46 Transactions. 



show. Not having been able to get information on the subject 

 from printed books or living authorities, I consulted the Dumfries 

 record-room ; and from writs there kept I learned that Devorgilla's 

 Bridge consisted of nine arches in 1681 ; and I think you will all 

 agree with me that if it had only that number then, it woiild not 

 be likely to have many more at the date of its erection. But if 

 we are to credit a traveller who j^assed along the Bridge forty-two 

 years after 1681, the arches had swelled in the interval from nine to 

 not — ten, or eleven, or twelve — but to the baker's dozen of thirteen ! 

 a growth that seems to me as surprising and incredible as that of 

 FalstafF's men in bucki-am. Mr Pemberton in his " Journey 

 through Scotland," of date 1723, says : "I passed the river Nith 

 from Galloway to Dumfries over a fair stone bridge of thirteen 

 large arches, the finest I saw in Britain next to London and 

 Rochester." That extraordinary statement found its way into a 

 local publication in 1832, and down till a corapai'atively recent 

 period was accepted without challenge. But it wears the impress 

 of fable on its very face : it is not only unsupported by a single 

 particle of evidence, but runs counter to conclusive testimony 

 which persistently restricts the arches to nine. Sometimes we are 

 told— 



" Travellers in pathless downs 

 Plant elephants instead of towns ;" 



and in this instance, I think, the traveller, trusting to a treacher- 

 ous memory instead of written notes, has been beguiled. I fancied 

 that I had many years ago demolished this thirteen-arch theory* 

 but it has sprung up again during the last fortnight, the occasion 

 of its revival being a copperplate engraving of the Old Bridge 

 shewn at our conversazione on the 5th instant, in which the 

 venerable fabric appears dowered with ten arches ; and it has been 

 argued, if ten, why not more than ten ; and may not Pemberton 

 be right after all, and those who doubt his declaration be wrong. 

 The date of this picture is not given; but it has evidently been drawn 

 about the period when Burns resided in Dumfries, and as the name 

 E,. Riddell appears upon it as the artist, it may possibly owe its 

 origin to the Poet's good friend, the laird of Friars' Carse. But 

 the picture, though a tolerably good one for an amateur, is sadly 

 at fault as regards proportion : it has obvious defects, negative 

 and positive, and I venture to class among the latter the amplifi- 

 cation of the nine arches to ten. The artist, whoever he was, 



