Grampian Club > Leaves from my autography

326 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
Nor can I leave this subject without expressing a
hope that some one, unmindful of these failures
which occurred under circumstances which are un-
likely to return, would project and consolidate a fund
for behoof of literary Scotsmen, or their survivors, in
distress. Since 1855, when my attention was first
directed to this subject, scarcely a year has passed,
when I have not had brought under my knowledge
cases in which even the grant of a few pounds would
have proved an especial boon. Scotsmen will suffer
rather than complain, and the remark especially ap-
plies to those of their number who cultivate letters.
But no reasonable person would refuse relief tendered
as a kindly donative in acknowledgment of merit.
The success which in 1857 had attended my efforts
in laying out a place of sepulture at Stirling, in-
duced me in 1861 to devise a scheme for the general
improvement of Scottish churchyards. Consulting
my friends, Sir James Stuart Menteth, Bart., Mr
WiUiam Euing, Mr Pagan of Clayton, and Dr William
Beattie, as to the establishment of a Churchyard Im-
provement Association, they commended the project.
Thereafter I printed the following circular :
spect to this deceased bard, I do not feel tliat I am Letraying confidence wlien I
publish extracts from his letters of acknowledgment. On the 24th August 1861
he wrote : "This donation of £1 from the Caledonian Institute came at a time
when I was in extreme need. It relieved me gi-eatly." On the 29th October he
acknowledged a second benefaction thus: " I beg gratefully to acknowledge £1
from the Caledonian Institute received yesterday ; but for which I would have
been in a wretched condition at the present moment." Ho received a third gi-aut
in December.