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He was laid in the Abbey of Dryburgh, by the side of his wife, in the sepulchre of his ancestors. The Life of Robert Burns John Gibson Lockhart was born, a son of the manse, at Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire, on July 14, 1794. Receiving his early education in Glasgow, he went, at sixteen, with a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford.

The English replied, in the month of August, by an invasion conducted by Richard II in person, at the head of a large army, while the Scots, declining a battle, wasted Cumberland. Richard sacked Edinburgh and burned the great religious houses of Dryburgh, Melrose, and Newbattle, but was forced to retire without having made any real conquest.

As he was about to depart, she addressed him with many curtsies, and said she understood he was the gentleman that had written a bonnie book about Loch Katrine. She begged him to write a little about their lake also, for she understood his book had done the inn at Loch Katrine a muckle deal of good. On the following day I made an excursion with Scott and the young ladies to Dryburgh Abbey.

When collecting materials for his "Border Minstrelsy," he used, he said, to go from cottage to cottage, and make the old wives repeat all they knew, if but two lines; and by putting these scraps together, he retrieved many a fine characteristic old ballad or tradition from oblivion. I regret to say that I can scarce recollect anything of our visit to Dryburgh Abbey.

It turned out that the kindly gentleman inside was no other than Sir Walter Scott, then travelling on his official duty as Sheriff of Selkirkshire. Whilst working at Galashiels, Kemp had frequent opportunities of visiting Melrose, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh Abbeys, which he studied carefully.

However it might be in other cases, and in some of them he was merely the restorer, the real founders of Dryburgh were Hugh de Morville, Lord of Lauderdale, and Constable of Scotland, and his wife, Beatrice de Beauchamp....

Basil, who told me the stories, read in a book that "Jedburgh is completer than Kelso or Dryburgh, and simpler and more harmonious than Melrose," so when the four boys appeared at last in Dryburgh Abbey, having calmly missed out Jedburgh and Kelso to save time, I used the criticism as if it were original, with great effect; for by that time we had made a side dash to see lovely Kelso, where Sir Walter went to the Grammar School, and met Ballantyne, who long afterward published his novels and brought about his bankruptcy.

Dryburgh lies amid the scenes in which Scott not only took such peculiar delight, but which furnished him themes both for his poems and romances, and which were rich in those old songs and narratives of border feats and raids which he has preserved in his Border Minstrelsy.

With a view to curing this weakness he was sent to live with his paternal grandfather, at the farm house of Sandy-Knowe near Dryburgh Abbey, in the extreme south of Berwickshire. Here, in the country air, he became a sturdy boy, and his mind was stored with the old Broder tales and songs.

Dryburgh Abbey must be a most beautiful spot of a summer afternoon; and it was beautiful even on this not very genial morning, especially when the sun blinked out upon the ivy, and upon the shrubberied paths that wound about the ruins. I think I recollect the birds chirruping in this neighborhood of it.