[Illustration: ROSSLYN CASTLE.]
Here, too, was the inn, now the caretaker's house, visited by Dr.
Johnson and Boswell in 1773, the poet Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy
in 1803, while some of the many other celebrities who called from time
to time had left their signatures on the window-panes. Burns and his
friend Nasmyth the artist breakfasted there on one occasion, and Burns
was so pleased with the catering that he rewarded the landlady by
scratching on a pewter plate the two following verses:
My blessings on you, sonsie wife,
I ne'er was here before;
You've gien us walth for horn and knife--
Nae heart could wish for more.
Heaven keep you free from care and strife.
Till far ayont four score;
And while I toddle on through life,
I'll ne'er gang bye your door.
Rosslyn at one time was a quiet place and only thought of in Edinburgh
when an explosion was heard at the Rosslyn gunpowder works. But many
more visitors appeared after Sir Walter Scott raised it to eminence by
his famous "Lay" and his ballad of "Rosabelle":
Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud.
Where Rosslyn's chiefs uncoffin'd lie.
Hawthornden was quite near where stood Ben Jonson's sycamore, and
Drummond's Halls, and Cyprus Grove, but we had no time to see the caves
where Sir Alexander Ramsay had such hairbreadth escapes.
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