22 REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1903 



a statue of James Thomson, the poet, who is said to have 

 written his "Winter" in this neighbourhood. A little further 

 on, the entrance to the Abbey grounds was reached, where 

 the party enjoyed a quiet and profitable ramble amidst its 

 stately ruins, conducted by the courteous custodian of the 

 grounds. Such full and interesting accounts of the building, 

 its history, dimensions, and architectural features, have been 

 already given in the Transactions of the Club* that it 

 seems superfluous to refer to them particularly. Suffice it 

 to say that though, as a whole, the structure has suffered 

 greatly through the ravages of war and fanaticism, enough 

 still remains to warrant the belief that to Sir Hugh de 

 Morville and Beatrix de Beauchamp, his wife, who in 1150 

 founded the abbey and church of St. Mary of Dryburgh, 

 and assigned it to a convent of Praemonstratensian Friars, 

 must have belonged a remarkable artistic faculty and spirit 

 of devotion, which led them to lay, on the banks of this 

 noble river, the foundations of a fane whose gradual extension 

 and embellishment have won for it such notoriety and 

 admiration. 



Among objects of special interest was pointed out the 



chapel of St. Modan, a missionary saint of 

 Chapel of the eighth century, opening to the cloisters, 

 St. Modan. and containing the remains of David Stewart 



Erskine, eleventh Earl of Buchan, whose 

 history and influence are of deep interest to archaeologists 

 and antiquarians. Born in 1742, and educated in Glasgow 

 University, he entered the army, and having attained the 

 rank of lieutenant was appointed secretary to the British 

 Embassy in Spain. On the death of his father, however, 

 he returned to Scotland, devoting himself to the education 

 of his younger brothers; and being specially addicted to the 

 study of the history, literature, and antiquities of Scotland, 

 and distressed because of the lack of public sympathy in 

 its promotion, he founded, in 1780, the Society of Scottish 

 Antiquaries, of which the first volume of Transactions 

 appeared in 1792. 



*1863, Vol. v., 4; 1871, Vol. vi., 182; 1886, Vol. xi., 339; 1896, 

 Vol. XVI., 28. 



