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WALK THIRD.*

SCOTT MONUMENT-ROYAL INSTITUTION-NEW CLUB-ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL-ST. CUTHBERT'S CHURCH-CHARLOTTE SQUARE— ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH-DEAN BRIDGE-AINSLIE PLACEMORAY PLACE-HERIOT ROW-PITT MONUMENT-GEORGE THE FOURTH'S MONUMENT-ASSEMBLY ROOMS-PHYSICIAN'S HALL-ST. ANDREW'S SQUARE-MELVILLE

ROYAL BANK.

MONUMENT

In this walk we shall conduct the stranger through the principal streets of the New Town, adverting to all the more striking objects in our progress.

Proceeding to the westward, the buildings of the High Street will be seen upon the left, towering to the heavens like the habitations of a race of Titans. These buildings, standing upon a steep and lofty ridge, with tributary lanes or closes descending abruptly to the valley beneath, produce an effect highly picturesque and majestic. The interjacent valley, extending westward to the end of Princes Street, along which the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway now passes, was formerly a stagnant pond or marsh, known by the name of the Nor-Loch. The

MONUMENT TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, †

of which an engraving illustrates our text, will be observed within the railing of the pleasure-grounds

* This Walk is coloured yellow on the Map.

† To the different galleries of the Scott Monument, there is admission on payment of 6d.

opposite the foot of St. David Street.

The design was furnished by George M. Kemp, a man of genius and industry, who raised himself from the humble condition of an operative mason to the proud eminence of successful competitor for the honour of designing the monument erected to the most gifted of Scotland's sons. The architect died before

the structure was completed. The foundation was laid on the 15th of August 1840, and the building was finished in 1844. Its height is 200 feet 6 inches, and its cost was £15,650. A stair of 287 steps conducts to the gallery at the top. In each front of the Monument, above the principal arch, are six small niches, making a total of 24 in the main structure, besides 32 others in the piers and abutment towers. These niches are to be occupied by sculptural impersonations of the characters, historical and fanciful, pourtrayed in the writings of Sir Walter. The following statues fill the four principal niches which crown the four lowest arches. In the northern niche, facing Princes Street, is the statue of Prince Charles (from Waverley) drawing his sword. In the eastern niche, on the side next the Calton Hill, is Meg Merrilees (from Guy Mannering) breaking the sapling over the head of Lucy Bertram. In the southern niche, next the Old Town, is the statue of the Lady of the Lake stepping from a boat to the shore; and, in the western niche, is the Last Minstrel playing on his harp. Other statues for the remaining niches are in progress. The following is the inscription on the plate placed under the foundation-stone:

THIS GRAVEN PLATE,

DEPOSITED IN THE BASE OF A VOTIVE BUILDING

ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF AUGUST IN THE YEAR OF CHRIST 1840,
AND NEVER LIKELY TO SEE THE LIGHT AGAIN

TILL ALL THE SURROUNDING STRUCTURES ARE CRUMBLED TO DUST
EY THE DECAY OF TIME, OR BY HUMAN OR ELEMENTAL VIOLENCE,
MAY THEN TESTIFY TO A DISTANT POSTERITY THAT

HIS COUNTRYMEN BEGAN ON THAT DAY

TO RAISE AN EFFIGY AND ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENT

TO THE MEMORY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.,

WHOSE ADMIRABLE WRITINGS WERE THEN ALLOWED
TO HAVE GIVEN MORE DELIGHT AND SUGGESTED BETTER FEELING
TO A LARGER CLASS OF READERS IN EVERY RANK OF SOCIETY
THAN THOSE OF ANY OTHER AUTHOR,

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF SHAKESPEARE ALONE:

AND WHICH WERE THEREFORE THOUGHT LIKELY TO BE REMEMBERED
LONG AFTER THIS ACT OF GRATITUDE,

ON THE PART OF THE FIRST GENERATION OF HIS ADMIRERS,
SHOULD BE FORGOTTEN.

HE WAS BORN AT EDINBURGH 15th August 1771;

AND DIED AT ABBOTSFORD 21ST SEPTEMBER 1832.

Fine though the structure be, it may be questioned whether the site is the best that could have been chosen; and whether the Old Town would not have been a more congenial atmosphere for such a memorial. In its present situation, the effect of its mass is to depress and overpower every surrounding object, the Castle Rock itself not excepted. A marble statue of Scott, by Steele, for which the sculptor received £2000, was placed in the Monument on the 15th of August 1846.

The Earthen Mound, formed by the deposition of the rubbish accumulated in digging the foundations of the houses in the New Town, is a convenient avenue between the New Town and the Old. Had circumstances admitted of the communication being effected by a handsome arched bridge instead of this shapeless accumulation of earth, another fine feature

might have been added to the architecture of the city. Sir Walter Scott, in his "Provincial Antiquities," bitterly denounces the narrowness of spirit which led to the formation of this Mound, speaking of it as "that huge deformity which now extends its lumpish length betwixt Bank Street and Hanover Street, the most hopeless and irremediable error which has been committed in the course of the improvements of Edinburgh, and which, when the view which it has interrupted is contrasted with that which it presents, is, and must be, a subject of constant regret and provocation." At the time Sir Walter penned this invective, the rubbish of which the Mound is composed met the eye in all its naked deformity. The shrubbery which now adorns the slopes has deprived the censure of much of its force, and when the Picture Gallery shall have lent its graces still further to adorn the mass of travelled earth, we trust the shade of the offended novelist will be appeased. Still, it can never cease to be lamented that the opportunity to add another ornament to the architecture of the city, by throwing a bridge across the valley, should be for ever lost. The FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, a fine structure, occupies a commanding position at the head of the Mound, its two towers, when viewed from the middle of Hanover Street, deriving a crowning grace from the spire of Victoria Hall beyond it. If there were 66 sermons in stones," the architectural harmony existing between these two buildings might rebuke the discord which has too much prevailed between the religious bodies to which they

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