Inscription upon honest Edward Burk

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1706 (1706)
To perpetuate the Memory
of Edward Burk, who died in EdrEdinburgh
on Saturday Morning, NovrNovember 23d, 1751.

Born in an humble Cottage,

And of mean parents,

In the Island of North Uist;

Ignorant of the first principles

Of Human Learning,✝

Doom’dDoomed to converse with the meanest

Of Mankind,X

And exposed to the various Temptations

Of Poverty.

Happy in these Disadvantages!

Since thereby

His genuine Worth

Was the more conspicuous.

Fidelity

And disinterested by friendship

Eclips’dEclipsed his other Virtues.

Let the venal Tribe behold, &and admire,

And blush;

If yet a Blush remains!

Learn by his Example, O yethe Great!

He preferred a good Conscience

To thirty thousand Pounds.

✝
He could neither read nor write.

X
He was a Chairman in Edinburgh.
See Vol. 2d, pag. 326 — 345.
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