Page:Life of Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Bard.pdf/19

Rh approaching fate, with a warmth and an enthusiasm which will ever endear Dumfries to my remembrance."

When approaching his last hour, says one of his biographers, on the authority of the physician who attended him, "a tremor pervaded his frame, his tongue was parched, and his mind sunk into delirium when not roused by conversation. On the second and third day the fever increased, and his strength diminished." On the fourth day, July 21, 1796, Robert Burns died.

On the 25th, the remains of the poet were removed to the Trades' Hall, where they lay in state till morning, and next day were interred with military honours, attended by a procession of the chief persons in the town and neighbourhood, and many from great distances. "The multitude," says an eye-witness who accompanied Burns to the grave, "went step by step with the chief mourners. They might amount to ten or twelve thousand. Not a word was heard. It was an impressive and mournful sight to see men of all ranks, and persuasions, and opinions, mingling as brothers, and stepping side by side down the streets of Dumfries with the remains of him who had of their loves and joys, and domestic endearments, with a truth and a tenderness which none perhaps have since equalled.―I found