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

476 LANARKSHIRE.
as a bookseller in the city in partnership with David Robertson,
subsequently King's publisher. Of active habits, he conducted
with his partner a successful bookselling trade, yet found leisure
for literary pursuits. At an early age he published the " Sextuple
Alliance," a series of poems on Napoleon Buonaparte. In 1827 he
produced " The Ant," a work in two volumes. " The Chameleon,"
a sort of annual, which he commenced in 1831, extended to three
octavo volumes. Distinguished as a liberal politician, Mr. Atkinson
was invited to become a candidate in the liberal interest for the
parliamentary representation of the Stirling burghs at the general
election subsequent to the passing of the Eeform Bill. The fatigues
of the canvass superinduced an illness which terminated in con-
sumption. During a voyage he had undertaken to Barbadoes for
the recovery of his health he died at sea, on the 10th October,
1833. His remains, placed in an oaken coffin which he had taken
along with him, were buried in the deep. He bequeathed a sum,
to be applied after accumulation in founding a hall in Glasgow for
the furtherance of adult education.
These lines, of his own composition, adorn his cenotaph : —
" While, when beneath the verge of time,
I've sped — as soon I know 'twiU be —
I rise, but in another clime —
Uncircling — fixed eternity."
David Eobertson, the business partner of the preceding, is com-
memorated by an elegant monument reared by subscription. Son
of a farmer in the Vale of Menteith, Perthshire, he was there born
in 1795. In his 15th year he was apprenticed to a bookseller in
the Trongate, Glasgow, on whose death, in 1823, he succeeded to
the business. In 1832 he published " Whistle Binkie," a collection
of Scottish modern songs. He afterwards issued "The Laird of
Logan," a collection of anecdotes chiefly connected with the West
of Scotland. He died of cholera on the 6th October, 1854, much
lamented by a large circle of attached friends.
Another Glasgow bookseller of literary tastes rests in the
Necropolis — Robert Stuart, author of " Caledonia Romana." This