Grampian Club > Monuments and monumental inscriptions in Scotland > Volume 1

242 ROXBURGHSHIRE.
But with his sword he cut the foremost soam
In two : hence drove both pleughs and
Pleughmen home. 1620."
In an aisle adjoining the parish church a monument celebrates
Sir William Bennet of Grubbet, a friend of the poets Thomson and
Eamsay, and the supposed prototype of Sir William Worthy in
"The Gentle Shepherd." Over the entrance to the aisle is the
following inscription : —
"Hoc monumentum tibi et suis bene Merentibus ponendam
curavit Dominus Gulielmus Bennet, Eques auratus, anno salutis
1724."
PARISH OF EDNAM.
On a portion of rising ground at Henderside an obelisk fifty-two
feet in height commemorates James Thomson, author of " The
Seasons." This celebrated poet was son of the Eev. Thomas
Thomson, minister of the parish, and was born on the 11th
September, 1700. He studied at the University of Edinburgh
with a view to the ministry ; he afterwards abandoned his eccle-
siastical views, and resolving to devote himself to literature pro-
ceeded to London. In 1726 he produced his poem of "Winter;"
that on " Summer " appearing in the following year. His " Spring "
and "Autumn " followed in 1728 and 1730. Eecommended to the
Lord Chancellor Talbot, he visited with his lordship's son the
principal courts of Europe. He subsequently obtained a civil list
pension and the sinecure office of Surveyor-General of the Leeward
Islands, with a salary of £300 a year. He died of fever on the
22nd August, 1748. In 1762 a monument to his memory was
erected in Westminster Abbey.