chin, bespoke quiet self-reliance, a love of social intercourse, humour, wit, shrewdness, also active observing powers, which enabled him with " sharpened sly inspection " to see farther than most folks into the millstone grit of human character. Ere long he became known far and wide as a humourist; and while acquiring more than a local reputation as such, he was proving himself to be an eloquent expounder of gospel doctrine and a devoted pastor, assiduously building up his congregation till it became numerous and flourishing. Mr. Dunlop is remembered by many on account of his bon-mots and jokes; and thousands who have heard of him as a famous wit, are ignorant of the circumstance that he was also distinguished as a preacher. His pulpit oratory was of a rich yet homely cast, that rendered it acceptable to every class; not too high or rhetorical for the simple or unlearned, it was sufficiently elevated for the man of taste, thus presenting a good medium for the edification of a flock composed as his was of town and country people in about equal proportions. In the pulpit as out of it, Mr. Dunlop, scorning the use of notes, “ay free off hand his story told," rendering it all the more impressive by appropriate attitude and action. "Simple, grave, sincere," he was "in doctrine uncorrupt," full of unction, and thoroughly evangelical. Occasionally, but rarely, witticisms found their way into his pulpit utterances; as for instance, when on a weekly preaching day at a neighbouring village, some of his dilatory hearers were told by way of rebuke, that our Lord drove the worldly-minded moneychangers from the temple with a whip of small cords, whereas they at Ecclefechan needed to be driven into the temple by means of a similar weapon. Often, however, he employed with telling effect quaint illustrations, as when showing the worthlessness of good works to secure pardon, he would say that the mountain of man's sin and misery could no more be removed by such means than his wee finger could push Criffel into the Solway. On the platform his humour flashed forth with full license, and his table-talk and social intercourse were spiced with pun, rapartee, sarcasm, and mirth-provoking anecdote; his sayings in every case receiving superadded point or breadth from the racy Doric in which they were embodied, the spontaneousness of their birth, and their mode of delivery-grave, slow, measured, and emphatic. Standing as we do beside the grave of Mr. Dunlop, it is gratifying for us to mingle with these reminiscences the recollections of his pulpit power and of his pastoral fidelity. Eminent as a preacher of the Word, he was devotedly attentive at the couch of suffering, and at the bed of death; and, as we have said of him elsewhere, if his natural temperament led him to the house of mirth, it never induced him to neglect his visits to the house of mourning. The monument commemorates also Mr. Dunlop's spouse, Janet Maclean, who died on the 12th of June 1828. His successor in the pastorate of the United Presbyterian congregation, Buccleuch Street, is the Rev. Marshal N. Goold. The name of an accomplished surgeon, John M‘Minn, is borne by the next monument: he died at the early age of 33, 6th October 1827. His eldest son, John, who died at the same age in Glasgow, and his infant son, Thomas Harkness (named after Mr. M'Minn's brother-in-law, Bailie Harkness), are included in the inscription. When Burns was tenant of Ellisland, he found in Mr. John M'Murdo, chamberlain to the Duke of Queensberry at Drumlanrig Castle, a most hospitable companion and patron ; and the family circle thus opened up afforded attractive society, proofs of which appear in his correspondence. "Will Mr. M'Murdo do me the favour to accept of these volumes" -wrote Burns, when forwarding a copy of his works from Dumfries—“a trifling but sincere mark of the very high respect I bear for his worth as a man, his manners as a gentleman, and his kindness as a friend." Three songs, if not more, were composed by Burns on Miss Philadelphia M'Murdo, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of his patron, these being "Phillis the Fair," "O Phely, happy be that day," and the one beginning "Adown winding Nith I did wander, To mark the sweet flowers of the spring; Owing to these associations, we view with increased interest the next monument, commemorating as it does a son of Mr. M'Murdo, and one of several of his descendants who have served their country well by land or sea. The inscription states that the stone is "Sacred to the memory of Lieut.-Colonel Archibald M'Murdo, formerly of H.M. 27th Regiment of Foot, and latterly of the Dumfriesshire Regiment of the North British Militia, who died at Dumfries on the 11th of October 1829, aged 54 years." He was father of the late Colonel M'Murdo of the Scottish Borderers; of the late Admiral Archibald M'Murdo of Cargenholm; and of Colonel William Montagu M'Murdo, favourite officer of his renowned father-in-law, Sir Charles Napier, the hero of Scinde. The monument commemorates also his wife, Catherine Martha Wilson; their young daughter Mary Ann, and Mrs. Winefred Copenger Sweetman, died 1st June 1826, aged 75. We next reach the burial-place of another chief-magistrate, John Kerr. He was raised to the civic chair in 1821, and on the 3d August of the following year his shoulders received the virgin gold chain with which our provosts have since his day been decorated. It is a magnificent double chain, the cost of which, defrayed by subscription, was nearly £150. The Rev. Dr. Scot of St. Michael's made the necessary presentation speech in name of the donors, Provost Kerr returning grateful thanks for the glittering badge. It has since been worn by nineteen successors, including our present worthy civic chief, Provost Thomas F. Smith. Mr. Kerr was re-elected in 1825, and died in office, on the 6th of March 1826, aged 53. The monument to his memory was erected by his brother, Mr. James Kerr. CHAPTER XIII. ALONG THE THIRD FOOTPATH. EFORE proceeding again eastward, we pause for a minute beside the grave of one who was famous as a municipal magnate in the Queen of the South for fully thirty years; a native of Edinburgh, he entered the King's Arms Hotel here in 1819, when in comparatively humble circumstances and almost an entire stranger. How during his sojourn he prospered in business, and acquired a wonderful extent of local influence and rule, is partly expressed by the inscription upon his stately tombstone, which runs thus : "In memory of John Fraser, Esquire of Douievale and the King's Arms Hotel, twice Provost and thirty-seven years a member of the Town Council of Dumfries, who died 8th May 1856." He possessed extraordinary force of character, and without any pretensions to eloquence or brilliancy, he could exercise an impressive personal influence, due to his mingled suavity and power of self-assertion, that was in no small degree seductive. Doubtless, too, a portion of the power he exercised was due to the circumstance that he was owner and landlord of the greatest hotel in the South of Scotland. Many a knotty local question was originated, promoted, or otherwise disposed of, and many a political game was rehearsed in the snug bar parlour of the King's Arms, under the genial presidency of Provost Fraser. Politically, he belonged to the Tory party, was, in fact, their acknowledged Burgh leader during the critical season when they fought and were overcome, but were by no means annihilated, in the attempt made by them to withstand the Reform movement of 1831-2. What his influence lost in breadth by his becoming the chief of a party it gained in intensity; and a more devoted body of followers than those who owned his leadership he could scarcely have wished for. After "serving his time" briefly as a common Councillor, he was made a Bailie in 1827; before other two years had elapsed the ancient chair which bears upon its back the sig nificant effigy of St. Michael received him for occupant, and we suspect it had never before borne such a portly chiefmagistrate, Provost Fraser having been a man of mark physically not less than mentally. Strong Conservative though he was, he accepted the commission of the Town Council to vote as their delegate for General Sharpe when the latter came forward as a Liberal to contest the Burghs with Mr. Keith Douglas in 1831. After the Burgh Reform Act had broken up the cliques which returned both Parliamentary and municipal representatives, Mr. Fraser still retained much of his supremacy. The last save one of the Dumfries Provosts under the old regime, he was a member of the first Town Council under the new; and in 1840 he was once more elevated to the provostship, manifesting, as before, no small amount of administrative skill. During the last twenty years of his life he devoted considerable attention to agricultural pursuits. When Douievale became his property, it was a bleak portion of Lochar Moss : it is now, as occupied by his daughter, Mrs. Ferguson, a fertile and beautiful spot, reclaimed from the wilderness by the same sort of energy that gave him a mastery over his fellow-men. The deceased was strong in his antipathies as in his friendships. When some one spoke of Dr. Johnson as being bearish in his manner, Goldsmith defended his friend by saying he had no more of the bear about him than the skin; and if Mr. Fraser did at times seem rough and dictatorial, all who knew him best were aware that he was extremely warm-hearted, generous, and benevolent, and that these qualities influenced his character, and were habitually manifested in deeds of charity and kindness. On the monument are the names of his wife Margaret and nine of their children—Matthew, who died in infancy; Margaret, at 21; Robert, at the same age; William, at 22; George, at 23; Ann, at 28; Alexander, at 32; John, at 33 ; James, at 34. William Walker of Kelton Mains, one of three enterprising brothers, two of whom, after making fortunes abroad, returned to their native Nithsdale, lies in the next compart |