Another poet of the period, with a very different purpose, has left
an elegy, in which he darkly hints at and bemoans the fate of the
ill-starred young person, whose very uncommon calamity Whitelaw, Dunlop,
and Milne thought a fitting subject for buffoonery and ribaldry. This
bard of milder mood was Andrew Symson, before the Revolution minister
of Kirkinner, in Galloway, and after his expulsion as an Episcopalian
following the humble occupation of a printer in Edinburgh. He furnished
the family of Baldoon, with which he appears to have been intimate, with
an elegy on the tragic event in their family. In this piece he treats
the mournful occasion of the bride's death with mysterious solemnity.
The verses bear this title, "On the unexpected death of the virtuous
Lady Mrs. Janet Dalrymple, Lady Baldoon, younger," and afford us the
precise dates of the catastrophe, which could not otherwise have been
easily ascertained. "Nupta August 12. Domum Ducta August 24. Obiit
September 12. Sepult. September 30, 1669." The form of the elegy is
a dialogue betwixt a passenger and a domestic servant.
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