand, and showed us into a low
and very plain parlor, not more than twelve or fifteen feet square.

A young woman, who seemed to be a teacher in the school, soon
appeared, and told us that this had been Burns's usual sitting-room,
and that he had written many of his songs here.

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 shap